Warthog Kidney: Egypt

Egypt

Sunday

No blog for some months. Partly because nothing terribly exciting has happened. OK, there was a trip to the US and UK which was possibly worth a blog, but I just didn’t get to it. But mostly because things have just been too hectic and I have been, frankly, too buggered.

I was up in Johannesburg two weekends ago attending a school reunion – okay maybe that is worth a blog as well, I’ll get to it – when my boss phoned me with bad news about a project we have been working on. A technical hitch had put the whole thing in jeopardy. Probably about 2 months’ hard work. Having ruined my day with that pearl, he went on to say, in parting, “And there’s a meeting in Cairo I’d like you to attend – I can’t go. 29^th November to 1^st December. Can you go?” Well, what was I supposed to say? So here I am.

I have now visited quite a number of countries in Africa outside of SA: Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia (somewhat extended stay courtesy of the SA defense force), Zambia, Malawi, Swaziland and Lesotho (both of those by mistake, the first driving and the second hiking), Burundi (in transit), Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania/Zanzibar, Ethiopia, Mali and Senegal. I make that 17, including SA. I think there are 50, so I am one third of the way there. But Egypt wasn’t on my list. My boss said “Take a few extra days, see the pyramids …” But that wasn’t possible either. Contract workers don’t get much leave and I had already put in for 2 weeks in December.

So here is what I discovered. Egyptian visa’s are free for South Africans. Of course you still need to pay the travel agent and the courier, because your passport needs to go to Pretoria. But the visa itself is free. It took about a week. Probably would have been quicker were it not for the fact that I happened to send it on the same day as Eid (little Eid, not Big Eid, but still Eid). Anyway, it was duly returned complete with one less blank page and an elaborate purple ink stamp in arabic which told me and anyone else that I had a single entry visa valid for 3 months. Nice.

There is a direct Johannesburg Cairo flight, operated by Egyptair, code share SA/Star Alliance. Great. Now the sponsors of the meeting were prepared to pay business class for anyone travelling over 6 hours. My flight was 8h + 2h. Greater. The snag was there were no business class seats available. The alternative was flying via Dubai on Emirates and that was going to cost nearly double. I did the decent thing and agreed to fly economy. Bad move.

I have flown SAA many times now and have to say I have seldom had problems with them. They once lost my luggage in Dar es Salaam, but I did get almost all of it back (minus a cheap camera and cell phone charger), 12 weeks later. Apart from that we have had a good relationship. Until yesterday. My flight leaving Cape Town was delayed about 30 minutes – the incoming flight was late, reason not specified. So instead of getting to Johannesburg at 19h50 I got there at 20h20. They couldn’t book my luggage through to Cairo – security issue. So I had to wait for it at domestic arrivals and then re-check it in, after a compulsory plastic wrap (free) [This is now standard on KQ Johannesburg-Nairobi flights as well]. Well that took until 20h40, mainly because I got the wrong terminal – A not B. Finally checked in, got my boarding pass, looked at it and saw boarding time 20h45, Gate A18. For those who don’t know Oliver Tambo International Airport, that it the very very last gate in the new international terminal. I was a bit puzzled because the flight was only supposed to leave at 21h45. To cut a long (very long) story short, I made it at 21h50 and there was no problem. Thank goodness the queues at passport control were short. I asked the guy at the gate why we were checking in so early and he gave me one of those “you moron” looks and said, “because the captain wants to leave early”. Which of course was total BS. We left at 21h45. Still mystified.

I thought I had scored a coup by securing a window seat in a full plane. 48A, which is near the arse-end. Maybe my body is changing shape. I have never had such an uncomfortable chair! It was just awful. No matter how I contorted, realigned, or adjusted myself, I just couldn’t find a position to sleep in. This was going to be a long 8 hours. I decided to skip dinner, had a glass of water, pulled on the visor and turned onto my left side, ramming my head up against the window and the excuse for a pillow they provided. Somehow I made it through. At about 4.30 the lights came on and the cabin controller announced, first in lengthy Arabic and then in rather abbreviated English, that we would be landing in Cairo in 90 minutes and that they would be serving breakfast directly. No fine. The breakfast wasn’t bad. Orange juice, fresh fruit and bread rolls / croissants. I skipped the tea/coffee – it always seems to taste really bad at 30 000 feet and above. No sooner had we finished breakfast than the pilot came on the blower – “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are going to land at Luxor because of bad weather at Cairo”. Wonderful. I had visions of having to take a bus the last few hundred kms. We went into a steep descent, which felt precipitous to me, but what do I know, and then leveled off and had a fairly smooth landing at Luxor. We stopped in what looked like the middle of the apron. Passengers started getting up and getting their luggage down, only to be told to “sit down, we will be waiting here until the weather in Cairo is good”. I think we waited about an hour. Again I tried unsuccessfully to sleep. They played some really nice classical music over the PA – I recognized some Bach, Mozart … for which I was very grateful. It could have been Lionel Ritchie (it was later). Finally the crew got the command – “Close all doors and cross check”, or whatever it is they say, and we were told that the weather in Cairo was now better and we would be leaving shortly, expected flying time 50 minutes.

