They call it the city of a thousand minarets. Magnificent Cairo – the compelling icon of Egypt – stirs restlessly, alive with the millions of people that breathe its dry, hazy air.
Cairo is a city of faded grandeur. Its cityscape reflects its struggle for modernization; its architectural legacy overwhelms contemporary design. The aged furniture, shabby carpets and medieval elevators betray Cairo’s half-hearted commitment to fast-paced global consumerism. It is a place where time collides; where past and present meld, and the ancient speak in the same phrase as the modern.
Cairo’s streets are never silent. Traffic drones on through the night, the low humming of cars in motion punctuated occasionally by sharp honking. There is constant movement. In the dark hours of the morning, the cries of imams compete loudly across the city, calling the faithful to prayer. As the sun rises, spreading warmth and light, the streets flock with peddlers, taxi drivers, pedestrians, and tourists (clutching Lonely Planet guides) intense in their everyday business.
Old cars ply the streets, making a tremendous din as they hurtle in the sun – square, boxy models, dented and painted over innumerable times. Their drivers set the pace of the city, turning sharp corners, shouting greetings to each other, stopping impatiently at crossroads. They barely obey police commands, ignoring traffic lights that flash impotently.
Sitting out on the streets is common in Cairo. Men sit with an occasional sheesha, exchanging stories and watching all who pass by. This is a city dominated by men – from taxi drivers to waiters, tour guides and shopkeepers. It is a pleasure to speak to the occasional woman, and to see them take roles of authority. This is relatively rare.
There is a complex rhythm to everyday life in Cairo. It is unintelligible to the uninitiated. Most visitors do not stay long enough to internalize the rituals necessary for easy living. Rather than weaving in and out – ducking with punches, and dancing on light feet – tourists struggle incessantly to accomplish the most basic things. Just getting a taxi is an effort. Negotiating cab fares is an awkward, uneasy performance for the polite foreigner. Drivers – astute at reading body language – always have the upper hand unless you are bold enough to pay the appropriate small bills, ignore protestations, and walk away.
The Cairo Museum, with its brick red walls, holds thousands of years of human history. Time is compressed in this crowded space as thousands of curious tourists stare at mysterious objects, crafted by artisans long dead. Colourful hats, sunglasses, and bright clothes contrast sharply with etchings, stone tablets, hand-made jewelry, clay figurines, and looming granite statues. The tourists gather in groups, listening with strained ears to their private guides, speaking in French, German, Arabic, Spanish, Japanese and English – modern interlocutors of the distant past.
The Cairo Museum stands as a reminder of the forgetfulness of mankind and the necessity of repetition to preserve collective memory. It demonstrates our constant quest to excavate our surrounding world to decipher ourselves. It stands as a testimony of the painstaking labour of numerous archeologists, explorers, treasure hunters and scholars who unearthed, preserved, and stored objects made by unknown ancestors. Now displayed carefully in overcrowded rooms, the artifacts were sometimes kept in storage for years, piled helter-skelter on other relics from different millennia.
In the halls of the museum, the statues sit, larger than life, with their hands carefully placed – palms down, or in a fist, or holding symbolic objects. It is touching to see that when husbands and wives are carved together, her hand is placed behind his back, as a gesture of support, while they sit and stare resolutely ahead. The most memorable statues were Rahotep and Nofret, uncanny in their lifelikeness. The crowning glory of the Museum is the collection of ornate treasures from the chambers of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Tutankhamun is dead; the intricate burial rites and splendid jewelry demonstrate man’s anxious quest for perfect eternal life.
The Pyramids at Gaza, a half an hour trip from the city, are breathtaking. The three of them, of different sizes, are laid out carefully in geometrical design. They flank the haughty Sphinx, who sits grandly with her fallen nose. Camel and horse riders constantly harass tourists for rides, conning them to sit on their animals for a photo, and then nudging them to rise. Amidst fallen stones and dusty tombs, fumes from piles of fresh droppings quickly become overwhelming.
A trip to Cairo is not complete without a visit to Coptic Cairo. In this southern quarter, ancient churches with beautiful mosaics and detailed wooden doors tell the charming story of Christ’s flight to Egypt. The magnificent Coptic Museum, splendidly curated, houses vestiges of the monastic life of early Christians – stone carvings, manuscripts, wall paintings, pottery and metal ware. In the nearby cemetery, tombs the size of one-story houses sit side-by-side, creating an eerie village of the dead. An unexpected bonus was the exceptional hospitality of Naser, owner of The Coffee Shop located down the street from the Metro Station, who entertains his guests with quizzes on the smells of essential oils and produced gifts for accurate guesses.
There is so much more to tell about Cairo. I have not yet written of the busy activity at El-Fishaway, where people sit with coffee and sheeshas while hawkers sell everything from fancy beads and tissues to lutes and shoeshine; the smoky rooms of The Cairo Jazz Club, where modern Egyptians dance provocatively to a live band; the proud Citadel, built by Salah al-Din, the chivalrous knight; or the breath-taking Al-Azhar mosque in the Islamic quarter, which rises high above small shops that sell leather-bound reference books and mother-of-pearl boxes. I made my best buy there – beautiful gold-trimmed leather notebooks embossed with my initials – from Abdel Zaher, right beside the mosque.
A city is nothing without good company. I spent enjoyable evenings with delegates from the IASFM11 conference at La Bodega, the rooftop of Odeon Palace Hotel, Abu as-Sid, Sequoia, and Taboula – all restaurants I would visit again. I will also remember the view of the Nile from the grand ballroom of Shepherd Hotel, the tasty fuul at the Flamenco Hotel, and the ancient switchboard phone at the old City Garden Hotel. I spent a lovely day with friends at Alexandria, admiring the ultra-modern library and getting stuffed with overpriced fresh fish.
Cairo is a city you cannot understand quickly. It is a city of contradiction – where you become rude to fend off indefatigable peddlers, develop hard skin to avoid getting conned, but get surprised by friendly, sincere Egyptians. The shifting contrast keeps you off balance – you are unsure of what to do, what to say, and who to be. I spent ten days in Cairo, and at the end of them, was tired and ready to go home. I could not bear another negotiation, another opening line to get you to spend more money, or another question about my origins. But I also know that I don’t know Cairo in all its mysteries, and hope, in the fullness of time, to go back there again.
