If you are looking for insight into Egypt, you’ve picked up the wrong story. Not only did I do absolutely no research for this trip, bring only one book, and mostly pack the wrong clothes, but I also forgot my glasses. This is the most clueless, uninformative travelogue you’ve ever read.
My Brother In Cairo
It’s like I’m swimming. [You think I’m kidding] It sounds like I’m kidding, but I’m not. It’s like I’m swimming against a tide of Egyptians all heading for the exits. The call to prayer is floating out above the city, broadcast from the minarets that look like birthday candles stuck into the brown sheet cake of the Cairo skyline. If you’ve never heard it, you should. It sounds different to me than anything in the world, and I love it, but it’s not what I want to hear right now, because it is propelling everyone in Ramses station toward wherever they need to be for evening prayers, and it is the opposite direction of my train.
Sometimes it’s best not to know – not to know what you’re up against, not to know how it ends. Sometimes it’s best to just keep going, pretending. That’s why I’m not showing anyone the folded piece of toilet paper in my pocket. It isn’t really toilet paper, though – they don’t have toilet paper here – it just feels like it. I’m hoping it’s a train ticket, but I have doubts, serious doubts, so I’m not showing it to the guy at the information booth, or the porters, or even to my “friends” who offer to help carry my bags. I have a lot of friends here in Egypt. It’s the friendliest place I have ever been. That’s how I managed to get the paper.
I’m afraid if I show it to someone they might read it, turn it over in their hands a few times. I’m afraid they might smile widely and laugh the gentle laugh that they laugh here. I’m afraid they might say something like, “ah, my friend, this is not a train ticket – this is a crumpled piece of tissue someone sold to you.”
Of course, I know that’s what it is, but I won’t admit it. I don’t want to admit that I can’t pull this off, and I can’t face another turn on the merry-go-round of trying to get a ticket out of this place. It’s not that Cairo’s so bad, it’s just that it is completely insane. And if this crumpled piece of paper doesn’t get me out of here, I don’t know what will.
Even the bus to Cairo was a little nuts.
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Three Days Ago.
I leave Tel Aviv early in the morning after a sleepless night in a top bunk at the youth hostel. I’m not sure when it happened, but sometime after the wave of loud, stinking drunk Canadians hit their bunks and before the Australians, I realized I am no longer a youth. Hoping to balance my sleep deficit, I find a window seat and rest my head against the grimy glass as the bus heads south. Physically unable to read my guidebook the last few days for some reason, I have no idea of the route – geographically or geopolitically – other than that I am supposed to end up in Cairo in four or five hours.
When I wake up, we are at some sort of a military checkpoint. It bristles with guns in a way that I have never seen before, but, having been in Israel a week already, weaponry alone no longer impresses me. I am impressed a few minutes later when I see we have an armed escort of very tough looking off-road vehicles with large, mounted machine guns. There is one in front and one following us; we are, in fact, an armed convoy.
I find this exciting in an admittedly juvenile way. I sort of wish someone would attack us, so I could see the guns fire. It never crosses my mind that we are traveling through the Gaza Strip. Eventually, our escorts drop off the road and turn around sharply in the desert. Watching the burly tires kick up sand is not nearly as cool as seeing the guns fire, but it will have to do. After a few minutes of nerve-wracking – and, I feel, completely inappropriate – unescorted travel, we pull up to a border crossing. The Egyptian “guide” advertised by the bus company asserts himself for the first time. So far he has draped himself over the two front seats smoking and chatting with the driver, but now he stands at the front of the bus and says something that is unintelligible to me – which does not necessarily mean it is Arabic – then points to a long, low slung building that looks like an airplane hangar. I notice for the first time the pistol tucked mafia style into the waistband of his slacks; it had previously been obscured by a brown knit shirt and a roll of belly fat. While no doubt for my protection, I find the presentation of the firearm to be not very comforting.
Straining under the ridiculous weight of my pack, I fall in with the ten or so other tourists, or “backpackers,” heading toward the hangar. There are three distinct entrances to the aluminum sided building. One is designated for Egyptian nationals returning to Egypt, one is for foreigners, and one for Palestinians. The metaphor seems obvious, but just out of my reach. I couldn’t say where we are, but I think it might be Rafah. Wherever it is, it is the absolute middle of nowhere, yet feels like it must be close to hell.