On the Road to Cairo | Heather says | ENTERTAINMENT
On the Road to Cairo
November/23/07 01:43 PM Filed in: Heather
says
We arrived at Cairo International airport to a
huge stagnant mass of people, who along with the
building were disheveled and chaotic. I tightly
clutched my 2 1/2 -year-old son’s hand; one slip
and he would have been engulfed by the crowd.
“Hello! Hello Madame, change dollars here, you need Egyptian money,” men yelled from their currency converting booths. “How did he know I had dollars? Gosh, do I really look that American?” I thought. I chose a vendor that remained somber, checked his rates and exchanged a few US dollars for a stack full of Egyptian Pounds.
Managing to siphon through the crowd, we piled into a taxi and headed into the city of 20 million. Suddenly we swung hard around a corner and the taxi door flung open…“whoosh-slam”. I just managed to grab my son’s shirtsleeve before he went tumbling through the door and onto the dusty pavement.
Looking into the rearview mirror, my eyes caught the taxi driver’s peering back at me as if to say, “hey you’re in Egypt.” I think he felt embarrassed. But I too felt embarrassment, I should have been watching my child more closely. Funny, I held on tightly in the presence of a crowd of people, but when in a vehicle I lay down my guard. I guess I truly am American, I feel at home in a car. I suppose here the car is just for getting from one place to another; a place that is too far away to walk and that doesn’t include the Target four stores away from the Border’s.
When we arrived at our hotel it reveled a quaint and proper space, having been a former British hangout in the days of English colonization. It felt as if we were no longer in the modern world. Time had stopped in the US and only this parallel existed. I felt sorry for my friends and family who were not in this dimension experiencing all that I was.
The streets of Cairo are sexy. Neon lights flash, men sit in plastic lawn chairs smoking sweet tobacco glaring at me through mystifying eyes, woman hustled down the streets heads covered in Muslim scarves, children scurrying behind.
The next morning our guide arrived to take us out into the great Sahara desert. I’m not a passive traveler, so he would just be our guide and we would follow along in our own four-wheel-drive vehicles. What fun would driving around the desert be without actually driving?
As we headed out of the city, the Pyramids of Giza came into view and dominated the landscape for some miles. It seemed as if we were driving in concentric circles around the great masses of limestone.
Before long we were far from Cairo and her environs. The Nile River followed along beside us for many hours until finally it gave way to the azure Mediterranean Sea. By nightfall we had cut back south into the desert and arrived at our destination, Siwa oasis.
My body was hot and dusty from the day of travel and as I turned on the shower in our dirt-floored room, I realized it was going to be a cold one. Cleaned and chilled we wandered the village, until we spied a local Bedouin place with a huge bonfire beneath a grand tent. The men danced around the fire with crèche’s tied around their waists. They swayed and swooshed their hips from side-to-side emulating that of a sensual female. They were so passionate, so connected to the drumming.
I tore myself away from the magic knowing I needed sleep. It was freezing that evening, but I pulled my camel hair blanket over top of myself and fell blissfully asleep.
“Cock-a-Allah-Doodle-Akbar!” I was awoken to a cacophony of roosters doodling with the imam reciting his prayer from the nearby mosque. The air that morning was fresh except for the smell of fire’s lingering from the cold night before. I was smitten.
In the cretaceous era, some 100 million years ago, the Sahara desert was a vast shallow sea, separating two super continents. Now the desert is a museum, a tangible link between pre-history and myself. Shells, corals, sea grasses, and even whale bone-fossils litter the sandy bottom of the extinct ocean. I felt so insignificant.
We drove away from the oasis and left all civilization in our dust. There are no rules in the desert, it’s freedom. I could take my clothes off, run naked, run wild, be an organic being with nature, who would care? Not I.
Staring at the stars that night I finally realized why it’s called the Milky Way. And I wondered if that Airplane flying 35,000 feet above us could see our tiny fire burning in the vastness of the desert. One contemplates! We ate dinner in a tomb that evening, a tomb missing its mummy.
“Hello! Hello Madame, change dollars here, you need Egyptian money,” men yelled from their currency converting booths. “How did he know I had dollars? Gosh, do I really look that American?” I thought. I chose a vendor that remained somber, checked his rates and exchanged a few US dollars for a stack full of Egyptian Pounds.
Managing to siphon through the crowd, we piled into a taxi and headed into the city of 20 million. Suddenly we swung hard around a corner and the taxi door flung open…“whoosh-slam”. I just managed to grab my son’s shirtsleeve before he went tumbling through the door and onto the dusty pavement.
Looking into the rearview mirror, my eyes caught the taxi driver’s peering back at me as if to say, “hey you’re in Egypt.” I think he felt embarrassed. But I too felt embarrassment, I should have been watching my child more closely. Funny, I held on tightly in the presence of a crowd of people, but when in a vehicle I lay down my guard. I guess I truly am American, I feel at home in a car. I suppose here the car is just for getting from one place to another; a place that is too far away to walk and that doesn’t include the Target four stores away from the Border’s.
When we arrived at our hotel it reveled a quaint and proper space, having been a former British hangout in the days of English colonization. It felt as if we were no longer in the modern world. Time had stopped in the US and only this parallel existed. I felt sorry for my friends and family who were not in this dimension experiencing all that I was.
The streets of Cairo are sexy. Neon lights flash, men sit in plastic lawn chairs smoking sweet tobacco glaring at me through mystifying eyes, woman hustled down the streets heads covered in Muslim scarves, children scurrying behind.
The next morning our guide arrived to take us out into the great Sahara desert. I’m not a passive traveler, so he would just be our guide and we would follow along in our own four-wheel-drive vehicles. What fun would driving around the desert be without actually driving?
As we headed out of the city, the Pyramids of Giza came into view and dominated the landscape for some miles. It seemed as if we were driving in concentric circles around the great masses of limestone.
Before long we were far from Cairo and her environs. The Nile River followed along beside us for many hours until finally it gave way to the azure Mediterranean Sea. By nightfall we had cut back south into the desert and arrived at our destination, Siwa oasis.
My body was hot and dusty from the day of travel and as I turned on the shower in our dirt-floored room, I realized it was going to be a cold one. Cleaned and chilled we wandered the village, until we spied a local Bedouin place with a huge bonfire beneath a grand tent. The men danced around the fire with crèche’s tied around their waists. They swayed and swooshed their hips from side-to-side emulating that of a sensual female. They were so passionate, so connected to the drumming.
I tore myself away from the magic knowing I needed sleep. It was freezing that evening, but I pulled my camel hair blanket over top of myself and fell blissfully asleep.
“Cock-a-Allah-Doodle-Akbar!” I was awoken to a cacophony of roosters doodling with the imam reciting his prayer from the nearby mosque. The air that morning was fresh except for the smell of fire’s lingering from the cold night before. I was smitten.
In the cretaceous era, some 100 million years ago, the Sahara desert was a vast shallow sea, separating two super continents. Now the desert is a museum, a tangible link between pre-history and myself. Shells, corals, sea grasses, and even whale bone-fossils litter the sandy bottom of the extinct ocean. I felt so insignificant.
We drove away from the oasis and left all civilization in our dust. There are no rules in the desert, it’s freedom. I could take my clothes off, run naked, run wild, be an organic being with nature, who would care? Not I.
Staring at the stars that night I finally realized why it’s called the Milky Way. And I wondered if that Airplane flying 35,000 feet above us could see our tiny fire burning in the vastness of the desert. One contemplates! We ate dinner in a tomb that evening, a tomb missing its mummy.
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