Vagabond

by Mogoatlhe, Lerato

  Osama and I part ways after he takes me to a papyrus museum in Giza, where the curator shows me how the ‘paper of our ancestors’ is made. He peels a lotus stalk with a knife and cuts the spongy white flesh into thin sheets that he beats flat with a hammer. He flattens them with a roller. ‘We leave them in water for six days to remove the excess sugar,’ he says, laying out leaves that have been soaking for days horizontally and vertically. The low sugar content in the plant binds them naturally. He leaves them in a pressing machine for just over a week, after which the papyrus paper will be ready to use; the process hasn’t changed since 3000 BC.

  I go back to the hotel to shower and change into a little black dress I wear with a red shuka from Kampala and Maasai earrings. I layer my lips with red lipstick. Cairo by night turns into a party zone that features its West African community. My plan is to let the men who will surely swarm to me pay for my entertainment. I remember that it’s Ramadan and suspend sundowners in keeping with my rule of assimilating into the culture of the places I visit. Besides, Eid is only four days – it won’t be long before I can drink again. I go to Cairo Tower to watch the city at sunset, when the horizon looks hazy from the thick layer of smog and dust that hangs over the city. The Nile River snakes through its endless skyscrapers and apartment buildings; traditional boats called felluca floating below me. I can barely see the pyramids through the smog.

  I struggle to find a cab to Khan el-Khalili bazaar, and no one I meet on the tree-lined street I walk down speaks English. A security guard at a building I walk into goes inside to find someone who does.

  After bemoaning Bafana Bafana’s misfortune on the soccer field, he takes my hand in his and helps me cross a busy street. He flags a cab and tells the driver to charge me like a local. ‘She’s African,’ he says, ‘One of us.’

  At seven hundred years old, Khan el-Khalili is a cultural institution. It can barely contain people who are out tonight. Its narrow alleys spill over with food vendors and tiny shops that sell yards of cotton. The brass shops and coppersmiths add a medieval atmosphere. No matter the corner I turn, the air is laced with hookah and incense. The bazaar hums with the sound of hundreds of dinner conversations.

  I find the perfect spot to watch people while I eat. The menu has a picture of Queen Nefertiti’s bust. I order sweet, thick guava juice that the menu spells as ‘guafa’ and bissap juice, called karkade here. Sipping it takes me back to my first trip to West Africa in 2006 when Accra inspired me to start travelling around the continent. A young girl comes to sell prayer beads. She blows kisses at me when she walks away.

  The cab ride back to Giza starts off fine. The driver is also an Osama. ‘But I’m not the terrorist,’ he laughs before making me regret the decision to not use Uber. He drives like he wants to kill us, and comes within an inch of bumping other cars. ‘Slow down man,’ I say. ‘My friends call me Rambo,’ he laughs, and tells me to put my hand on my heart for good luck. He puts his hand on a copy of the Quran on the dashboard before pumping up the volume. He removes his hands from the steering wheel to clap to the beat.

  I’m walking down Abou Al Hool Street mesmerised by my surroundings. To my left is the complex with the Sphinx and the pyramids that peer out from behind flat rooftops. On my right, squeezed into a corner, are KFC and Pizza Hut outlets that are still closed. For now, the scooters for the home deliveries are parked in a row outside the shops. Along the street, donkey carts and horse-drawn carriages are side by side with Ubers, tuk tuks and camels. The supermarket opposite KFC only sells airtime vouchers in twenty-pound units, and while the tea shops next to it are quiet, at night they will buzz with men and boys out in groups for hookah and tea; some of them overflowing from the shop and its stoep to sit on chairs across the road. The baker piles the tables outside his shop with cakes, cookies and pastries for Eid.

  The walk to El Malek Fouad Street should take ten minutes but every third shop on Abou Al Hool sell papyrus art. It turns the short walk into a social event. The hook is always an invitation to tea. The end result is always a sales pitch. At shops that sell papyrus art, the pitch always includes switching off the lights so I can see pieces that change objects and glow in the dark. The art is displayed on every surface of the walls and varies from poster sized to large pieces whose presence will dominate the walls they will end up hanging on. There are paintings of the Sphinx, the Great Pyramids, Tutankhamun’s death mask, Queen Nefertiti’s bust, the plethora of gods worshipped by the ancient Egyptians and some with scenes from the lives of royals, like weddings and funeral processions. Personalised birthday art with signs of the zodiac and names in hieroglyphs are made on the spot.

