It was a rough landing in Cairo, not for our Air Egypt flight from Athens, but for a fully laden Chrisanthi, face first on a grubby, potholed pavement.
A 17.3-kilogram back pack, around five kilos of day pack clinging to her chest and a handbag bursting full of womanly stuff all contributed to my travelling companion and wife’s dead-weight like trajectory as her head and knees took the full impact of the impromptu plunge.
Equally weighed down, I struggled to part the crowd converging on the face-down Greek-Australian pack mule. A circle of help soon materialised from the dark of the sultry evening, silently coercing to heave her to her feet, back pack and all, in one motion.
Not a bad way to meet the locals after only one-and-a-half hours on Egyptian earth. But meeting people is really no problem here. On the one-Egyptian-pound, 20-kilometre bus ride from the airport, I began a who-can-poke-tongues-out-the-longest competition with 18-month-old Omar, slung over his proud father’s shoulder. I thrashed Omar into submission; he was soon deep asleep on pa’s shoulder.
Dad is fluent in English, one of the many people in Egypt who work in a tourist industry that has been stifled by fear of post-revolutionary Egypt. He is humble, articulate, direct and willing and able to discuss whatever is on the table - a little disarming after years in the conversation-free-zone of the London Underground.
Omar’s Dad estimates that tourism in some places is 20 per cent of its pre-Mubarak-fall peak. The dearth of hat and sunscreen-wearing people trudging the capital’s tight street grid would seem to back up his theory. “The revolution is over and we want to move on now.”
Revolution can change only so much, however. From the ivory tower of the big, red government bus, Cairo’s traffic lived up to its guerilla warfare mentality. Six, seven, eight lanes of traffic, where in Sydney it would be an orderly two, hustled, jostled, merged and side-swiped its way in an unending attempt to mobilise Cairo’s 20 million, on roads that receive little love and attention.
I only spotted two or three cars out of the scores of thousands that converged around the bus that did not bear the scrapes, smashed lights or missing panels of Cairo carnage – brand-spanking new European cars included. Small accidents, of which I’ve already seen several, are sorted out with frantic raised voices and face-to-face screaming match, followed by a hug and ‘catch ya later’. Insurance companies don’t rule the road here – thank God.
Chrisanthi fared better than most after her little sidewalk fender bender: two bruised knees and an egg on her head. And she’s already back on the road – good as new, low mileage…
blog by Steve Madgwick
