Cairo - Alexandria

Friday, 5th March 1999

We slept in a bit this morning after the 5am call to prayer sat us both bolt up straight in the bed. We then enjoyed warm showers and our last breakfast on the balcony. A shiny new metro in pastel colours whisked us five stations up to Mubarak station, and for a moment I completely forgot I was in Egypt. The large station had seen better days back in the time of steam, but was now filled with all grades of trains. The poor would bustle for a place on a third class train, where the carriages are never maintained or cleaned, business and gentlemen in galabiyyas and briefcases would orderly take the first and second class trains to their destinations. Our train turned out to be brand new, complete with comfortable seats, televisions, and cultural paintings of Egypt shown at each end. The journey took us mostly alongside the Nile, past more fertile landscapes, riddles with greens, the flowing fabrics of workers, and many majestic buffalos donkeys working the fields. Just imagine all this beauty being soundtracked to the tunes of an incredibly bad Arabic movie!

Three hours later we pulled into Alexandria station and were accosted by taxi drivers, who were all too easy to blow off. Struggling modern Alexandria lay itself out in front of us and the grandeur of its past can be found once you close your eyes and use your imagination. We followed a busy local road, dodging cars and people at every step. The locals seemed friendlier here and without an agenda. In a high-rise building half way along the harbour frontage were four hotels and after checking them out we took a room with a balcony overlooking the harbour. The tap didn't turn off in the filthy bathroom, the blood of mosquitos lay forgotten on the wall, but the beautiful view from the balcony outweighed the common problems of the Egyptian hotel system.

In the warm mid-afternoon sunshine we left the New Welcome House Hotel and took a walk along the ancient shoreline which was once home to one of the greatest cities in the world. This romanticism can still be found, but you have to get past the smell of rotten fish and rubbish that plagues the break-wall and what was once a lovely beach. The most alluring scene of Fort Quait Bey standing out in a harbour intertwined with colourful fishing boats. The foundations of this 15th century medieval fortress are from the Pharos Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Just close your eyes and imagine a 150 metre high structure, containing a square lower storey with 300 rooms, a double spiral staircase to the second floor, third floor, and up to the lantern topped by a statue of Poseidon. Today Egyptian families, couples and vendors encompass its base, listen to loud, distorted ghetto blasters, and throw their papers, plastic, glass bottles and all kinds of rubbish imaginable all over the break-wall, thinking nothing of it. These people must be blind, deaf, and have no respect for much of the world around them. As we watched the battle between red and yellow set into the horizons I pondered on ancient times and how business people from Egypt must travel to the west and not notice how clean the streets are and not want to return home to live in the same conditions.

Dimly lit streetlights and many passers-by threw long shadows across the ground as we took the same route home. The smells of baked sweet potatoes lingered and whilst caught in a trance the vendor had one each in our hands. They were delicious and in what light was left we stopped half way to take in the Mosque of Abu al-Abbas Mursi. This modern piece of Islamic architecture engulfs the square I which it sits. The original mosque was built by the Algerians on top of a thirteenth century saint's tomb. It's unfortunate that you have to cover your eyes from all the filthy surrounding structures, rubbish, plastic chairs and touts (especially the one wanting to weigh you on scales!) before its true beauty and tranquillity shines through.

We returned to the room to rest and take in the city lights dancing across the harbour. The craving for food got us back on our feet to explore Sharia Safia Zaghloul, a street filled with vibrant restaurants and juice bars. In a juice bar near the waterfront I came across a "mix" drink containing fresh strawberries, bananas, orange and mango juice and it went down like a dream. Near the railway station was a restaurant owned by an eccentric Frenchwoman, with a menu of the gods. Although once seated and having made our choices the waiter told us that supposedly they weren't making half the menu (at least all the cheaper items) so we left and took our business elsewhere. We ended up at the Papillon Café drinking juice, eating hoummos on bread, lasagne and kofta. As this Egyptian place slapped on an "international service tax" plus VAT we decided not to give tips (especially when this totalled an extra 17%!). Another mix drink went down like a dream and we returned along the harbour to an even more exciting nightlife. Cars with horns punctuated the serenity, young Muslim men and women filled the streets (which I thought was not the done thing in Islam). We reached the hotel and thankfully the shower in the shared bathroom was hot, but we returned to the room to find three huge cockroaches (larger than the ones in Australia) on my bed then on the floor. After a lot of screaming from myself and a flurry of flying shoes they lay to rest in the corner of our room. I went to sleep in a state of fear wondering if one was going to make its way into my mouth during the early morning hours. I can just see the newsflash, "Young Australian woman killed by large Egyptian cockroach".