Cairo

I'm writing this in the hotel lobby overlooking a chaotic street that is an impenetrable block back from the Nile.  The photo is a view from my hotel room on the ninth floor.  The room looks out over the rooftops of endless, unfinished, brick apartment blocks.  This used to be agricultural land and the residents are poor farmers.  The apartments are expensive and people move in before they can afford to finish the outside.  The rooftops become scrap yards with makeshift wooden shanties, public laundries and goat pens.  When the morning haze lifts, I can see two of the pyramids at Giza rising above the highrise apartment buildings.

On Monday and Tuesday, I did the tourist things including visiting these pyramids and I will write about this in my next posts.  My trip over from Malta was smooth.  When I walked back through the Marsaxlokk market on Sunday after my previous post, my slight anxiety about getting everything sorted and put into boxes to leave with my landlord kept me from enjoying the feeling of nostalgia about my last visit as a resident of Marsaxlokk.  But everything went like clockwork and then I was in the Cairo airport looking at my name on a card held up by a tall Egyptian.  After Malta, it is a shock to find myself in a land of large people!

After my four week stay in Alexandria last year, there was a familiarity about the chaos of Cairo streets and the check-in process whereby the male guide sat me down in the lobby and dealt with the male receptionist.  My room was spacious with a small sitting area.  When I arrived there was a lot of noise coming from the pool bar area that is one flight up on the roof.  My heart sank at the sound of disco music and young laughter and I wondered about asking for a change of room.  But I switched on the TV, found a station with Egyptian pop music, found my earplugs as a precaution, and by the time I went to bed, silence had fallen!

Now at the end of my stay, I have worked out the wireless system in the lobby and am settled at a table looking out on the busy street life.  My guide will be here at 6.00 to take me to the airport for my flight to Aswan so I have a good slab of time to catch up with all my internet business.  Life is sweet.