Cairo - Report From An Incomplete City

There are more barren stretches on the I-15 from Barstow to Las Vegas than I saw today on the Desert Highway between Alexandria and Cairo.

We had arrived in the Egyptian port early and left late for our excursion because of the large number of people ahead of us who, after a week, have not yet grasped the excursion procedures. Some still cannot even find their way off the ship yet.

There was just a little frisson of excitement when it was announced that each coach had its own security guard but were it not for the bulge under his jacket – not where I normally look for a bulge – I would not have given the matter a second thought for the rest of the day.

Two things struck me on our journey south. One is that you cannot really tell whether a building is incomplete or in fact derelict. Most seem to fall into one of those categories. Secondly, the most eye-catching structures – some of them are really quite pleasing – are the dovecotes. There are hundreds. Apparently pigeon or dove is a delicacy in Egypt. Furthermore, the more you eat the more children you will have. Should I say something about pests at this point.........................no.

To visit the Giza pyramids and Sphinx is anticlimactic. By the time one reaches the site the Egyptian propensity for discarding trash casually is well established so it is less of surprise that the underfoot is a curious mix of sand, camel shit and plastic bags. The site is horribly busy but also infested with hustlers (UK meaning) including many who clearly should have been at school. Whilst they will in fact take no for an answer it is deeply irritating to have to utter the word in English and Arabic quite so many times. The whole thing is pretty underwhelming. The one thing you do get out of it is seeing for yourself the actual size of the often misrepresented Sphinx.

It was clear to me at various times during the trip that a few sensible precautions in respect of both hygiene and personal security avert virtually all mishaps. The bottled water we were offered was fully and properly sealed. Our lunch at the Mena House Oberoi was excellent. At no time did we feel unsafe or threatened.

The Memphis site was extremely crowded and poorly curated. I was feeling by now that there is so much more Egypt could do to present itself but I gather from our guide that Egyptian people themselves have little interest in their history. Tourism in fact accounts very variably for only 6-11% of national income in a nation which has oil and gas revenues but appears to me not to spend them very effectively.


I enjoyed the Sakkara site where hustlers were less prominent even if there were as many visitors as elsewhere. We visited a tomb where it is frankly very hard to absorb that the wall carvings and their colours are quite so old (about 4000 years).

In a country of 80m people, 95% live near the Nile as a similar percentage of the country is desert. A quarter of the population live in Cairo and we should perhaps be grateful that they have between them a modest 4m vehicles as these are more than enough to make the rush period fairly horrible. It was noticeable that the parts of Cairo through which we drove after an unwanted shopping stop appeared to have no traffic lights at all. I could only wonder if the junction discipline – basically non-existent – would have been the same with lights.

When we rejoined the ship last night it was to discover that some rather draconian so-call preventative measures were in place to forestall the onset of any outbreak of Gastro Enteritis. What this means is that food has to be served to you in the self-service restaurant – go figure. This procedure requires extra staff which they do not always provide. The result is queues which are unfair on the passengers and on the crew who are put under pressure.