Hola.... travelling and other things

Ladies and gentlemen, I come to you from my brand spankin' new laptop. Meet Derek Z (Or Derek Zoolander, the "really, really ridiculously good looking" laptop), the black MacBook and my one true love. I am in supreme happy mode. Somehow, he is now also shortened to 'Dez'.

Anyway, it's been a while since I last updated. Nothing much has happened to me so far, except a few minor things of note... and some not so minor. I went to Cairo about two weeks ago. It was fantastic! We went to see the pyramids in Giza and Sakaara, we visited a tomb and went into the pyramid, which was an experience in itself. I sat on a camel, as did my parents. My mum was so scared, though. Camels are much taller than I expected them to be. Also, the skinny legs does in no way make you feel at all secure. Also, going down was kinda scary, but it was fun. Probably not for my mum, who screamed bloody murder, but hey. She even thought King Arthur was scary.

Egypt, or at least Cairo, is magical. At least to me. It's this cosmopolitan city packed full of cars, people and buildings yet it retains an almost otherworldly atmosphere. The buildings range from ultra modern steel and glass to crumbling 12th century stone which, by the way, is still being used. The range and style of architecture is amazing. It's parts ancient civilisation, parts modern cosmopolitan and parts genteel English (kinda weird, yes). The traffic scares the bejeezus out of me. Two lanes, what's that? It's a free for all. They jam pack as many lanes into one road as possible. There might be two different roads and you'd think one goes in one direction while the other goes another, but noooo.... it all depends on who gets there firts. There are cars driving over dividing pavement to get to the other road in order to escape one of their many, many traffic jams. There are all sorts of cars, Japanese, American, European... Yet the taxis are these quaint old models like from a sixties movie. Instead of buses, you see people packed into vans. Crossing the road is a death defying act.

The impression that Cairo gave me was noise and age. These people live at night. From the balcony of my hotel room I can hear a party rage on until about four or five in the morning. The food is fantastic, we had local cuisine in a gem of a restaurant that our tour guide took us to where they greeted new guests at the foot of the stairs with drums. It does the job of both making you feel extremely special and welcome, and also of informing the staff that there are guests. We saw two wrinkled old women with huge grins chatting and talking to each other while sitting cross legged next to two stiflingly hot stone ovens putting in homemade bread.

Our tour guide was a guy called Mohammad. He is an extremely informative guy, which one would expect from a tour guide. But it was more than that. He knew his Egyptian history back to front, as did most of the Egyptians we talked to. My mum said it right when she noted that they were "Egyptians first, Muslims second". To them, their ancient history is something they are still so aware of, something which they know so well. It's a matter of pride to them. However, it is not merely work or pride that was the cause of our guide's extensive knowledge, oh no. We discovered that Mohammad had a degree in Egyptology. The guide in the Egyptian Museum had a degree in Anthropology. He didn't look like it at all, he looked like a disreputable man way past his prime with yellowing teeth dotting with black, a wrinkled shirt that was once white but was now beige-ish. His hair was mostly salt than pepper. But he spoke clearly, confidently, knowledgeably. Around us, thousands of tourists walked the halls of the Museum looking at treasures, at weapons, at sculptures and coffins... thousands upon thousands of artifacts and while our guide gave us our tour in English, around us we heard tours in Russian, Spanish, Italian, French... all given by Egyptian guides.

I found out that in school in Egypt, one learnt, obviously, in Arabic. Not only that, but English as well. Some schools offered English and French. Others English and German and so on. Mohammad spoke English, Arabic and Spanish, his wife spoke English, Arabic, and her French was more fluent than her already excellent English. The daughter, Asmaa, spoke English, Arabic, a bit of French and Italian. Her sister learnt German. They are a very linguistically talented people.

What made Cairo also seem a little unreal is the geography, the landscape. It's a thriving city with the Nile running through New Cairo and lush greenery springing forth from there. There's a multitude of date trees, sweet mangoes and other delightfully fruit. But the other side, so very near to that green is the desert. Harsh, unforgiving, sweltering. The heat of it was everywhere in Cairo, but it's worse at the desert. The heat is almost physical there, weighing you down, draping over your body like a blanket.

The shopping there was great, though. We bought some interesting stuff. Essential oils, Egyptian cotton, papyrus paintings and the like. We got khartoushes made (name written in hieroglyphs) and I bought a pendant with the symbol of Isis. We went to one of the biggest bazaars and went shopping again, got some traditional Egyptian clothes, sipped tea by the sidewalk... it was nice. On Wednesday, we're going to Cape Town for a few days, my parents were raving about it so I can't wait to see what it's like.

Anyway, that's it from me for now. How's everyone?