Cairo 8 November
Last night (Saturday) we had our last supper together as a group. Afterwards we went back to the hotel bar for last drinks, last stories, before the final exchange of phone numbers and email addresses, and the last fond farewells.
Up early this morning to catch my plane back to Cairo. As we drove through the streets we came across a bunch of kids on their way to school, little backpacks perched on their little backs, just like at home. They smiled at the taxi and then waved as is common when they saw the passengers were Caucasian. The surrounding fields were austere hard packed earth, the homes different in construction and in scale, and even the smiling faces were different, yet there was something very familiar in the scene.
I like Jordanians. They are a people proud of their country, clearly better off than their Egyptian neighbours, more organised and efficient, they even seem healthier, taller perhaps, and better looking - though this may be imagination. There are Circassians mixed into the ethnic mix, and so every now and then you see a blonde or a redhead, and freckles even.
Later, as we descended into Cairo, I looked out my window and saw below two pyramids, the bent pyramid and another. Looking down upon them gave a much different perspective from looking at them from on the ground. On the ground that loom imposingly before you, so large that it is difficult to grasp the full scale without circumnavigating them. From my window seat the pyramids seemed strange, otherwordly apparitions, rising from the flat sandy expanse of the Sahara desert. I could take them both in at a glance, and in so doing realise how much they imposed upon the environment in their angular precision. You could understand how some might think them alien in construction, for though in colour they blended into the landscape they seemed to be separate from it also, sitting upon it as such rather than within it. If the pyramids were otherwordly then by extension so to did the pharaohs claim to be, above the common masses who lived in the cities and the desert, impervious to time and the elements, gods in their own reckoning paid tribute.
Today I have had the quiet day I intended. I arrived in Cairo, booked my flight onwards to Casablanca, and then sought a hotel to spend the night. Seven hotels on I found myself at a hotel in far off Heliopolis, expensive and geared towards the western tourist - of which there are many - but with the benefit of plush king sized beds and bath Ive already checked out, complete with bubbles. Ive even had a character knocking on ,y door offering to turn my bed down. After first giving him the blank look I waved him in, by all means my good man, by all means. He turned my bed down very neatly, then tidied up a little, which included picking up my dirty jocks from where Id flung them near the laundry bag, folding them, and placing them open the table - well beyond the call of duty Id have thought.
Wadi Rum. Its a name and a place I had only vague knowledge of before. We were there Wednesday.
I read Seven Pillars of Wisdom when I was about 20 years old. That's a good age to read such a book - you re full of romantic notions and strange yearnings, a tale like this set in the desert and telling of battles against perfidious Turks by noble Bedouins led by a fey and enigmatic Englishman is the stuff of boys own adventure.
On Wednesday we saw these pillars he wrote of, craggy red rocks that gave a vague semblance of 7 pillars in a row.
We drove into Wadi Rum proper from there, hurling ourselves about in 4WD expertly driven by local Bedouins. The desert here is gently rolling, hard baked in places and in others slippery sand. Small bushes - no higher than 5 inches - grow sparsely. This is the sea. The land, the coast, are the huge rounded rock formations that rise high from the ground, dipping and curving like landlocked fjords cut from the red sandstone. Fissures in these open up into small passages where the light from the sun above does not reach bottom.
We stopped before a large sand dune of rich red. Those of us game climbed to the top, before charging down the steep side to the bottom. This is some sensation. You run, barely in control, your momentum carrying you forward, down, ever about to go head over heels, arse over friggin tit, exhilarated and terrified, both fear and joy - that space in between - as your feet plunge deep into the sand and your heart is in your mouth as the ground hurtles towards you and there is only now, this moment, beaut.
That night we spent in a Bedouin camp sleeping beneath goat skin hides. We drank sweet Bedouin tea and played cards. When it came to bed it felt some like old school camp days. Someone snored. Someone else suggested letting down the girls tent. There was banter and laughter throughout.
The next morning we were driven out of there by the big Bedouin, a crazy man of about 60 who looked like a dark skinned Alice Cooper. He drove like a rally driver, the rear end of the car swinging wide as he took everything too quick, smiling at us maniacally, his pearly whites gleaming in the dark parchment of his face.
That was Wadi Rum.
Later...
In another airport, waiting for another plane. This time it's Cairo airport, waiting for the plane to Casablanca to board - still an hour or so away.
I should be well rested, but I feel weary - perhaps it is from the lack of doing anything substantial. For the most of the day I have hung around my hotel, pleasant but bland. Still, there were compensations.
