SANDStorm

We woke up at dawn and set out for the camel market, about an hour outside of Cairo, on Friday. More information about actual camel-selling later, but for now, here are some great pictures of the fuzzy beasts.

We weren’t sure of our directions to the market, but once we approached this truck with a camel in the truck bed we figured we were on the right road. (and yes, the air was really, really nasty that morning – you could reach out and grab the particulates.)

Camel market main drag.

Camels, lots of camels.

Camel auctioneer.

Once the camel is sold, it’s time to get it into the truck for delivery.

One of the front legs are tied up to keep the camel from wandering too far (or going on a rampage).

And another method of controlling the camels…

Chillin’ with the herd.

We visited the Nilometer today, a large stone column built in 861 AD to measure the rise and fall of the Nile. It was used up until the 1950s when the Aswan High Dam was built, thus ending the annual flood. The Nilometer is on the tip of Rhoda Island – an oasis of green, secluded from the street noise and traffic. Definitely recommended if you are looking for something a little off the beaten path. Make sure you get someone to open up the doors for you, and then also with a little more money you can climb down the stairs to the bottom of the Nilometer.

The Nilometer is several meters below ground level.

When the Nile reached 16 cubits, the harvest was likely to be good (which also meant that taxes would be higher).

The guard opened the locked gate for us to enter into the Nilometer. D made it all the way to the bottom of the stairs for this great view of the domed roof.

The Nile, looking very serene.

We were pretty energetic after visiting Beyt as-Suhaymi, so we continued along to Al-Azhar Park. Al-Azhar Park is an expansive new construction in Islamic Cairo, built on an old garbage dump. The grounds are immaculate and every tree and shrub is tamed to perfection. It’s a little surreal.

On the way to Al-Azhar Park we walked past the Northern Cemetery, which functions as a cemetery and as a neighborhood where people live among the tombs.

People enjoying the greenery of the park.

Squint and you can see in the left corner a wooden structure painted with a green and yellow triangle. That’s a rooftop pigeon house and there is a boy standing on the roof with a flag calling home the pigeons.

Focus in on the beam of sunlight breaking through the clouds. Yep, that’s right – those are the Pyramids!

I can’t believe it’s taken us six months to visit beyt as-Suhaymi (the house of Suhaymi). The opulent home, built in the late 1600s (with additions to it up until the 19th century), is a stunning example of a traditional Ottoman home (or so the guidebook tells me). The house is a maze of narrow hallways opening up to rooms with two-story high ceilings and staircases that lead to yet another wing of the home. Anyway, we thought it was really cool.

The second courtyard behind the house, showing the “mashrabiyya” (wooden lattice windows which allowed women to look outside without anyone seeing her).

Private room

Many of the rooms were two stories high with wooden “malqaf” on the ceiling to direct the wind down into the building.

A room with a very large mashrabiyya.

Looking down into Al-Muizz li-Din Allah Street, a main thoroughfare for shopping in the 15th century (man, everywhere you look there’s old stuff!).

It’s been a pretty tough year (sigh!), so we chose to send out 2006 decompressing on the beach. Ain Sokhna is just one and a half hours from Cairo – the perfect getaway when you know someone who owns a condo on the beach and will drive you there.

The Palm Beach resort is just one and a half hours from Cairo. The absence of car horns is immediately apparent upon arrival.

The large lagoon/swimming pool which sits in front of most of the condos at Palm Beach.

It was a little too chilly for me to go into the water, so I spent my time collecting seashells for our vacation home in Florida.

D spent his time at the beach doing a fantastic imitation of my father.

When we got tired of sitting on the beach, we “rode” a horse. Rather, we each sat on the horse while the horse looked around and took three steps back to his stable.

Yum. The feasts we ate two nights in a row included more fresh seafood than I ate during my entire three years in Japan.

Thank goodness, civilization is never too far away. Sigh.

Here are some great photos taken by our friend who visited us in Cairo last week. Thanks for a great time, L!

Talat Harb Street, Downtown Cairo

Roasted sweet potato vendor

Bread vendor

Cotton shop

D and I have been spending more time at home, the burden of going outside doesn’t always feel worth it. I began to write down all the hazards which zoom through my mind while walking in Cairo, and after writing it all down, I now realize why it sometimes takes a lot of effort to leave the house.