By this time the sun had risen and I could make out the Nile and the Sahara. The lasting impression was, apart from the flood plain, of unbelievable barrenness. I was taught in school about the fertile crescent, which included the Nile. I don’t realize how narrow the prongs of the crescent were. I marveled at cultivated fields which seemed to have been created out of nothing more than desert sand, judging by what lay alongside them. But mostly it was just sand, and a huge amount of it, as far as I could see to the West. There were some fairly sizeable hills, but they too seemed to be made of sand, or at least sandstone. Everything was the same colour – “sand”.

Cairo appeared. From above it looked very densely populated, but not squalid. The houses and apartment blocks seemed pretty ordered and neat, just packed together rather tightly. And everything seemed to be one colour – sand! Not unattractive, as the morning sun caught it and threw long shadows. I didn’t spot much in the way of trees. The airport is a bit back from the river and city centre, east I think. There was some fairly thick low lying mist, which was presumably the reason we had had to wait at Luxor. Our pilot navigated his way through it – or maybe his instruments did – and the runway appeared as if by magic. We hit it fairly hard and swerved a little left and right but not uncontrollably. We were offloaded and bussed to the terminal. I grabbed an arrivals form and joined a queue. Inevitably, the slowest one in the room. I was a bit worried as I had forgotten to print out all the supporting documentation I had submitted with my visa application – invitations and the like – but the immigration officer hardly looked at my visa and passport and waved me through.

My shuttle guy was waiting and after a short wait for a fellow passenger who never materialized, I was ushered to a waiting Volvo Estate, and driven about 5km (I think) to the JW Marriott Hotel in Heliopolis, at a cost of 134 Egyptian Pounds, which is about R150. Thankfully someone else is paying. The hotel is set in a golf estate. The rest of the estate appears to be under construction – many unfinished mansions, lots of workmen around. I say mansions because these are multi-million dollar constructions – 3 or 4 storeys, multiple verandahs and balconies, huge entrances and colonnades which make them look more like DC museums than houses … goodness knows who owns them and lives here. I didn’t think Egypt had oil sheikhs but maybe I am wrong. The hotel itself is luxurious but not totally over the top. Every hotel has its plusses and minuses. This one has probably the best fitness centre and sports facilities I have seen – all complimentary with the $135/night room rate.

My room is next to the hotel’s main swimming pool. There are about 20 rooms, I guess, in an oval around and facing the pool. It is quite nicely done, with walkway on the top and overhanging gardens. I walk out of my double doors straight into the pool area, straight into the pool if I am not careful. I am also very close to the tennis courts and the Mirage Beach – an artificial beach with a wave machine.

I slept for an hour or two. When I awoke I was quite hungry but didn’t feel like a full sit down affair so went in search of something light, which I found at the Mirage café in the form of a Swiss Chocolate ice cream, bolstered by a Danish, a ring donut and a jam donut. Why all three? Just felt like it. And then immediately felt pangs of guilt and had to go for a run.

I ran around the golf estate this afternoon – one can pretty much run around the perimeter road, and it takes about an hour, so maybe 8km – I wasn’t going very fast. You are not on the fairways and greens themselves – the route follows the roads which service the houses on the estate. Someone has gone to a lot of effort to create the garden of Eden. Where all the water comes from I don’t know – maybe, being close to the Nile, ground water is not difficult to access and pump. There are lots of palms, and other trees and these huge mansions, as I have mentioned, which tempts me to go on a bit of a rant about golf courses and golf estates, but I won’t.