Had a sit down breakfast of scrambled eggs and pastries, a delightful change from the standard breakfast diet hereabouts of boiled eggs and packaged cheese. Afterwards I wandered outside to sit by the pool. After the attendant arranged my towel on the ... I lay there for over an hour in the sunshine reading my book (War and Peace - yes, really), feeling every inch the tourist.
Last night was similar in ways. At about 6 I had a knock on my door - it was a porter wanting to turn my bed down. After looking at him blankly for a moment or two I waved him in, by all means my good man, by all means. He entered and very precisely turned down my bed before attending to various other duties - including picking up my dirty jocks where I'd flung them near my laundry bag, folding them and placing them on the table - well beyond the call of duty in my book.
I dined at one of the in-house restaurants. I had a steak, imported all the way from Australia as I discovered. It was pleasant to have 'western' food again.
While I ate I listened to the conversation at the next table between two travelling colleagues. They discussed their work in detail, including all the personalities, Klaus the autocratic CEO, David the hard-working product manager, and so on. I've overheard a hundred such conversations before, and been involved in a few myself, but for some reason this particularly fascinated me.
In bed I read for a while before turning the light off, 9.30 local time. I sprawled in my bif bed, rolling from side to side like a kid, before very pleasantly falling asleep for a good ten hours.
So, Petra.
We drove there direct from Wadi Rum, and straight after checking in walked the short distance to the front entrance.
We engaged a guide and as a group followed him as he led us down the winding 'seek' - a dry gorge - that had been cut from the massive rocks and meandered towards Petra proper.
Our guide was a chain smoking Jordanian with a sly wit and dodgy hair. After we had walked for about 30 minutes he called us over and asked us to look at the rock wall. "What do you see there?" he asked. We stared at the blank rock. "Nothing." He nodded his head. "Now look to your left," he said. We did as commanded and there revealed to us was our first glimpse of the grand and beautiful Treasury building of Petra. We stood silently beholding it, taken aback by the sight of it.
We walked on to the small canyon - really just an open space - which housed the treasury, carved out of the cliff face with precise artistry.
We explored that and then separated. There's a lot to see at Petra - it had a population once of 40,000.
In the afternoon I started the long climb towards the other great building, the Monastery. This was a long climb up stairs that zig-zagged up the rock hill, until on top was revealed the Monastery, larger than the Treasury below, and carved once more from the rock.
By this time I was sweating and buggered, but managed to walk a little further to one of the lookouts from which spectacular views of the surrounding countryside were revealed.
Most of us set out early the next day to beat the tourist coaches. I was out soon after 7 and quickly joined up with the Kiwi's.
First stop was the High place of sacrifice, well named as once more it meant climbing way too many stairs. From there we made our way down the back way. This was very pleasant. For a start we were heading down, but better still we saw no other tourists, and were able to appreciate the interesting tombs in serenity.
After a cup of tea we checked out the Royal tombs, before deciding to make our way back by a different route.
Once more this involved climbing another 600 odd stairs. I was happy enough to do this thinking that I would be coming down the other side. Not to be.
From up top we looked down on where we had so recently been, far below. We continued on until we found ourselves looking down on the Treasury building from above - but here the trail ended.
To this point I had been fine, leading the way and nimbly jumping from one rock to the next. Suddenly I felt buggered. It was warming up, I carried a heavy pack and was soaked through with sweat. The girls had lost their water somewhere and so the 3 of us were sharing my bottle, quarter full. We back-tracked, climbing again until we found a local. He pointed yonder, and yonder we went, following a trail that petered out in the stony wilderness.
We split up separately, trying to find the path down, the girls now taking the lead. I searched the ground for footprints, but found only goat shit. We searched for over an hour every likely looking avenue, but each one closed before us.
I was all for finding away, but as that seemed less likely the further we went I had visions of us disappearing like the girls at Hanging Rock, of our bleached bones being found in a pile one way, a last despairing message carved into the hard earth. And so we turned back.
Down the stairs we went. Now my glutes burned and I thought for all the pain at least I should be getting cute buns. At the bottom we were amongst civilisation again, the bustling crowds of tourists, the camels trotting by, the 6 year old touts trying to flog postcards or rocks.
We made it back to the hotel eventually, hours after we had hoped for. I can confidently say I've never felt so absolutely stuffed in my life. By the end I was struggling to walk on the flat, let alone an incline.
That was Petra though - we saw more than most, and did it the hard way, to which my buns can attest.
Essaouira 9 November
I'm in Marrakesh now, have been for a few days, and presently on the coast at a place called Essaouiera.
