haomajun

So, today was Monday.  Cam met me at Nasima's and we headed up to AUC to take care of various items.  He doubled checked with the registrar re that form for the loan and they had a) forgotten all about it and then later called to say that b) they lost all the information. I checked in at the travel service and it looks as though I will go to Jordan on the 6th and return on the 10th.  fly to Amman, spend the day and evening there, catch a bus to Wadi Musa and Petra, stay there 3 nights, then head back to amman to catch the return flight.  I can arrange the flight and hotels from here but will need to deal with buses and guides there.  It sounds like fun but I am a little apprehensive about coping with no Arabic; however, I am sure I will do fine. thanks for your encouragement on this.

Cam took care of a few other errands and then we headed down to Coptic Cairo. It was a beautiful, sunny, warm, clear day and we spent about 4 hours down there.  the newly re-opened Coptic Museum was spectacular.  Located in a gorgeous building with incredible mashyarbia and high ceilings paneled in intricate tessellations, it contained a lovely overview of coptic cairo from the end of the Graeco-roman period to about 100 years ago.  Wonderful embroidered and woven cloth from the 4th century (!), sculpture, frescoes, carved wood, ancient books (these were stunning), religious items, everyday objects, icons, etc. etc. One thing that caught our attention was that the intricate geometric designs seem to be have been around before the Arabs arrived.  Not to the same degree, perhaps, but certainly there, so perhaps this tradition goes back to even earlier times  We then enjoyed great views of the old roman walls (built by Diocletian), St. George Church, the hanging church, the Ben Ezra synagogue, etc.  Then we walked through a beautiful section of the old Coptic cemetary.  We went up to the Fustat area where the first Arabic mosque was built.  This is still in use. Very simple, very beautiful.  We made various detours to see lamp stores, old postcard stores, etc. but only to admire. We pretty much exhausted the area before heading back on the Metro around 5:00.  We detoured from the Metro stop to buy veggies and honey bombs and a wonderful desert called tamaria, the syrian pistachio/date/coconut/almond concoction.  This is fabulous and I really must learn how to make it.  We enjoyed a brief tea break and then set out again to the Opera Midan around 6:30 and walked for another 2 hours through the downtown streets and alleys, just enjoying the ambiance.  We passed through furniture streets, musical instrument streets, clothing streets, lighting streets, plastic hose streets, jewelry store streets, etc. etc. One of the best streets had a strange combination of birds and metal signs.  The sign shops had these weird examples of signs that one could order in arabic, english or some combination of same.  Some were incredibly funny and Cam had to be dragged away from the area.

We finally caught the Metro back and then detoured again to get a half chicken and "the best creme carmel in Cairo."  I gave Cam a hard time about this.  He clearly was on a mission as he had been talking about creme carmel since early in the day.  You know Cam!

It is tiring but a lot of fun to just walk the streets of Cairo.  There is an endless amount of variation and encounters with people.  I thought we bought more imported plastic crap than any other nation on earth but I have had to revise my opinion.

I cooked up the half chicken with some left over rice, onion, garlic, The vegetables here are so fresh and tasty.  I wish I could bring back a backpack full of them for you!  the baby eggplants are the best and the fruit is so sweet and fresh.  A kilo bag of clementines is only 2 pounds - 40 cents.

Tomorrow I think we will go back to Zamalek and Agousa and perhaps to the Khan.  We also want to go the Sa'ad Zaghoul's house, which is about a block from my house.  Sa'ad Zaghoul was a leader of the constitutional movement in 1919, national hero and all that.  The house is a huge marble thing that covers half a block and has  lovely gardens.  His mausoleum is across the street.  I don't believe anyone ever goes to either place.  The Ministry of culture guard was so happy when we asked about it.  "Oh, you can see his bed! His desk!  His bathroom!  His toothbrush!"  How can we pass this up?  But I refuse to pay more than a pound!

These, then, are the charms of Cairo - all the hidden places among the hustle and bustle and grime.  The beautiful Ottoman and French buildings that appear out of nowhere, buried between tacky  Soviet style buildings with plastic sandals and lurid pink plush bunnies with hearts on them on offer.  Round a corner, look up, and see delicate carvings and intricate stonework.  Hidden courtyards with pretty tiles, sleepy cats and courageous trees.  A newly renovated apartment house deep in the bowels of a muddy alley with an errant goat calmly munching on discarded chipsie packages out in front.  Deafening traffic weaving in and out, often with no lights on, or blue lights, or blinking lights and bleating horns; then you turn a corner and plunge into quiet alleys with old men sitting in coffee houses, pick-up soccer games and cats, always cats.  Some blocks have orange tabbies, some have gray cats, some have gray tabbies, brown tabbies, black cats. . all with a lean and hungry look.  they are curled up on cars, skulking in alleys, asleep on doorsteps and sometimes waiting for you in the lobby.  And always the spires of the minarets and the cacophony of the azan.  The minarets greet you in every neighborhood; they are the heart and soul of every area and their outlines against the soft evening sky delight the eye.

Indeed, the journey is the destination!

The weather was truly dreadful in Cairo when we left for Port Suez and Ain Shoukha. We took the metro to bus station (plus the usual amount of thrashing around) and then boarded a truly decayed bus to Suez.  For $2.25 I guess it was a bargain for a 2 1/2 hour ride, but after 2 hours of impassioned Arabic televangelism on a TV monitor mounted at the front of the bus, I wasn't so sure.  I was in the throes of coming down with a bad cold - due, no doubt, to the crummy weather - so I wasn't feeling all that hot. 
 
