The flight from Kuwait to Cairo was 2.5 hours they said. After late lunch was served, there was nothing much to do but take a nap or look out of the window since there was no onboard video entertainment to speak of and I had already finished reading the inflight magazine, Horus. Thank goodness that my seat was 17A so I chose the latter. We were right above the empty western part of the Saudi desert which looked like a reddish, desolate Martian landscape. Sand dunes sculpted by the wind in varying shapes and configurations stretched out all the way to the horizon. Their undulating forms were quite mesmerizing and reminded me of sandbars left stranded by a retreating sea. It was difficult to imagine that anybody down there could survive but every now and then, I spotted some form of habitation by the presence of tire tracks crisscrossing the arid landscape. People in four-wheel drive SUVs? Perhaps.
Red Sea coast and the mountainous Sinai peninsula with its dry wadis
Soon, we were flying over the mountainous region of the country where the temperature must have been much cooler than the desert. This rocky range abruptly ended and gave way to a narrow sandy strip that marked the shore of a large body of water. The map flashing on the overhead screen marked the spot as the Gulf of Aqaba, one of the twin forks of the Red Sea. A couple of minutes later, we were above the Sinai Peninsula and I could see the southern tip where the popular resort of Sharm Al-Sheikh was located. Very popular with European tourists (particularly the Swedes), they say that the underwater corals with its teeming life forms are unrivalled elsewhere. Before the signing of the peace treaty, Israel held this barren strip of real estate which they captured from the Egyptians in the War of ’67. I really don’t know who wants to live in this piece of seemingly uninhabitable land pockmarked with rocky crags and dry, prehistoric wadis.
The other tip of the Red Sea came into view and I couldn’t but help wonder where Moses parted the waters as he led the Israelites away from bondage and into the Promised Land. These days, it is filled with oil tankers and cargo ships making their way to and from the Suez Canal which connects this waterway to the Mediterranean Sea. The pilot’s voice over the loudspeaker broke my reverie as he announced that we were making the final approach to Cairo airport and could we please fasten our seatbelts and pull our seats upright. Egypt Air flight no. 601 landed in the late afternoon sun right on the dot. It was 5:30PM local time.
Great bustling night view from the Intercon's 18th floor
This junket was another one of those hectic business trips which my Boss sends me once in a while with a Client to “check out their requirements”. This time it was to scout the location of a restaurant along the banks of the Nile and the Client was composed of three people, one of whom was Egyptian. He had connections inside for somebody came and quickly hustled us out of Immigration before picking up our luggage from the carousel. This short waiting time was put to good use by two of my companions who hied off to the Duty Free and came back with two bottles of scotch and wide grins on their faces. To imbibe in our hotel rooms was the explanation. Well, we didn’t get to our rooms at the 18th floor of the Semiramis Intercon until after past midnight because we spent the next hours from the airport meeting with their local counterparts and going around Heliopolis to see some other sites of the resto franchise including the largest mall in town (Star Center) or the Middle East, for that matter, until Dubai’s Emirates Mall came along. I thought we’d never finish but we finally ended up having dinner in a fancy Eastern-themed restaurant called Fusion right next to TGIFriday’s located on the banks of the Nile River. The drive to that place was quite hair-raising since the wide roads had no lane markings nor speed limits and it was every mad man for himself. As our friend said, if you can drive in Cairo then you can drive anywhere. It reminded me of India except that here, there were no carts and cows joining the melee. And, at least, they drove on the right-hand side of the road. Surprisingly, I was told, there are very few accidents – which to me wasn’t a comforting thought nor enough incentive to take the wheel.
