Alexandria

So, I'm in the library in Alexandria, Egypt, accessing the internet. Sadly, they have all e-mail sites blocked--maybe I can get in a web cafe later to see what's happening.

Had a good trip out of Osaka to Cairo. Got in about 2:30 AM, and it was almost 3:30 AM before I cleared customs, got the visa, and retrieved my baggage. Gratefully, my friend Viola's husband, Farid, was waiting for me, smiling and waving.

We went first to their apartment, passing the Citadel in Cairo first, and also Sadat's tomb. After some ice cream and packing, we hit the road about 5:00 AM for Alexandria, in order to miss the rush hour traffic (more about traffic here later...). We went by the pyramids at Giza on the way out, but they were nearly obscured by the morning haze; moreover, the gate didn't open for another hour. Still, the massive outlines of the last remaining ancient wonders of the world were visible through the haze, sentinels that have withstood the eons.

Alexandria is great: a seaside (Mediterranean) city, wonderful breezes, happy people on the beach. My friends have rented an apartment for us overlooking the ocean. Four Seasons is building a hotel/resort nearby. The first day was pretty leisurely, following a long night. Since then, we've visited the Greco-Roman museum (watch the pictures for the mummified alligator!), the Citadel of Alexandria (built on the site of the lighthouse of Alexandria, another ancient wonder now long gone), the aquarium (one sign in english said "some kind of fish from the Red Sea") and Air France, where I re-confirmed my flights :) . The library itself is an architectural tour-de-force, rivaling any building on any continent. It seeks to begin to replace for the Egyptian people the ancient library here that held many priceless texts.

Traffic here proves, at least in my mind, the validity of the "chaos theory" (where chaos becomes self organizing). Death awaits at every intersection; traffic lights may work but are ignored; my friends say the lines on the streets are there for decoration; pedestrians cross the street at any point and do not have the right-of-way; the horn is more important than the turn signal; and most cars lack any fender that has been unscathed. My friends Fiat lacks windshied wipers and the side mirrors dangle uselessly from the doors: it seems the perfect vehicle to negotiate traffic in Cairo and Alexandria. Yet amidst all this turmoil, I've yet to see an accident.

Last night, we went for a ride in a horse drawn carriage along the main drive along the beach. Three or four lanes of traffic each way, often broadened to five or six with the creative driving done here. We're all piled into the carriage, and the driver has egyptian rock music blaring from a speaker (my friends call it "micro-bus music"). After an aborted landing in a 747 (see Tokyo) and riding out an earthquake in bed in a swaying hotel room on the 20th floor of the Hilton (see Osaka), my most frightening experience to date was when the driver of the carriage pointed his horse the other direction and did a u-turn across six lanes of nightime Alexandrian traffic.

I'll leave tonight on a bus back to the Cairo airport, have about 10 hours in Paris to explore (thinking about Notre Dame and the Louvre), then down to Johannesburg. I hope to have time at the Paris airport to post some pictures from Egypt.

Egypt is a wonderful place, still exotic, and like no other. At times the cities here seem under both construction and serious decomposition, yet one cannot ignore the society and the structures it built that have remained for over 5,000 years. The Egyptian people are kind and helpful; my hosts have been wonderful; my stay, too short.

JP