Cairo

Powered by a growing dose of the gold-rush syndrome (that is: realising toward the end of something that you have so much left undone) and keen to pack my last four months in Damascus with as much eastern travel as possible it was with some flippancy that I booked myself a one-way flight from Heathrow to Cairo from behind a settling pint of strongbow in a quiet, rain-swept, Lake-District pub. As I stepped onto the plane at six in the morning less than a week later, hauling my ludicrous selection of hot and cold clothes behind me, it began to dawn on me how short a period (four or five days) I had selected, for such a long distance (about eighteen hours of buses and "four egyptian hours" on a ferry). Bit late now.

The appaling start at four in the morning was (carefully) calculated to deposit me in Cairo with an afternoon of sightseeing, before a next morning at the pyramids and then an afternoon bus to the Red Sea. I had forgotten how overwhelming Middle Easterners, and certainly Egyptians, could be in the hospitality. The scene on the plane as we dropped in to land was like the awkward beginning of a prep-school french trip, with Egyptians pairing themselves off with foreigners, to show them around the city. Of course, you should always be open to such kindness and generosity, but having resolved to schlepp my way back to Syria unsupported and without resupply I found it beholden upon me to squirm for all my worth to avoid such a potentially illegal (at least under my rules) liason. Having arranged to call my neighbour once I was safely at my hotel, the name of which inevitably escaped me, and securely written his number on a napkin, I was saved when he went right in the aisle and I, left. Caught the bugger knapping.

Once established in the downtown Ramses Hostel, in Tala'at Harb, and having paid for a 'private' taxi and then waited forty five minutes for a minubus to turn up, I set off for the Khan Al Khalili (the tourist souq) around dusk. There wasn't a huge amount to see in the dark, but it was rather pleasant that most of the tourists were elsewhere, and the shopkeepers more interested in their coffees and conversation than touting lost foreigners like myself. I also decided that this was a decent moment in which to have a craic at some street portraiture. Brimming with uncertainties I loitered about until I spotted a chap in a fairly Arab looking get up (dish-dash etc) smiling at me from the corner of a shop. A second (nonchalant) pass confirmed his friendly advances and as I approached him I realised he was a shoeshiner. A perfect first target. I watched as he turned my very nice grey 'distressed' effect trainers to a strange shade of cherry and then, motivated by a desire to take his photograph, paid him handsomely for it. He returned to the default crouching position and, still clutching his fairly generous reward for the disastruous handiwork to my shoes, tried not to look ascance when I asked for a picture. By the time I had cocked one up and tried another with the flash, a crowd of small-ish children gathered round and began calling and laughing at him (us?). Keen to end his ignominious discomfort and becoming rapidly aware of my own, I left it at that, without a decent photo to show for it but the proud new owner of a pair of cherry trainers and cheeks to match.

Suleiman arrived at eight the next morning. His nephew, who managed reception at the Ramses, had assured me that for the outlandish price I was to pay him he would show me around the entire site at Giza (the pyramids) and deposit me back at the hotel for one o'clock. It was with some surprise then that we turned off the road about half a mile from a great looming triangle of rock and parked up in a square. "What's this Suleiman?" "The stables." he replied. As I stepped out of the car I was invited to choose my poison, "Horse or Camel." I recalled Frank Gardner - the BBC Security Correspondent - talking about riding around the Pyramids in the early morning during his year abroad in his autobiography Blood and Sand. Never one to be outdone I said horse and was swiftly introduced to a rather diminutive cob by the name of Mickey Mouse and my guide Ramadan.



My pony club days having ended after about two weeks at the age of six, I asked Ramadan for a bit of a refresher course, rather than accept the indignity of being led by the reigns for the next two hours (the site at Giza is 12km). It wasn't long before he decided we were ready for galloping and we struck out across the sand with poor old Mickey puffing and blowing beneath my un-jockey like weight (my un-educated guess would have put him at eight or nine hands) and by the time we reached the Sphynx his feet were dragging in the sand, and I suggested to Ramadan that perhaps we didn't need to do too much more "fast - gallop - fast" not least because my arse, like the horse it was sitting on, was about to give up the ghost. The pyramids themselves were spectacular (if a little overshadowed by my newfound joy for riding)and with a copious bag of photos, a bit of a schpiel from Ramadan about their history we put Mickey out of his misery and headed back to the stables.



Suleiman was on his fourth or fifth tea and, after a cup of the same for myself, we set back off in the direction of Cairo. He was fairly determined to take me to a perfumery and a papyrus shop and so I relented and had a lecture on the difference between scent and perfume and the various types that had made their way to popular markets (Tut-an-khamun I was assurred is now sold as CK One) and the aphrodisiac properties of 'Secret of the Desert' ("the woman make it like pyramid, here, here (nipple, nipple) and then you know where, and it make man like arab stallion. this my favourite.")

After a decent (and authentic) lunch with Suleiman I headed to the Mosque of Al-Azhar (pictured at the top), a great and traditional seat of Islamic learning, founded a thousand years ago and still stunning in its simplicity. As I walked out I met a small, older looking chap who had a sincerity about him that was vaguely arresting. Within about five minutes I found myself on a tour of the old bedui souks, far from the very tourist traps of the Khan Al Khalili, and I realised, as Fathi told me he had featured in the 1987 edition of the Lonely Planet, that I had been honeytrapped. Still his opening bid at the mosque of "no money" was a promising start, and he certainly knew all the rightplaces to take pictures of the warren of ancient Harems and Coptic Churches - strangely the Harems were all women at the top and Islamic schools at the bottom. It just shows that women, however lowly a position in society they enjoy, are never far from the Arab consciousness, indeed, traditionally, the three taboo subjects in Arab countries are women, politics and sex. I escaped from Fathi's "museum" (I believe the word is shop) without buying but it was noticeable that as he showed me back to the Mosque there were no photo opportunities and no time to talk to his neighbour. His was an impressive ruse, and judging by his guest book, he usually ended with a sale.



The evening was for walking along the Nile, according to Lonely Planet. So there I headed, snapped a few photos and then went for a stiff bloody mary in the Nile Hilton to get me through until midnight when my bus for Dahab was due to leave.

When I finally clambered onto the bus (whose seats were covered in plastic in that so Arab way) I put on a big coat and attempted to starfish my way across two seats in the least neighbourly looking fashion possible. I was rewarded by the arrival of a small Egyptian lad who chose not to sleep (and therefore could not snore) in lieu of my nemesis; the fat, scratchy Arab orc, who kept me company on the roof of a Turkish 'hotel' two summers ago. Dahab, here I come.