Shots Across the Water, page 3
The second day in Cairo I went to the British Consulate to request a ‘letter of introduction’ to the Sudanese Embassy, a vital document. Then off to the café for tea and Shesh Besh, again talking with many of the residents. I had my hair and beard trimmed by Tawfik’s barber friend. Henk and I walked a bit around Cairo but came back again to the café.
On the third day I went to the British Consulate to collect my letter of introduction and then to the Sudanese Embassy. I filled in a visa application form.
‘May I see your passport?’ asked the officer. He examined my main passport which had my Egypt entry stamp. ‘Why did you enter Egypt at El Arish?’ he demanded. He obviously suspected that I had been in Israel, which would have been the end of my travels south of Egypt. I had to come up with a plausible story on the spot.
‘I was on a sailing boat and arrived at El Arish by yacht and walked to the border post.’
He wrote all this down on my application form and then said, ‘Come back tomorrow.’
I was calm, but as soon I left the building I started shaking. It was the first time I had lied to an official and was facing a potential end to my journey. I was anxious when I went back to the Sudanese Embassy the next day. I waited 30 minutes in the queue and when I got to the desk I was presented with my passport with a visa to visit Sudan for one month. I tried hard not to show my relief. My journey would continue.
I met Henk at the hostel and we decided that rather than spend the day at the café today we would wander around old Cairo. It was a really beautiful city, despite its size and chaos. The population of the Greater Cairo metropolitan area was around 7 million in 1980. As of 2024 it is estimated to be over 22 million 4. Getting around on buses was dangerous. Every bus was packed, with people hanging on to open doors at the back. There was a cacophony of horns. Occasionally we saw traffic cops fighting a losing battle to control the drivers. We walked.
Pyramids
I had been waiting much of my life to visit the Pyramids at Giza. I had saved this day as a treat after the anxiety about my Sudanese visa. We managed to battle our way on to a bus that stopped quite near to the Pyramids. They were magnificent and despite the traders desperate to sell us a camel ride, private tour and souvenirs we managed to walk up to the Great Pyramid, the largest of the three large structures. This was before the days of mass tourism so we were able to join a short queue to climb inside.
The entrance to the passageway was wide but once inside we had to crouch down in a small tunnel, barely wide enough for one person to climb the 130 feet to the main chamber, clambering over or under people returning in the opposite direction. Completing this obstacle course we arrived at a small room with high ceilings. I stood quietly in awe of the experience of being at the heart of this enormous construction as well as thinking about the suffering of the slave labourers who had built it.
Coming out of the dark into the bright sunlight I let my eyes adjust before walking around the Pyramid complex and of course the Great Sphinx of Giza. I’d seen many pictures of this 66-foot-tall limestone statue of a reclining sphinx, a mythical creature with the head of a pharaoh and the body of a lion, but was unprepared for quite how extraordinary it was.
When the sun started to fall, we decided to find something to eat from the small market of tents selling souvenirs and, fortunately, some food. We avoided the many attempts to get us to buy a memento and found a stall selling falafels. Then we sat on a small mound of sand in the desert with a view of the Pyramids and waited for the Son et Lumière show, which we watched for free. The light over the Sphinx was incredible. A day I had waited for since I was a ten-year-old history geek.
After this brilliant day it was back to the mundanity of travelling. I managed to swap my jeans for a pair of light trousers. Those jeans were far too hot for me to wear but probably the most valuable item I owned. Then to the Hilton Hotel to use the toilets and help ourselves to the toilet paper. It was astonishing that the scruffy young man that I was at the time wasn’t thrown out. Upon leaving we met an American woman in her 70s who had been at the hotel for the same reason. You could not buy toilet paper in the shops, so it seemed that every traveller went to the Hilton. I dread to think what the hotel budget for toilet paper was. I had yet to manage how to clean up without paper – that would come later.