The fitness centre pool in shaped like an eight, with half of it inside and half out, joined by a narrow channel which underpasses the running track (75m circuit, all indoor) and the glass façade of the spa – cool! Found a new piece of LifeFitness equipment I haven’t seen before – like a mix between a cross trainer and a stepper. Managed to burn 130 Cal in 10 minutes without too much effort, which is more than I manage on a stepper and burning at that rate on a cross trainer takes more effort, I think. Have taken a picture and will be suggesting it to Virgin Active when I get home.

I enquired about a Thai massage, having had a great one in Bangkok a few years ago. That one cost $40 and a friend who is married to a Thai said I had been ripped off. In Cape Town they are, I am told, about the same. These guys wanted 600 Egyptian pounds plus taxes, so about 800 EP total, for 90 minutes. That is around $120. I took the pamphlet, but not the massage.

Dinner was in the Mirage Café. I expected a lot of delegates there but it turned out to be just me and one paediatrician from Zimbabwe. Clearly the others had either not arrived, weren’t hungry or were just too tired to attend. We chatted about some matters of mutual interest – researchers we both know, projects we are both involved in, travel options (she had also come via Johannesburg on the flight that got delayed in Luxor). She told me that she is busy with a PhD through a University in Oslo, focusing on MTCT but seldom finds any time to do the research or write the papers, because of such a heavy clinical and administrative workload. She said her department is very short staffed – the posts are there but no one applies for them. Even those who are there are more or less obliged to run private practices in order to provide for their families. Odd, I thought – I would have thought one could raise a family on the salary of a specialist / lecturer. I mentioned the salary ranges for academic doctors in Cape Town, starting at around $40k and going up to over $150k per annum. Her eyes widened. At her establishment senior lecturers might earn $15k. I thought she had said $50k, which would still be very low by SA standards. No, $15k, she said. And the professors don’t earn much more. Well, that explains it – I couldn’t raise kids on that either.

The menu was somewhat over the top. I hate having too much choice. I had some vegetable soup with bread, and then settled for the seafood option, along with some interesting looking flatbreads and hummus (there was an eggplant variety and a chickpea variety, both made with sesame seed oil – delicious). I couldn’t resist the pudding, so piled up my plate with fruit salad which made me feel more virtuous about the 2 scoops of Hagen Daas ice cream (one vanilla, one mango) and the chocolate crème brulee which accompanied it. All washed down with a bottle of the local beer which is called Sakari and is not half bad. I hadn’t expected to find local beer here, it being a Muslim country, but there you are. There is little hope for any country which does not brew its own beer. And there is even less hope for a country which does, but makes bad beer. I am happy tosay that Egypt falls into neither category.

We decided to head for bed, it being late and both of us very tired. I popped into a stationery / curiosity shop on the way out and made the mistake of mentioning to the guy there that I was looking forward to the upcoming encounter between Bafana Bafana and the Pharoahs, otherwise known as the SA and Egyptian soccer teams. Well that set him off. He knew a lot more about soccer than I do. He even knew more about my own team than I do – which UK clubs Steven Pienaar and Benny McCarthy play for, for instance. He explained the history of Egypt in about 5 minutes, including the recent unrest between the government, the Muslim community and the Coptic Christians over church building. I promised to come back and buy some of his teeshirts and he promised to give me a 15% discount. That would make them about the same price as everywhere else.

I finally managed to extricate myself from the shop and back to my room. It was very quiet – I suspect I am one f the few tenants in the block. I thought about a quick pre retirement dip ion the pool but decided against it. I flipped on the huge-screen TV and watched about 3 and a half minutes of some movie about a long haired wrestling champ who was working in a Deli telling little old ladies which ham to buy. It looked like fun but my eyes got the better of me and I drifted off. Slept like a baby.

Monday

I was up with the sun but not in the mood for a run. Showered and dressed and headed for breakfast. Tried to be healthy – lots of fruit, low fat yoghurt, salmon and hummus on whole wheat bread and only one cup of coffee. Avoided the mixed grill options, which I have found to be fatal in the past.

The meeting was being held in the golf club ballroom. Go figure – why would a golf club have a ballroom? The club is – what is the word? Handsome? Well appointed? Elegant? Yes, elegant – an elegant building just next to the hotel, wedged between the driving range and one of the fairways, flanked by manicured lawns and ponds with fountains.

The morning consisted of lectures by various experts from around the world, q and a sessions and the like. Quite interesting. No wireless so couldn’t do my emails, but the Blackberry worked. I skipped lunch – fatal. A colleague recently explained to me the clinical science behind post prandial somnolence, commonly known as why audiences fall asleep after lunch. His theory is that one should avoid the carbs and just have fat and protein. I have a better solution – avoid the lunch, have some water and save your appetite for dinner. Which is what I did. The afternoon was more interactive, which is shorthand for “they made us work”. And now we are being taken out to dinner at Le Tarbouche restaurant at le Pacha, which I gather is in Cairo somewhere. Bon apetit!

