Cairo
After a simple metro trip to Giza, getting onto our connecting public minibus was a little trickier - at least the train actually stops to load and unload passengers. Bundling ourselves into the minibus as it moved idly with the traffic flow took a certain amount of nerve, timing and finesse. Luckily it wasn’t yet overcrowded, just to add that extra degree of difficulty by hanging on to the outside of the bus by a single limb as the locals are used to doing. Disembarking was almost as tough, as the minibus was now overcrowded and involved amounts of body contortion and co-ordination rarely seen outside a game of Twister. Having eventually succeeded in this regard the next challenge was to cross a major intersection.
“Big, isn’t it?” Hoges said in understated kind of way as we dodged across the traffic in a real-life version of the old arcade game Frogger.
”Yeah, guess so.” I thought absently as a large 70’s American car rumbled past and I concentrated more on the hope that I wasn’t going end up with my head through its windscreen. It was a pretty big car but not remarkably so, certainly not the size of a Hummer, and I wondered why Hoges even bothered to mention it. But after we got to the other side of the street and I turned my attention back straight ahead I understood what he was really on about. Through the dusty haze, and so close it must have snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking, was the jagged edge of the largest of the pyramids - the Great Pyramid of Khufu.
There are those iconic man-made landmarks which you can look at briefly then tick them off the list, satisfied that you’ve now been there and done that.
The chaos of the present day runs right up to the very front entrance of the ancient site, where we walked through airport style security and beside us all passing vehicles were checked over by tourist police, presumably for explosives, before we walked back over 4,500 years to the base blocks of the Great Pyramid.
Perhaps the most impressive of the three main pyramids (and until now I had no idea there were also some baby sized Queens Pyramids built around there too) is the Pyramid of Khafre. Although it was the second one to be built and is fractionally smaller than the Great Pyramid, it looks taller and still has some of the smooth outer layer of limestone intact at its very pinnacle.
But the one that has coped the worst with the ravages of time is the Pyramid of Menkaure. That has nothing to do with its shoddy construction and all to do with some bright spark trying to renovate it nearly 1,000 years ago, who then gave up after having caused a bit of a cave-in on one side. It was at the base of this very side of the smallest of the trio that we had the opportunity to go inside. I thought it might be a chance to get out of the blazing sun for a while, but it became apparent pretty quickly while hunched over descending down the tight passage that it was actually getting hotter the deeper we went. Once at the bottom I was a little disappointed that the walls of the chambers were plain and not covered in any hieroglyphics, but there was plenty of that to see in coming days, and what I will remember most of the interior of the pyramid was the stifling temperature. Granted, the body heat of the number of tourists crammed into the small rooms did nothing to make the temperature drop, but this wasn’t even the height of summer. If I was a pharaoh I’d prefer a final resting place that felt a little less proximate to the fiery furnaces of Hell. Maybe somewhere closer to a moon. And as soon as I stooped forward for the cramped ascent back to the surface I got a snapshot of my wish - I spent the whole climb with the bum of a middle-aged woman right in my face.
The final feature we saw up close was the Sphinx - the feline sentry looking towards Giza and guarding the Pyramids, comfortably sitting on all fours but ready to pounce if necessary. Although of course it hasn’t been able to sniff out any marauders for a number of centuries since its rather unscheduled nose job.
Lunch was spent on a restaurant terrace surveying the whole admirable scene, and thereafter we experienced the most memorable of our Cairo traffic adventures. The first came when Kev negotiated the price for a Kombi to take us back to the Happyton downtown. Including the driver there were twelve of us in the van so there wasn’t much space to move around and, like all other Kombis on the road, it had the back flap open to try and stop the engine from over-heating. Despite the noise and frenetic activity going on around us, we were being lulled to sleep by the fumes pouring inside in cabin. I had visions of where my own final resting place would be, in an oppressive sauna looking up at a constant full moon, but thankfully we arrived at the hotel before my two ton eyelids closed forever.
In the whole time we were in Egypt we never saw a collision (discounting seeing parked cars bumped into each other at odd angles), although we did see countless close shaves avoided by mere millimetres. It’s as if each of the millions of Cairo drivers have been through the Holden Precision Driving Team. And then there those bystanders that liked to add a random increase in the degree of difficulty - like fearless young boys getting around for free by standing on the rear bumpers of mini-vans, holding on only by the ladder hanging off the back window. Or, my personal favourite, the guy in a wheelchair plodding along the broken painted line of a main road in the midst of five lanes of traffic all heading in his direction.
And so this leads to the second incident of the afternoon, and it came not too long after the first when we got a few taxis from the hotel to the Islamic Quarter. Kev, Hoges, Paul and I had got the last one for our unpredictable roller coaster ride through the streets. It was nearing dusk so the normal feverish level of activity was cranked a notch higher, with people in a rush to get places to break their fast. After turning right at a packed intersection we came face to face with a mini-bus pulling away from the curb. It stopped just before shunting into the side of our cab, allowing just enough room for two men on a red scooter to whizz through the gap. A split-second either way and the men on the scooter would have smashed into the driver’s seat of the bus, or been crushed between the bus and us. Paul had fortuitously managed to capture the incident on video on his digital camera, so while we were all chuckling away the taxi driver straight away turned around to the back seat, asked for Paul’s camera and then watched a few replays of the near miss while continuing to drive.
Once we were all safely out of the cabs and reassembled, Kev led the way on a walking tour through the alleys of the Islamic Quarter. The pace of life remained no less manic - the time to end the day’s fasting was almost at hand. Every stall selling food became hubs for noisy mobs of people, with each person clamouring to collect bread or vegetables as fast as they could be attained. This unrest went on until the sun had set, the mosques blared the call to prayer and then everything was eerily silent. By this time we were in a section of largely cloth sellers, and quick glances inside each shop revealed a circle of people sitting on the floor silently ploughing into their dinner with much vigour.
After returning to the hotel it seemed like a good idea for us to get some dinner too. And just for once Paul, Hoges and I thought we’d give Gad a break and try somewhere else, settling on a basic looking restaurant run by a couple of old men. Tourists were clearly not the regular clientele and we had some difficulty ordering. We were helped out by another customer sitting at the next table who then introduced himself to us and we got talking. Before long we were soon tucking into bread rolls stuffed with meat and accompanied by extremely spicy pickled vegetables. Although not quite as good as Gad it was still very tasty, and on paying his bill and getting up to go our new friend bade us goodbye, told us that he had paid our bill too, and then was gone out the door before we even had a chance to protest or thank him.
It was then time to bid a temporary farewell to Cairo, but even leaving was an adventure. We headed to Ramses II station and boarded our overnight train to Aswan. With people allowed on the train to say their farewells to the departing passengers, our second class carriage seemed to contain about five times as many people as it could seat, and made finding our places and storing our luggage incredibly difficult. But with the conductor’s whistle blowing all the extras made it off, and as the train pulled out from the platform we were treated to some energetic singing and clapping from a massive group of wedding guests sitting on the ground of the platform, giving the bride and groom on the train alongside a rousing send-off.
