June 23, 2008 - Palermo - Cairo - Saqqara
No pictures actually for this day . . . sorry . . . but read on, you’ll understand.
EgyptAir. A stopover in Rome. I asked if I could check straight through to Cairo from Palermo. "Of course!" says she, with a bright little smile. So, half the battle, just walk on with my horn and my book, switch planes in a little over an hour, read all the way to Egypt, get off at 6:30PM & pick up my bag, and hang out with my dear friend Helene for 4 days. Feeling good.
Rome Fiumicino (FCO). Not a traveler-friendly airport. Signs to "transit," but pointing in all different directions. Impossible to figure out. They don't give any indication that you can't actually "get there from here," you actually have to go out of the security-controlled area, look your flight up, look at a map, figure out how to get there, and run like a bat outa hell to the security checkpoint--on the other side of Rome, it feels like, and hope you're in time to make the flight. I barely did. That was OK, though, once I got through it.
Took us awhile to get off the ground. Hurry up and wait. But eventually, we were skyborne, and peace descended on my soul. A day away from the pyramids, a week from Southeast Asian paradise. Ahhhhhh!
Never mind that the soft drinks were tepid. I was on the penultimate leg of an ultimate adventure, going to a warm welcome in a country I'd not seen before. I read. I dozed. Before I knew it, the 5 hours had whisked by and we were in Egypt.
Egypt. Hot twilight. Mobile staircase off the plane onto one of those damn articulated buses with no seats that drive forever around the maze of the airport, eventually stopping where you hope your baggage is supposed to come. Helene’s instructions about getting an entry visa at the immigration stop were beating a confused tattoo in my head, but it worked out. When we got into the crazed entry line that visa thing took some time to figure out, but after an unreasoning and absolutely necessary pit stop in the restroom things became clearer, and I paid da protection money, got da stamp, and, well after the bulk of the crowd, made it to the baggage claim. Mobile phone connection was bad, and Helene and I were playing phone tag with messages.
To the baggage carousel. All done. Nothing left, just a few bags twirling, none mine. Incredulous, checked several times. My stuff was not there.
This was a bit weird. Couldn’t go out without straightening this out. But I wasn’t the first or only one from our flight with this problem. There was a crowd there, and only one guy who seemed to be paying intermittent attention to anything at all, though there was another guy there who refused to even look at anyone. I think it took me about 45 minutes to actually get a form in hand and start filling it out, meanwhile watching all the other little dramas unfold (and sometimes collapse) around me. The main guy kept appearing and disappearing. Helene and I got through to each other from time to time, but the connection kept dropping. Anyhow she knew what I was going through, and to wait. Moustafa, her husband of 4 years, was an unknown quantity, but I felt terrible that this guy I didn’t know had had to get there early for this guy he didn’t know and wait around for . . . omigawd, the hours did stretch on. Whattayagonna do? Can’t scream. Got there around 7PM, didn’t get out till around 10:30 or 11, after they’d finally determined that, yes, my baggage was lost. Of course, my laptop was already gone, so I didn’t have to worry about that, but it’s true I had no change of clothes, or even toothpaste.
When I finally got out, it was great to see Helene. We first met in the summer of 1965, training for Peace Corps Thailand, and have had many a great hang together since then, especially since she lived in Berkeley for so many years. In most ways I can see She has stayed the same since the old—where she hasn’t improved!—and if you’re a friend, you have no doubt she’s there for you all the way. After a hug, she introduced me to Moustafa, who I could tell was ready to get out of there. Moustafa’s a trip, he truly is. Very likable guy, but a manly man if there ever was one, maybe over twenty years younger than me, spoke OK English, but he expected me to follow his lead, no questions.
Finally, late at night, we headed through Cairo to Saqqara. Monday night late, and traffic through the city was still ridiculous. Moustafa had had to drive there and wait for 6 hours or so, but to his credit, he didn’t show it all that much. Me, I was just in my “floating” mode, practiced over 2 months of floating from place to place on—now—three continents, heading for a fourth. Whatever went was cool with me.
But . . . I was hungry.
Having not eaten all day, I was counting on Moustafa being hungry, and whaddaya know? I wasn’t wrong. We stopped at this place Helene said was one of their favorites, and had some amazing stuff, falafels and salad thingies, can’t remember much except that there was a wide variety, it was fresh, and very tasty. I do remember thinking I hadn’t imagined how good Middle Eastern food would be. Moustafa was most insistent that I eat as much of everything as possible, often by pointing to a dish and saying “eat!” and sometimes by handing me something. I didn’t mind this much because I was, remember, famished, and the food was damn good.
We finally made it to Helene’s town of Saqqara shortly before midnight, driving into the commercial center rather than the quicker back road. I think that was because Moustafa had to give something to his son, a gangly young man who came up & greeted us with a cheery grin. The place was bustling even at that time of night. Helene was right, it did look like a village even though it had a population of over 70,000. There was only one commercial street to speak of.
