Cairo, Part 2

Cairo continued.

The bad hustlers at the pyramids, boy, they were bad. Some of the most aggressive I have seen. I wondered if some of it was because of the lull in tourism and for the first couple hours I was about the only prey around. As I turned the corner of one of the pyramids and descended into some nearby ruins, I ran into a man sitting on a rock. He was dressed in plain clothes, but said I wasn’t permitted to be there. He said he was a security guard and pulled one of those shoulder patches with stripes on it that would have made him look official if he had been wearing it. He placed it on his shoulder, briefly showing his authenticity as an official before shoving it back in his pocket. He started to lead me around, but I told him to leave me alone. Then he begged for a few pounds and followed me around for a few minutes.

Later, I was walking through a random area near the largest pyramid where there were a couple of tombs. Two different men told me I was not permitted to be there. One warned me against descending into one of the chambers below ground. I came back later, when he wasn’t there and crawled into a little chamber about two stories below the surface. The other man just yelled at me and shook his finger, telling me I was not allowed. I tried to ask why, but he soon disappeared and I continued my exploration. These two men didn’t have any obvious ulterior motive, but they were definitely not officials of any sort.

After talking with the boy with the donkey, I found myself wandering among some ruinous area west of the largest pyramid. In the distance I had seen a couple of tour buses arrive along with other private cars. My time was limited. There were a few signs saying that excavations were in progress, so I steered clear of those. Other signs showed maps of the various tombs in the area. This was enough of a sign that I was not too much in the wrong for being here, though where I was supposed to walk was unclear.

Tour bus cometh.

 

At one point I was on a ledge, and on the ground a meter below me I saw a few puppies. It seemed the pyramids were not immune to the city’s stray dog problem. I jumped off the ledge to the trail below. As soon as I jumped I looked down and realized I was about to land on the mother of the puppies. I am incredibly uneasy around third world dogs. The slight risk of rabies is constantly in the back of my mind, especially now that I was in a country I wasn’t supposed to be in, and Peace Corps would likely do nothing to help me. The mother quickly moved out of my way and rushed towards her puppies. They guarded their territory admirably, sending me the cutest and least intimidating barks ever.

 

I continued to walk, and suddenly some douchebag on a camel showed up. I heard him yell at me from behind. Startled, I turned around, as he told me I was not permitted to be there without a guide. Let me guess, you just happen to be a guide who can grant me permission to wander this area. I didn’t care much, as I had been wandering this area for half an hour and was about ready to go. He spoke English, but pretended not to understand my pointed questions. Then some other guy showed u and said it was no problem for me. Great. But really, he was just using this situation with the camel man to engage me. He welcomed me to Egypt, (Thanks!) and asked where I was from. I didn’t care to answer. He wanted to give me a gift. He shoved some sort of white cloth in a plastic wrapper in my direction. I tried to walk away, extending my arm, saying I wasn’t interested. He set the package on my arm, insisting it is a gift. I thanked him, keeping my arm extended, balancing the “gift”. He caught up to me and insisted on taking my camera to take a picture. He took my reluctance as mistrust. Well, I didn’t think he was going to steal my camera. He would be a fool to try that. I just didn’t want to be any more involved than I already was. He pulled the cloth out of the plastic and shoved it onto my head. It was something of a “traditional” Egyptian kaffiyeh.  This was annoying, to say the least. He still wanted a picture of me. I told him that my digital SLR set on manual operation would not work, unless I took the picture. He would not leave me alone without getting a picture of me first, though. Fine, let’s get this over with. I gave him the camera, which was affixed with a midrange lens that did not zoom. He kept telling me to scoot back farther and farther so he could fit me in the frame. He told me to climb on a nearby rock. It was getting ridiculous. Then he told me to raise my arm. I couldn’t believe it. He was trying to get me to pose for the very picture I’ve always loathed. The “hey, it looks like I’m holding the pyramid/Eiffel Tower/Tower of Pisa”. Now it actually was amusing to me, in an ironic way. He took the picture, and unsurprisingly it was underexposed and wildly out of focus. He insisted on another one. At this point, I had had enough. I forced my camera out of his hands and started to walk away. Then he demanded money. I told him the thing on my head was a gift, and I wouldn’t pay anything. He said I was paying for the picture, not the “gift”. He followed me for a minute, before he finally gave up and grabbed the gift off my head and walked away. I had had just about enough. More tourists were coming, and with them all the evils we bring. I needed out.