  Tahrir is the Arabic word for freedom. I learn this word in 2011 when the second wave of the Arab Spring revolution comes to Egypt, and sit-ins are staged at Tahrir Square. There are no people other than the traffic officers at the boom gate and the tour bus drivers in the square’s parking lot.

  Even without its recent history, it would still have an impressive stature, what with being the location of the Nile Ritz-Carlton Hotel. I’m here for the peach colonial building across Tahrir that’s one of the most important heritage sites in the world, where the largest collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts is housed. At last, I’m at the museum of my dreams. It’s just after 8.30am. Other excursions I’ve been on had thin crowds, but here the line to get into the museum is about three hundred metres long. The gates only open at 9am. Until then, people who are in tour groups have spirited and happy conversations. Cameras are slung on necks, phones are on selfie mode and Egyptian pounds are already in our hands waiting to pay our way in.

  Even just through the gate, the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities tantalises with its contents. The yard is scattered with imposing statues. We form an orderly line going through the gate and the scanners to the ticketing counters. We fall into a frenzy shortly afterwards. Everyone spreads around the yard taking pictures; wandering off around the building, where there are more statues.

  Egyptians call their land the mother of the world. I’m not one for labels that countries give to themselves, but it’s hard to not call Egypt mother. The old world has left behind art, literature and architectural monuments. Ancient Egyptians preserved every aspect of their life from their fashion, diet and makeup techniques to pottery, tombs, decor pieces, their jewellery – everything, really.

  The variety of artefacts is astounding and their details dazzling. They immortalise rulers from all ancient kingdoms and their dynasties. The theme of perfection I first experience at the pyramids is still carried over. The section dedicated to King Tutankhamun drips with gold: A leopard head, a funeral figurine called unshabti, left on tombs to do any work the departed might be called to in the afterlife. There’s also a wooden board game called Senet, played by moving different pieces across square boxes with hieroglyphic symbols. Among the glittering collection is what’s considered the most known artefact of the pharaonic era – eleven kilos of gold inlaid with glass and moulded into the elaborate death mask worn by the king after death; covering him head to shoulders. It features a plaited glass beard, a head dress crowned with a cobra and a vulture’s head and hieroglyphic inscriptions at the back.

  More than the gilded life and what’s considered one of the greatest civilisations in the world, I’m most impressed by the royal mummy room, a level up from the ground floor. Vanity may be a deadly sin now, but it has also ensured that the kings and queens who created ancient Egypt live forever. In their quest to start the afterlife looking good, they are turned into mummies. Several of them lie in glass cases. Their skin has become jet black and leathery, hair fine, and nails and teeth yellow and brown.

  Satisfied that I have at last had a personal encounter with the buildings and artefacts that planted the first seed of my wanderlust, I leave for Luxor in Southern Egypt.

  On the drive from the Luxor airport, through wide palm tree-lined boulevards surrounded by green farms, to the East Bank, there is no sign of the city’s reputation as
the world’s biggest open-air museum. The town is quiet on this side. It turns into a loud mix of hoofs and beepers at the corniche. My cab driver, Assad, gets off the road to show me the avenue of sphinxes; a three-kilometre walkway that used to connect the temples of Karnak and Luxor. It’s still lined with some of the one thousand three hundred and fifty sphinxes constructed by various dynasties of the New Kingdom. An obelisk at the Luxor Temple, built by Pharaohs who include Amenhotep III, Ramesses II and Tutankhamun, looms over the area.

  I’m at the Bob Marley Peace Hotel; chosen for being named after the man whose music has been the soundtrack of my life since the mid-1990s. The purple swing doors fling open violently. The entrance is taken over by a motorbike, and I stumble on the step and almost fall. The receptionist lifts his eyes from the counter for a second, and goes back to ignoring me as I take my careful steps to the reception counter. The room hums with Egyptian music and smells like ganja and incense. His words drawl out, like he’s high. He winks and says the only thing burning here is incense. This is the only time he comes close to being friendly. He badgers me about about my safety and impending danger in Luxor.