In the evening Henk and I went back to the café in the square and played Shesh Besh and smoked pipes with some of the older men. Even before we had entered the square they knew we were coming and there were two glasses of shi, the local sweet black tea, waiting for us. Our friendly shopkeeper arrived. We explained that we were leaving the next day and I left the café owner and the shopkeeper one of my London postcards each. One was immediately put on the wall above the bar.
Oasis
Henk and I walked to Cairo Railway Station in the morning, arriving in time for the 11:20am train. Then we were ushered into another train. Over the next two hours this train left the station three times only to return each time. Finally, at around 1:30pm, the train left the station. If this had been London the passengers would have been furious but here everyone was happy to be on the train at all. Including the two of us.
The trip was beautiful, passing the Pyramids at Giza and then the Step Pyramid at Saqqara. Alongside the rail track were irrigated fields in the old tradition, little changed since Ancient Egyptian times. Water was raised by oxen-powered wells and hand-turned spiral tubes, which were easily moved to any of the multiple irrigation channels where water was needed. Technology that had endured.
Eventually the train left the valley and passed through empty desert before entering the Faiyum Oasis. We arrived late afternoon and with the help of an elderly man found a hostel to stay in for the minute sum of 40 piastres a night (24 pence in UK currency). We registered with the police and got another stamp in our passports. At this rate I would run out of pages. That evening we ate and sat in cafés playing Shesh Besh. Prices were much cheaper than in Cairo, people were very friendly, and there were few Western travellers.
The next day we took a small local bus. It was a really great way to see the Faiyum Oasis, a basin in the desert to the west of the Nile about 60 miles southwest of Cairo. I enjoyed the beautiful fields, irrigation channels and plenty of tall palm trees of differing varieties. We passed by fields ploughed by oxen and an old brick factory.
Eventually we arrived at the town of Izbat Shakshuk on the shores of the Qarun Lake. There was a lot of flooding on the road but when we arrived it looked really old and peaceful. Except that when we got off the bus we were surrounded by young boys shouting, ‘Baksheesh, baksheesh,’ meaning ‘give us money’. Soon there were maybe 10 of them and some started throwing stones at us. There was a dilemma around giving money to some and not to all. I felt guilty being a Westerner and realised I would have to learn to deal with this feeling. Of course people would assume that we had money and the concept of Westerners with very little money was difficult for people to comprehend.
After giving them a small amount of money we were left alone and walked along the edge of fields of corn and other crops. A farmer gave us a lift on his tractor and then we met three travellers who gave us a lift in their van back to Faiyum. Later that day we all took a local bus to the substantially eroded Pyramid of Amenemhet III. I didn’t believe it was a pyramid until we got very close – from afar it looked like a pile of rubble. There are 118 pyramids in Egypt; some are in good condition, while many are piles of stones.
The returning bus stopped in a small village and again we were surrounded by a group of children. No stones were thrown but it was impossible to walk around. A policeman appeared and cleared the children off but then insisted we pay him. I began to realise that I would need to find a way of being helpful rather than just being a tourist with money. It took a while but later in my travels I did find a way. The next day Henk and I took the bus from El Faiyum back to Cairo, driving through desert.
Overnight train
The following morning I went to Cairo Station, which was packed with people. I sat waiting for over five hours for the train to appear. Henk had been ill the night before and, uncertain as to whether he could travel, slept in. About an hour before the train arrived, he appeared. When the train arrived it was a fight to get on. People getting off the train had to fight as hard as people getting on, and there were fist fights over seat occupation. To my great surprise I got two seats without being punched and sat down for the 16-hour overnight journey to Luxor. Henk was not feeling good but wanted to get to Luxor, so two fellow passengers helped me heave him up into the luggage rack where he promptly fell asleep.
The train was incredibly crowded and the aisles between seats were filled with people selling food, drinks, fabric and even animals. There was a sense of desperation on the part of the sellers. One man threw blue chewing gum at everyone in the carriage, demanding money from anyone who touched it. He collected most of the gum back from the dirty floor, and I suspected this was thrown again at passengers in the next carriage.