This is my new favorite picture of myself.

The brief peace I had felt in the desert environment of the pyramids had been destroyed and I was now more comfortable on the streets of Giza. Was it worth it? Of course. I got two hours of near solitude. Would it have been worth it if I had arrived in the middle of the day, or in a time in which tourism was booming? Almost certainly not. I felt incredibly blessed by the travel gods for arranging this little opportunity for me.

The city of Giza from the pyramids.

The city of Giza from the pyramids.

So I hopped on an empty minibus heading towards the city. Giza was now alive. It was a different place than it was 4 hours earlier. It was moving! Intensely! I got a very good feeling. I was glad that I had decided to get off before heading all the way to Cairo. I descended in a crowded area of freeway overpasses, big boulevards and endless food vendors, pedestrians and purveyors of household goods and clothing. It was heaven. I didn’t know where to begin. I ran into a fruit juice stall and bought a cup of mixed fruit, juice and yogurt. Delicious. Duh. I went to a sweet seller and pointed at my desire, saying, “one”. He seemed to think I meant one kilo. When he started to fill a bag, I told him I only wanted one single piece, and held out a coin. He handed me the confection and waved off my offer of payment. Free sweet! I wandered a market area for a while, then got back on my way. My plan was to take a public boat across the Nile back to Cairo proper. The road running along the Nile was wide and lacking in character. When I arrived at what was supposed to be the port, I only found men gambling and a couple of private skiffs that offered private rides on the Nile. I decided to proceed on foot. At some point a truck stopped and yelled something to me out the window. At first I thought it was so clear that I was a lost foreigner that he wanted to know where I was going. Then I realized that he was lost and was asking me for directions. I shrugged and proceeded. The Nile was lined with many boats. Some shoddy and full of character, but mostly big and gaudy cruise boats. One even had a TGI Fridays on board. Because that is where I want to eat when I travel across the world to experience Egyptian culture.

I wandered on foot back to Cairo proper and hopped into the first metro station I could find. I was planning to get off at Tahrir Square. The people I had asked told me that the city center would be calm, so I figured I wouldn’t emerge from the metro in a hail of bullets and burning cars. It turned out I was only two stops away from the Tahrir Square stop. A few minutes later, when I was planning to get out, I realized I had gone too far. I went back the other way, and missed it again. Then I realized that the metro stop was closed. Maybe I would have emerged in a hail of bullets. Later in the day, I would approach Tahrir Square on foot, only to find it completely blocked off. Every entrance was blocked with razor wire and tanks. The blocks leading to it were empty and all the businesses were shuttered. I didn’t have to get too close to the barricades before the military personnel were yelling at me. Other than that, however, I was surprised about how little military and police presence I had encountered. There was certainly less armed military walking around than in Rwanda. In fact, if I had never heard of the Arab Spring and was oblivious to the turmoil in Egypt, this would have been almost the only thing to make me wonder if something serious was going on in the country.

It was early afternoon and I had little plan, so I just walked randomly around streets on the edge of the commercial center of Cairo. Down one quiet street I stumbled onto a restaurant that served, almost exclusively, kushari, Egypt’s famous carb-party of a meal. I mutered as much of an appetite as I could and walked on in. The dish consists of a mix of noodles, rice, lentils, dried onions and sometimes chickpeas. It seemed like the kind of dish that everyone would have their own preference of what to include and how much, but I just signaled that I wanted one plate and waved my hand in the general direction of the food pots.

