The day before Ramadan.....

Heres a quick update of a few days activities.

T and the boys went up to Muqattam Hill in Cairo for both the view and to find the Monastary of St Simian the Tanner. They found the hill, however a very hazy day meant that not much could be seen of the metropolis below. The monastary is in "garbage city". Cairo, due to necessity and the absence of anything else, has an area where people collect rubbish from the city and in a "green" way recycle anything of value, carboard, cloth, metals anything. They do it not for their membership of the Green Party or global warming concerns but due to poverty. Unfortunately the driver could not find the monastary and we will have to leave this for another day. Most exciting thing was getting rear ended by a clapped-out 1970s lada, that hooted at us as it it was our fault and just shot off into the distance. Obiviously swapping insurance company details here is not a common occurence. Still no damage and we have broken our Cairo duck on bumps and scratches, like the pyramid visits more to come I'm sure.

Last night we visited the Kattameya club, booked the kids a Cabin-Fever-busting golf lesson and had a meal by the pool. Very nice indeed. Trip back was exciting, the ring road is "entertaining" during the day, a bit like being in Wacky Races alongside Dastardly & Muttley, the Ant Hill mob and Penelope Pitstop. At night it turns into a "spot the 1001 Heath and Safety incidents" competition. Most are easy to identify, like the three cars driving toward you the wrong way after missing their turn, the 16 chaps hanging on for dear life from a small suzuki pickup, wheels and containers variously coming off vehicles. Got back safely anyway.

Today we had an informal drive around with our incredibly reliable (so far......) driver Ahmed. First we went down to Maadi. Due to the location of the America school Maadi is home to the greatest concentration of donut shops in North Africa! Unfortunately we were to unable to locate a Krispi Kreme - but theres always hope. The supermakets here are great because not only can we get our longed for UK brands but re-acquaint ourselves with food long forgotten from New Orleans, Teddy Grahams, Goldfish, Hersey Kisses and Crystal Hot Sauce - the business.

From Maadi we drove up the Corniche following the Nile, and cut into town past some really awesome mosques and old islamic buildings. We made out way slowly through busy streets selling everything from fabrics to copper to the Ramadan Laterns that are popular now as the holy month starts tonight if the new moon is spotted. On some streets hundreds of the faithful were sitting on the road listening to the sermon amid the general hustle and bustle of a market day. At midday hunger got the best of the boys and we stopped off at a recommended resturant the "Blue Nile Boat" - one of a few floating resturants tied to the shores of the large island in the river called Zamelak. We plumped for the Asian resturant out of the 8 on board and had a light lunch, the fried calamari recommended by the waiter was indeed voted "top Cephalpod-based dish of the posting so far" by the boys, who wanted to order a second.




Back in the car we continued north into the Shura district, which has a lot of Coptic Chrisitians mixed in with the Muslims, it was interesting seeing the large mosques sitting next to the large coptic churches. The streets here were quite narrow and now very busy as friday prayers were finished. We shared the road with a typical array of Egyptian traffic, donkeys, carts, horses, old battered taxis, large overcrowded buses that should have died long ago. Best were the first cyclists we have seen, kamakazies on two wheels carrying pallets of bread on their head (the bread-heads), more skill than the pizza delivery guys but the same life expectancy! - you never see an old one. Somehow whistling the Hovis advert music did not seem to fit in downtown Cairo, not a flat cap in sight.


I need to take the camera more often in the front seat of the car - Im going to do a photo-documentary arty thing called From the Passenger Seat. Its just amazing what you see on a minute by minute basis on the roads here.

My work permit has come through this week and so we can now buy a car and join the merry folk of Cairo in their daily quest to sit honking horns and gesticulating at each other. Sure that will provide the material for a few blogs.......






We got back to the hotel and the preparations for Ramadan are well underway, more the Ramadan laterns (think they are called Fanush) have turned up, need to but a few for the garden (if we ever get one).......