“Daniela, if you want to kiss me, you can kiss me,” said Kevin, smiling.

My eyes were closed, and my face rested on his lean chest. I could hear the pounding of his heart. He was holding me tight. After weeks of being harassed by locals while traveling as a solo female backpacker in Egypt, I felt safe in Kevin’s arms.

We were on the bank of the Nile River, enjoying a cool breeze and watching a pink-orange sunset dipping over the legendary waters that cross the heart of northern Africa. Hundreds of sailboats, “feluccas,” and touristy cruises drifted aimlessly on the horizon, as if they were trying to escape the hustle and bustle of Cairo.

I looked at him. His thick, rosy lips were tempting, but the deep blue of his smiling eyes mesmerized me. It was those eyes that had captivated me ten days earlier in the Karnak Temple, in Luxor . . .

We met December 26th of 2002, on a cool afternoon. I had been wandering for hours amongst ancient ruins with hundred of giant columns, obelisks, well-preserved statues, pylons, and massive temples built by about thirty pharaohs over a long period of time.

After exploring every corner of one of the largest ancient religious sites in the world and the most impressive sanctuary in Egypt, I looked for a place to rest. I settled on a big stone to enjoy the glowing sun and the view of the sacred remains surrounding me.

“Hi!” A backpacker from Sri Lanka introduced himself, sitting on a nearby stone.

I was talking to the Sri Lankan traveler when I noticed a tall, blonde guy with deep blue eyes, who approached us and joined the conversation. His name was Kevin. He was an American from the Midwest. Kevin introduced Andy, an Australian he had met while avoiding the harassment of Egyptian shop owners at the Pyramids in Cairo.

We started changing stories of traveling in Egypt. I was the first solo female backpacker they had met there, and they were curious about my experience.

“Before I came to Egypt, people warned me that I should not come alone. I was told that Egyptian men were going to harass me and even try to kidnap me, but I didn’t believe it. I thought it was just prejudice,” I said. “I was confident that if I dressed conservative, and was respectful to locals, I would be okay.

“But then I experienced it firsthand. My first cultural shock was at the train station in Cairo. I was walking toward the terminal, and dozens of men rushed to touch me,” I continued. “I went sightseeing that morning around the city, and nothing happened. I think I looked Egyptian, so men stared at me, but they didn’t approach me because they thought I was a local. But at the train station, I was carrying my backpack and had a travel guide in my hand. They could tell I was a foreigner, and their attitude toward me was completely different.”

“We felt harassed at the pyramids, but it was only annoying shop owners and street sellers trying to convince us to buy something,” Kevin said.

“When I was in Cairo, I didn’t know how to react,” I admitted. “I was so shocked that I didn’t fight back. I just walked faster, ignoring them. But when I went to Answan, I took a different approach. I am a foreign woman traveling solo, but I felt I had to teach them a lesson. These men look at women like hungry wolves! So since then, I have been kicking every Egyptian man that has tried to grab me or touch me. I am tired of their creepy compliments: ‘You are the flower of my desert,’ and, ‘the sun of my life.’ Now when I see that they are getting close to me, I look them straight in the eyes; I don’t look down or show any fear. They get intimidated and walk away.”

The sun began to set, and I wanted to go back to my hotel before it got dark.

“Daniela, do you want to come with us tonight to see a belly dancing show?” Kevin asked.

From that moment, Kevin, Andy, and I were inseparable. They became my travel buddies for the rest of my journey in Egypt, and my “husbands” when I needed them to put off persistent Egyptians.

I soon became fond of and close to both of them, but there was something else going on between Kevin and me.

It all started that night of belly dancing in Luxor.

Andy was too tired to join us and ended up staying in.

Kevin and I went to explore Egyptian nightlife. We decided not to see the touristy belly dancing show; we wanted to go where the locals went.

We jumped in a horse carriage.

“Lucky man,” the old driver told Kevin.

We didn’t want to take any risks, and for the rest of the night, we claimed that we were a happy married couple with two kids.

The club where we wanted to go was closed.

“No problem, take you to my cousin’s restaurant,” the driver offered. “Good belly dancing!”

He dropped us off in front of a place that looked more like a house than a club or a restaurant. We walked down dark stairs into a large basement, crammed with tables and drunk men. The music was deafening, the cigarette smoke heavy.

The music stopped, and a man stepped onto the stage, speaking in Arabic.

We waited for the belly dancer’s appearance.

