Dark Continent my Black Arse

by Shile Khumalo

  and also of the dead, living and yet-to-be-born

  and without owing you or anyone any explanation

  unreservedly allow you to do all of the above

  and more if you so wish.

  And always stand by my word.

  After an hour or so of drifting on the Nile past a skyline of skyscrapers, including the 60-storey Cairo Tower commissioned by Nasser to mark the rise of industry in Egypt, it was time to visit the legendary Egyptian Museum, a brightly coloured building tucked away behind the City Hall and the hotels that line the Nile.

  I spent four hours at the museum, including more than half an hour in the royal-mummies room. I would have spent more time there had it not been for the other tourists, who were giving me that what-iswrong-with-you look.

  For people who died about 4 000 years ago, the mummies looked in very good shape. I spent most of the time looking at Ramses II, the self-loving pharaoh responsible for most of the monuments in Egypt, including those at Abu Simbel. He supposedly spent 66 years on the throne and had 67 wives and about 110 kids. It depends on whom you ask – one taxi driver told me that Ramses had more than 150 children.

  Whatever the correct figure, it is not so high if you consider that our very own King Sobhuza of Swaziland was on the throne for 61 years and in that time had 70 wives (excluding mistresses) and 210 sons and daughters. A great achievement if you consider that the small blue pill had not been invented yet. But then, in Africa it has always been an open secret that the horn of a rhino – uphondo lukabhejane – is the best ‘medicine’ if you are looking for sexual vigour. That also explains why, irrespective of how African governments try to fight it, rhino poaching will never stop.

  Another highlight of my visit to the Egyptian Museum was Tutankhamun’s treasure room. I could not believe how much the ancient Egyptians had managed to do so long ago in the way of heavily decorated furniture, golden statues, jewellery, masks and weapons. Most of the stuff that had been removed from Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings was in the museum. For me, the most amazing thing was that his body was put in four coffins, one inside the other, the innermost one made of solid gold. King Tut, as he is affectionately known, reigned for only ten years and died at the age of 19. Clearly he made history not because of his political legacy but because of his burial treasures.

  When I walked out of the museum, I could not help but wonder what had happened to all the technology and expertise of ancient Egypt. As I left the brightly coloured building, I was convinced that if the pharaohs and their subjects could do so much they must have had much more intelligence than we normally expect of people who lived so many centuries before us – as if true intelligence is a modern invention.

  Later that afternoon, driving back to my hotel in a cab, I saw the real Cairo: continuous hooting, disorder, chaos, cars pushing into the traffic from the side, buses and trucks switching lanes. I was convinced we were going to have an accident. The cab driver told me that in Cairo accidents rarely happen and when there is an accident, it is usually just scratches, nothing major.

  That evening, I went to the hotel bar, which was dead quiet. I suspect this had something to do with Egypt being a Muslim country and with alcohol, although available, being so expensive. I decided it was time to go to bed.

  There was one thing left to do while I was in Egypt, maybe two. One, anyway, was to see the only surviving wonder of the seven wonders of the ancient world: the Great Pyramid of Giza near the ancient city of Memphis. The others – the Hanging Gardens of Babylon on the banks of the Euphrates River; the Statue of Zeus at Olympia; the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus; the mausoleum for the Persian King Maussollos at Halicarnassus; the Colossus of Helios near the Greek harbour of Rhodos; and the Lighthouse of Alexandria on the island of Pharos – no longer exist. To be able to dictate my own tour pace and time, I decided not to join the guided tour but to travel by public transport to Giza.

  I spent the whole morning downtown trying to get used to Cairo’s chaos. Looking at the disorder on the roads, I arrived at Business Idea Five: to start a company devoted to defensive driving. There would be neither course nor instructor. My company would simply organise air travel to Cairo and, once there, hire cars for our trainees. If they could drive in Cairo for three consecutive days without an accident, they would pass. Trainees who had an accident would have to stay longer in Cairo – at their own expense, of course.

