I’m told it’s forty-three degrees down there. We’re flying into a heatwave. I rest my forehead against the Perspex window of the cabin and marvel at the gold and silver sparkles—street lights—spilled out like glitter over the black velvet ground below. A childlike excitement tangles its way through my stomach, surfacing as a broad and self-conscious grin across my face. So, this is the aerial view of the approach to the city at night. Today is my thirty-second birthday. I’ve arrived.
There are over twenty-one million people crammed in down there. That’s more than twice the population of Greece or Portugal or Sweden. In one city! Some of its older quarters claim more than 300,000 people per square mile. That’s quite a … thing.
It’s late and my mind is gently free-falling its way towards sleep when the captain’s voice drags me back into the now. “As you can probably hear,” he says, “we are currently experiencing some technical issues regarding the plane’s undercarriage.” I hadn’t noticed. Until now. “It’s nothing to worry about,” he continues, “but as a precaution we won’t be landing at Cairo International this evening. Instead, we’re going to head to a military base just a few miles further along. This is simply because the base has a longer runway—should we need it.” Turns out I’m not feeling sleepy after all.
My ears now have no choice but to home in on the sounds of straining cogs and belts coming from somewhere beneath my seat. It doesn’t take long to work out what these noises are about—the plane’s landing wheels are jammed inside the fuselage. I listen to each cycle of whirring, and the dull mechanical clunks of defeat that follow. I’m not convinced that a longer runway is going to help.
Looking back out of the window, I consider the questionable irony of dying on my birthday. At least it’ll be exotic. North Africa. Egypt. I feel I ought to be more alarmed by this idea than I am. But I’m not. If this is it, let’s do it big. I imagine my inevitable death signed off with an extravagant flourish of action shots and aviation fuel. I wonder if it’ll make the broadsheets back home. I may even get my name in The Guardian. Against the window, my index finger traces a line of gold and silver in the distance, probably the street lights illuminating the road linking the military base back to the city. Beyond the lights, it’s mainly desert.
Moments later, there is a loud clunk from beneath my seat as the wheels release. The captain is quick to return to the loudspeaker: “I think you all heard the good news just then,” he announces. “Our wheels are now set for landing. The bad news, however, is that the braking system has been damaged.”
Plan B (or is it C?) is to land the plane using only reverse thrust. This, he tells us, will slow our advance and help stop the plane, once down. “We will be experiencing quite a lot of noise and vibration within the cabin,” he warns, “but this is quite normal. Please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened.” I look around. Nobody seems set on going for a walk right now.
Within seconds, the aircraft is banking noticeably to the right as the pilot positions us for landing. An accelerated drop in altitude follows, with the promised reverse thrust sending everything from seats to windows to my earlobes into vibration overdrive. A voice from my childhood runs through my head: “She cannae take much more of this, Captain.” I discreetly hold on to my ears.
We touch down with a series of interspersed bounces, wings configured to create as much drag as possible. The whole fuselage shudders wildly as it interacts with the tarmac, leaving us wondering how the thing is managing to remain in one piece. I have no idea how much runway we’ve already used, or how much we have left, but this is quite exciting. And scary. And exciting again.
Finally, the plane is brought to a slow meander, and then a full stop.
The welcome silence that follows is eventually broken by a Glaswegian man sitting across the aisle from me. “In reality,” he says, leaning over and lowering his voice into a conspiratorial drawl, “this military base will have been chosen to ensure that, had we crashed or burst into flames on landing, we wouldn’t be a danger to users of the main airport. Also, of course, bursting into flames at a military base is easier to keep out of the media.” He sniggers quietly, as though sharing a joke.
“I, um, I guess so,” I say.
“Likewise,” (it seems he hasn’t finished!) “the request for us to stay fastened into our seats isn’t really about safety. It’s about our seats being numbered against our names. It helps the authorities identify our charred remains.”
I look over at him. “We haven’t been introduced,” I say. “I’m the guy who would like you to shut up right now.”
Once outside, the heat is tangible and heavily infused with a strong scent of jasmine. This is the first thing I notice as I walk out of the airport building and head for my taxi. I stop for a second to breathe it in. Does all of Egypt smell so good?
Mustafa, my driver, tells me that even the locals are struggling at the moment with the heatwave. As we approach the outskirts of the city, I notice that much of the grassy areas that line the streets are filled with young families and groups of friends, mostly sitting and chatting. I look at my watch. It’s 12.37 a.m.
“Most of these people don’t have aircon,” Mustafa tells me. “It’s cooler for them to be outdoors right now than to stay in their apartments.”
I congratulate him on his wise choice of career. His car comes with its own aircon.
“We Egyptians do what we can,” he says, smiling.
If you haven’t experienced a cab ride across Cairo, it’s questionable whether you’ve really experienced Cairo at all.