After a few minutes driving in the moonlit dark through winding, bumpy, dusty alleyways, we emerged onto a broader road, and there we were at General Ahmed’s stables, where Moustafa is the manager. Helene’s house is right behind.
Though it was the middle of the night, looking high up on the sand dune to the west of the road we could see a small fire, and some robed folks sitting around it. Moustafa said, “Let’s go up and drink tea with them on the hill,” but I begged off, and he was gracious enough to understand. We went in through the main gate to the stables, and Moustafa showed off his horses, who seemed a bit surprised at being roused at midnight. Following that we opened a little gate to the rear, and were welcomed by a bunch of deliriously yapping mutts, who led us back to the house Helene had had built for her and Moustafa.
Helene showed me around—a very comfortable place! Two big bedrooms, a really nice kitchen, two bathrooms, a big living room, all air-conditioned (good, cuz I could tell it was gonna be hot the next day). Then we went upstairs, where there is a delightful open-air patio, covered from the sun with palm thatch. Great party pad, was my thought. It was a beautiful night, a ¾ moon, the date palms all around, and the soft sounds of a village settling in for the night.
Since I had no clothes of my own, they gave me some things of Moustafa’s, which were a bit big for me, but still went on ok. And with a fresh toothbrush, I retired to a dreamless sleep. Only thing, it seemed I was developing a pesky cough.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008—Saqqara
Got up, the pesky cough had turned into a hacking one, I was starting to cough up great gobs of junk. Very tired, too. I suppose it was natural, I’d been going non-stop for 2½ months, this was my third continent, and I’d had a bit of stress, what with losing the laptop in Barcelona, and now the bag with EgyptAir. Anyhow onward and upward. Climbed into some of Moustafa’s garb, bright colors, oversized, but functional. Hung out early morning drinking coffee with Helene, learning about how General Ahmed’s stable had come to be built out front, and how our heroine had persevered with great fortitude to create such an island of comfort.
Then tried, using Helene’s computer, to do some online banking, and got a rude surprise. W’s “Fear’s Empire” (thank you, Ben Barber) has made it so that you can only with difficulty connect to U.S. banking systems from the Mideast. I don’t know what they were thinking, or how my sort of banking could put them in such a tizzy, but all the accounts I’d been accessing from all these countries in Europe were suddenly shut to me now. There was a way, but first, Wells Fargo had to get me to prove I was me, and I had to get on the phone with the States. The biggest problem came from not knowing my own main checking account number (though I had my bank ATM and could recite everything on it, and had told them months before that I was banking from overseas). The reason I didn’t have the account number was that my laptop had been stolen, Catch-22. Anyhow I eventually got my ex to send the number to me from the States, but that would take another day and a half. The bank people on the other end seemed to enjoy wielding this little bit of international power. I can still hear the happy song in that petty functionary’s voice as she said “I’m sorry, sir, the United States Government won’t allow us to tell you what countries are on this list.”
But we were in Egypt! After breakfast and the above, lotsa new stuff. It was still only around 10AM when Moustafa, whom I was starting to think of as “The Moose,” piled us in the car and we took off for points as yet unknown. He’s telling me we’re going to ride horses, and I say, no, I don’t do that, and he says, sure you do, I’ll be with you. Okay, Moose. Anyhow we pull into this place near the Djoser step pyramid, which you can practically see from Helene’s place. It is hot as hell. This place we pull into is like some kind of early-morning smoking club for Bedouins or something. Anyhow we get inside, and there are hookahs all over the place, mostly shelved on the walls, but a couple in use. Helene and I are the only folks who look out of place. We are offered tea, and it tastes good.
After maybe fifteen minutes of tea drinking and tobacco-sniffing, Moustafa calls us outside to meet his Nabil and Ramses I.
Moustafa’s brother Nabil is a kindly-looking fellow who wears Bedouin robes and aviator sunglasses. Ramses I is the camel I am going to ride.
I’d much rather ride a camel than a horse. I have had bad experiences with horses going back to the 6th grade, when the first one I ever rode tried to bite me when I tried to get it to quit munching on the thistles and get back on the road. Since then I’ve been run down by a horse (sophomore year in H.S.) and when working for the Forest Service (college, junior year) nearly got kicked in the head while helping friends coax a young horse into a trailer for the first time. All during my formative years. No, give me camels. They stink and snort and spit, but that’s like just most of us regular guys do, right? My new buddy Ramses I was sort of fun: just remember to lean forward when they get up on their front legs, then back when they finally stand on all fours. And for my first camel ride, I had The Moose taking care of me, why worry?
The ride was short, anyhow, just down to Imhotep’s tomb, then back legs down, lean forward, forelegs down, lean back. Good boy, Ramses.
