*** Wednesday, 05Apr06 ***
Cairo is frequently dirty, always polluted, very noisy, and quite cosmopolitan -- all in all much more fascinating than I had imagined. This is a a very interesting place to be.

Cairo is huge! Than remarked that the population of the City of Cairo is 17 million -- the same as the population of Australia. A cab driver (cab drivers are more informed than economists) told me that the night time population of Cairo is 19 million with and additional two million commuters each day. Numbers this large leave my head spinning.

*** Thursday, 06Apr06 ***
Thursday here is the equivalent of Friday where you are. This evening with my jet lag ending I decided to luxuriate and stayed up late and listened to podcasts and some of my videos. I went to bed at 12:30 A.M. really enjoying the fact that there was no wake up call.

*** Friday, 07Apr06 ***
I woke up several times but decided to go back to sleep -- just because I could. I finally woke up for the last time at 9:30 A.M. I rose and showered languorously.

First day of the weekend. Our week here follows the Islamic schedule: we have Friday and Saturday off with Friday being the holy day. This makes for verbal problems because Friday means more than a day in the week to us; it means the end of the work week. Here Thursday serves that purpose but the word Thursday does not convey "end of the week" to a Westerner.

I decided to go for a good walk to enjoy the still cool air and see something of this city. As I walked North, a good looking man started talking to me and I started ignoring him. Touts of all kind are the bane of the downtown Cairo area and it is fatal to indicate any interest. This guy told me that he was a desk man in the Semiramis (as if that mattered) and then told me that there was an open market near the Sheraton on the other side of the Nile. I think he wanted to be my guide but I just nodded and continued walking toward the Nile bridge over the main channel of the Nile to Gezeira, the island that is in the center of the city and the river.

Horeria Garden on Gezeira.

I noticed that the curbs here average about a foot high and some are higher while only a few are lower. You have to watch when you step up or down. Someone told me that the curbs are that high to keep the cars from parking on the sidewalk. From what I know of Pristina, I believe them.


The Cairo Opera House, a gift to Egypt from France.
Once over the Nile bridge I noticed El Horreia Garden and went in. There isn't a lot of public green space in the center of Cairo so this was a pleasant relief from the vertical, crowded sprawl all around me. The southern part of the island is open space but most of that is devoted to private sports clubs. The northern part of the island is Zamalek and is as densely populated as everywhere else in the city.

I went across the island and over the bridge that covered the lesser channel of the Nile; mid-bridge there was a woman seated on a blanket with two small girls. They saw me coming and the two girls (aged five and three?) jumped up and started palavering at me and following after me. I got the impression that the mother was encouraging them. This reminded me too much of a certain kind of begging I grew to loath in Bucharest.

The Cairo Opera House, a gift to Egypt from France.

I walked into the Sheraton, found the concierge desk, and asked about the market that was nearby. The Concierge seemed baffled by my question. I repeated it, saying that I had been told that there was an open air market nearby that was only open on Friday. He pulled out a map and put a dot on an intersection about five blocks away and said it was there. Success! I asked if I could have the map and he said, "Yes," so I headed to the corner of Hussein Wasef(?) and Giza Street (marked as Charles De Gaul Street). It didn't take long to get there but there was no market visible. I walked around the block and didn't find any market, nor any gathering of people that might hint at a market. Oh, well. At least I had a map of central Cairo.

I walked back to the Semiramis, ate a nice croissant and went to the pool where I got some medicinal sun.

*** Saturday, 08Apr06 ***
I went over to the Egyptian Museum at 9 A.M. hoping to beat the crowds but they were there before me in huge numbers so I decided to try again later in the day.

I realized today that Cairo is a city completely taken over by cars. There are traffic lights but they are mostly set on blinking yellow and the traffic just roars past them unless a traffic officer indicates otherwise. There are lane markings but the drivers here just ignore them because by reducing the distance between cars to four inches, they can squeeze in three lanes for every two marked ones, which given the incredible volume of traffic, seems preferable to slowing down.

Another feature of the traffic here is the right hand turn from left hand lanes. Several times I have seen a car cross three lanes of traffic to take a right hand turn and I am convinced the reason the driver did it was because there weren't anymore lanes on the left to start from. This maneuver is a striking thing to see and I would love to catch it on video but driving is such a spontaneous activity here, I will never be able to have my camera ready.

Cairo is down right scary to pedestrians who are not used to its ways -- no one gives a break to a pedestrian. I have taken to looking at the direction the traffic is coming from and waiting for some stolid Egyptian to walk behind some car and then I walk out behind the car as it passes me and keep the Egyptian as point person. Sometimes it is the only way I can get up enough nerve to venture into wider streets.

Someone I work with here remarked that in Cairo you don't have the right of way but you have the right to get out of the way.

Drivers beep a lot here but not in anger but for info. Beep! You're coming too close! Beep! Notice me here! Beep! Get out of my way!

Taxi harassment!!! Taxi drivers are as pesky as flies. Every time I leave the hotel some taxi driver comes up to me and says, "Taxi?". Talking to them is just to encourage them so I just shake my head and keep walking. When I am walking around the city, taxis beep at me all the time. I hate the increase in the noise (already at amazing levels) yet there is nothing I can do about it.

I decided to walk along the Nile Corniche south and see if I could walk to two Coptic cemeteries that were indicated on the map I got from the Sheraton concierge yesterday. It took more than an hour of steady but interesting walking. The day was warmer than yesterday but there was a little breeze off the water and I made good time. When I found the entrance to the first cemetery, the staff indicated that I could just come in and walk around. I was surprised that I didn't have to pay a fee. The cemetery was small but filled with trees, shrubs and flowers. An altogether pleasant place to be. I noticed that most of the stones were for Germans who had died in Cairo.

The ancient acquaduct leadng to the Citadel.

I walked north to the second Coptic cemetery and found it on the other side of the largest free standing wall I had ever seen -- or so I thought. Later it turned out to be the aquaduct that brought Nile water to the Citidel on the west edge of the city. It must have been ten feet thick and forty to fifty feet high and constructed of brown stones but with open arches in it. The aquaduct had been disassembled to allow the road to connect to the other side.

When I entered the cemetery, I once again was invited to walk around at my leisure. This time most of the burials were for French and Italians who had died in Cairo. In this cemetery there were a lot of unusual tombs that looked like row housing for the dead. On one side I found of lot of tombs with Arabic sounding names inscribed in Arabic and Latin alphabets. I assumed these were the Copts.

I kept walking north in the general direction of the hotel but I had been walking for about two hours and wearing only a tennis visor. Not wise. At one point I realized that I was faint and that I might pass out. In response I stayed in the shade more consistently -- at least when I could find some -- and pulled my dirty hanky from my pocket and covered the exposed portion of my head with it. I started looking for a cafe so I could get something cold to drink and with some sugar to give me energy. I finally found a tiny cafe and bought a cold Pepsi. I drank it all before the elderly woman proprietor could give me my change. I tried to tip here but she refused, little understanding how much she had helped me. I eventually got back to the hotel, changed and went to the pool where I sat in the sun and ordered more Pepsis.

Now the sun became increasing hidden by clouds so I decided to go back and see the Egyptian Museum. The crowds outside were much reduced and I tried to buy a ticket but there was a sign that said "No cameras in the Museum" so I was defeated a second time in two days. Well, I knew that I would get in eventually so I wasn't put out.