Even at this time of night, the city is crammed with traffic. I quickly learn that traffic laws here are no more than suggestions—suggestions probably written down, probably filed somewhere, and then forgotten. Somebody, at some point, has even gone to the bother of painting road markings, but these are also ignored. There are vehicles merging towards us, behind us, and in front of us, so closely that I can almost make out the labels on the drivers’ clothing. Those not merging are simply cutting us up.
It would be very easy to conclude that nobody here has the first idea of how to drive, but then it strikes me that despite the apparent chaos, the traffic keeps moving. My own driving skills, conversely, would be worthless here. I don’t have the 360-degree periphery vision necessary to stay aware of what everyone else is doing, for a start. Nobody stays in lane, there is little indicating, and, for half-past midnight, only some of these cars have their lights on.
It eventually occurs to me that the dominant sense needed to drive here isn’t vision at all; it’s all done through sound. All driver communication takes place via the horn. In fact, a whole horn-based language seems to have evolved over time, a sort of Morse code through which pretty much anything can be quickly communicated: a short beep for ‘I’m coming into your lane’, two beeps for ‘I’m about to cut you up’, a longer blast for ‘I’m sleeping with your wife’ …
As a visitor, I would advise you that driving in Cairo should remain a spectator sport. And it is a sport. With a specific skillset. In a cab, the likelihood that you will actually arrive at your destination is statistically high, but the question one is left with is how. If you have an hour or two free while staying here, I strongly recommend that you hire a taxi, agree a set fee with the driver, and have him drive you around the city until the money runs out. It’s a fascinating, wonderfully chaotic place. I’ve never used the word beautiful to describe such a smoggy, dusty, congested concrete sprawl before, but Cairo really is a spectacular entity. Granted, its sky is merely a rumour—it’s probably up there somewhere but I doubt anybody has seen it through the smog for at least a generation or two. The World Health Authority’s Ambient Air Quality Database will tell you that Cairo’s air pollution is ten times the level considered safe. I have no reason to disbelieve this claim.
* * * * * * * *
Having arrived at and checked into my hotel, I make my way to my room. It’s a very basic but clean setup, cheap for this part of town, and still within walking distance of the Nile. My room on the third floor is tiny but adequate. For such a late hour, however, I am a little put out by one important element that appears to be missing. I ring down to reception and ask if it is possible for someone to bring me up some bedding as a matter of urgency.
A short man with a pencil moustache and dark, thinning hair knocks on my door and presents me with my requested items. It’s at this point I’m forced to have my first language lesson, rudimentary though it is. Baksheesh has its origins in old Persian but has since been adopted across the whole of this part of the world for use whenever a tip is required. All of Egypt runs on tips. My bedclothes provider loiters just long enough for me to get the hint. I rummage through my wallet and pick out the smallest note I can find. “Shukran,” I say. (I’ve picked up the Arabic for ‘thank you’ from a travel magazine I read on the flight.) He folds the note into his pocket and quickly dismisses himself with a slight bow and a nod. I lock the door behind him and start getting ready for bed.
Moments later, there is another knock at the door. Outside, a small queue of hotel staff is forming, each member holding a single, selected item of hotel property. The young girl at the head of the queue tries to present me with a pillowcase. “I have one,” I explain in a language she doesn’t understand. She continues to hold it out for me. The second person presents a towel, the third, an individually wrapped toilet roll. I’ve suddenly found myself caught up in some kind of cut-price nativity satire. This is awkward.
After too long a pause, I panic. “No! Shukran!” I blurt out, and abruptly close the door on them. I take a moment to cringe at my unintentional but nevertheless unforgivable rudeness. Tomorrow, I will learn that despite handing the first guy my smallest note, it was still the equivalent to almost a month’s salary for him. He had clearly gone back downstairs and told his colleagues that there is an idiot on the third floor handing out cash like it’s money. Seldom have I been so liked by so many in the hope of so much. Tomorrow, I shall break down my Egyptian pounds into as small denominations as possible and start a baksheesh pocket.
After breakfast, my guide meets me in the hotel lobby. I’d arranged for someone to introduce me to the pyramids this morning, followed by a tour of the Egyptian museum.
“Good morning,” I say, recognising him by the fact that he is the only person in the room holding a card with my name on it. “Zahur?”
“Ah, you recognised me?” he says with a smile. He holds out his hand to shake mine.
“I kinda recognised myself, actually,” I say, nodding towards the card and smiling back at him.
“Oh. Yes.” He turns it over in his hand and folds it in half. “And this is Bahman.” He gestures to the man at his side. “He will be our security detail today.”
“Security?”
“It is a precaution in Cairo.”
I turn to Bahman. “Good to meet you.” We shake hands. I want Bahman to smile too, particularly because he’s packing a hardly concealed Glock 22 pistol. But all I get is a vague, very professional nod. It’ll have to do for now.