  I caught a Giza-bound bus behind the Egyptian Museum. When I alighted in Giza, in front of a market consisting of only a few stalls, touts from the stables in the area were already waiting for people like me who wanted to explore the pyramids on the back of a camel or a horse. I chose Farouk – somehow I believed him when he promised me that he would take me to the ‘best stable in Giza which will also give you a good price’. The stables offered short, medium and long tours, but the manager was quick to point out that I should take the long tour ‘because you do not get the chance to see the pyramids every day’. After some administrative procedures (read ‘payment’) it was showtime. I was given a horse named Miriam who, I was told, was very docile.

  Owing to the extremely hot weather I had stopped wearing underwear in Sudan. I had continued with that practice in Egypt and had not regretted my decision until my first few seconds on the back of Miriam. Almost at once, I realised that my pyramid sightseeing was going to be a good and moving story with a very painful ending. Accompanied by a mounted guide, who spoke little English, I hit the backstreets of Giza and then the desert. Miriam was proving to be a very tame horse indeed. I could hardly get her to move.

  The pyramids – there are two big ones, one medium-sized and six small ones, built as tombs by the pharaohs – are raised on a kind of plateau, almost on the fringes of Giza. For a good view we had to climb the sand dunes on horseback. On our way to the dunes we passed a young couple who were having a heated argument because the woman had decided that she could not ride a horse and was insisting that she and her friend/husband should go on one horse. Whether on a horse or a quadbike, women are clearly not made to ride in the desert …

  At a height of 135 metres, the Great Pyramid, the oldest as well as largest of Giza’s pyramids, also known as Khufu or Cheops, was far bigger than I had ever imagined. Even after all the explaining by the various guides, I could not understand how such a huge monument could be built in the middle of the desert more than 4 500 years ago. Khufu – made of 2 300 000 blocks averaging two and a half tons in weight (some weighing almost 15 tons) – is supposed to weigh a total of 6 000 000 tons.

  When Miriam eventually reached the top of the plateau, I had an awesome view of all nine pyramids. It was a moment I knew I would cherish for the rest of my life. I wished I could just sit there on Miriam’s back and look and look.

  On our way back the guide and I went past the mysterious Sphinx, a 57-metre-long half-human statue carved out of limestone, with the body of a lion and a man’s face. I felt a sudden upsurge of energy and, since this was my umpteenth time riding a horse, I thought I should see how fast Miriam could run. I pushed my heels into her flanks and the normally calm creature leapt forward. After almost falling off, I decided to take it easy, like everybody else. Besides, the lack of underwear was not really conducive to racing.

  The whole trip was over in two hours. Just as every Muslim should visit Mecca at least once in his or her lifetime, I wished, as I took leave of my guide, that every living human being would visit the pyramids at least once before departing this life. I had never before considered the possibility of living in a desert, but I now felt I could live there any time – the desert next to pyramids has, surely, to be the most sought-after real estate in the whole world.

  Back in Cairo, and feeling spiritually very uplifted, I decided to have lunch at one of the upmarket hotels along the Nile. As I was enjoying a scrumptious buffet in the Hilton, one of Cairo’s finest hotels, I began to feel guilty. Not because of how much I was going to pay, but because of the rich and fattening food
I was consuming: a variety of fruits, yoghurt, seafood galore, roast vegetables and meat, desserts to pick and choose from. Especially since I had weighed myself in Aswan and discovered that, irrespective of the vast amounts of alcohol that I had consumed, I had managed to lose more than ten kilos in just more than two months. I had come to the conclusion that the most effective weight-loss programme was to do the Cape to Cairo by public transport.

  I was about to ask for the bill when a tall, classy, sexy woman walked into the restaurant. She looked exactly like my fiancée, except that she was not as elegant and gorgeous. She was more like Desirée – a London-based artist of Jamaican origin who sang the hit songs ‘You gotta be’ and ‘Life’. The Desirée look-alike must have been in her late thirties or early forties. I have always had a soft spot for older women because of their maturity, being comfortable in their own skin and accepting the women they have become. In fact, nothing turns me on like a mature sister who oozes confidence and elegance. Even my fiancée knows that, besides her, I honestly think that Angela Basset – of ‘How Stella got her groove back’ fame – is the sexiest woman alive.

