Cairo

Having flown from Kabul to Dubai to Cairo, I'm tempted to refer to the Muslim world as the Dust World. Though Dubai is one of the world's newest cities and on the Persian Gulf, it carries a constant patina of dirt and, were the apocalypse to come, I question how much wouldn't be under sand in a decade.

I land in Cairo. Africa, my fifth continent. My trusty hat, an Australian model felt Stetson, made the journey, its fifth continent as well (or its exact twin; I bought two in Germany six years ago).

The Cairo airport is a breeze. Off the plane, onto a bus (terminal gates aren't connected to the planes by ramps), into the customs line, kicked out of the customs line for not having a visa, purchasing the $15 entrance visa, back through the line, and right into the duty-free. Not only do they have my beloved Laphroaig, but they have the Quarter Cask, for $47 no less. At that price, I buy four. "Better to have and not want than want and not have" is a family saying, though I think that usually applies to weaponry.

Out the door, into Egypt. A rep from the tour company meets me, takes me to the hotel shuttle. Off we go. Cairo is dense, clearly old. As an American, I'm still jarred by ancient and modern all mixed together. I pass mosque after mosque, the enormous size of which would surely make them must-sees were they not in a city filled with them. Ornate minarets stab the sky.

My coworkers, accustomed to Thailand whoring vacations attempted to warn me off Cairo. "It's a #@$!hole! It's like Baghdad! Terrible! Dirty!" As we drive and I try to take it all in, it is all those things and yet not only. It is also parts colossal, beautiful, intricate, state of the art and lush. I do note the dirt patina. As we occasionally rise from the valley onto the desert bank, it seems as if we ride into a moonscape. Here, an unfinished luxury condo complex; there, a monstrous medieval fortress.

Back down, we descend into the tumultuous din of the city. There, the Nile, river of lore. Though the road has lanes, much like any third world nation I've been to, they go unnoticed save by the terrified westerners as we flit along side the skyscraper western hotels along the riverside, their names emblazoned in the Roman alphabet. If Washington D.C. had untold buildings with Arabic paraded on them, I imagine there would be an uproar.

We cross the Nile, making our way from the east bank, land of the living, to the west, sacred land of the dead. On the bridge, I take note of the verdant isle in the middle of the river, awash in rows of unknown green crops, a massive Coptic Cathedral its triumphant jewel. I take note of the image in my mind and consider it a metaphor.

The hotel is apparently in Giza. The road narrows. The dilapidated buildings become uncountable. Chunks of concrete are missing where poor pours result in untimely disintegration. Many buildings are unfinished. Roofs missing. Windows never installed. Still, they are clearly lived in; they have satellite dishes after all. We pass donkey-drawn carts repeatedly.

Lo and behold, the pyramids. Alien, surreal, ethereal, shimmering in a haze of smog on the desert shelf above the city.

Giza used to be a satellite of Cairo; now the capital has absorbed it. We arrive at the Hotel Mercure Sphinx. It's half a kilometer from the pyramids, but seems a stone's thrown. I'm perplexed. Should I be appalled or impressed? I take the middle course: indifference. As we're staying in this hotel a number of days/nights, I'll no doubt grow inured to the majesty of the five thousand year old marvels. "Yeah. Look at all this @#$!ing splendor. Yawn."

Hungry, I sit in the cafe at the hotel. Having ordered, I ponder history. Cairo, capital of the Shia Caliphs. Muslim Egypt's most famous ruler was the Sunni vizier and Kurd, Saladin, who was the self-proclaimed "Sultan of Islam" and is best known for retaking Jerusalem from the infidel Franks. So I'm sitting in a French hotel in a country which was one of the five great seats of Christianity, in the capital built by "heretic" Shia, beside the holy surviving great wonder of the ancient world, so venerable that in the 1300s (I think) when an earthquake loosened up the highly polished limestone casing (which legend had it was so reflective that it could be seen in Israel), the caliph had nearly all of it torn off and used to build up his capital. Intact for four thousand years, we are in awe of flayed husks. I have no doubt the pyramid limestone leather, wherever it is, is covered in a patina of dust.

My beer arrives. I ordered a "Stella." What arrives is not a Stella Artois. This Stella is Egyptian. "Authentic Egyptian" the blue and yellow label declares. "Since 1897." It is a lager.

Beer, is perhaps, five thousand (or so) years old. It may very well have originated in Egypt. The builders of the pyramids deserved a beer at the end of a marvel-constructing day. In Islam, alcohol, "khamt", is forbidden, "haram", and thus predominantly illegal for 1300 or so years. Yet here, in Muslim Giza, I drink haram khamt named, perhaps, for a four hundred year old Belgian beer, but brewed in a style developed in Europe, reintroduced to the land the damned drink was invented five thousand years after it was conjured up. Something about this is perplexing, funny, sad, and fitting all at once.

Though they say, "Many a slip twixt the cup and the lip," there is no barrier between me and my first sup of khamt in over two months.

Relaxed, I take stock and various tidbits of my day bombard me:

-Having heard rave reviews of Emirates Airlines, I rather looked foward to the flight from Dubai to Cairo. All started out well enough. I was in the forward-most row of coach and so had glorious amounts of leg room. I sat in the aisle seat. A nondescript European sat in the window seat. Thus, of course, a stinky (literally) Indian or Pakistani plopped himself between us. Half my torso leaned out into the aisle, not only because I wished to veer from the clench of the stench, but also because Airbus designers have yet to account for the fact that modern men have shoulders.

Apparently, uncomfortable, aggravated, large men are not a concern for Emirates' security, as we are given actual metal ware to eat with. That said, felt comforted. As Twain said, "An armed society is a polite society."

-So, beer is forbidden, but I'm not from here and I'm not Muslim so it's okay. I struggle for an analogy, but the closest I can come up with is that it would be like if the US allowed cocaine if you were foreign and non-gentile. "Eh...we'll take their money; they're gonna burn in hell anyway."

-1/10th of the time back to Khufu (Cheops), builder of the Great Pyramid, and my ancestry disintegrates into legend and myth. That makes me ponder living history. In my estimation, it lasts until the memories of your grandfather's grandfather. My generation, by that reckoning, is the last to touch "the war."

-Rameses II dominated Egypt and the Near East two thousand years before the Crusaders. The language before the language that is the etymological basis for the English word "ancient" hadn't developed when Egypt STOPPED being ruled by indigenous pharaohs.