  I shouldn’t trust anyone outside the hotel as they’re all con men who lure travellers to their homes with a lunch invitation that turns into a robbery. I shouldn’t wander off by myself lest I get robbed. I thank him for the warning. He asks what my plans are, and repeats his dreadful ‘welcome to Luxor’ speech when I tell him I’m off to wander the streets he just warned me about. He pouts when I refuse to let him organise a guide to accompany me.

  Walking out of the hotel onto Mohammed Farid street for my first exploration of Luxor. I smile so much my cheeks start hurting. Men who run one of the kiosks motion for me to come into their shops where they ‘invite’ me to buy water or cool drink from them. At the tea shop, I decline an offer for a drink and promise to visit before I leave Luxor I enjoy a slice of watermelon offered by a boozed-up old man who sells the fruit in piles on a dusty stoep that turns into his home when he pulls a blanket over his body to sleep. Even with the few people out, the street is quaint, with hotels, restaurants, and a juice bar. I stand at a corner waiting for the cabs, minibuses and horse carriages to pass. There’s a fish shop and restaurant ahead on my right with a menu handwritten on the wall; two boys sit on the steps of the building opposite the restaurant. There’s a mule not far from them with a visible rib cage. This carriage, unlike the gleaming ones lined along the corniche, looks like it will fall apart any moment now.

  A man at the stall behind me fills the air with the smell of the fried liver he sells with bread. Even though the shops I can spot from where I’m standing look old, they’re charming instead of broken down; even with the dust and stains on their walls. I hire a horse and carriage from Ahmed. We start at the mosque next to the temple, where the Imam takes me around before asking for a donation. Across the street from the temple, mules jostle for space with hooting cars and minibuses. A McDonald’s sign glows in the fading day light. We explore the West Bank’s sandy alleys and side streets before stopping for hookah and tea.

  On the way back to the Bob Marley not-so-peaceful hotel, Ali returns from a shawarma shop with a plastic bag with kushari. It’s a mixture of macaroni, spaghetti, rice and lentils topped with tomato sauce made with up to twelve spices, chickpeas and crispy brown onions. My appetite finally joins me in Egypt.

  I pace around reception the next morning seething that the tour company is running late for our 3.30am pick up time. The clock is ticking towards 4am. At this rate, the sunrise will find me on the ground. When the minibus arrives, it has eight other people in it who are as sleepy as I am. I make small talk with a Brazilian guy who backpacked here from South East Asia, via Jordan, on a seven-month trip that still has a European leg left, and a Mexican mother and daughter pair on a detour from Greece. We drive to the river for a felucca across the Nile River to the West Bank. I drink three cups of lukewarm Nescafé and hope we make it on time.

  The ten-minute drive to the launching point of our adventure features avenues dotted with statues. The fields glow with orange flames from the burners that are not loud enough to muffle the Brazilian fellow who complains about our group being hard done by by the tour company. Not only are we late and currently watching people float above us while our flame keeps dying, our balloon is washed out and grey. The others are bright citrus colours. Our balloon keeps deflating; further delaying our ascent.

  Luxor is truly a wonder to behold from the air. The soft light falls over rows of flat-roofed apartments that turn into green fields that eventually turn into bare rocky mountains and desert. Nothing I’ve experienced compares to the romance of soaring over the Nile River as it runs between the city’s East and West Bank, and the mountains that hide the tombs of King Tutankhamun and Queen Nefertari, among other rulers who become immortal with time. The artefacts and tombs they built when the city was called Thebes have turned Luxor into the biggest outdoor museum in the world, as the city punts itself.

  Back on solid ground in the West Bank, streets are overrun with people celebrating the first day of Eid al Fitr, dancing to blaring music as they follow its sound to Luxor temple and beyond. I follow tour groups around the courts of Ramessess II and Amenhotep III and strolling along the Avenue of Sphinxes, the three-kilometre alley flanked by ram-headed sphinxes. One of the greatest wonders of ancient Egypt is that new artefacts are being discovered as you read this.

  Thebes is woven into life in Luxor, the monuments and temples are simply there. In one of the streets, houses built in Luxor have sphinxes of Thebes at their gates.

