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WE
WERE UP
a little later than usual, around eight, indicating that we were finally
adjusting to local time zones. As I was preparing my homemade Nescafe
there was a knock on the door—our little Indian man returning my
Urantia Book, without comment. The day before they had been to the
“Light and Sound” show and encouraged us to see it too. Today they
had plans to visit other attractions and weren’t sure when we’d be
able to hook up again. They had plainly lost interest in us now that
they had developed the confidence to be “on their own,” much to our
relief.
Before
breakfast (bread, butter, jam, coffee) we stopped at the front desk and
arranged a tour of Cairo, to start at ten, with a hotel-recommended
guide named Samir, at a cost of E40 pounds (around $12) for the day. We
had expected a bus loaded with other tourists, but when Samir arrived in
his white VW van we appeared to be the only ones.
Riding
through the streets of Cairo, with Joy sitting up front chatting with
Samir, I videotaped miles of colorful daily street life. When we
commented on the endless honking of horns, Samir told us that Egyptians
do not consider it offensive when someone honks their horn at you, that
it was more like a nudge, a way of letting the driver in the car next to
you know that you are there. Nobody stayed in their lanes—there were
no lanes, and very few traffic lights. Cars just swarmed along like a
school of fish gone haywire. It was complete chaos, bumper-to-bumper
traffic, and whenever there was a small break in the traffic, everyone
floored it to try and occupy the space in front of the next car, beeping
their horns as they inched forward.
Our
first stop was a mosque in the Islamic part of town. Entering the
courtyard, Samir informed us in hushed tones that this was normally
forbidden to tourists, but if we kept our presence low-key we could have
the privilege of experiencing it.
Entrance to the mosque |
Entering the courtyard |
Samir inside the mosque |
He
had us climb up a steep, circular staircase to reach inside the top of a
minaret that provided sweeping panoramic views of the surrounding
area.
Climbing the circular staircase
Above and below, some views from the top
We witness a funeral in progress
Joy with Samir
From
there we drove on, stopping for fresh-squeezed orange juice somewhere
along the road. We could tell that this particular stand was a regular
stop for Samir’s tours, as the operator and his young son seemed to be
expecting us and, in an obviously rehearsed act, dazzled us with a
colorful display of various fruits and state-of-the-art electric juice
extracting equipment. We were happy to buy his delicious product, and
treated Samir to a glass also.
This
was followed by a tour of a papyrus factory where a highly skilled
worker first demonstrated the procedure for making papyrus and then
relentlessly tried to get us to buy some expensive hand-painted pieces.
We resisted as much as we could, mainly because none of the patterns
appealed to us, but finally Joy relented when he said he said could
create a custom piece with her own design. She had him copy the
three-concentric-circles logo onto the smallest possible piece, and we
arranged to return to pick it up after viewing the pyramids.
*
* *
Arriving
at Giza, on the spur of the moment we decided to be adventurous and rent
camels to ride over the desert to view the pyramids. The total was
around E60 pounds (around $20) for a two-hour camel ride that was, in
retrospect, one
of the highlights of our trip, if not our lives.
Our camels waiting for us
Our three guides
We
had three guides, all young boys. At first it was scary sitting up so
high on a wobbly bag of bones, especially when trying to videotape the
experience, but I soon adjusted to the motions of the camel. I hung my
daypack, containing water, camera and videocamera paraphernalia, on the
pummel of the saddle and soon felt quite comfortable.
Getting started . . .
Some views from on top of the camel
Criss-crossing
the desert in front of us were Egyptians on horses and camels, all
wanting to say hello to us. Non-aggressive armed guards with machine
guns were all around, but they only smiled at us.
A cemetery in the shadow of the pyramids
At
one point our guide on horseback got into a scuffle with a vendor on a
donkey who approached trying to sell us Coca Cola. After we had refused
to buy the drink from him, saying we had our own water, the man lowered
his price, and when our teenage guide told him we still were not
interested and to get lost, a fist fight ensued. I tried to videotape
the brawl but my camel was facing the wrong way and my young guide did
not understand my instructions. “Turn the camel around!” I shouted,
but he just smiled back at me.
The Coca-Cola salesman
Joy:
“I remember the fight going on in the distance even after we had moved
on. The sand was flying and all sorts of Egyptians ran to the scene,
beating the air and sand with their camel whips. The boy who had been
leading my camel gave me the reins so that he could mount the horse
which his older brother had been riding before he’d gotten in the
fight. As the skirmish continued, the boy on the horse galloped back
toward camp at breakneck speed.
I thought he was going for help, but about a quarter mile away he
pulled the horse up on a sand hill and waited a few minutes. Then he
raced the horse back to us in a dead run.
