I arrived in Cairo 17 hours ago, after 15 hours of travelling. I taxied to a hostel off of Talat Harb Street called the Regent House Hotel. It is not a hotel. I had about 500 australian dollars still on me from a few months back, and i gave most of it to Atef El-Fayumi, the owner of the hostel so he can keep me busy for the next days touring around the city, out to Giza and the pyramids, dinner on a party boat on the Nile with belly dancers, some time at museums and the like. Then I realized, that's not what i like to do, I do not like touristy crap, and much prefer making my own mistakes and having my own adventures.
Atef El-Fayumi wasn't pleased when I took most of my money back from him, I am still going to sleep out in the desert one night and i need a ride, so i let him keep some of it. I asked his driver Ali if he would drive me around cairo for a while, and i gave him some money to do just that.
There are over 30 million people in this city, but, the city looks abandoned from every angle. Mile after mile of apartment buildings, endless brick and concrete slums with rebar protruding from every wall. Empty glassless windows and broken clay balconies, all still littered with peoples washing, because every building, though dead and decaying, is full with people you can't see. They are all on the streets and in the markets, and selling car parts, grilled corn, sugar cane juice, and plastic bags and combs at every street corner and the middle of every road. Hookah bars that pour into the street, donkeys, horses and bare footed children running across highways. It is full of something. Some call it life.
Ali was driving me toward Giza and the pyramids, so I could see them at sunset, but instead we pulled into a side street that had an essence store on it, called Golden Essence. There were thousands of blown glass bottles and jars for storing perfumes, and spiced body oils, and aftershave scents; even a spiced body oil made of animal blood called Red Dusk, which feels and smells like sweet heat. I was offered tea and was asked to smell over twenty different fragrances. It is custom that no matter where you arrive, the Egyptian welcome is an offering of drink and to be told to "be at home." I like that, not feel at home, but be at home.
I enjoyed my time in the essence shop and then wlked further down the dirt road into a papyrus store, where they show you how the older civilizations would make paper, using the ancient techniques. It was a sight. I learned of paintings that depicted the egyptian calendar through people in pairs and holding their arms in unison, and i saw paintings of men being tried in the face of their gods, weighing their heart against a feather to see if they enter paradise or hell. The boy who told me these things was passionate and honest.
Ali then drove me closer to the pyramids but we stopped at a friend of his house instead so they could pray. I was offered tea and stood on the empty, broken brick and clay rooftop drinking tea, watching the men on the dirt alley below pray together, the younger boys training horses and walking them to the stalls that comprised the bottom floor of the house, as the sun set on the egyptian land. Between my view of the pyramids and my roof top perch was a game of soccer being played under dim lights on an all dirt field, enclosed by walls of bricks and mortar. Some of the men had shoes and socks, some just bare foot, but all involved.
It was a pleasant was to say hello to Cairo, as if we were old friends embracing after a long time away.
And back through the lively city that is empty from every angle of every busted building we drove. The sky was dark, but the streets were even more full of people than earlier. We had to abandon the car because the streets were undrivable. It was a friday night on Talat Harb street during the summer. It's not a time for driving. I left Ali at the hostel and walked alone amongst thousands of people for about two hours. Every one of those people knew I wasn't from that street. Every one of those people knew I was not of their religion or culture. Every one of those people knew I was in the wrong place. And every one of those people made me feel welcomed to their lives.
But it is bloody hot here.