The joint was crowded, so I joined a table with a middle-aged man who could not speak any English, but we knew who each other were, immediately. He knew I was a lost foreigner trying to discover what an Egyptian like him might enjoy for lunch. I pegged him as a life-long kushari-hound, who ate it not because it was all he could afford, but because he liked the simple and rustic nature of the dish. He made sure that I was aware of the spiciness of the accompanying spicy tomato sauce and that I got a healthy dose of pour from the giant bottle of garlic vinegar on the table. I really liked kushari, but could only finish half. I didn’t want to overeat as I was still hoping for another meal or two during the day. I would later find out that this was one of the most famous kushari restaurants in Cairo and was featured in the Lonely Planet and, I am almost certain, on Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations.

I stopped at a nearby open air café for another hookah and coffee. I couldn’t get enough of this outdoor eating culture that doesn’t exist in Rwanda. I don’t think I actually went INSIDE anything all day except down the shaft of a ruin next to the pyramids.

I decided to head down to the Coptic neighborhood. It was an easy metro ride south of the center. When I emerged onto the street, I found it so peaceful compared to what I’d seen so far. Unfortunately I’m completely ignorant to the Coptic faith, the history and what it means to be a Copt in Cairo. But this little neighborhood was pretty cool. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking at, but there seemed to be some walled church compounds, a big walled cemetery and quiet neighborhoods in the vicinity, all surrounded by freeways and a metro line. At some point in my exploration of this tiny area, I must have stumbled upon the touristy area. I actually had no idea that this was even a place that tourists would go to. There were a few people selling religious trinkets, a couple disabled beggars and some shops incongruously selling cold Cokes and snacks within the walled compound that consisted mostly of churches. The few hawkers spoke to me in Spanish, giving me a good idea of who the most common tourists are to these parts. The other place in the world where I have been most commonly mistaken as Spanish is around the Mother Theresa parts of Kolkata. Soon after, the tourists arrived, or perhaps I arrived to where they were. It was unsettling. Groups of Europeans and Asians, snapping pictures and talking loudly. It’s easy to be a curmudgeon about the obnoxiousness of other tourists when enjoying the peace and solitude of traveling alone.

There was a lot of armed security around Coptic Cairo and the road entrance to the neighborhood was actually a blocked military checkpoint that wasn’t allowing cars through. I wasn’t sure if this was normal, because it was Friday or due to the various attacks on Coptic areas of Egypt in the last couple years.

With my last few hours, I went back near the center and explored a little more. I ate more street snacks, wandered more markets, drank more tea and got hassled by more fools. I could always tell when I was in an area that had once been crawling with tourists by whether I was approached by a friendly guy who wanted to take me somewhere. One guy told me he was an artist and invited me into his shop. I told him that I was busy (even though I had just told him that I was just wandering when he asked where I was going). I said I needed to go straight, not left where his shop was. He told me it was a bad idea to go straight, as people were protesting down that way and it was turning violent. Well, violent street protests sounded more tolerable than this guy’s shop, so I kept going straight. Surprisingly he didn’t follow me. I was almost certain that I had called his bluff, when, after walking for a block, I heard a loud pop, like a gun shot. I flinched and looked around. All the other pedestrians had jumped too. Within moments, though, they had continued on their way, not thinking anything of what we had just heard. It had sounded close. Over the next few hours I would hear more of these and it was safe to assume they were just hefty firecrackers. I’m not sure if Egyptians need a special occasion for firecrackers (nobody should), but I wasn’t aware of any holiday except for that it was the day of prayer.

I was right in assuming that the artist was lying about protests ahead, but it didn’t mean there was no turmoil in other parts of Egypt. I was surprised to find Egypt showing up in the international headlines the next morning for being one of the most violent days in months. Thirteen protesters were killed, and dozens, maybe hundreds, injured around the country. In fact, I realized later that the bus I took back to the airport passed through a neighborhood that had been particularly volatile that day. While it appears that Egypt is submerged in chaos, Cairo is a monstrous city, and the protests, as of late, have been confined to small areas.

