Cairo, round two

To clarify: this post is purely about the city, and not the various tourist sites we visited during our stay there, or I will be writing until midnight and Mewtwo Strikes Back won't watch itself.

On Thursday afternoon, following a day's worth of lessons that were impossible to take seriously due to fizzing anticipation, we make our way down to Misr station in Alexandria; this in itself is a bit of a challenge as most texts still refer to it by the old name, al-Raml. After around twenty minutes of screaming "Al 'atar!" (the train!) at exasperated taxi drivers we arrive and make a dash for the first class carriage at the far end of the platform; tickets were bought a few days before, when we discovered what should have been anticipated long ago: Arabs do not queue.

First class, on the fast trains at least, is not hugely different from the ordinary setup except for a few inches more space between seats (there's enough room to lie almost flat, very handy at 4pm) and an optional meal. As with Cairo, the outskirts of Alexandria are lined with modern concrete apartment blocks, though with the addition of 'old-style' decor on one wall only - the one facing the train line. A journey predicted to take two and a half hours takes around three, mercifully shortened by sleep.

Ramses station is crammed; we have to fight to get off the train and plummet through crowds, arms firmly around all valuables in typical Brit fashion. Our suspicions regarding the morality of the average Cairene citizen are confirmed when Olivia (who studies Arabic at Exeter and lives in the district of Mohandessin) welcomes us with "I've just had my phone stolen!", explaining our failure to get in contact up until that point. To be fair, this was a one-off occurrence, and most Egyptians are so opposed to theft that passersby will chase and kick the sh*t out of thieves operating in the vicinity on your behalf - but it does nothing to calm our nerves at this point. We get into a white taxi (black ones are unlicensed) and go to the hostel, a few streets away from Tahrir. There is no Arabic word for 'hostel' and with good reason; the establishment we find ourselves in is a far cry from the image of rows of bunks, prison-style, in a whitewashed room crawling with cockroaches, and instead is closer to a cosy fifth-floor hotel, albeit one with high-fives on entry and for £4 per night. We didn't say a word.

Later on we venture out to eat - by this point it's about 10pm and, surprisingly for a Thursday, full-scale protests are well under way in Tahrir and spilling out into the surrounding streets. We turn a corner, wondering where all the shouts are coming from, and come face-to-face with an advancing demonstration, banners waving under the night sky. Our hunt for a restaurant from then on resembles the old Pacman games and we are forced to duck into alleyways and find alternate routes to avoid being swept up in the crowd - though a shopowner assures us it is quite safe. 

Dinner this evening takes place in the upstairs of a takeaway - the bottom floor is jam-packed - and feast on grossly cheap mezze and warm flatbreads. The other main dish in Cairo, on the go at least, is called koshari (above) and consists of a pile of white rice, white noodles and white pasta with a few crispy extras sprinkled on top, if you're lucky. I go to bed that night with the kind of crippling stomach cramps one can expect after spending 70p on a main meal - but sleep it off. My immune system seems to be better than most.

                        

The following night, after the Pyramids (still to come!), we experience the polar opposite; an evening at one of Cairo's most luxurious restaurants, Sequoia, on the banks of the nile. Listed in most guidebooks and full of Western tourists and expats alike, it does to be fair serve the best shisha we've had so far and provide a huge array of cocktails in a huge white tent at the water's edge. We have a fantastic evening only partially overshadowed by the 2am curfew, and pile into a taxi home thoroughly content.

                        

Our final day in Cairo is spent sightseeing in town and this involves attempting to navigate the underground system, which turns out to be surprisingly simple (although one of the stations we want has recently had the name, Mubarak, hastily scrubbed out and changed), with tickets costing the same regardless of the journey and a women's carriage at the back of each train, which is a mercy at this point. However on the way back at the end of the day we suffer something of a transport disaster which I blame entirely on myself, having spent most of the afternoon whingeing about wanting to sit down and get more of a feel for Cairo: we get stuck in unmoving traffic for two hours. We are trying to get to Khan el-Khalili, where the huge bazaar and numerous cafes are open well into the evening, but instead get to know the real al-Qahera alternately smoking and sobbing through taxi windows, accosted by old men selling tissues and listening to Qur'anic verses.

When we get back to Alexandria, the contrast is stark and immediate - the sea air hits us like an opened freezer door in the depths of hell, and it smells of home. I can physically feel my mood lifting, and my brow unfurrowing. Cairo, we realise, is everything it's cracked up to be, and then some.