This is a groovy place. I walk through the Medina and I get a sly look from funky looking Moroccans, want a smoke mate? Good stuff... Plenty f weed around here, and it is meant to be good, but so far I've abstained. I smile at these dudes, maybe later I tell them.
It's an exotic place Morocco, full of vibrant colour and bright people, more western in ways - here you can here western music - and much funkier than Egypt, which is way down low on the funk meter. It's fun.
I arrived in Morocco late Monday night. I checked into my hotel in Casablanca feeling buggered again, then was out early the next morning to check out the huge mosque. By 1pm I was on a train to Marrakesh, 2nd class, sharing a cosy compartment with 5 Moroccans. My iPod has died so I looked ou the window at the arid landscape going by. To my surprise I found eucalypts growing along a distant ridge line, them gums closer to the track. I guess they're ideally suited to a climate like his, but it seems so strange, like looking ou the window and finding kangaroos hopping by.
I had an uneventful night in Marrakesh before catching the bus here yesterday morning. I walked through the choked streets of the Medina with heavy bags hanging off of me, fighting off touts trying to lead me to competing hotels, and waving off the porters with their large barrows, offering assistance at a price.
You become conditioned to this, though it is annoying. It would have been far easier, and more sensible to accept some help, but I refused from bloody mindedness - I don't like to be hounded. And so I laboured with my packs, searching in vain for street names amidst the crush, with only a basic Lonely Planet guide map to help me. I was proud - and exhausted - when I finally found myself at the Riad I was looking for.
I spent most of the day yesterday walking up and down the Medina, fighting off the different store owners trying to flog their leather or wood work, spices and carpets and lamps. It's great stuff, individual and beautiful, and relatively cheap. Given an unlimited budge and no excess baggage I would by up big - but for now I discourage them with a smile and a shake of the head.
Last night I went to some groovy riad for a drink. A riad is basically a building buil around a central courtyard. Generally these are serene places of grace and some beauty. I sat there and drank my beer and then my daiquiri, writing postcards and reading the Herald Tribune for the latest news. Outside a larg tree sprawled in the central courtyard, centuries old, while outside the bustle continued.
I left after a cuple of hours to find a fog had rolled in. It was one of thse creepy sort of fogs which in Hollywood films herald the coming of beasties from the sea. The streets that through the day are jam packed were near empty. The stores were all shut, their blue barn like doors losed and barred. Visibility was at a minimum, and even the flagstones were slippery with moisture. It was very col.
The fog was there still when I came out this morning. I walked through the quiet streets as the town roused itself. I made my way to he ramparts that abut the sea, where I took some great shots. The fishermen were out still, and the many seagulls - bigger here than any I've seen before - circled overhead. Ths too was great.
The sun is now out, and it's nearly time for lunch.
I go onto Marrakesh tomorrow for a few days.
Later...
I wandered around Essouiera today before coming to a stop for lunch at a place called Chez Francaise. As the name might suggest it was full of French tourists - fully 90% of tourists here are French. Hot on my heels though were a couple from the UK. I watched as she translated the menu with her little guidebook. I fared a little better through a combination of guesswork and some dim recollection of school French, and that was that - we all kept mum.
At some stage that all changed and suddenly the conversation flowed. He was from Cornwall, and she Sussex, and while he was initially reserved, she gushed - excited, I think, to find someone else who spoke English, and then more excited still to find that someone had just visited the great sites of Egypt and Jordan. The conversation progressed and I found myself advising them, giving them all the necessary angles. They had spent 700 Dh getting to Essa - did they know they could catch a bus for 65?
I felt in control, comfortable and ease and as ifevery answer was at my fingertips. And yet as so often in this circumstance I found myself feeling seasoned, grizzled even, older, bigger, of a greater scale in general, more worldly, more cynical, more this and that, and somehow, at the end of it, less pure.
I left them and set out on my afternoons journies, yet this feeling sat heavily in my stomach. I walked through the narrow laneways, I bought a second hand book, stopped for a cup of tea while I read the Independent - and all the while this feeling of disquiet stayed with me.
As I walked I tried to understand, remotely at first, then with all my mind. I could not work it out, but had the notion that whatever it was it was something I had lost, or used up along the way, something anyway gone forever.
Late in the day I found myself on the main promenade just outside the medina. Like many I had the idea of catching the setting sun. I sat on a park bench waiting, watching the passing parade - a Moroccan who dropped his change; two French girls posing for photos; an elderly English couple taking a photo of a ginger cat; and so on. I watched and I mused. By now I had figured that whatever I felt was not something I could change - and so was not worth worrying about. At the same time I knew it was something that would come back to haunt me - and so I stayed with it.