Here is a short list, definitely not exhaustive, of the dangers you need to pay attention to when walking in Cairo if you want to make it to your destination safely, and unsoiled:

1. Donkey or horse poo

2. Taxis barreling down the street (listen for them to honk at you, or flash their lights at you, then move to the side)

3. Debris falling from balconies overhead (down the road from us a car was crushed when the concrete facing of a fourth floor balcony fell to the street)

4. Water on the roads which makes the street surface like ice for me in my rubber-soled shoes

5. Ripped up pavement

6. Piles of black sludge cleaned out of the sewers, but yet to be picked up by the cleaning crew

7. Neatly swept piles of trash, being ripped apart by cats

8. Cars driving in reverse down the street. Fast.

9. Bicyclists- especially the guy riding with one hand, the other hand holding on to the palette of fresh bread balanced on his head

10. Loitering young men

11. My tongue, which wants to lash out at the loitering young men who stare at me and say “Welcome to Egypt” in a way that doesn’t sound completely innocent

12. Kids running and playing, oblivious to the traffic and other pedestrians

13. Sideview mirrors (which, due to my clumsiness, have caused a semi-permenant bruise on my hip)

14. One foot high curbs (D thinks the curbs are built that high so people can’t drive their cars on the sidewalks)

15. Ferrets

16. Donkey carts

17. Mopeds/motorcycles

18. The occasional driver who yields to the pedestrian (drivers who follow pedestrian right-of-way will really throw you off and cause much confusion between you and the driver)

19. Water being tossed into the streets (trust me – not at all pleasant to be drenched with)

20. Snot (the farmer blow is quite popular by men)

21. Accidental inappropriate eye contact with men. Avoid looking around at eye level – try to fix your gaze either below or above eye level while walking

22. A walkable sidewalk (more than half a block of uninterrupted concrete), so I can get out of the street

Today was our last day with our friend visiting from the US, so we decided to take it easy. Again, our “easy” day ended up being pretty rough on us!

We chose to go down the street to the Agricultural Museum which the Lonely Planet says, “may sound dull but is quite fascinating and verges on the bizarre.”

It certainly did not disappoint. The first floor of the large, stone museum is full of lifesize recreations of rural Egyptian life, including a village scene with men weighing stuffed chickens, a marriage procession complete with the bride sitting inside a wooden carriage, and a man sitting on a bench reciting the Koran.

The real show was in the backroom though. The security guard took it upon himself (for a small tip, of course. Which was fine, really, since the admission fee to the museum was only $0.02) to unlock the door and guide us into a room around the corner which displayed life in a typical rural Egyptian home. Lifesize models drinking tea in the kitchen, women dancing in the living room, and a child on the roof feeding the pigeons.

The guard was not satisfied with our oohs and ahhs though – he wanted us to experience the recreations! So, he pulled back the metal chain and showed me how I needed to pose for the camera. I, of course, didn’t want to pose alone:

It wasn’t even a problem when I bumped into the tamborine sitting in a model’s hands – I picked it up off the ground and when I tried to place it back into the scene, he scoffed at me and mimicked that I should shake it!

The first floor recreations were only just a warm up though for the main show on the second floor. Oh yeah, an entire floor of stuffed dead animals, bones and, and cartlidge, including:

– mounted lion head
– mounted rhinoceros head
– stretched python skin
– a wall of gazelle horns
– mounted moose head
– camel skeleton
– whale skeleton
– case of various rodents
– jars of snakes
– mounted giraffe heads
– dried and whithered crocodiles
– mounted hippo head
– cases upon cases of stuffed birds (and a very fascinating case of bird nests – who knew there was such a variety?)

And – saving the best for last – the guard told us to go to another room behind a black curtain. It was a bit suspicious that he didn’t lead the way, as he did with everything else, but we didn’t expect a … stuffed bear! Our friend L even let out a squeak as D pulled back the curtain. Scary!

Photos courtesy of L’s rockin’ new Nikon D80 (and the kick*ss lens it came with)

Cairo has made it to Forbe’s list of the Top 10 Most Congested Cities in the World.

In the Forbes.com World’s Most Crowded Cities slideshow link, Cairo is described pretty accurately:

“Egypt’s capital also happens to be the cultural capital of the Arab world and the largest city in Africa. Its traffic is overwhelming. It has to be seen to be believed. Compounding the ever more horrendous noise is the variety of vehicles: autos, buses, bikes, vans and trucks on narrow streets with the use of the sidewalk almost a must. The traffic rarely stays in lanes, instead weaving its own tapestry. It is an elemental force.”

Cairo is joined by: Manila, the Philippines; Nigeria; Macau, off the Chinese coast; Seoul, South Korea; Dhaka, Bangladesh; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Jakarta, Indonesia; Kaohsiung, Taiwan; and Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic.