Imhotep was the architect of the Saqqara step pyramid, and apparently an extremely learned and capable guy. This was a pretty cool place. Reading up on Imhotep, I’ve become confused, as it seems that the location of his tomb is widely assumed to be unknown. Yet his tomb is where I thought I was. Here are some pictures.
Afterwards we went to the Imhotep Museum, which was small, but fascinating: there is so much information there that one could spend many hours.
Braving the heat, we then visited the Saqqara funerary complex, where some Bedouins loaned me some robes, and seemed to be indicating I was now an honorary member of their clan. I was touched. I also gave them some money, which they seemed to think was only fitting and proper.
By the time we left there it was late afternoon, hotter than you could imagine, and I was feeling completely run down and hacking up a storm. So we went back to Helen’s place and I slept the rest of the day. Called EgyptAir for the hundredth time and they said they had finally located my bag. They said it would take a day or so to get it back, they’d get back to me. I don’t remember much else about that day except that on top of the flu or whatever, I started getting a very bad case of Nasser’s Revenge, must have been something in the food. But still, I think we again sent out for falafel, and again they were delicious.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008—Saqqara
Bowels rumbling, lungs wheezing, I awoke at about 7:30 AM. After getting online for a moment, got my Wells Fargo account number in the e-mail and finally was able to establish that I was who I said I was and do online banking again. After that, breakfast, and another great heart-to-heart with Helene, it was off to the Dashur pyramids.
First a stop in Saqqara for food & drink to bring along. Donkeys. Camels. Dusty, urchins running everywhere. Old beat-up cars. Carts with truck tires for wheels. And on the road out of town, a second stop where a road comes in by the canal, a wiry, beaming woman in a grey chador flags us down and gets into a long, bubbly chatter with Moustafa, she grabs him by the shoulder, the arm, I thought Muslim women weren’t supposed to get physical like that! Whatever, she seems really nice. Went a way toward disempowering my stereotypes. She actually looked cute!
On to Dashur. No camels this time. We went to the Red Pyramid first, and I climbed up the steps to the tomb entrance. I had severe second thoughts about entering the tomb: it was 206 feet on a very steep staircase to the bottom, and though I had the strength, I was worried about what might happen down there, with no bathroom, and me carrying the Revenge and all. There was a rumbling in my tummy, and I decided to forgo the descent into darkness. After coming down the outside steps again to my waiting friends I explained my reasoning, and The Moose gave me a look that said “sure, wimp.”
We then drove over to take a look at the “bent pyramid,” one of the early ones, bent because at some point it had become clear to the builders that the angle was too steep.
This is one of the few pyramids that has a lot of its original facing. The ones at Giza had the facing looted for building materials. Imagine what they would have looked like early on! Since there were no restrooms anywhere, Moustafa here kindly gave me the option of using the wide, empty Sahara as my personal compost depository, but I said I could wait, and somehow did, till we got to Memphis.
Memphis in the afternoon. Very nice restrooms for a change. Relief. Great statues, and a huge reclining pharaoh, puts me in mind of the Reclining Buddha at Wat Po. In my mind I see my friend Fred Branfman saying “the things people dream up!”
After the Memphis museum, a cool coke and a visit to one of the local papyrus shops. A university student working there takes us through the entire papyrus-making, fascinating, and we pick up a couple of scrolls.
Hack hack cough cough back to the cool of the house among the date palms. Another nice siesta. Call EgyptAir, your bag is on the way, it’ll be back tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow’s Thursday, please remember I’m leaving Friday!
Turn on the air, and sleep, sweet afternoon sleep.
I wake around 6 to Moustafa bustling around the kitchen. All this, and he cooks, too. It turns out there’s company for dinner, quite a bunch of them, in fact.
At about 8, we sit down for dinner, and a troupe of six or eight pour in, all friends of Moustafa. Among them is the woman from this morning, her husband and two kids. The kids are sweet, shy, and as curious and friendly as Thai kids. The food is good. Dinner conversation is subdued, but pleasant. Nobody but the three of us have any English, and I sure don’t know Arabic.
After dinner, the Revenge of Nasser and this fluey thing had me feeling like death warmed over. I decided to turn in early. But I’m lying there reading, and suddenly The Moose opens the door, a hurt look on his face. “Aren’t you going to drink tea on the hill?” This was the first I’d heard of this possibility, and it didn’t appeal to me. But it seemed to mean a lot to him that I go, I think it may be he wanted to show off a pet Westerner or something, so I said, “if you’re going, then I will, too,” got up, and bravely climbed the sand dune with him and Helene, up to the fire at the same place we’d seen that first night. Here are a couple of old Bedouins, sitting around smoking and making tea on the fire, and there are some of the folks from dinner, we’re all sitting high on a Sahara sand dune under the moon and stars, really peaceful. But again, the language barrier.