  In the afternoon, I meet Tayeb, a tour guide, to sail along the Nile River in a felucca. We sail with Mustafa the boatman, who brews karkade tea. Our boat is in a reflective silence – Tayeb reminisces about the days when he could barely keep up with demands for trips, and my head rings with 2Face Idibia’s ‘African Queen’; floating on the Nile like he sings. I’m living a lyric in one of my favourite songs. Once again, I realise why I can’t stop travelling Africa – this continent is fantastical.

  Later, in the evening, Ahmed and his horse meet me a safe distance from the hotel and the receptionist’s ongoing warning to stay away from locals to take me to his house for Eid celebrations with his mom, three sisters and six nieces and nephews; the youngest is a toddler who cries whenever they put him in my arms. Ali, their neighbour and Ahmed’s father figure, is also here. His hospitality is more hostile than an Ethiopian mom’s.

  My visit starts off well. I sit in the lounge with Ahmed, his eldest sister who is visiting from Cairo and Ali, who shows me the family albums and pictures of him and his mini-me Ahmed, and the tourists they met years ago when Ali was still a tour guide. Ali plies me with sweets, bottles of Sprite and Lays while Ahmed’s mom finishes preparing our meal.

  It comes on a large tray with plates that have fried fish, a whole chicken, potatoes fried in cumin, raw tomato and onion, kofta in tomato relish, stacks of pita-like bread called aish baladi. It’s dinner for three, with the rest of the family having had their meal already. Every piece of fish, kebab and chicken that we put on our plates is replaced minutes later with a fresh tray bearing more of the same. Ali feeds me with his own hand when I try to stop eating, and only accepts that I’m full when I tell him that if he forces another morsel into my mouth, the lunch I’m due to have with the family tomorrow before I leave Luxor will be cancelled. My threat gets me out of eating the cake I bring for dessert.

  I spend my last day in Luxor in Thebes, at the tombs in the West Bank. I visit the Valley of the Queens, the final resting place of seventy-five queens, their sons and daughters and other royal family members from the eighteenth to the twentieth dynasties. A guide follows me into the tombs to make sure I don’t take pictures – not without giving him baksheesh. The tombs are all designed in the burial tradition of the time, with walls covered with drawings of gods and depictions of the afterlife. The two tourism police who guard Queen Nefertari’s grave follow
me to the entrance, demanding to see my separately bought ticket into her burial chamber. As I stand outside her tomb trying to bargain a free entry, I can’t help but wonder if she has been turned into the whore of Luxor; the pleasure of her company costs 1000 Egyptian pounds for ten minutes.

  The infrastructure at the Valley of the Kings is made for tourists. Along with shops that sell alabaster curios and replicas of famous artefacts, the site comes with a cart that drives us to the remains. By this stage, I’m soaked with sweat and my feet have pins and needles. Everything sort of looks the same: Tombs dug out in the mountains with the paintings and carvings of kings and gods on the walls protected by a glass wall.

  And so my day goes, with more statues, falcon heads and dazzling stories of empires and conquests. Sometimes, I give up walking and watch them from afar. At the burial grounds of the royal workers, I hide in a tomb with a tourism police officer, drinking tea and water, and charging my phone in the electric plug that’s been added to the tomb and go on social media; the Old World meeting 2017 and beyond. I end my visit at King Tutankhamun’s tomb that, although small, is decorated as vividly as the others.

  I fly back to Cairo to connect to the one-hour flight to Dahab, a small town in the Sinai Peninsula that overlooks the Red Sea coast on one side, and imposing rocky mountains and escarpments that eventually turn into desert on the other. As much as I love journeys back to ancient Egypt, my mind can’t take it any more. I need sun, sand and sea; and other than being my wild card that I pick by closing my eyes and running my pencil on the map of coastal Egypt to go wherever it stops, Dahab also comes with a reputation that I love. It’s known for being bohemian.

  The one-hour drive from the airport in Sharm el Sheikh to Dahab is through barren jagged hills that remind me that this part of Egypt is the setting of biblical stories that star Moses as the leader of the exodus. The driver drops me off at Tarbouche House after several trips in the small city centre to look for an ATM that works.