Here’s some of our own photos of the congestion, which don’t really show Cairo at the height of conjestion, but are all I’ve got uploaded to the computer right now:

Downtown Cairo Traffic

Traffic on the 6th of October Bridge

Ataba is a neighborhood in Cairo where you can get anything for cheap. You want to try out your bargaining skills? Head to Ataba for a wide variety of acrylic sweaters, pajamas, plastic remote-control cars, and, at the time of my most recent visit, Christmas decorations.

Ataba is filled with bargain hunters and vendors every hour of the day and there is rarely room to catch your breath and take in the scene.

I walked through Ataba on my way to the metro station with our friend visiting from DC. As we entered into the flow of shoppers, two young girls, maybe four and seven years old, came running up to us.

“Hello! How are you?” said the oldest with a huge smile on her face.

“Hello! I’m fine. How are you?” we replied. They just giggled, ran back to their mother, and we continued on down the alley. A few paces later, we heard the girls from right behind us, “Hello! What’s your name?”

“Sarah.”

“LeeAnn.”

The girls practiced our names and then ran away. We continued shuffling through the crowd, until we heard our names being called out from behind us. We turned around and the young girls were again at our side. I felt a small hand take my hand and looked down to see the oldest girl smiling up at me. I smiled, and tried to shake her hand out of mine. She didn’t budge – her hand stayed in my hand.

I looked back to find her mother. Her mother looked at me and looked at her daughter and yelled her name. The daughter didn’t budge and wouldn’t release her death grib out of my hand. I yelled loudly toward her mother, hoping she’d hear my name and apology.

“Ismee Sarah…kwayyis? Ana asfa. Kwayyis?”

I quickly realized that my colloquial Egyptian Arabic lessons have not prepared me for this situation. How do I convey to the mother that I am okay, trustworthy, and do not want any harm whatsoever to come to her daughter? In fact, I want this situation to end as quickly as possible!

But the flow of shoppers was too much to fight and we were carried along with the crowd – me, LeeAnn, the two young girls holding my hands, their mother, and two teenage girls with their mother who were related somehow. All eight of us were trying to stay together as we walked through the crowd. I was in the middle of the line with the little girls, holding on to dear life, watching the mother behind me and yelling up to the other mother who was leading our group, when the distance between us all got too far apart.

Oh my God, I was in a crazy, exciting and intensely terrifying hell which wasn’t going to end anytime soon because the family was also headed to the metro station. I was walking through complete neon chaos while trying to keep eight people together, trying to listen and respond to the girls’ questions in Arabic, and trying to make sure my camera and bag was still on my shoulder. I was getting a really big headache.

We got to the edge of a four-lane street and I finally was able to tell the mother my name, where I was from, and that we were also going to the metro. Again, I apologized and asked her if it was okay if we walked with them. The mother seemed to realize that the little girls controlled the situation right now. So, we all stood in a line and stepped out into the traffic together.

“I think I’m about to have a heart attack,” I’m thinking.

I knew the metro station was close, on the other side of the street. As we neared the station, I heard LeeAnn yell to me that some man is grabbing her butt. I couldn’t tell her what to say to him though – I didn’t want the girls to hear my vulger Arabic!

We made it down into the station and learned that the family was going in the opposite direction (thank goodness! il hamdullilah!). The girls though were not ready to leave us and, I think, invited us to their house. I begged out of it though, assuming that the mothers had probably had their fill of this adventure (as much as I would honestly have loooved to go to their house!). As we neared the entrance turnstiles, the girls started squeeling with delight and ran right behind me so they could enter through the turnstile with me. We then stepped onto the escalator, hand in hand.

At this point, it was time to say goodbye. The mothers dragged the girls away and down the entrance to El Marg and we turned towards the direction of Giza. On the platform, we waved to each other across the train tracks and the girls called out our names. We watched the family then turn back towards the stairs and make their way to the exit. We assumed they were probably going to the front of the train, which is reserved for women, but not so.

Five minutes later, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see the entire family on the platform to Giza with us!

“What the ~? Why, hello again!” we smiled as our train pulled up to the platform.

The teenage girls explained that they wanted to say one last goodbye and we quickly smiled and said our “Ma’salaam‘s” as the youngest girl tried to grab onto my hand again. I shoke her away as tears welled up in her eyes and stepped onto the train. The doors closed and we watched the family as our train pulled away.

“What just happened…what…what was that?”

I was dumbfounded, my head was aching, and I was paranoid for the entire ride that one of the girls had somehow snuck onto our train with us.