The train journey was long and uncomfortable but never boring. As well as the traders, beggars walked up and down the aisles, pushing their way past passengers as they went. I sat with five other people, eating sugarcane, drinking and talking. Farouk was a police officer travelling back home to Luxor. ‘What are you doing travelling in this carriage?’ he asked me in English.
‘It’s all I can afford,’ I replied, ‘and it’s far more interesting.’
He liked that, repeating it in Arabic to the other people sitting nearby who smiled.
After this helpful introduction the journey was great fun. My very basic Arabic was a source of embarrassment to me but no one else seemed to mind. The two men opposite shared their nuts and Coca-Cola, refusing to let me buy anything. The best they let me do was share the small amount of dried fruit and nuts that I brought with me. They argued with each other as to who paid for the next round of food.
The first time the train slowed down to stop at a station, Farouk shouted, ‘Lie down!’ as everyone in the train ducked down below the open windows above the seats. ‘Men selling sugarcane will hurl the thick canes through the windows and come and collect money for this when the train stops at the station. People have been killed in the past by being speared.’ And sure enough a few minutes later, what looked like a barrage of canes started flying through these upper windows landing on passengers fortunately not hurting anyone. ‘Don’t touch them,’ shouted Farouk. ‘Leave them until the traders come and collect them. If you are holding one when they come you’ll have to buy it.’
The train pulled into Luxor station after 16 hours and 400 miles. I was exhausted as I hadn’t slept at all. Henk climbed down from the luggage rack having slept the whole way and announced that he felt a bit better. We said goodbye to Farouk and the others after the most fun I’d ever had on a train.
Tombs
Next morning Henk still had diarrhoea so I got him some bottled water and then set off alone to the Nile, crossing on the locals’ ferry, which, amazingly, was free. There was also an elaborate tourist ferry with coaches waiting on the west bank. After I had walked for 30 minutes in 35-degree heat, a man driving a donkey cart stopped and gestured to me to climb in the back. He dropped me at the Colossi of Memnon, two enormous statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. I then set off again on foot to the temple of Hatshepsut, which was enormous and built into a cliff. It was breathtaking. Although I had studied the temples and tombs of the Valley of the Kings as a teenage history enthusiast, I had had no idea of their scale.
Coming out of these temples I met Mohammed. He was on his way on foot to the main tombs in the Valley to sell souvenirs. ‘Why are you walking? Westerners don’t walk here!’ he asked me.
‘I’m different,’ I replied. ‘I can’t afford the bus and walking is more interesting.’
‘Even the Western travellers like you take the bus,’ he said. ‘Would you like to walk with me?’
Of course I agreed.
‘I make a good living selling souvenirs,’ Mohammed explained. ‘I set my prices by guessing how wealthy each tourist is. I will show you around.’
‘I’ve been looking forward to this day since I was about ten years old,’ I told him.
‘Then we must make sure that this is a special day,’ he replied. And so I found myself with the best tour guide I have ever had. Mohammed took me to each tomb and somehow persuaded the staff to let me in free of charge.
First was the tomb of Ramses IX, which was long and thin with openings along the corridor. The walls were lined with paintings of the king, with symbols describing his life and journey to the afterlife. Then I went to the tomb of Ramses VI, which was similar although longer and the artwork better preserved.
The third tomb was Tutankhamen’s. The walls featured simple, colourful paintings around the central sarcophagus, including pictures of the king with various deities, along with the twelve monkeys that are symbolic of the twelve steps to the afterlife.
My next stop was the Tomb of Amenophis. This was deeper than the others and beautifully preserved. The ceiling was blue with yellow stars and the top half of the walls covered with drawings and hieroglyphics in black on a grey background. Nine monkeys featured, with twelve serpents, nine men and twelve gods. There were other drawings of men, boats and various images of burials and religious celebrations. Anubis the Jackal God passed a form of cross to the king, as did other deities. I spent a long time transfixed, imagining the stories that the images depicted. When I emerged, Mohammed asked, ‘Why have you been there so long?’
