True to form, I hadn't even packed a pair of socks before Friday morning, the day we were due to leave. I’d been mad at work finishing up odds and ends before leaving, and anyway why do something now when it can be left until the last minute? Even though Good Friday isn’t an official Public Holiday in Ireland (odd considering how Catholic this country is) our bosses were kind and generous enough to give us the day off, so I had the morning to throw some clothes and things in my backpack for the trip. I made sure to pack a lot of books as the tour included two days on a small craft floating down the Nile, which screams “downtime” to me, something I was sorely in need of. I brought “The Master” by Colm Tóibín, Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath”, Greene “Travels with my Aunt”, a crappy looking (but don’t judge a book by its cover) love story by Vita Sackville-West, Homer’s “Odyssey”, and “The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Vol I”. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but in my defence I was already part of the way through “The Master” and the only reason Ms. Woolf was included was because Chapters bookstore from across the street rang me as I was leaving the apartment for the airport to tell me it had arrived, so I picked it up on the way out. Thank goodness for Chapters – when I went to Eason’s to look for it I asked the girl for “The Diary of Virginia Woolf” and she asked me, in all innocence, “Who’s the author?”. I nearly laughed in her face – even most people in non-English speaking countries have heard of Virginia Woolf, so someone who lives across the English Channel from her homeland ought to have an inkling no?
I met Maria at the airport, she was just finished a marathon shift and looked totally exhausted. We caught up on recent weeks over some coffee, and I wished her a happy birthday early as she’d be celebrating it while I was in Egypt. I really wish I could have made it to her party, but I think Egypt is a pretty good tradeoff! The flight to Amsterdam was uneventful (just continued with “The Master”. It’s a pretty good book by the way, though some parts are more engrossing than others. Tóibín does a good job of sexual tension – I could feel myself physically tensing at times reading those passages – and new characters are always introduced with an air of mystery which successfully intrigues you into wanting to find out more about them. But essentially it’s a portrait of a selfish, lonely, somewhat unhappy man, whom I didn’t find it at all easy to relate to, though this didn’t dull my enjoyment of the book, which is very well written, interesting, and partly true to life to boot (although which parts are truth and which are fiction are ambiguous).
On arrival at Amsterdam Schiphol we found the flight to Cairo already boarding (it would have been nice of KLM to let us know the flight time had changed) therefore initiating a mad dash to the departure gate. We needn’t have bothered as there was (yet another) security check at the gate with a nice long queue for us to wait in. At least there were one or two cuties in the line ahead of us to give us something nice to look at while we were killing time!
I was seated between a Dutch woman and an Arabic looking man, both of them nearly completely silent save for one or two choice phrases; the woman said nothing but “I need to use the bathroom” (she was in a window seat) and the man’s conversation extended to, each time in a clipped, sharp voice, “Can I have some water?” “Can I have some more bread?” and “Very Slow” (referring to the food service on the aircraft). Either he was having a bad day or he’s just naturally as sour as a lemon. Anyway I watched “Mulan” for the first time and bawled like a little girl.
After the movie my eyelids were heavy but I only got a very restless sleep until we touched down at Cairo airport at about 01:10. After some unexplained delays at passport control we had our first taste of bargaining catching the taxi to the hotel. They started at USD$19, we got them down to 10. 10 including tips and luggage charges, which we found out later was a very good price. We were going by a guidebook from 2001, so their prices may have been slightly antiquated, but we got away with it in any case! We got to the hotel about 02:30 and the hotel staff were tripping over themselves to help us out and answer all our questions, even though it was the middle of the night. I wasn’t expecting that level of service from a three star hotel, but I was soon to learn that this super-helpful attitude is a general attribute of the Egyptian people. Stand on a street corner and look lost; three or four people will rush to direct you or call you a taxi. Smile at someone and they’ll flash you a wide, toothy grin. Order a kebab and smile at the chef – he’ll give you a felafel for free. The trick is distinguishing those that are helpful out of the kindness of their hearts, and those which have a hidden agenda, usually related to separating you and your Egyptian pounds. The men also are not shy about staring, calling out to you, trying to sweet talk you or offering the men you are with “one million camels” in exchange for you. They all do it and they learn it young – one boy of about 10 or 12 blew me a kiss from the back of a camel. It’s all in good fun but you have to be careful to keep your distance, it can get quite creepy.
We were pretty wrecked by the time we’d made it to the hotel, so all we managed was the trip up to our large, comfy, air-conditioned room for a hot, refreshing shower and to tumble into bed.
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