I Fought Jet Lag and the Jet Lag Won

Cairo to Colorado: nine time zones and an 11 1/2-hour flight just to reach New York

For the record, I rarely have serious jet lag flying eastbound across the Atlantic. It's always an overnight flight with a morning arrival on the other side, and whether it's a short or long flight, and I sleep well on airplanes (especially if I've had a bit of wine with dinner on board). More to the point, I'm excited to land someplace new or someplace I've been before and love. The adrenalin kicks in upon landing, I stay awake all day, go to sleep the first night and wake up my first full day wherever, more or less adjusted.

Westbound is another story entirely. Departure is during the day (usually late morning), arrival on the East Coast is sometime in the afternoon and, now that I live in Colorado, the day stretches even longer because I have another flight and two more time zones.

In the past I've tried:

• Melatonin - No significant effect on me.
• No Jet-Lag pills (right), an over-the-counter, homeopathic formulation that I buy at Changes in Latitude, a local travel store. It seemed to work a little better, but I forgot to get some this time.
• Flying from the US West Coast, which means for longer flights, which is even better for my body clock on the eastbound portion but makes the westbound trip even longer, because I have to backtrack one time zone.

I have not tried:

• Sleeping pills, mainly because on principle, I don't take sleeping pills on land, let alone in the air. I'd rather be tired than drugged.
• The anti-jet leg lag diet, because it's complicated and requires a multi-day regimen of meal manipulation.

This time, flying from the West Coast was not an option, because Egyptair only flies from New York. And I rejected melatonin, which I have at home, because it doesn't work all that well for me and besides, I recently read a post on Upgrade: Travel Better about a traveler who was jailed in Dubai for possession of of melatonin. Egypt and Dubai are not the same place, law-wise, but they might be on the same Moslem wave length. If it worked better for me, I might have put some in an aspirin bottle, but it doesn't, so I didn't.

My epic return journey from Cairo to Colorado on Tuesday, February 10, was as follows:

• 7:30 a.m.: Departure from hotel in Cairo.
• 8:00 a.m. +/-: Arrival at airport to stand in long line for baggage X-ray/metal detector just to get into the terminal. Once inside, long line to check bag and get boarding pass. Long line for X-ray of carry-ons and stroll through metal detector. Short line for Egyptian passport control. Wait for boarding.
• 10:15 a.m.: After a third X-ray/metal detector process that included TSA requirements (shoes off, laptop out of case, discard bottled water except that sealed and presented with a receipt from an airport shop) and another presentation of the boarding pass to an official stationed on the jetway, boarded the plane for the scheduled departure of Egyptair 985 from Cairo.
• 3:15 p.m. Eastern Time: Arrival at JFK International Airport. Mercifully short line for immigration, bag landed on the carousel fairly quickly, walk through customs and on to Delta terminal.
• 6:55 p.m. Eastern Time: Departure of Delta 167.
• 10:46 p.m. Mountain Time: Arrival in Denver, which meant that I got to the main terminal and baggage claim a few minutes after the 10:18/10:25 RTD bus left for Boulder. I toughed it out for the bus an hour later. As I walked toward the bus, whose door was open, my water bottle fell out of the side pocket out of my day pack, which I had over one shoulder. I bent over to retrieve the water bottle without smashing my laptop against the concrete, and when I stood up, the bus was pulling out.
• 11:35 p.m.: I gave up on RTD and took SuperShuttle, which dropped me off at my door an hour later.

My failed Wednesday, February 11, attempt at combating jet lag, which is the point of this post, involved waking up at 3:30 a.m. after less than four hours of sleep, staying up all day even if not hitting on all cylinders, attending a media event in Denver (I didn't drive and I didn't drink) and going to bed at 8:45 p.m., shortly after I got home. Result: Another short night (I woke up at about the same time on Thursday, February 12 but took three lengthy naps in the course of the day and evening. I woke up in the wee hours again today (Friday, February 13), but at least I've overcome my sleep debt, even if I'm not over jet lag yet.

I am trying to draw a conclusion or learn a lesson from this, but so far, I haven't succeeded. I do know that seeing Egypt's incomparable antiquities was worth the jet-lag misery. And at the end of the travel day, that's all that matters.