“Bahman means well-spirited,” says Zahur. “His name, I mean.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I say, “being he’s the one with the gun.”
It turns out that Egypt’s tourist industry is currently working at only 15% capacity. It also turns out that I appear to be the only person on the planet not to be aware of this fact, or, more importantly, the reason behind it. I’m about to find out that I’ve chosen to tour Egypt at precisely the same time as groups of Islamic militants are also touring it. Their objective, unlike mine, is to bring down the economy by indiscriminately killing as many foreign tourists as possible. This is definitely inconvenient. It is also the reason why I’ve been given my very own Bahman.
Zahur tells me that, recently, around sixty tourists were gunned down outside Queen Hatshepsut’s temple in Luxor—exactly the spot where I’ll be standing in a few days’ time. He also tells me that I shouldn’t worry about this but that I should perhaps keep a modest profile where possible. I think I’ve chosen a bad time to go blond.
Across town, at the pyramids, I’m surprised and a little disappointed to find a McDonald’s within close view. That’s not something they mentioned in The Mummy.
Bahman seems a little uncomfortable when a flurry of local Egyptians begins to take an interest in my white-blond spikey hair and blacked-out Ray-Bans combo and gather around to have their photo taken with me. It seems they think I must be some kind of western celebrity. The group that has gathered draws the attention of other passers-by who, in turn, join the group. Bahman is unsure what to do. I, on the other hand, don’t want to let my impromptu audience down and end up posing for photos and signing postcards and T-shirts for them. “Turn around,” I say, gesturing to a father and three daughters, “we can get the Sphinx in the background from this angle. Here, hold the camera…”
Bahman doesn’t seem as well-spirited as Zahur alleged he was, earlier. Cutting through the crowd, he ushers me back into the car and we head for lunch. He doesn’t want to talk with me at the moment and ignores me when I ask if I can hold his gun.
One of the positives of travelling during a tourist drought is that I’m offered all kinds of upgrades. The downside is that I’m being constantly mobbed on the streets for baksheesh and/or invitations to ‘Come see my uncle’s shop, it is very nice’. It takes a while for me to work out where the line sits between being passive-assertive and being rude when it comes to declining these invitations. Having a man with a gun at my side certainly helps, however.
At 7.15 p.m., Zahur and Bahman eventually set me down in Ramsis Square, outside the train station entrance. Tonight’s hotel has wheels, and will take my sleeping body the full 632 kilometres south to Aswan, in upper—yet paradoxically southern—Egypt. Zahur discreetly negotiates an upgrade for me and I’m rushed aboard as the train sets off.
This will be a thirteen-hour trip. It’s already dark as the train pulls out. The next time I’ll see daylight, I will be in a very different environment altogether.
I make my way to my cabin. This is certainly the cheapest first-class (actually, the only first-class) travel I have ever experienced. My walnut-lined quarters with their pull-down bed and elegant curtains even come with their own writing desk. I sit in the chair provided and, for a moment, pretend I’m in an Agatha Christie novel. I wonder whether the murder has already taken place onboard. And whether the murderer is me.
Over the weeks that follow, no two days are the same. My job is to breathe in as much of this country as possible. My already cherry-brown skin is growing darker by the day, contrasting more and more heavily against the white-blond of my Billy Idol haircut which, in turn, is doing all it can to scream out, ‘Hey! Over here! Tourist this way!’ to any Islamic militant who might not be on his day off. (I’ve recently taken to wearing a headscarf.)
I want to witness the good and the bad of this place; the pretty and the ugly. As time goes by, it becomes increasingly important to me to feel like a traveller and not merely a tourist. As time does go by, this is exactly how I begin to feel.
Beyond the many taxis and buses and backs of trucks that carry me along with the locals from one town to the next, I indulge in horse-drawn kalesh rides along fading corniches, camel rides into the Sahara, and illicit, bribe-infused fishing boat trips under cover of darkness, before curfew is lifted, and under the radar of local police, so that I can meet a contact who’d agreed to take me by donkey into the mountains above Queen Hatshepsut’s temple, to watch the sun rise over the Valley of the Kings.
It’s here, along the West Bank, that I first experience a handgun to my face, for refusing to give over the memories stored on my camera. It’s here, above the catacombs, that I meet a local farmer who tells me that he was recently commandeered to help remove bodies of tourists from the site of the latest mass shooting. “There were so many,” he tells me. “Sometimes, I had to stop to empty my boots of the blood from the bodies. Sometimes, it was too much.”
My arrival in Edfu, at the site of the Ptolemaic temple of Horus, is by boat—the result of a three-day lazy hitch-hike aboard an old felucca, a tall, single-sail, wooden-hull affair with no below deck other than a cramped space to store produce for market. These boats haven’t changed in over 2,000 years. With no engine, just the wind—inshallah—to send us on our way, the families that own them have to be as good at sailing as they are at farming.