I got The Moose to do some translation so we could get to know each other a little bit, and so the chador lady and her family and I got to find out a bit about each other. It was really sweet. Her name was (I think) Samet, she was all smiles and warmth, curious about me and my family, and her husband was a handsome young guy named Ragaz.
Most Americans who go to the Middle East probably expect what I did: nobody’s going to be really friendly. This night, under the moon with the Bedouins, I found different.
After there had been a long silence, Ragaz smiled at me, and said something. “What did he say?” I asked Moustafa.
“He said, ‘your presence lights up the night for us all.’”
Now that may be a tad of Bedouin blarney, but I really don’t think anybody has said anything so nice to me in my life.
Thursday, June 26, 2008—Saqqara – Giza – Cairo
No matter how bad I was feeling, there was no way I could miss the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx. So up, outa bed, breakfast, on the road north in the blazing sun.
EgyptAir still hadn’t sent my bag, but they assured me it would arrive that night. Sure.
What can I add to what anyone might say about the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx? Maybe a caution to watch out for everyone, even the police, trying to make a buck off you. Even my necessary and precautionary trip to the john was followed up by somebody, I doubt if he had any official capacity, charging me 10$ Egyptian or so that I just didn’t question.
But I did make it all the way up the stairs into the tomb in the big pyramid. No biggie, just an empty room up there . . . but it did seem to impress The Moose, who stayed below with Helene.
Actually all the grandeur was impressive, but I was seriously under the weather, and getting kind of “granded out,” to boot. So I was happy that we’d planned a Nile cruise for that afternoon. The pictures say more than I could about this: 
After getting back to the house, Helene calls me out to see one of our friends from last night high up in one of the palms out front, tying bunches of the dates, so that they’ll ripen correctly, I think . . . Moustafa and Ragaz are out there watching him scamper, monkeylike, up and down, it’s quite a sight.
As dusk falls, I call again to EgyptAir, they say the bag will be coming in a couple of hours. Apparently it is impossible for EgyptAir to deliver to the house, because they’d never find the place, or something. So we were going to have them deliver it to a local resort and pick it up there, but suddenly, no, we weren’t, and so, since I have to sign for the thing, we have to pile into the car again in the dark and tear ass up the road to meet them somewhere. I ask where we’re going, but The Moose isn’t talking, except to his cell phone, in short bursts of Arabic. We reverse direction, drive back. Then reverse direction again. Still on the unlit road from Saqqara, we slam on the brakes and shoot left onto the Cairo road. Just then a black car comes from the opposite way and pulls into the darkness we just came out of. “Is that them?” I ask, as we do a sudden about face and go back towards Saqqara. No answer from The Moose. We go screamin past the resort where we’d originally figured to pick up the bag. More cell phone jabber, and suddenly we pull over into a wide space in the road, where the black car was already waiting. Feels like a drug deal. We get out, they open their trunk, and lo and behold, there’s my bag, wrapped up in a big sheet of plastic so that nothing will fall out of the 2-foot gash in its side. I sign the papers, we go back, and you can imagine my relief. I’m going to get to go home to Thailand the next day in my own clothes.
Friday, June 27, 2008—Saqqara
Woke up early, this would be my last chance to take pictures of Saqqara, catch the essential primitiveness of the place. It has been a revelation to me to find, in 2008, near a major modern metropolis, a world of donkeys, camels, white-robed men, and veiled women with huge burdens on their heads.
In most ways, Egypt seems to me a place in far more need of development than Thailand 40 years ago. I wonder why there is no Peace Corps here. What great assignments there could be here. Probably Fear’s Empire is afraid of kidnappings. Who knows. Seems to me that if there’s a New Frontier, it’s here, and that’s what it’s all about.
On the way back from the picture-taking hike, Badio, the stable hand, picked me up on his way back from the market with a donkey-cart full of hay. Donkeys make great noises. It was a great ride.
I still had the flu or whatever it was, pretty bad, too. And the Ghost of Nasser had not left my being. Be that as it may, in the afternoon Helene and Moustafa took me into Cairo to buy a bag to replace my ripped one, we said our good-byes, and I was finally off for my new home in Thailand.
Very personal aside about Helene: over the years she has become one of my very best friends, and she’s one of the most courageous people I know. After raising three kids and putting up with work in the Federal bureaucracy for umpteen years, she has created a new world for herself, living her own dream, following her own heart and mind to live a not-exactly-conventional life. Moustafa is considerably younger, and a bit of the macho Egyptian, but he’s dependable, treats her well, and fills a big space in her emotional life. I can see he cares for her, and from what she says, he’s grown a lot in the time they’ve been together. I think it’s been in a way like a one-on-one Peace Corps assignment, and, as is supposed to happen in the Peace Corps, both parties get a lot out of it.
