Early morning in Cairo - or is it early evening? My watch had stopped working sometime last night. And anyways, I gave it away to the hanger-on we had met in our taxi, who forcefully jumped in the front seat as we hopped in the back. Uninvited, we tried to make use of him - "show us where the Africans live," we asked, him speaking relatively decent english. We drove around in circles, through closed shops and empty neighbourhoods, until he finally offered up the solution that "they must be sleeping". Of course.

His story became more sad as the night wore on, him losing his job over the course of the past few hours and asking for just a few Egyptian pounds, in spite of us treating him to his own shisha and tea. My travel associate had bore the brunt of his earlier onslaught regarding taxi rides, and now I, in the waning hours, was assigned to deal with the sob story. I could see him turning it on and off, him and his poor sister, his lost job, his abject poverty. Yes, of course. Luckily, in the evening Cairo is nothing short of in a state of martial law - in these post 1997 times the government is out in full force to maintain order and safety for one of their most valuable industries, tourism, and at almost every corner of the quiet streets there seemed to be one or two police officers either undercover or in full uniform. Along with the occasional paddywagon and police cruiser, and one certainly should not worry of their personal safety in this town.
The hanger-on had asked us to offer up to police that yes, he was a friend of ours, but surprisingly enough after he began his begging for money routine we had lost all knowledge of who he was. When we encountered the next group of police, we stood on the wayside as he desperately tried to talk himself out of their clutches.
It did not work, though; the police, who spoke far better english, pointed in the direction of our hotel and the hanger-on was politely escorted away with them. At least, he may have a place to stay this evening.
...But that's all I remember from that night. Or was that the night before? Was the other night the one where the Egyptian with the American passport(which he flashed to us in the street), who said he was home from Minnesota, wanted us to go into his brother's cousin's perfume shop? My associate bought something, I did not. Or was that night the one where we sipped tea at the papyrus store? All of those paintings were crap, but it was a part of the 'routine' anwyays: must take them to the papyrus shop. These westerners are too polite to say no, and if they do, the Egyptians have the perfect faces to make one feel boundlessly guilty for not allowing these poor people to show off their wares. And hey, who knows, maybe you'll like something, right? I mean, this is one of the world's oldest and most sophisticated civilizations, surely there's something nice worth bringing home?
Well, perhaps not - all of the items on offer were touristic crap, all mass-produced manufactured junk and nary a decent artifact in sight. One must be quite naive to purchase all but the most expensive items from Cairo, or extremely lucky - although from my searches it seemed that any 'deal' in the souvenir department was probably last had about 200 years ago.


But where was I? More importantly, where am I? Oh yes, laying in my bed. A bit of a headache. Did we just get back from eating at KFC? I found the most baffling sight on its second floor- a small six year old boy dressed in a tuxedo who held a roll of toilet paper - when I walked up to the toilet he unrolled five sheets of toilet paper, tore them off, and stated "Welcome to KFC" in a firm voice. Was this a shisha-induced hallucination? Or reality? I'm not really sure. All I remember is us wandering around; there was that first place with the Shisha and coffee, and then tea; oh, it was divine. It was a bit expensive, perhaps USD10 for the both of us, but we wandered around some more, into the less attractive parts of town, to a place where the tile was covered with peanut shells and fat Arab men smoking shisha played backgammon incessantly under the stars. Slighly dazed then, we shared another apple-flavoured Shisha, some more coffee, some more tea. Discussed travel destinations and world politics, the fate of the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Middle East as a whole. A broken watch, cars still sputtering by in either direction, the air slightly colder - we wandered around some more. The streets seemed less full, but no matter. Just across from us it seemed, yet another cafe was open, beckoning us, welcoming us. It had a television playing bad American movies, more Arabs and their backgammon tables. A burly man who looked familiar spoke perfect english with us. He, in fact, worked as flight crew for EgyptAir - and my mind raced, for indeed he was the same burly guy who was on the flight I took from Asmara to Cairo nearly two years earlier. I had a pocketknife, and he was assigned to protect it during the flight.
He was nice to talk to, and the atmosphere was second to none. It seemed that the more dirty and squalid the cafe was, the better their shisha and coffee seemed to taste, and the cheaper it was as well. Forget Lonely Planet's recommendations of cafes, to hell with all of them; I was lost in space now, wandering between cafes. Was it the second day or the first? The third? What time was it anyway?