The Cairo Tower overlooking Tahrir Bridge across the Nile on a hazy, polluted morning We agreed to share the drinks the following night since we were all dead-tired. But after a cold shower, I just couldn’t sleep. So I sat on the balcony with a bottle of mineral water to admire the brightly-lit spread of the city with the Nile just right in front of me and reminisced about my first visit to Cairo. In 1989, my wife and I, along with my brother and his friend decided to spend the Christmas holidays in this city. We cruised the Nile on a felucca, rummaged through the sprawling Khan Al-Khalili bazaar, and visited the Citadel - the great fortified complex where the Mohammed Ali Mosque with its needle-like minarets stood. We also spent hours in the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities where we came face-to-face with mummies in their heavy funerary coffins and the amazing solid gold mask of the boy king Tutankhamun. The highlight of the whirlwind tour of the city was, of course, the visit to the Pyramids where we took a camel ride around the complex all the way to the Sphinx. I still remember lugging the heavy and cumbersome Panasonic videocam up the few huge stone blocks at the base of the towering Cheops pyramid until my shoulder hurt like crazy. We also went on a daytrip to Alexandria and Ismailiya to see the Suez Canal. Then spent New Year's eve on the long 15-hour train journey south to Luxor playing cards with some Egyptian peasants in the second-class compartment to pass the time. It was a lot of fun and we vowed to be back again one day. The Nile is so wide that they put a yacht marina right by the side of one of its banks Well, that was 17 years ago. I can’t even recall now which hotel we stayed in. But I clearly remember the Cairo Tower where we had lunch at the revolving restaurant. We ordered their buffet meal which was served to us in batches over an interminable amount of time that we thought the large selection of entrees brought to us was all that they served. Everytime we asked if that was it, all we got as a reply was a smile and a sign saying okay. So we finished them all down to the last piece of olive. Imagine our shock when, as we were preparing to leave, the waiter came back not with the bill but with the piece de resistance - sizzling lamb chops and various kebabs. So there was a main course, we all said in unison. Too late, there simply was hardly any room left in our stomachs! That same tower was across me now and its blinking lights winked knowingly, probably asking if I fancied another round of buffet servings. Arabic chandeliers hang nicely from the ceiling of Tabasco restaurant's cozy interiors Next day, after the site survey in the morning, it was more of the same boring meetings. But at least we had a decent late lunch in a restaurant located in an old residential house with a great ambiance. The wall stucco with its bright yellow and dark red paint, classical chairs and worn floor tiles recalled colonial times of the past. This was reinforced by deep window eaves covered with wooden mushrabiya screens that effectively filtered out the afternoon sun. The food was very good, too, if a bit heavy (I had veal) and the local Egyptian salads and appetizers of lentils, beans, eggplant and sambusak were simply great. I just wanted to sleep on the sofa in one dark corner of the room after we were done. At least we got back to the hotel a bit earlier at 7:00PM where we were supposed to freshen up and take a nap. I went out to roam around the huge Tahrir Square rotunda behind the hotel where I bought a few souvenirs and sat on one of the park’s benches. Watching the nightlife, as Cairenes hurried along for last minute shopping before going home, I saw many young couples strolling along the park holding hands and whispering sweet nothings to each other. Just like elsewhere in the world, affection is expressed in the same way among star-crossed lovers, regardless of religion, race or creed. I got back just on time to have a few drinks with the guys before we went out close to midnight to take a ride on the horse buggy which took us around across the Nile and Zamalek, the island in the middle of the river. The clip-clopping of the horse’s hooves was music to the ears and I just wanted to drift off to sleep. Belly dancing at its finest But there was more after that. One of my companions wanted to treat us to some belly-dancing so off we went to the hotel’s nightclub where the action was. For over an hour, a troupe of four girls in sexy outfits serenaded the audience with Arabic songs. The drinks and food finally got to my head and I found myself nodding off, only to be awakened when the lights went on and the loud sound of Arabic percussion went into action. Somebody announced the belly dancer’s name and a skimpily-dressed woman came out and shashayed across the stage. Every inch of her whole body shook vigorously to the accompaniment of the band’s hypnotic music. With twin assets like Pamela Anderson’s heaving up and down and frantically-swaying Jennifer Lopez-like hips, it was no wonder that the crowd was held spellbound. I think I hardly blinked throughout the performance! She changed costumes thrice and on those three occasions, she was a sight to behold. I wondered how she could gyrate a part of her body while the rest remained still. Great muscle control, I thought! I finally dragged myself to my room at 3:30AM. When the alarm rang three hours later, I thought I was at home and tried to ignore it until a part of my brain told me that we had a flight to catch at 9:00AM. That made me bounce out of bed into the shower. Later, bleary-eyed but looking none the worse for wear, we boarded the flight back home. I slept like a baby all the way.