‘I’ve been reading the story of Amenophis in hieroglyphics and pictures,’ I replied.
Finally Mohammed took me to the Tomb of Thutmose. The tomb was oval shaped, with yellow walls and black and red line drawings and hieroglyphics. There were many serpents and groups of people – predominantly groups of women but also men, and gods.
As soon as I came out of the last tomb Mohammed appeared again and encouraged me to have a go at trying to get the best price for his souvenirs from the tourists. I wasn’t nearly as good at it as him and some of these tourists were insulted and became angry with me. I felt like I had just travelled over thirty centuries in five minutes.
Mohammed was finished working for the day and we walked back towards the ferry together passing a small village where a farmer and his wife and children insisted we come and drink with them. Mohammed translated while they plied me with questions about life in the UK, while the children, chickens and dogs ran around outside their tiny house made largely of reeds. His wife served us a delicious mint tea. I wanted to pay them but Mohammed told me that this would be an insult. Instead I gave them one of my postcards of London which the family gathered around and asked me more questions about. I was glad of my postcard collection. The sun was setting as I gave a postcard to Mohammed and walked back to the ferry.
The next day Henk felt a lot better and we went to the Temple of Karnak. Henk was quite weak and it was over 35 degrees, so it wasn’t a long visit. The scale of this temple and the height of the columns were breathtaking. We explored for about an hour and a half, then walked slowly back to our hostel, passing a large funeral procession with nearly one hundred women wailing. We bent our heads in respect as the procession passed and were thanked by two of the men.
Lake Aswan
After a third night in Luxor, Henk and I took the train to Aswan, arriving in the late afternoon. The town was clean and modern, with extremely friendly people. We found a hostel to stay in and ate in the ‘Palestine Club’, which reminded me of the cafés of Jericho. Next morning we went to the Elephantine Island in the middle of the Nile, with its luxury Oberoi hotel built in the 1970s. We took the hotel ferry which was free to guests although I’m not sure how we got away with this. The island accentuated the wealth gap of this part of Egypt. Just next to the opulent hotel was a very poor village. Meanwhile, Aswan seemed to me like a show town. There was a wide road in the centre that came from and led to nowhere. Modern buildings were in abundance with parks and green lawns. It was different to anywhere I’d seen elsewhere in Egypt.
I said goodbye to Henk the next day, handing him letters to post home to my family once he got back to the Netherlands. I felt sad after he left. That evening I went to various cafés, meeting up with backpackers, hoping to find a travelling companion. All were heading back north. I had yet to meet anyone venturing south into Sudan and began to feel anxious as I suspected that travelling would become harder. I had enjoyed the people, the food, the culture and the heritage of Ancient Egypt. Heading south felt like it would be the start of a journey into the unknown – and that felt scary.
With one more day in Aswan, I went to the old town and bought food for the journey, mostly dried fruit, nuts, some flatbread. I had already given up buying drinking water, deciding to trust that my body would adjust to local water. This could have been a mistake but felt like the only realistic option. I had an old army surplus water bottle covered in khaki felt that kept the water cool.
The next morning I took the early train to the Aswan High Dam and the border office. I had to pay for my luggage (virtually none by my travel standards today). I had another discussion about the El Arish stamp in my passport but the officer then waved me through. I hoped that this would no longer be an issue once I had left Egypt. I then joined a huge crowd of passengers attempting to board the third-class section of the ferry.
The ferry was made up of two vessels. The largest, the smart-looking ferry boat, housed the wheelhouse, first-class cabins, dining room and comfortable-looking sunbeds. Its outside decks, covered with awnings, were the domain of Western travellers wearing smart jackets, sun hats and summer dresses. Tied alongside and towering above the ferry boat was a huge barge, which was clearly where everyone else, including me, would travel. This was the third-class (there was no second class) option, with three open-sided decks. Thankfully a roof covered the top, otherwise the strength of the sun would have been unbearable.
