Before we embarked on our visit to see my brother in Egypt, we researched a little about this mystical place in North Africa. Just a small amount of reading well and truly captured my imagination but, in retrospect, the information I gleaned from the little I researched, hardly scratched the surface.
My brother, Michael had lived and worked in Cairo for many years and his company very generously laid on a young doctor of antiquities to show us around on a private and personal tour that was, in itself, very special.
But, by way of an introduction, try to imagine walking out of a modern, air-conditioned airport building into a hot, dusty city where 21.3 million people work, eat, sleep, play, and seemingly rush around at breakneck speed. Cairo is the sixth largest metro in the world, with more than an extraordinary, one billion passenger rides taking place to the city every year.
Our introduction was hair-raising enough. Michael met us at the airport, and we climbed into an Egyptian taxi for the journey to his expansive flat in downtown Qttamaya, North Cairo. I swear we travelled faster in that car than when we were in the plane flying from Johannesburg.
Admittedly, he did give us fair warning not to look out the window, nor take any notice of what was going on around us on the way. But the friendly warning didn’t prepare us for what we saw whatsoever.
I’ve been in some hectic places in Africa before, places like Luanda, Nairobi, and Lagos that make Johannesburg look like a Sunday walk in the park, but Cairo takes the cake by a running mile. Driving in Cairo equates to competing in the Indianapolis 500, except that there are at least twelve million other vehicles, ranging from heavy-duty trucks, buses, cars, bikes (push and motor), and donkey carts navigating the roads, along with the camels and pedestrians. None of the vehicles travel at anything slower than full speed and none of them appear to be under the control of folk who have been taught to drive, or they simply don’t give a damn. This was a journey of near misses, howling horns, waving arms, and screeching tyres, which, if you aren’t familiar with it all, you would find somewhat intimidating, but in hindsight was nervously amusing.
As we got out of the taxi at our destination and started to regain our breaths and allow our heart rates to subside, I expressed the thought that people pay big money to have thrills like that on Disney World’s roller-coasters. Although, I might add, they would probably be a lot safer on a roller-coaster than driving on the streets of Cairo.
But Egypt, of course, is known for attractions beyond its driving. The pyramids of Giza are colossal, and way more imposing than any photograph could illustrate. Standing next to the first level of huge blocks of stone, my 1.80-metre-tall frame shrunk to the size of an ant against the gigantic structure that rises almost 150 metres into the sky. Historians have pondered for thousands of years how people managed to move these huge stones in place, let alone transported them from wherever they were made, so many years ago.
The pyramids were built almost eleven thousand years before the birth of Christ. The Great Pyramid was constructed from 2.3 million large limestone blocks weighing 2.6 tonnes a piece. To put this amazing structural feat in context, with all of the engineering knowledge and technology available to man today in the 21st century, we would not be able to build the pyramids if we wanted to. So, it remains a mystery as to how exactly those ancient Egyptians built these structures.
To add to the mystery of it all, Egyptologists Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert worked out that the location of the three pyramids of Giza, together with the statue of the Sphinx that lies proudly staring out across the Greater Cairo, form an identical, geometric terrestrial map of the three stars that make up the ‘Belt’ in the constellation of Orion as it occurred in the sky at the time of the Spring Equinox in 10,000BC. This couldn’t have happened without the mathematical, geological, and astronomical knowledge the human race thought it had learnt only during the comparatively recent past. Many theories have emerged as to how this great engineering feat was achieved, the strangest being that the Ancient Egyptians were aided and abetted by alien forces. But the truth is, we still do not know how it was achieved.
Meanwhile, back down on Earth, I couldn’t help but notice that just about every modern building in this massive city looked half-built. It turns out that according to local law, property tax is only due for completed buildings, so everyone builds houses, flats, and offices with an extra floor on the top (or a wing on the side) which are intentionally never completed. They are duly certified as ‘a partial build’ against which property tax can’t be levied!
Cairo is a crazy, fast, but exciting city. It houses all of the oldest religions, with the ancient churches of Coptic Christians and Roman Catholics existing in close proximity to Islamic mosques and Jewish synagogues, as well as buildings serving a multitude of other different religions and sub-sects.
Modern Cairo is a tourist heaven but gambling, liquor, et al, are forbidden for the Egyptians themselves. But visitors, even from countries in the Arab world who are ordinarily denied these pleasures at home, are free to partake in all that is on offer. These pastimes are contained in particular locations so as to avoid the unnecessary and undesirable contamination of the local population.
In the days of the Egyptian Empire, Sudan, the huge country immediately south of Egypt, was part of the empire. There are in fact many more pyramids in Sudan than exist in Egypt.
We were taken to Saqqara, the burial ground of Egyptian kings and royals, serving as the necropolis of the Ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis. It contains the oldest complete stone building complex known to man, the Pyramid of Djoser, otherwise known as the Step Pyramid. Saqqara, together with Giza complexes, is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of theWorld.
We also visited the famous Ace Club, a club reserved for ex-patriots and foreign visitors. It is here that we encountered a couple of gentlemen from across the border, clothed in white turbans and flowing white kaftans and clearly having an unusually great time.
There are also plenty of bugs floating around the Nile, as we discovered to our detriment. But then again, I guess bugs are a risk across most of Africa. Over the years, I have been a victim of malaria on a number of occasions, as well as bouts of yellow fever and black-water fever, to mention a few. This time, however, it was Ann who got struck down by something nobody has ever been able to identify. But so severe was her condition that she had to be admitted to ICU upon our return home, and had to stay there for almost a fortnight before the fever was under control.
Aside from Ann catching the bug at the very end of our stay, Cairo was an amazing and unique experience and left me pondering on the many mysteries of the universe we simply have no knowledge of.