All day I had wondered if there would be a strong presence of black Africans in Cairo. I’d met many African immigrants in America that had come by way of Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Dubai. So far I hadn’t seen any. Then, late in the day, as I walk walking in some marketed back streets I stumbled into what seemed to be the neighborhood where Africans from south of the Sahara hung out. Many of them looked Ethiopian or Somali. They were hanging out in cafes, watching soccer or dubbed action movies and drinking coffee and tea. I sat down for a cup and watched a soccer game. I hoped to strike up a conversation with someone, but I caught a closed and unapproachable vibe from everyone.

The sun started to set, so I headed back to Midan Ramses, where I hoped to catch a bus back to the airport. I wasn’t in a rush and had time for a little more eating and walking. First, though, I would try to find out at least if this was the area where I could catch a bus. I went a few different buses, asking about the airport. Nobody understood this word. I guessed I would have assumed it to be universal, like taxi. One man in particular decided to help me. After pretending that I was an airplane, arms stretched out, engine noises emanating from my mouth and flying in circles, they figured out what I meant. I learned that the word for airport is matar, making matters much easier. So with the knowledge that I may be able to make it to the airport from here, I went on a walk. I don’t know how I was still doing it. I hadn’t slept the night before and I had been walking for about 11 of the previous 14 hours. Plus the constant deluge of coffee, tea and shisha should have made me feel jittery and nauseous. Something about the thrill of this city was keeping me going, like I was on some sort of stimulant drug that I would pay dearly for later. The next two days my legs and feet would be incredibly sore, but during my day in Egypt I felt nothing. I did take a last coffee and shisha break, followed by a visit to Cairo’s friendliest sandwich stall operator.

Back at the bus station, there seemed to be confusion over whether I could actually reach the airport from here. Some people seemed certain I could, some certain I couldn’t. I was not pressed for time, so I was optimistic. I was eventually ushered into an empty minivan. It took about 20 minutes to fill up and we were on our way, down the roller coaster of Egyptian highways. I couldn’t tell if it was that I was so used to the relatively timid nature of Rwandan driving, or if Cairo really was the most exciting, white-knuckle driving environment I had ever been to. Maybe it does not stand above South Asia, but it is definitely in the world’s upper echelons of adrenaline-pumping transportation experiences.

One by one, people descended, and I waited for the driver to instruct me to depart. I was in the very back, but he knew that I was going to “matar”. As the last passenger other than me got out, I saw the expression on the face of the driver in the rear view mirror turn to disappointment and embarrassment. I could tell he had just realized he had forgotten about the silent gringo in the back. He said something to me in Arabic that I assumed was meant to be a comforting, “don’t worry, I’ll take care of this.” He flipped the van around in one swift motion and got on another freeway onramp. In five nerve-wracking minutes of even more frantic driving, we pulled into a dark bus lot. He arranged with another driver to take me where I needed to go and gave him my modest fare. I packed in with the other passengers and we left. He dropped me off in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. However, it was the kind of middle of nowhere that airports tend to tucked into, unseen from the highways surrounding it. I was in a mess of onramps and overpasses, inhospitable to pedestrians. If being in a bus on the freeway was fun verging on scary, crossing it on foot in the dark was terrifying. After crossing the half-dozen lanes and going under a bridge, I found a couple of men loitering on the sidewalk. I had no idea if the airport was in the vicinity, but when I asked for “matar”, they seemed to say I was in the right place and to wait. Sure enough, a bus came by. At this point, though, I was burning through the big cushion of time I had given myself. Even this, bus, though, didn’t even take me all the way to the airport. I followed some people with luggage when they got off. This was the bus stop for the airport shuttle, and I could finally relax. I managed to make it all the way to the airport 2.5 hours early for my flight and only spent a few dimes. In fact, the whole day was remarkably cheap. I had withdrawn a hundred dollars, thinking that I would prepare for any emergency taxis, unforeseen pyramid fees or to buy or do something expensive I hadn’t planned on. I finished the day with maybe $75 left.

I don’t deserve to have a concluding paragraph on a 12 page blog about a 16 hour day. So I will leave it here.