Pt1 - 6: EXTREMELY CAIRO TOO

 

Don’t try this at home folks, but to simulate a stroll around Cairo attach a hose to your car’s exhaust, pass it through the window and bail out just before lapsing into a coma. Technically, this is an understatement because one doesn’t so much stroll around Cairo as mount a commando operation. The other thing we learned very early on about negotiating the city on foot is there are no straight lines here. To get from A to B you must pass through every other letter of the alphabet even if B is just across the road.

The target of our first mission was the Egyptian Museum. Just for fun I pressed record on the microcassette.

(All barely audible against a wall of sound like a chainsaw symphony with horns)

Me: “Overcast morning…cold wind blowing…looks like Hitler’s Berlin in 1945…dog turds all over the sidewalks…smell of stagnant water and rotting vegetables…approaching Tahir Bridge…”

Tess: “Aaaarrrggghhh!”

Me: “They’ve torn up the footpath over the bridge…have to walk on the road…”

Tess: “Shhhhiiiitttt!”

Me: “…trapped on the median strip…”

Tess: “Waaaaannnnkkkkeeeerrr!”

Me: “…hang on to my hand…ready?...let’s do it!”

Tess: “Look out!”

Me: “Aaaaayyyyeeeee! Faaaarrrrkkkk!”

(And so it goes on)

In welcome contrast to our first visit the museum was virtually deserted. We took refuge there for three placid hours, much of that time in the Royal Mummies Hall with its mood lighting, climate controlled cases and atmosphere of reverential silence. The morbidly beautiful cadaver of Rameses II, he of the monumental ego with statues to match, dominated the room much as his long shadow dominates Egyptian history. Rictus contorts his livid features into a grotesque mask; the limbs seem to have been electrocuted into position, his tufted hair and claw-like nails hypnotic in their paradoxical sense of life, lips drawn back to reveal the teeth in a grimace of supreme agony. Actually, I caught myself thinking he looked like he died with the mother of all hangovers; all he needed was an arm over his eyes for me to hear him say, “Amun-Re, but I’m never touching that bloody Pharaoh’s Lager again!”

Our last official engagement with the tour company took us back to the Giza plateau in the evening for the son et lumiere. Mercifully we were spared the company of Reba and escorted instead by the charming Assim, who looked like an Arab Buddy Holly. Assim made sure we arrived in good time and secured us possibly the best seats in the house on the roof of the bar directly in front of the Sphinx.

The sun went down and the laser lights went up for an entertaining hour of Egyptian history and green graphic gymnastics. Snobs might sniff at the theme park concept but it was a lot of fun, very interesting and enhanced with a few drinks in the process.

It was an entertaining hour in spite of the vulgar American woman sitting behind me. Her face ugly with a lifetime’s spleen, she did her best to ruin the evening for those around her. No sooner had the show begun than she thrust herself into my back and tried to force me aside. She retreated briefly when I spun around and, fixing her with a glare that would melt glass, said, “Do you mind!” It wasn’t long before she was at it again. I countered by positioning my arm so that my left elbow planted itself firmly in her right breast. Undeterred, or perhaps even liking it, she proceeded to slobber away the entire hour on a wad of gum that must have been the size of a baby’s fist, regularly punctuating her squalid little performance with protracted mucal snuffling like a pig at a trough. Unfortunately, it was only in my imagination her pulped body ended up in the dust below.

I am about to make a shameful confession. On the way back to the hotel I got Assim to pull over at the MacDonald’s on Pyramids Road. The only reason I bring this up, figuratively speaking, is that after a week of fending off waves of touts something happened inside that restored our faith in the race and brightened us up considerably.

The store was packed. I liked it that we were the token Anglos in a crowd that could have been the cast for a commercial promoting Macca’s international appeal. Just on that note, there probably should be an international appeal for Macca’s victims as I learned to my excruciating cost in Athens, but that’s in the future.

To cover our bases Tess and I each joined separate queues at opposite ends of the counter, so it wasn’t until we were back in the car that she told me the story. She’d just collected her order when she realised her watch with the faulty strap was missing. More curious than concerned - she could barely read the small dial anyway – she was scanning the floor on her way out when a young boy, about 14 she guessed, appeared at her elbow. She relayed the conversation:

“Excuse me madam, is this yours?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you!” Tess offered him a tenner in reward. “Please take this.”

“No, thank you madam,” the boy said, “It is my pleasure. Peace unto you.”

Ain’t that great? And to top it off Assim presented us with a flower each in gratitude for helping him with his English. It was also a little goodbye gift from the tour operators. Tomorrow, eleven days out from Perth, we were officially on our own and without a safety net in the Orient, no longer tourists but travellers. 

*

 

Tahir Square, which is actually circular, has a post-holocaust feel about it. Bare concrete facades prop up a low leaden sky, fading billboards, grimy Coke signs and Third World movie posters loom out of the mist of exhaust fumes belching from the ever-circling traffic. The effect is suffocating.

We spent a frustrating hour in Tahir not finding a photo-processing lab, though we did come across a new definition of irony – a Cairo Driving School. Struggling for breath and with eyes stinging we retreated to the Corniche El Nil for a promenade along the river. Many of the stone benches were occupied by courting couples sitting the requisite distance apart under the watchful eyes of their chaperones who, all men, stood nearby smoking and talking in small groups.

We threaded our way through the rubbish and past the beggars to the Manyal Palace precinct and were just about to turn back when a little man appeared beside us.

“You want student card?” He could have walked straight out of a cold war spy movie.

“Um…”

“Zeess way.” He led us through a labyrinth of alleyways and up a few flights of stairs into a tiny flouro-lit office. A young woman shoved two forms at us, we filled them out, she made the ISIC cards up and laminated them, we paid her a nominal amount and left. The whole business was done and dusted in ten minutes. Another lovely little irony I thought: without even looking for it you can pick up an illegal card anytime for peanuts, but try and get your films developed!

By now veteran pedestrians, we made it all the way back to the Gezirah without mishap. We’d observed the locals and learned the fundamental trick to crossing the road – and this proved true for all the places where driving is a blood sport – is to look confident and in control at all times; show fear, hesitation or indecision and you’re roadkill. Our newly acquired skill was already redundant here however, because tomorrow we’d be leaving Cairo for the last time.

Next time: Cheating Death on the East Delta Bus to St Catherine's...