Day 21. Fri 3rd October
Bahariyya Oasis. Cairo.
After breakfast of pitta bread with cheese and jam, we strike camp, bump-start
the wayward jeep, and return to the road and our coach. We also say goodbye
to Abdul, our tame policeman, which is probably just as well as he is looking
slightly hung over and distinctly sheepish. I think Saleh has had a few
words with him about the disappearing Southern Comfort.
We stop off for photos at the "crystal mountain", which is covered
in quartz, and then head north out of the White Desert into the Black Desert,
heading for Bahariyya. The black desert is not black, but the sand is significantly
darker due to the mineral content.
There is not much to Bahariyya, so we have drinks at a cafe, and buy food
at the two tiny supermarkets situated right next to each other - the competition
must be ferocious! It is only 11:30, too early for lunch, but we have a
400km journey ahead of us, so we buy bread, biscuits, cheese and tins of
tuna and corned beef to take on the coach - it makes a welcome change from
chicken, rice and vegetables. (I discover that I have bought sweet Egyptian
bread which is like croissant. It is delicious, but does make the
tuna sandwiches taste slightly odd!).
Back on the coach we eat, sleep and play scrabble. We get just one
pee break at a petrol station miles from anywhere, but it is closed, so
the men line the verge while the women trudge off over the dunes in search
of privacy.
In the middle of the desert we pass a bus stop!
We get to Cairo at about four o'clock and check into the Caroline Crillon
Hotel. (I am sharing with Dave, and we are fascinated to discover that,
while the room itself has no balcony, the bathroom does - I am just out
of the shower and stark naked when I discover this, seven floors up in
full view of the whole of Cairo).
It is very strange to be back here, it seems a lifetime since we last
ventured tentatively onto the streets of this huge city. Now we stroll
confidently down the busy street from our hotel to an excellent chinese
restaurant where we are booked for supper.
Not for nothing is Cairo known as "the great upturned ashtray". The
city is probably the second most polluted after Mexico City, and breathing
the air here is said to be equivelant to smoking 20 cigarettes a day. The
city has the highest population density in the world, being home to a quarter
of the country's population, some 16 million people, a higher population
than that of Austria, Belgium or Greece.
On the way back from the restaurant Dave, Nigel, Anne and I stop off
at the Mocha Cafe, obviously not a tourist haunt. We get some strange looks,
but when we order four turkish coffees, four sheeshas and a backgammon
board the waiter makes us welcome and the other patrons relax and return
to their own coffees and pipes.
We don't stay late and are in bed by eleven, although some of the group,
including Geoff, are out until two, and are a little bleary-eyed the next
morning.