The spotlights focused as fast, intense drumbeats began.

A 40-year-old Egyptian woman with long, dark hair, heavy makeup, and a voluptuous figure danced into sight. Her bright green costume left little to the imagination. The fat that overflowed the fabric looked like wavering gelatin.

Confidently, she shook her hips side-to-side, moved her belly in a wave—like an overdone version of Shakira!—and placed her large breasts close to the faces of men who screamed and applauded harder.

“Come to dance!” The presenter approached our table, inviting me to join the belly dancer on stage.

I looked at Kevin. There was no way I was going on stage to dance for these men!

“No!” responded Kevin gravely.

“Strict husband!” the presenter said before he left.

Kevin and I started laughing. We’d had enough of that place.

It was past midnight, but it was a beautiful night with a clear sky and thousands of shining stars. Kevin walked me back to the hotel, and we talked. We talked for hours about our lives . . . almost until sunrise.

Kevin was doing his undergrad in Geography. I was doing my Masters in journalism. We were both obsessed with traveling. But we liked to travel to places where others feared to visit. We were young, fearless, and idealistic. His passion for Africa mirrored my passion for Asia. His dad was a high-ranking military official in the US, and that may have had a lot to do with his interest in politics, military strategies, counter insurgency, and mercenaries. He had come to Egypt for a vacation, but he wasn’t the typical tourist. He had visited the touristy sites, but he told me that he had gone to the black markets where powerful weapons could be sold to anyone. He was passionate, highly educated, a history addict, and a risk-taker.

We had met in the afternoon, but by the end of the night, he knew more about me than many people I saw daily back home.

That night was just the beginning of series of unforgettable moments with Kevin and Andy: a picnic at sunrise watching the Valley of the Kings, a huge canyon hiding thousands of years of history and sacred sarcophagi of legendary pharaohs like Tutankhamen; long and scary bus rides; laid-back nights smoking sheesha in Dahab, a backpacker’s dream land on the Gulf of Aqaba; and a steep, strenuous hike to the top of the Moses mountain—over 2200 meters high—where it is said the prophet received the Tables of the Law.

At the top of the highest peak surrounded by gigantic mountains, Kevin and I were awestruck by a gleaming red sunset slowly vanishing on the horizon. It was freezing, and I was shivering. Kevin hugged me. I thought about kissing him. But Andy soon joined us for a group hug instead.

I had met the most amazing traveling companions. Andy and Kevin had turned my trip to Egypt—which had been becoming a nightmare due to the harassment—into an unforgettable experience.

Andy left us in Dahab. I planned to meet him a few days later in Jerusalem, but Kevin and I stayed in Dahab one more day. We took an overnight bus to Cairo, from where he would fly back to the United States, and I would continue to Israel.

We jumped on the bus. It was packed with foreigners.

“What the hell is that noise?” I asked Kevin.

We thought it was an instrument, but it was actually a man whose singing sounded more like a cry for help! The howling came and went intermittently, giving all the passengers hope that the music was over, just to sink us deeper into despair when it returned.

The nine-hour ride seemed to last forever. To top off the unwanted music, the bus stopped several times at security points. Egyptian officers, armed to the teeth, checked our passports and opened each piece of luggage.

We arrived in Cairo at sunrise. We were exhausted but decided to spend the day wandering and relaxing in the streets of “The City of the Thousand Minarets.”

But our farewell to the city wasn’t as peaceful as we expected.

Kevin and I were walking on the sidewalk of a highway, trying to reach the citadel built on Muqattam Hill. As we were enjoying the monumental mosques and minarets, we suddenly felt a man following us. We ignored him.

Suddenly, the man ran toward me and grabbed my breast with one hand, and my butt with the other. I started screaming and trying to get him off me. Kevin was furious and kicked him hard.

The man ran to the side of the road toward the slum. Kevin followed after him, but soon came back to me.

“Are you okay? I am so sorry,” Kevin said. His face turned red. He was enraged.

It was one thing to hear about the harassment I endured, but another to experience it firsthand.

I felt sick. I had been the target of harassment in Egypt with men who tried to grab my back or my arms, but this man had crossed all the lines. I was covered from neck to toe, and I wasn’t even alone. There was no excuse for his behavior!

It was my last day in Cairo and I wasn’t going to allow the incident to ruin it.

We continued to walk to the Citadel and enjoyed panoramic views of Cairo. Then, we visited an old bazaar before taking a cab to end our day on the bank of the Nile River.