We also took the metro to its very end, where dozens of large long distance buses took Cairo's day workers to homes further out. A young man on a bicycle stopped to talk to us, Arabian music was blasting from all sides of the street, lights were strung every which way above the market and juice stands dotted the walls. Noodles, corn on the cob, sugarcane, strange meat in a hot dog bun, but not a single shawarma. Curious indeed. We took the metro back to the centre and found another cafe, indulging in a round of coffee, tea, and shisha that cost barely over a dollar.

Around another street corner a few hours later, the streets empty; or was the traffic picking up again? I wasn't sure. This place was hopelessly ugly, with plastic chairs and a mound of junk piled at the back of its deep shop with a tiny room filled with orange coals in the corner. The coffee wasn't nearly as good as the second, us now becoming rather proficient afficionados at the taste and texture of the coffee and shisha. The occasional woman was in this cafe, a departure from the others we had visited. But soon enough they began to stack the chairs, and the crowd thinned out. We headed back to our hotel room.

But the traffic was starting up again, and who's to know what time it was. Five in the morning? Six? Which morning? The first morning we arrived, the morning after the second night? I wasn't sure anymore. Cairo has always been a magnet for tourists but reeling against the idea of seeing more mosques and churches and monuments it became apparent that Cairo's best attraction for the overtravelled was its cafes. The atmosphere was second to none, and in a city so filled with foreigners already it was like being a local since no one gave a damn about you in these cafes.

That afternoon, though, guilt overwhelmed us. Giza was so close. Would I pass through this city a second time and not see the Pyramids? I mused to myself that it wouldn't matter, surely I would be back again, and these things have stood for five thousand years, they'll probably be here for five thousand more, so what's the rush? Yet, the guilt was overwhelming and with that in our hearts we beckoned a taxi.

He was certainly not familiar with what it was, in fact, that two white guys might want to see when they started shouting "Pyramids! Giza!" and making little diagrams with our fingers, drawing triangles in the air. He drove us to the Giza shopping mall, Giza square, Pyramids Hotel, and even a Giza Pyramids ice cream parlour. After much trepidation and several discussions with other taxi drivers, in the distance we saw massive triangular monoliths shadowing the sky. He pointed at them, curiously, looking at us. "Yes! Yes!" we shouted, pointing. After over half an hour of driving in circles, his own mind was clicking into gear.

It was early afternoon, and we slowed down as we neared the entrance and a man poked his head through the window.
"Pyramids closed," some fellow at the window said, "but you come with me and I give you good camel ride through pyramids."
We said no. The taxi continued.

Another man ran to the taxi and shouted "closed! Camel Ride!" in our direction, but at this point it was turning into a bombing run. Two more stood directly in front of the car, and the cab driver stepped on the gas, intent on running them down. At the last split second they leaped out of the way, but this caused us to lose speed. Another fellow grabbed the front passenger door by the handle and opened it, running at a half-sprint beside the car, trying to keep the door open, intent on leaping in. I stood up in the back of the car, leaned over, and slammed the door shut, sending the poor tout spinning and jumping off to the side. The taxi driver gave me a high-five.

We had made it to Giza. The entry fee for the site is a mere USD5, but once inside we were assaulted by guides, offers for camel rides, and souvenir hawkers. I tried to pretend I only spoke Russian.

"Film! Camera! Good Souvenir!"

"Nyet."

"Barruskya?"

Argh. However, French did work, and few of them knew any french at all. I had no real interest in going inside, but closing time seemed to be a good chance to visit. Just as everyone is heading out, few tourists, sunset at the Sphinx.

Not bad. Worth the trouble, perhaps. And now it was time to wish well to my travel associate as he headed back to the Western World. the next day(or that day? I don't remember. How many shisha trips did we take? When did we take them?) I visited the fabled Egyptian Museum, and it was filled with huge throngs of tourists. Apparently there were also some artifacts in the museum as well. Okay okay - yes I did see a few impressive things there. The papyrus and script section really stuck out. It occured to me then that the only souvenir I wanted was one of those framed papyrus pieces, however they did not appear to be for sale.











And after that? A lengthy bus ride, my mind drifting in and out of conciousness as some Arabian variety show on VHS tape was blasting its music far too loud throughout the bus. On my way to Taba. I had done the math and discovered what day it was, and in the dead of night, was dumped on the shores of Taba. Egypt's only other border crossing with Israel, and a world of difference from Rafah: Taba is one of Egypt's major beach resorts, and on the other side Eilat doubles as the same for Israel. A short walk later, I was back into border bureaucracy.

Eilat



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