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Published: November 22nd 2009
Our Place in London
Actually the second set of windows at the top where we camped for a month.There is no question that what attracts people to Egypt at the moment tends to be the past. So far we haven't seen a great deal of the really old stuff - that is scheduled to happen in the next couple of weeks - but it is still impossible not to feel that the past is important here. It doesn't begin and end with the pyramids though. There are echoes of the past in a lot of areas.
The first time we went to Indonesia - to Bali of course - we couldn't move without someone smiling and saying hello. Often followed up pretty quickly with 'You want to buy?'. Cairo is a little like that but, so far, a lot nicer. Walking around the streets - and we have been doing a fair bit of that - we are constantly being bid 'Welcome to Cairo'. No follow up in most cases. Just a welcome and a smile when we respond, as, of course, you do. It is not just the touts and the urgers who do it either. A businessman sitting in a coffee house, people walking to work, street beggars, children, more mature blokes in full traditional gear
El Tahrir /Sadat Square
First day in Cairo a few hundred meters from our hotel a square that is the beginning of Downtown and ladies with just their eyes exposed. Even a soldier - one of several hundred who lined the streets through Downtown to ensure that the President had a trouble free run - risking the wrath of his officer who was a few paces away. Sometimes you get a 'hello' but 'welcome' is much more common. Nicer too I think.
I remember a time a good number of years ago in Kuala Lumpur standing on a pedestrian walkway high above Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman and finding it difficult to cut through the smog to see any distance up the rest of the street. KL has made pretty good progress in cleaning up its smog over the years. Cairo still has a way to go. It seems to be as bad as anywhere in India and worse than most. There are a lot of cars here. Very few motorbikes and not a lot of trucks get into the middle of the city, which is a bonus. The cars are often old. I suspect that it is expensive to buy and keep a car here and there are a lot of old vehicles. You see Volkswagons, Renault 12s and ancient Fiats everwhere.
Old and New
There are a lot of buildings like those on the right but increasing numbers of those on the right. And they all blow smoke.
The occasional apartment owner who cleans and paints the outside of their property tends to stick out like the proverbial. Most buildings pretty quickly gather the grey/brown coating that becomes the uniform in the areas we have walked through to date. That said, I have to say that we expected worse. The street cleaning program is pretty successful at keeping the streets around Garden City, Downtown and along the Nile up to the area of the Old Cairo and the Coptic places, and there is remarkably little litter and rubbish around. It gets a lot messier when you move off the main streets and into the more residential areas.
We have been in Europe, the UK (which may or may not be part of Europe depending on who you listen to) and Australia for some months now so perhaps have become used to traffic that follows very specific rules. That has its downsides of course when you aren't completely sure of the rules or the unwritten protocols. In Cairo we can forget a lot of that and get the skills we developed in Vietnam and India moving again. The traffic is not nearly
Nile in the Morning
This is a channel between the bank and an island. as chaotic here as it is in either of those countries but let's just say it is in the zone. It is actually just a little more comfortable I think than the UK, Europe and Australia. Some times it is a little difficult to remember where cars may be coming from and such. Here, well it really doesn't matter much. Everyone is likely to do anything so, naturally, they also expect us to do strange things. Luckily, we have become noticeable again.
We, Pat and I, arrived on a flight from London on 16 November at about 11.30 pm. That is when the flight arrived. They couldn't open the door to the hold of the plane for over 2 and a half hours so we didn't make it to our pub until well after 3.00 am. Janet arrived on a plane from Australia and KL at about 7.00 am. We slept for a while.
Janet is my little sister. She is joining us for this run through Africa. She has a much nicer camera than ours and I am sure will deliver much better photos than the ones we take. Some of her photos will appear on these
posts. Just don't get too used to the quality. She seems to be pretty determined that she will go back after Africa. Has some strange idea about returning to work and there is also something about someones' baby being about to arrive by then.
We have been staying in the Hotel Juliana in Garden City close to Downtown Cairo. It is in the banking district so is reasonably quiet at night. Gets more lively during the day with cars blowing horns and double parked cars and people about. It took a couple of days to convince them that we actually wanted two separate rooms but we are all now nicely accommodated. Breakfasts are included. It is a bit sparse after what we have been used to but gives us fuel for the day.