We met in the lobby of the hotel. For some reason I drifted across to a group which was largely from England, and started discussing the snow, the cricket, the rugby and English things in general. Our departure was delayed because we had to wait for the tourism police to give us an official escort! Well, I guess they have had some nasty incidents in the past and are just being careful. Finally we left. The bus driver nosed the huge beast out into the traffic on the 3 lane highway, amidst much abuse from those he cut off. We trundled along happily, down other highways, then narrower streets, across bridges over the Nile, through downtown Cairo. All looked very busy and a bit chaotic. After about half an hour we stopped and were told this was it – we could get off.

La Pacha turned out to be a large floating restaurant, moored to the bank of the Nile in downtown Cairo. Or rather a group of restaurants. I think there are 12 in all. We were at Le Tarbouche, which sounds French but I think was Egyptian, or at least middle Eastern. We had a table at the window and I sat with colleagues from Belgium, Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh. The meal was superb. We started with something like naan bread, but in small rolls, on which we spread a selection of hummus type preparations available in bowls in the middle of the long table. Or one could dip pieces of pickled carrot, cucumber or turnip in the bowls. A lot of eggplant. Then there was grilled chicken breast with rice. And finally a desert which included caramel sauce and ice vanilla cream and I don’t know what else, but was delicious. All washed down with some very respectable Egyptian red wine, one bottle of which was labeled “Omar Khayyam”, and had some of his poetry on the back, even though he was Persian, and the other of which was called “Cape Bay” and had a blurb about Cape Town, but said “product of Egypt” on the back. All very odd, but not at all unpleasant.

Dinner finished around 10 and we made our way back to the waiting bus. Soon we were back at the hotel. I was too tired to do any preparation for the next day, so after scanning the TV channels and coming up empty handed, I killed the light and slept.

Tuesday

I was awakened by loud voices. English. Turned out to be in the room next door – there is an interleading door (locked). It was enough to get me up. I thought about a run, the gym, a shower, and finally decided on a swim, which I took in my sleep shorts, having forgotten to bring a costume with me and not wanting to wet my running shorts and risk chaffing before the race on Saturday.

BBC news seemed to be all about Wikileaks and the embarrassment it is causing all and sundry. Interesting times.

I skipped breakfast – too much food last night – and made my way to the clubhouse where some of the organizing staff were already hard at work preparing for the day.

Full day’s lectures and groupwork on Pneumococcal disease. Spare us! No some of it was interesting and I think I learned something so not all wasted. Managed to miss lunch again as I had some urgent safety work to attend to which required fetching faxes from my room, reviewing them and sending Blackberry emails to various people. Had to get them faxed because I wasn’t prepared to pay the data charges on roaming for 3 3MB files. After 3 attempts they finally came through and I was able to review the hard copies and send an email response via the Blackberry. They want 75 Egyptian Pounds for an hour of internet access, which I find a bit willing. That is over 10 dollars. I have been very careful with emails and sms’s on the Blackberry, given that I have to pay for all this myself – reading them is free – it is when you reply they nail you, and when you download bulky attachments, they really take you to the cleaners. I have steadfastly refused to answer calls on my cell phone which come up as “Unknown number”. All that came crashing down when I was forced to take a crisis call from a colleague who then spoke for 6 minutes+. Damn!

The sessions finished a little early today and I thankfully came back to my room, changed into shorts and a T shirt, and my running shoes and headed for the gym. Did 10 minutes on that funny new machine (120 Cal) and then 20 minutes on the treadmill at a relaxing 9 kph while watching Tom and Jerry. No Cal count for some reason but I would estimate about 220. The cartoons finished and I switched to sport. They were screening the Wales – New Zealand game at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. Those Welsh can sing! Unfortunately, their singing was better than their rugby. When I left it looked as though the AB’s would make a sweep of it.

I went and sat in the hot Jacuzzi for a while, and read my book – “More than matter”, by Keith Ward, in which he does his best to explain some basic philosophical thought around the question of what is real, to mere mortals like me. Must have looked a site. Followed that with a swim and then headed back to the room. Dinner was in the Italian restaurant at the hotel, but wasn’t particularly Italian if you know what I mean. I think there was one pasta and olive salad which said something about “Italian”, but otherwise it looked remarkably similar to what I ate in the “Mirage Café” 2 nights ago. All the same, pretty good.

