Once I was acclimatised to my new accommodation, I felt a sense of empowerment. Whatever becomes of my increasingly precarious finances, there is nowhere in the world where I am too spoilt to find an affordable bed for a night.
The staff were sweetly eager to please and did all they reasonably could to keep the place (2 floors in a decaying office block) tidy and clean. A small pile of laundry was washed, dried, ironed and back to me within 4 hours for about £1.50. And why is it that the cheapest flop houses provide free wi-fi, whilst western-type hotels charge you an Egyptian's day's wages for access?
I went riding again, and as I returned to the stables Karim invited me onto the roof of the building just as the sound-and-light show began at the Pyramids. I had a free and private ringside seat away from the crowd, with no modern buildings in sight to spoil the view, and no commercialisation to spoil the illusion of having discovered all this majesty by myself. Nothing but the Pyramids, the desert and the sky.
On the way home I passed an open-sided mosque where evening prayers were in full swing, floodlit and lavishly decorated with fabric hangings - looking like a Hollywood representation of a desert tent. Just a fleeting image from a taxi, and perhaps of little interest to anyone but me, but there it is.
The taxi ride became more entertaining when the driver imparted with panic in his voice that he was nearly out of gas. I took this to be the American word for petrol, but this was in fact a gas-powered vehicle. There followed a considerable detour (with the meter conscientously switched off) to refuel. I have had this experience before. On that occasion everbody had to leave the vehicle and go inside during the process; that wasn't in the rule-bound UK or even Germany, but in Argentina. In Egypt no such nonsense applies: the gas was pumped in through a leaking and hissing coupling, and I sat with my hand on the door handle ready to jump. At least the driver had put out his cigarette.
Next the electrics failed and we nonchalantly continued our headlong rush, without lights, into the worst and most undisciplined traffic imaginable.
But the adventure wasn't over yet. The engine stalled. The driver, quite unperturbed, hopped out and bump-started the car - with traffic careering around us, horns blaring. For a moment, as the engine fired and the driver jumped for the door, he appeared to stumble and I fleetingly thought the evening was about to get even more interesting. Where else can you get such excitement for 4 quid.
Badly needing a drink I set off for the beer hall. I had to take a circuitous route to avoid the doorway from which another new friend, Ali, dispenses tourist information free of charge and without obligation. This poor chap's sister is postponing her wedding on a daily basis because she hasn't got enough money for the party. If she is anywhere near as old as her brother, this unfortunate state of affairs could have been going on for several decades.
Once seated with a beer, I was joined by two young mediterranean-looking chappies and their companion, a taciturn old black man. In badly broken English the two young men told me a lot of stuff about England, Manchester United, the Queen (Gawd bless her) and the weather - none of which I had previously known. All the while the black man stared mutely and impassively straight ahead.
Finally the inconsequential prattling ground to a halt, perhaps because their vocabularies were exhausted, or perhaps because their heads were now completely empty. Slowly and with great dignity, the old black man turned towards me and said: "How do you see the future of the European Single Currency, in the light of the Greek debt crisis?". Over the next 30 minutes he demonstrated an encyclopaedic knowledge of global current affairs, communicated in perfect educated English.
As I took my leave he had one final question: "Is there any truth in the stereotype of the Irish people - that they are unusually disposed towards drinking and fighting?" I replied that whilst I would not like to generalise, it did seem to apply, to some small extent, to my dear wife. He smiled and nodded gravely.
It was partly to challenge my ill-informed pre-conceptions that I set out to see Africa.
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