I finally realized that he hadn't been going for help at all but
was just taking advantage of the situation to have a fun wild ride
across the desert on his older brother's horse.
Later, in broken English, the boy told us that the reason for the
fight had been that his brother was "protecting" us from the
Coca Cola salesman, whom he thought had been bothering us too much. I
suspect that these men of the desert just enjoy a good fight
occasionally.”
The scuffle continues as we ride
away...
It
was an unforgettable, indescribable experience riding through the vast
desert with ancient pyramids all around.
In
time we returned and met Samir for the trip back—a quiet drive as our
butts were sore and we were each lost in our own thoughts. Samir, who
had started out being so friendly and informative, had now become
distant and cool. Earlier in the day he had paid compliments by saying,
after I had told him I was 53, that I looked around 44; on top of the
minaret he had reduced my age to 35. In the morning he had been very
talkative with Joy in the front seat, responding in great detail to her
questions about Egyptian life. Now he was silent and remained so until
he dropped us off at our hotel, leaving us baffled by his change in
attitude toward us.
The bank where we got some cash
Seeking
a place to get some instant cash, we were escorted through the streets
by one of the hotel’s young employees. As usual we were stared at and
smiled at. I also bought a battery for my travel alarm to insure rising
at 4:15 a.m. for the bus ride to Israel the next morning.
Buying
a battery for my travel clock
Joy
had promised to bring her friend Chazz a musical instrument from every
country we visited. In Greece she had bought him a small bouzouki and
here we were looking for a tambourine. Samir had told us where we could
find one near the hotel, and after getting our money we set off on an
eventful walk, daringly winding our way through chaotic traffic by
putting out our arms until all cars stopped—not so for the Egyptians!
Only two Western-looking (even slightly middle-aged!) women can stop
traffic in this city!
A
typical car cover in Cairo
In
an obscure part of town we found the tambourine place, Gamil Georges, owned by a
gypsylike woman. While we examined the various unusual handmade instruments prior
to purchase, neighboring shopkeepers and various passersby stopped to
witness the transaction and put in their two cents’ worth.
Goodbye!
On
the walk back, Joy had her shoes shined by a wrinkled old man for one
Egyptian pound—about 30 cents! A crowd gathered around us and I
snapped pictures. In the end she gave the man an American dollar, worth
around three times more than his fee. At first the man didn’t know
what it was, and looked puzzled, but after someone told him its value he
seemed thrilled and flashed a big, toothless grin at us.
Attracting
attention while having a shoe shine
After
freshening up we went into the historic Barrel Bar for a pre-dinner
beer. At the turn of the century this bar had been famous as a colonial
British officers’ club. Now the clientele seemed to be well-heeled
Egyptian businessmen. Although we were not in Casablanca I kept
expecting Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman to walk in. We sat there
absorbing the atmosphere, Joy writing a long letter and me writing in my
diary. Afterwards we paid our hotel bill in advance so we could make an
early exit in the morning.
An Egyptian beer label I pasted in my diary
For
dinner we opted for a Muslim restaurant we’d scoped out earlier about
a block away, bringing our own bottle of wine. The owner had no problem
with that, as long as we kept the bottle hidden out of sight and gave him
a shot in an opaque cup, which he sipped on contentedly as he sat in the
windowsill of the open window while we ate. Once again we were the only
diners, due to our several-hours-ahead-of-everyone-else schedule. Back
at our hotel we had a brandy in the bar as an excuse to people-watch
some more. At an early hour we retired to our room to pack and prepare
for the bus journey from Cairo to Jerusalem, setting the alarm for 4:15
a.m. We fell asleep to the sounds of the street noise outside our hotel.
All night long there were horns honking and beeping reminding us that we
were really and truly in the amazing city of
Cairo. *
* *
CLICK
HERE TO RETURN TO CALENDAR
or
read on by clicking on any of the following
links:
1.
From Los Angeles to Amsterdam
2. The Flight to Greece
3. Ancient
Corinth
4. The
Citadel
5. To Piraeus
6. Hania on
Crete
7. A
Day in Limbo
8. Back
to Athens
9. From
Athens to Cairo
10. Cairo
11. The Pyramidsthis
page
12. The Bus to Israel
13. Jerusalem
14. Bethany and Bethpage
15. An Old Palestinian Hotel
16. The Drive to Galilee
17. Capernaum and Environs
18. The Ancient Boat and Nazareth
19. The Golan Heights and Mt. Hermon
20. The Eastern Shore and Scythiopolis
21. Mount of the Beatitudes
22. Ptolemais and Caesarea
23. A Day in Piraeus
24. Santorini
25. A Rainy Day
26. An Eventful Day in Athens
27. Return to Amsterdam
28. Going Home
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