And so, to bed. Having sorted out some more paperwork, emails and the like, the land of nod beckons. Tomorrow is the last day and we fly out tomorrow close to midnight. Groan. Shall make the most of the afternoon in the gym. Have a half marathon booked for Saturday and at this rate someone will have to wheel me around the course in the barrow…

Wednesday

Fariyl uneventful morning, with some talks about pertussis. Didn’t realize it was still such a problem. This guy has documented incidence rates of nearly 10% per annum in The Netherlands. Problem is the vaccine only gives 10 years’ protection, or less, so the pool of susceptible is being constantly replenished.

Nice lunch and some fond farewells. It has been a good meeting, although I am not sure it was altogether cost effective, but then it wasn’t my money that was being spent.

I checked out around 3 and left my suitcase with the concierge. Then I went down to the gym for a last workout, Jacuzzi and swim. I fell asleep next to the pool reading my philosophy book. Must try harder. Then another Jacuzzi, a shower and I finally had to say goodbye. It has been a happy association – for me anyway. Now I am sitting in the lobby waiting for the rest of my party and for the transfer to the airport which should be here in about half an hour. In front of me about five people are busy putting up a huge Christmas tree. I couldn’t swear to the religion of the 2 men and one of the women, although I would guess Muslem. But certainly two of the women are wearing headgear. How funny! Well, I have heard that Moslems revere both Jesus and Mary, so why shouldn’t they have a Christmas tree? And maybe I am wrong – the shopkeeper told me that the Egyptian Orthodox church is quite big here, as well as Coptic and Catholic. He himself was an Orthodox Christian. He said they have a Pope-equivalent here in Cairo.

On the BBC today they featured “The Battle of the Billboards” – evidently the Atheist Society of America has erected a sign, at a cost of $20 000, next to one of the main tunnels (New York?) which reads something like “You know it’s a myth – this season rather celebrate reason!”, to which the Catholic church has predictably responded with a separate billboard reading “This season celebrate Jesus”. Personally I’ll settle for celebrating love, a la Christina Rosetti – “Love came down at Christmas, love all lovely, love divine…”Celebrating reason doesn’t do much for me. Who would bother, apart from some crusty old scientists and maybe the odd philosopher? Have we really become that boring?

It is going to be a long night, with the plane only due to leave around 11.30. They will probably try to feed us dinner after midnight. I shall try to be polite. I have found Egyptians to be quite touchy. I expect that as long as we get around to taking off, we shouldn’t have any interruptions, but you never know.

My colleague duly appeared and we found our taxi. I asked the concierge whether 10 Egyptian pounds was a reasonable tip for a taxi driver – he said it was more than reasonable. The taxi turned out to be a 7 series BMW, but a rather old one. When we got there I took my case, produced the ten-ner and the driver looked dyspeptic, then started laughing. “That is little money” he said. “Oh,” I said, “I’m sorry – it is all I have in your currency.” I should have known – he was more than happy to accept euro’s, pounds or dollars. Was I conned? Yes, probably. Do I care? No not really. He got us there comfortably and safely and that is probably worth more than 10 Egyptian pounds.

Airport security was officious and somewhat unpleasant, but I guess they are worried and a little jumpy. The prices at the “duty free” shops were unbelievable, even by airport standards. So no tee-shirts, girls.

Thursday

We eventually left late, after midnight, the reason being that the inbound planes from Heathrow and elsewhere had been delayed by the foul weather. This greatly irritated some 20-something year old South Africans who were returning home and had had the same thing happen to them the previous night – except that the Johannesburg flight had not waited for them, and they had spent a very uncomfortable night in the airport.

The plane was quite empty so ample space to stretch out, but nothing really to stretch onto. Something about the design of that plane, but even with the arm rests up, impossible to lie down. The airline meal was inedible. They said it was fish but it could just as easily have been chicken or rubber or cardboard. I don’t often leave food on my plate but I sent the whole lot back to the galley, put on my mask and tried to sleep.

We were late landing in Johannesburg. The breakfast was slightly better than the dinner, which is not saying much. I missed my connection to Cape Town but was able in consequence to have a shower in the business lounge whilst waiting for my plane. Life saver.

So … 5 days later. Been there, done Egypt, none the wiser, need to go back.