By day, we tack in a criss-cross between the banks of the river. By night, we moor up wherever there is the least likelihood of bandits or mosquitoes, and sleep beneath the large flat-screen television that is the sky. I had no idea there were so many stars up there, or how much they moved around.
Breakfast onboard the felucca is the same each day. It’s the same as lunch. It’s also the same as dinner—a stew of finely diced vegetables on a thick bed of rice, handed to me on a metal plate along with a flatbread and a small glass of strongly stewed tea, itself served on its own bed of tea leaves. Occasionally, if a crew member is required to go on land to sell or buy produce at a nearby village, he might return with watermelon for the crew or ice for the cold box. It’s a rudimentary setup but I’ve grown to like it over the short time I’ve spent with these guys, and look forward to my mealtimes with them as we steal time together to sit and chat. Between the tiny cracks in our language barrier, we learn that we all have a liking for Bob Marley. Occasionally, the language barrier is sidestepped altogether as we sing “No Woman No Cry” into the warm night air.
Mornings generally start by taking turns to climb out of the boat’s hull and onto its large wooden rudder, straddling it as we wash ourselves in the Nile. This is something else I’ve come to love, along with the distant calls to prayer that echo across the early morning mists and evening sunsets.
Between meals, my days on the river mostly consist of laying back, fingers dragging along the current, thanking those bright lucky stars that I am certain to see tonight that I’m not on one of those huge tourist paddle steamers that occasionally pollute their way past us.
* * * * * * * *
Back on land, I’m up each morning before dawn, sitting on bridges or rooftops, waiting for the sun to drag itself out of the Nile or from behind whichever mountain it’s been resting that night.
I spend much of my time wandering my way through the various markets and bazaars, breathing in the spices and the street foods and the bustle of life around me. At some point along my route, I even pick up the Arabic for ‘No’, which might have come in handy a little earlier, when I met a male shopkeeper in Luxor who wanted to have sex with me.
Perhaps I should clarify this last point. In fact, let me clarify this last point. Let me take you back to the scenario. Would you have read the signs any better than I didn’t?
So, I happen to be standing outside some random shop on a dusty side street when the shopkeeper appears. He opens the conversation normally enough: “You like my shop?”
I nod politely.
“You want to buy something?”
“Perhaps,” I say. “But not right now. Maybe I’ll come back in a few days’ time and buy something then.”
He pauses as he lights his cigarette. “You like Egypt?”
“Very much. Yes.”
“You like Egyptian?”
“Um, yes.” Strange question in that I’m unlikely to say no to him, what with him being an Egyptian and everything. I smile and feel the need to qualify my response with, “I’ve met a lot of nice Egyptians since I’ve been here.”
“So, you like me?”
“Um … yes,” I say. “… You seem nice.”
He takes a step towards me and lowers his voice. “You come back tomorrow … My shop will be closed tomorrow.”
Even then, it was only after a few seconds of buffering that I realised we’d been having quite different conversations. I’m not very good with this sort of thing.
Eventually, the inevitable catches up with me, as inevitables tend to do, and I find myself back in Cairo, at the airport, pretending that I’m coming to terms with the fact I have to leave this country, to return home.
“Look, you’re not going to shoot me, I’m British,” I sigh. I look up defiantly at the six or so military personnel standing in a circle around me. “I’ve been asked to fill this crap out, so I’m filling this crap out.” I wave the piece of paper at them. “This is your chaos, not mine; I’ve already filled it out once, and my flight’s about to leave. No way am I going to re-join that queue.” I gesture towards the row of passengers standing in confusion behind me, wondering why the line has stopped moving, and who the hell the guy sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor midway between the passport control booths and the taped line on the ground that says, Do not cross until told to do so is. So, this is no-man’s-land, I think to myself.
I look back down and continue scribbling my responses to the questions on the form, hopefully for the last time, ignoring the continued commands being shouted at me from above my head.
Having completed the form, I stare up into the eyes of these teenage soldiers, ignoring the equally spaced barrels of the half-dozen AK-47s that are trained on me. I’m secretly hoping that these men-children have been sufficiently trained regarding when and when not to pull a trigger. I’m also wondering whether the safety catches on these weapons are currently on or off.
I slowly stand up, raise my form into the air, and approach the passport control booth directly in front of me. The soldiers watch but don’t follow. The man in the booth takes my passport, stares at me for a few seconds, then, without expression, waves me through.
__________________________________________________________________________
This article first appeared in the travel anthology, ‘Itchy Feet’, part of a collection of anthologies edited by Alyson Sheldrake. This book, along with the rest of the collection is currently available on Amazon.
