Inside, the hangar is pure pandemonium – rows of un-staffed windows waiting for a rush; long lines of people that, though apparently not constituting a rush, nonetheless wind around the massive hall and through each other; signs I can’t read; and baggage, boxes and people everywhere. Despite the separate entrances, the doors all lead into the same giant hall, and there the guidance ends.
At the window our passports and visas are checked then taken. There is some confusion over what to do next. In the absence of any actual direction, our recently-born fellowship of travelers simply waits where we are. After half an hour of watching what seems like a million people pass us, someone, probably Australian, finally steps silently into our power vacuum and becomes our leader. I eavesdrop intently as she asks the customs official, who took our passports and then promptly went to work on something else, when we are getting them back. He looks confused and seems to notice our encampment for the first time. Giving up on verbal communication, he points repeatedly down the length of the hall as if trying to physically prod us in the direction of the mass of luggage and humanity at the other end. It seems we were supposed to proceed to the other end where something else would happen, but we have missed a step. With all the initiative and individual thought of a herd of sheep we shoulder our bags and shuffle down the hall. If the plucky Aussie hadn’t spoken up, I might have waited there for days. Patience is something I have stocked up on for this trip.
Nearly an hour and half later, we are reunited with our documents, and back on the bus, grinding our way across what I take to be the Sinai Peninsula. The impressive Israeli military desert vehicles that escorted us to the crossing have been traded for a very ordinary white Toyota pickup with two Egyptian soldiers dozing in the back. At some point the road makes its way up to the coast and I can catch glimpses of the deep blue of the Mediterranean between deserted looking stucco villas. It looks inviting, and altogether out of place.
I had hoped to find some fellow travelers on the bus with whom I might join forces for the plunge into Cairo. The stories I heard in Israel made it sound like traveling in Egypt is exhausting and best not undertaken alone. The passengers, however, offer few attractive options – no one even resembling the cute, blonde Texan I met on the bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Most look to be overly-sensitive, under-washed Europeans. There are several women, but they all look to be part of the same neo-hippie, lesbian, drum circle. I simply don’t have the energy at the moment for the earnestness I know a conversation with them will require.
I end up talking with two American guys who are actually kind of disgusting, though it has nothing to do with them being American. They are from Iowa. They wear t-shirts with stretched out collars that are either very dirty or just permanently stained, and those nylon running pants that make a swishing sound when you move. Neither looks like they have washed their hair for at least a country, and their faces are a mix of whiskers, dirt and acne. On the other hand, they are friendly.
Kent, is a teacher, as is his friend, who’s name I never quite get. It turns out they aren’t staying in Cairo at all. In fact, they hate Cairo, they hate all of Egypt. The plan is to find a bus to the airport as soon as they get to the city, and try to get on the first flight out. They are nearly out of money and vow not to spend another dime on crummy Egyptian food or another minute in Egypt if they can help it. Not only are they planning to leave Cairo as soon as possible, but they suggest I do the same.
“It’s a fucking hole, you’ll hate it.”
“Disgusting,” adds Kent’s friend.
They have been traveling for three months through Africa, and it sounds like they have pretty much hated all of it. This will be their second time in Cairo – they began their trip there. It doesn’t sound like it started well. Whether on the soft recliners of an earlier flight home, or just the cold stone tiles of the airport, Kent and his friend are determined not to spend another night in Cairo itself. They assure me that the city is filthy and dangerous, and that everyone in Egypt is dishonest and will try to rip me off. Without offering much in the way of information on where to stay or go, they are doing a hell of a job of ratcheting up my anxiety.
Kent’s friend produces a plastic bag containing a flattened loaf of sliced wheat bread, and a large jar of Smucker’s strawberry jam from his day pack. Kent hands him a jar of the soupiest looking peanut butter I have ever seen. I wonder if they’ve been adding water to it. He lays out four slices of bread across the knees of his grimy blue nylon running pants and proceeds to assemble a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a Swiss army knife. I can’t help but notice the amount of dried matter caked on the blade of the knife as he uses it to distribute the watered-down peanut butter.
“The worst thing has been the food,” he explains.
I am not surprised.
“Some of it is really disgusting. We’ve been living off this for weeks.” His mouth works the sandwich like a cement mixer as he speaks.
It turns out they brought the jam from home, but ran out of peanut butter part way through the trip. Thankfully, they were able to get more through a contact and a grocery store attached to the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. I am beginning to be sorry I started talking to these two. To their credit, they offer to share their precious peanut butter. I feel sorry for the eager schoolchildren of Iowa who will, no doubt, be hearing about this trip.
As a source of information, they are not completely useless. Besides telling me that everything in the entire country basically sucks, and that I should get out as soon as I can, they recommend a place in Cairo called the “Magic Hotel,” that I am never able to find. I’m not sure why they recommended it exactly, but they seem to agree that it didn’t really suck – aside from some attempted swindle by the manager. They also tell me of a small grocery store in the rather upscale neighborhood of Zamalek where many western businessmen and diplomats live. This, they assure me, is the only place in the entire godforsaken country where I will be able to get anything resembling American food. This information will turn out to be useful, not because I develop a longing for sliced bread or Kraft singles, but because, unbeknownst to me, we have crossed over into the land that toilet paper forgot.
Sitting sideways across two seats, with the back of my head smearing the grimy window, and looking out the opposite side at the undifferentiated brown of the desert, I listen to Kent and his friend blather on through mouthfuls of sandwich.
Without warning I am launched into the back of the seat in front of me, and land on the floor, sitting on my day pack. After a few stunned seconds of listening to the screech of the bus tires on the pavement, we resume a steady speed and I collected myself and climb back into my seat. Looking to the front of the bus, I wonder what the hell we hit. By now we are barreling across the desert just as before, except for the fact that the driver is no longer driving. He’s still in his seat, but sitting on his lap with his hands on the big, black wheel is the “guide”. The driver laughs nervously and speaks to him animatedly while, as we all watch, he slips out from under the guide, leaving him in sole control of the vehicle. So far the guide is not really living up to the hype he received at the travel agency in Tel Aviv.
According to a painfully thin and terrified young German woman sitting in front of me, who like me has just climbed back into her seat, but witnessed the hand off, our sudden deceleration was caused by the driver agreeing to let the guide take a turn behind the wheel. Instead of waiting until the next stop, which turns out to be twenty minutes up the road, they decided to execute the switch in motion. It seems the plan was the guide would sit on the driver’s lap and assume the controls, at which point the driver would slip out from under him. Sometime during the maneuver someone inadvertently stomped on the brake, sending us into a fishtailing skid at seventy miles per hour.
Both driver and guide shrug off their embarrassment with shrugs and laughs that seem to indicate no real harm done, and the guide continues to play the wheel between his hands as we come upon a solid column of what the British refer to as “lorries” coming the other way. The pitch of noise being pushed before them comes to a screaming crescendo, then drops as they pass and recede into our background. I look across the aisle at Kent who is cupping his nose in his hands and rocking back and forth in what looks like a great deal of pain. He mutters something about it being broken.
It takes a while for everyone to gather themselves, but once they have located their belongings and put the batteries back in their walkmans etc. they glare at the driver for a while and then resume their various bored postures. Almost imperceptibly the grade of the desert, and the highway rolled out upon it, changes, and the diesel engine relaxes from its steady roar into a gliding sigh. We start down a barely noticeable incline, and ahead, through the bugs and dust on the windshield, I can see what looks like a river painted on the desert floor.