And that’s when Kevin told me I could kiss him. All we had experienced together the past ten days in Egypt flashed through my mind like a movie.

It was our last day together. In a few hours, we would go our separate ways. It was then or possibly never.

I stood up on my toes, ready to kiss him. Our foreheads met, and so did our eyes. Our lips barely—and finally—touched when loud clapping and whistling burst from nowhere.

We opened our eyes and looked around. Down on the pier, a group of fishermen were laughing, shouting in Arabic, and making all sorts of noises while watching us. Although there were other Egyptian couples on the river’s banks, it seemed they only had eyes for us—maybe because we were the only ones who dared to kiss in public, or maybe because we were foreigners.

“Kevin, we cannot kiss here!” I pointed out, looking at the still-screaming fishermen.

This wasn’t going to be easy. We couldn’t kiss in a public place even if we tried to be discrete. We were foreigners, and we could never pass unnoticed. I was staying with an Egyptian friend, and going to her place would be disrespectful. Our options were limited, and we had only a few hours to figure it out.

“Let’s go to my hotel,” Kevin suggested. We didn’t check in together, so we couldn’t pretend we were husband and wife coming back to the hotel. Yet, we had a plan . . .

Holding hands, we jumped in a cab. Kevin looked at me with tenderness, giving me a soft kiss on the forehead.

“No kissing!” said the Egyptian driver with a heavy Arabic accent and a grave voice.

“Why not? He is my husband!” I shouted, showing him the fake wedding band I had been displaying all over Egypt, hoping to get some respect from local men, who—regardless of my uninviting attitude, my conservative dress-code, and “married” status—continued to harass me.

Now, I was with a man I had fallen for and wanted to kiss, but I couldn’t even if he could have been my husband!

Kevin laughed. I was pissed.

We finally arrived at his hotel and walked straight to the empty restaurant. It was January of 2003, a month before the war in Iraq, and there were not many tourists in Egypt or any of the neighboring countries.

A waiter approached our table. He was tall and very serious. “What you want to drink?”

We ordered drinks, and the waiter disappeared.

There was no one around, so we rushed to kiss. As we heard some steps coming closer, we separated again, pretending to be chatting. We did this a couple of times as our unfriendly waiter appeared and disappeared intermittently, checking on us.

“Let me look over there.” Kevin stood up and walked around. We had to find a place where we didn’t have to hide from the unwanted vigilante.

“Okay, I think this can work out. Go up to those stairs. It is dark. They won’t find us there. You go first. I will meet you,” Kevin instructed.

I went up to the dark stairs that lead to an open-air roof crammed with old furniture.

A minute later, Kevin came up and walked toward me, trying not to make any noise.

We were finally alone. I put my arms around his neck, he grabbed my waist, and we started kissing as if there was no tomorrow.

And then . . . someone was coming up the stairs. It was our infamous waiter.

I quickly hid behind a tall mirror. Kevin lit a cigarette, pretending to be enjoying the moonlit night alone.

The waiter started looking around.

“Madam, please,” the waiter said with a disapproving tone when he found my hiding place.

I felt both embarrassed and frustrated.

The waiter walked Kevin and me to the entrance of the hotel.

I wasn’t thrown out of the hotel, but it felt like it.

“I will come to see you in Washington, D.C., Daniela,” Kevin said, opening the door of the cab and kissing me again.

It was the last time I saw Kevin in Egypt, but he kept his promise. He came to visit me every six months, whether I was in Washington, D.C., or Miami. Nothing could keep him away.

Throughout the years, Kevin became my best friend, the man who stood behind me during my worst and best times, the one who laughed with me and washed away my tears. The person -who loved me so deeply- that wanted to marry me. He showed me the kind of love that could overcome obstacles and distance . . . but sometimes, life takes you on a different path from the person you love. We had different priorities and we took different roads. We were not meant to spend the rest of our lives together, yet Kevin was and is one of the most important people in my life.

I had embarked on an adventure to the Middle East to better understand a complex region that had been the center of controversy, prejudice, terrorist attacks, and armed conflicts. With a war threat over Iraq, I wanted to know what people in the Arab world felt and thought about it. I also wanted to see ancient treasures I had read so much about. But something else had happened during that trip.

Love comes and finds you when you least expect it. It found me surprisingly that winter in Egypt while I was finding answers and struggling as a solo female backpacker.