Ain Soukhna means "warm springs" and is down the coast from Suez.  it is actually a long strip, preceded and punctuated at various intervals by massive natural gas and oil refineries.  Lots and lots of production here, and interestingly, the Suez district is converting all the cars to natural gas/petrol hybrids.  They subsidize this program and so the conversion kit only costs about $5.00.  Plus, there is a huge windmill farm down toward Zafarana. 
 
The hotel where we had made a reservation denied all knowledge of us and, although they had rooms, they rate as higher than quoted on the phone, so our helpful driver, Ali, (we shifted to taxi at Suez) recommended another place, which turned out to be fine.  This stretch of coast is very popular with middle and upper class Egyptians and although it was deserted 20 years ago, it is now a long stretch of condos and resorts.  Many gated communities with lovely gardens and contained communities.  The place we stayed, Palmerya, was just great.  It is half-board, all-inclusive, which might give you pause, but the food was actually great.  Huge buffets, different evry day, and very good food.  Shisha bars, conference centers, lots of business men from the oil and gas industry staying there as it is one of the closer places to Suez.  Beautiful gardens and a terrific beach where you can watch the freighters queuing up to go through the canal and faint outlines of the Sinai on the other side.  This area is called the Eastern Desert and is just an eastern extention of Sinai.  Is the red sea/canal area just a big rift area?  The water was amazing clear and pretty warm, although swimming wasn't on my agenda.
 
Big plus: the rooms were heated, the sun was shining, and the temperature was about 20 degrees warmer.  Bliss. My cold was progressing nicely, thank you, but being warm made a big difference.  Even so, I sounded like I was coming down with bird flu and didn't feel much better.

On Thursday we decided we wanted to go to Rashid (Rosetta), because we had read that there were some stunning old Ottoman merchant houses there with great masharyibia (that is the wooden lattice work). We checked the guide book and it said we could catch a serveece at the bus terminal across from the train station, so we hiked up Nabi Daniel and promptly waded into a sea of buses, taxis, serveeces. Everyone knew where they were going but us. After some discussion we were told that the serveeces for Rashid DIDN'T leave from there (so much for guidebooks) and we needed to go to a different terminal. so we hopped a serveece and rode for about 15 minutes to another giant sea of vehicles. A serveece is just a mini-bus that is usually crammed to the gills - it doesn't leave, really, until it is full or close to. The fare is perhaps a 1/2 LE or maybe 1 LE depending on the distance. Anyway, after more conversations (Egyptians are so helpful!), we ended up on the serveece to Rashid. Total cost for a 64 km ride, one-way, 6 LE total. The drive over was great, passing date palm plantations, marshes with fishermen casting nets the way they probably have for about 8,000 years, green fields, donkey cart crossing signs, the Mediterranean on the left, vineyards, orchards and incredible black dirt. About 10 minutes out of Rashid the occupants began self-organizing, collecting the fares, making change, passing money to the driver, handing change back. The road was good and we roared into Rashid by 10:30 or so.

Rashid would be a nightmare if was raining. the streets are mostly unpaved and the caleches here are purely functional. Donkey carts abound. We hopped off the serveece and headed down the first interesting street, which turned out to be the fish market street (one of many, I am sure, but this is the main market). I have never seen so many different kinds of fish in my life - all of them so fresh they were still flip-flopping on big wooden trays. I kept stopping to ask the names of different fish and the vendors seemed delighted when I asked if I could know the name of the fish they were selling and take their picture. I could have spent the day there, but we trundled on, hunting for the masharyibia houses. We emerged from from fish street, accompanied by many stares (suffice it to say there are not a lot of tourists in Rashid) and found ourselves on what passes for their corniche along the Nile. the Nile is very wide and peaceful here and there were tons of fishing boats. I spotted a boat that had been turned into a coffee/tea/shisha place and it as clearly for women as well as men so we stopped for a chai and fell into the usual conversation with other patrons: Where are you from? This is your mother? Ah, welcome, welcome? You speak good Arabic! Ah, a student! Very good. I have a friend in Florida. do you like bush? We like America but not bush - we wish he would not come here. . .Anyway, it was nice break, with the wind blowing down the Nile, the hot tea and the smiles.

We then commenced a walking tour to various houses, being sent from one to the next. They were fascinating and I hope my pictures turn out. One was a bath house, with light tubes filled with colored glass. The Ottomans put in plumbing, heating, etc. Most interesting.

We then caught a taxi (because the police guard at the last house recommended it) to the Qeitbay here. Yes, named for the same sultan and similar in design. This was very interesting as we were able to walk around the walls. This is where Chompollion's engineers found the Rosetta stone when they were restoring the fort. Our driver took us out to the very mouth of the Nile - not too interesting, very flat, very sandy and only a lonely breakwater (our driver said they get terrible storms that wash all the way to town as it is so low).

Our driver dropped us back at the serveece center where we grabbed some tamyia and got back on the bus. There was a cute family sitting in front of us and the little boy shyly gave us an orange. The mother and daughter looked more Greek than Egyptian and the daughter had beautiful eyes - I told her so and she looked very shy as well, but she decided we were okay and was asking lots of questions by the time we got back to Alexandria.

The day being yet young we walked down the Corniche to the library which is truly magnificent and filled with light and art and a young, but growing collection. We then caught a serveece back toward the center of town and started walking west hunting for a particular fish restaurant Cam wanted to go. Egyptians are insane vis-a-vis directions. they either are incredibly specific or incredibly vague and usually incredibly wrong. suffice it to say we did the usual doubling back and forth like hounds on the trail of a particularly devious fox, but after what seemed like hours we found the place and enjoyed another wonderful meal. We caught a tram back (25 piasters) and once again fell into bed.