travel lightly and carry a big stick

Do you know Lionelle Richie?

Phew, Egypt, well its defineately not Europe, what a difference a strip of water makes. Egypt really started on the plane, it took nearly 40 minutes for all the passengers to sit down and put their hand luggage away, we just sat and watched the chaos unfold. When at last everyone had sat down the plane started to take off, which naturally meant someone had to go to the toilet, during takeoff. The next two hours were cocophanous and chaotic. The aircrew worked around the scrum in the aisle as best they could only running over a couple of rampaging ten year olds.

Cairo is crowded and hectic but more than anything its noisy. At street level it sounds like hundreds of car horns going off simultaneously presumably signalling each time an important traffic rule is broken. The walk from the faded and crumbling grandeour of the colonial downtown to the medieval heart resulted in ringing ears, so it was with relief that we recollected ourselves in the meditative calm of Al-Azhar mosque, the oldest remaining university in the world. Recollected and recharged we hit the streets of the old town, narrow, muddy, cows, donkeys, motorbikes pretty much sums it up. There was just so much going on that I felt unable to really think, the city is one where your senses just seem so overwhelmed with all the information pouring in that the rest of your brain just shuts off in protest. Its rather like India in that way.

Our introduction to the world of 'Backsheesh' or bribes/tips was here, for a small sum a huge wooden door twice as high as me, with a handle that you need to reach up to was unlocked with one of those massive keys you think are only in movies and we were allowed into the backrooms of an ancient mosque. We found our way up onto the roof and from there up one of its minarets. At the top we had an incredible view over Cairo, stretching out to the desert. Those medieval people didn't have too much regard for safety and as a conseqence the barrier between me and a deadly fall was a little scant, suffering from dizzying vertigo i had to pin myself to the inside wall. Between photos I prayed that the call to prayer didn't start because the loud speakers all around would probably have completed the job of deafening us for good.

That brings me to the title. Egyptians are very keen to talk to foreigners, I have found that I have an amazing number of 'friends'. One such friend started chatting to us in an internet cafe. This gentleman turned out to have a keen interest in 'romantic and sentimental' music. He wondered if I had heard of 'Lionelle Richie' whome he found very inspiring. I answered that I had heard of him but wasn't 'familiar with his work'. Although i thought this was a polite way to end the conversation, he interpretated as a desire to familiarise myself with said work. He then began to recite the words of 'Hello' to me. I smiled politely and tried to hide my discomfort, which grew when he insisted on showing me the photo galleries of his favourite Egyptian pop idol and wrote liz and I a poem.... Although there is much more hassle from touts etc here than in Turkey the people have a much better sense of humor and none of the machismo.

I started writing this a few weeks ago but never got to finish. Now we've spent a few weeks here, travelling down to the south via the Nile and then north again via the desert oases. The historic sights were magnificent of course but we probably enjoyed the desert more than anything. We camped in a small oasis with a hot tub sized hot spring and enjoyed a night under the stars, climbed a thousand foot dune untouched human, animal or anything and camped again in the 'white desert' a kind of whitewashed chalk death valley. So thats the short version, I probably wouldn't get around to publishing a long one. Ok I hope everyone is good, Have a good Christmas all!

posted by justplainnigel @ 7:52 AM