And we do need fuel. We have been walking an average of 16 km a day every day. Pat has a little pedometer that she simply refused to believe after the first day. We couldn't have gone that far. Ridiculous. So the E'Trex was fired into action for all following days and, yes, we have travelled at least that far.
Our pub is reasonably
close to the Nile. We walked up along this for about 5 km to the Australian Embassy one day to sort out a letter of introduction that we need to obtain a visa for Sudan. They kept checking that we had read the travel advisory that basically tells you that are an idiot to venture anywhere near the country. But this is the same travel advisory that tells you to take care of your personal security in New Zealand.
Next day it was off to the shops, obviously. The shops in question are the Khan El Khalili which are a big tourist oriented market about 3.5 kms from where we live. It does not appear to be common for tourists to walk such distances but it was easy enough, apart from a number of wrong turnings. The maps we had were pretty hopeless, so a lot of guesswork was involved. We found some larger local type markets that seemed to be in the vicinity of Khan El Khalili and then found the textile area. Spotted what looked like a market entrance across a major road, headed over and walked in. Lots of tourists about so this must be it.
Felucca
For tourists They are not into signs in English or roman script here. Walked along a couple of hundred metres and hung a left down an interesting street. And gradually became completely lost.
We emerged eventually after walking through areas that plainly were not markets on to a main road and had another go at finding the real thing. Eventually we gave up, resolving to have another go another day. My daypack was still full of goodies but we hadn't really hit the market.
Next day another walk to check out the Coptic area. Again this is a nice walk along the Nile for most of the way. The Coptic Churches and associated area are next to a massive mosque - obviously built sometime after the Coptic Christians were here. There has clearly been a little neighbourly rivalry at various times. We visited the church were the holy family are said to have camped on their way out of Egypt, the Coptic Museum and the Hanging Church. Also wandered through a cemetery. Cost us EGP 20 in baksheesh to do so although I had no idea whether we needed to pay or not. The Tourist Policeman was careful not to
have the money flashed around but just as sure that he wanted it.
We found the Khan El Kalili next day. After walking through many, many streets of local markets mostly selling clothes, being pushed, pulled and trodden on in the general scramble, we were directed by two very nice ladies to precisely the place we had been on our first foray. This time though we studiously ignored the street on the left that had been our downfall the first time and into the market proper we did go. Not quite as organised as the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul but not too far away from that. There are plenty of shops and plenty of tourists. As is always the case, you needed to bargain to get anything for a reasonable price but we were able to buy a few things that we were keen on at what we considered good prices.
Our best buy was from a shop a little off the beaten path. Not at all cheap but excellent quality applique designs. We ended up with three. They will be on their way back to Australia as soon as we work out how to deal with the
postal system here.
We have left the big tourist icons - the pyramids, Sphinx, Luxor, Aswan, the boat trip on the Nile, the White Desert - to deal with on the tour we join tomorrow. This is a tour operated by Dragoman/Intrepid and basically takes us down through the East of Africa, mostly in a large truck. We will be on the road until late March 2010 and, along the way will go through Sudan, Ehtiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. We seem to spend about half of the time in camps and have with us our kit of sleeping mats, bags, mozzie net and ground sheet.
We have become used to looking after ourselves on our last few trips but we have been a part of a tour a couple of times before. This one should be interesting. It is basically a few tours all joined together so there will be new people joining as we go along. At least we wont have to spend too much time hunting up accommodation and transport.
It likely that there will not be as good internet access over the next few months so my posts
Needed a Decent Feed
and topped it off with a massive banana split. Has walked a long way since she has got here may not be so regular but, be patient, I will still put posts up on our travels when I can.
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adamasao
non-member comment
nice work.
the representations are becoming more and more stylised. The inclusion withe the ganja leaf is great - he used to summarily execute blokes that got into that when he was el comandante! If we don't talk again for a bit, have a great christmas, see you in Mexico!