Overhead the seagulls wheeled and screeched. The stench of fish and other waste filled the air. By now I had propped myself on the rampart proper. I looked towards the setting sun. I had figured much of it out by now. What was the truth? The truth was that when you have seen and done much the new holds much appeal - but where was the new?
I am lucky in that for much of my adult life - and certainly since I was 27 - I have felt much was within the reach of my outstretched hand. It has not always been so easy, but generally persistence has paid off. I carry that with me, the knowledge that if I apply myself and persist then most things can be. This is something good - and yet I felt soured by it.
This is what I felt speaking to that young English couple, in control but almost in cruise control. The words came easily, simply, the persona snapped into place. It was true enough, but it did not feel real. It is well and good to reach out and find what you want there - it is better sometimes though to reach out and find nothing, to be forced to stretch and exert and sweat.
There is little joy in certainty. There's not much fun in the predictable - and little satisfaction. The moments to value are those where there is a little tremor in the stomach. When you are not certain, when nothing is predictable, when you reach and reach and need to keep on reaching to find what you desire.
That's the value of everything in the end. How far, or how long, are you willing to live with that tremor? How much uncertainty, unpredictability can you endure before you pull the pin?
I took my shots - the sun looked good against a distant battlement. What I was talking about is a certain kind of innocence - and guess once lost that can't come again. Still though - you can put yourself beyond your comfort zone, can set yourself that challenge - how far are you willing to go? And try and avoid cruise control.
I'm blathering again - dinner including a mojito, a Leffe blonde, and a half bottle of Moroccan red will do that to you.
Speaking of which, let me segue further. French everywhere, can't poke a stick, etc. I always see French men as being compact - about 5'8" - and with wavy hair. The women I base on a particular model in my head, attractive without being beautiful, long blonde slightly curly hair. I love listening to them talk - it's a feminine language that flows beautifully, seamlessly. And I always look at French people and think I know someone just like that, except not French.
So - now you've got my stream of consciousness. Someone should keep me away from the internet in this mood.
Marrakesh tomorrow - and then? We'll see.
Singapore 17 November
I haven't written much lately, the major reason is that I couldn't be stuffed. All the usual things went through my head, I looked at things and got involved and found as is my wont that words presented themselves in my mind to describe the scene, or the sensation, words that for a little while I rolled around my tongue feeling the weight and shape of them, before - unusually - tossing them away; pretty much like any Friday night, all that effort ending up pissed against the wall.
I'm in the Qantas club lounge in Changi airport writing this, waiting for my flight to be called: I'm on my way home.I feel tired, sore even, I've really pushed things the last days. It is a satisfying feeling though, used up in a good way, like you might feel after a long day of work, knowing you've done good stuff. I may not be freh, but I feel strong.
This last week and a bit I've travelled from Essa to Marrakech to Fes and then back to Casablanca. In Marrakech I spoiled myself by staying at a beautiful Riad, managed by a French lady and great local staff. One night there I was given an hour long massage by a woman with small but very soft hands. After my travels and travails it was just the thing. Later I ate a tagine on a table sprinkled with rose petals while a little fountain tinkled.
I walked the crowded lanes of the souk and by night found myself in the main square where wreaths of smoke lifted into the blue twilit sky as the many little makeshift restaurants cajoled the multitide if tourists to stop and sit for a kebab or kofta. They cried to each passing tourist, catching their eye they would implore them to try something. It was sound and movement and smiles as it is all good natured. In between were snake charmers with their cobras, and characters in silly outfits trying to flog a glass of water, or extract a dirham from you in taking their photo.
I travelled to Fes after days of Marrakech, tired after pushing myself to the limit, walking everywhere, all the big tourist sites as well as the restaurants and bars - Marrakech has some groovy places.
I had an interesting day, starting with being interviewed for Moroccan TV, then a suicide on the tracks, and interesting conversations with a French Algerian about politics, then a couple of Yank Peace Corp, and a Sudanese UN mine clearer. In Fes I was invited to a locals home for dinner: later I was invited as the honoured guest to come to a lavish engagement party. Throughout all this I had different problems to deal with - for a start I couldn't get any cash. Then I was dealing with airlines. And so on.
Marrakesh was all flash and glitter, even if a little down at heel; Fes was more reserved, conservative, more European in look, and perhaps more Arab in outlook. As he had been when I was in Casablanca, the King was in town - big news. And that's when I left.
Plane is calling - must go. More soon.
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