  Considering what happened in Nairobi when I approached somebody else’s girlfriend/wife, I was very reluctant to approach this woman. I thought I would just hang around instead and get myself some more dessert. All the time I was thinking with both my heads, and my upper head – the rational one – was telling me to leave the restaurant. After all, I had abstained for more than two months and a few more days, until I got back to South Africa, were not going to kill me. My upper head insisted that I leave the restaurant immediately – I did not want to spoil my record of having been faithful to my fiancée. But my other head was saying, ‘Oh man, that sister is so hot and sexy! Go for it, bru! Do not deny me.’

  My dessert eaten, I was trying to analyse these conflicting thoughts and to decide whether to approach the Desirée look-alike or not. After more than half an hour, when I was sure that she was definitely on her own, I decided to pounce. I considered a variety of approaches, including: So, you also believe that the longest bone in a human body is the femur – the thigh bone? I have news for you, my sister. My longest bone is not my femur …

  I was tempted to say this, but of course I could not bring myself to utter such words.

  When I finally approached her, I discovered that Emily Williams was the owner of a travel agency in New York and that she was in Egypt to attend the Mediterranean Trade Fair to network with other stakeholders. She was a divorced mother of two boys and on a mission to expand her business. She made it quite clear she wanted to prove to her ex-husband that she could make it big on her own. To me, at least, that was a sure sign that she still adored her husband.

  ‘My sister,’I said while looking at her cleavage, ‘life has proved over and over again that if you still feel that you have a point to prove to your ex, it means you still have feelings for him. The only time you know you are done with your ex is when you have no emotions, either positive or negative, towards him and when you have no point to prove to him. Your ex-husband must be a nobody to you. That is when you know he is history.’

  According to Emily, it was not that simple. ‘We brought two beautiful boys into this world,’ she told me with a very heavy sigh. ‘And that will always somehow keep us connected.’

  While we were talking, she kindly remarked that, like her, I sported a dimple in the right cheek. It also turned out that she was booked into the very hotel where we were having lunch. After chatting for almost half an hour, she invited me not to her room but to the hotel’s terrace for a cup of coffee. We had a very good chat about a variety of topics, such as the state of Africa as a continent, George W Bush and racism in America. In the course of our conversation she mentioned that she was going to visit Luxor, Aswan and Hurghada, a lively city on the Red Sea. I told her that my plan was to go north to Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest city, where a lighthouse considered one of the seven architectural wonders of the ancient world once stood.

  After some more soulful talk, Emily and I prepared to go our separate ways. She paid for both our coffees and, as we were about to leave the table, she opened her arms to give me a hug. Naturally I could not refuse such a gesture; after all, I do not get hugs from stunning sisters like her every day. The problem was that because she was so tall – Tyra Banks’s height, at least – I found my head right between her boobs and my full stomach right against her pelvic area. Have you ever been in a situation that you just wished, hoped and prayed would linger forever? Although I was almost suffocating, I did not want to let go. I was convinced that if I should die at that moment (from lack of oxygen) I would go straight to heaven.

  One of my heads started getting bigger and I found myself thinking again that I should, maybe, have started the trip in Cairo and finished it in Cape Town. That way I would have spent a week at least with Emily in Luxor and Aswan. Wow!

  My other head put the matter straight. But Sihle, it reminded me, if you had started in Cairo you would be in Cape Town by now. So there is no way you would have met Emily.

  I was thinking all this while holding Emily very tight just above her bum. In no time it was time to let go. ‘So how is the view of the Nile from your room?’ I asked.

  It’s breathtaking. Do you want to come up and have a look?

  I was hoping she would say something to that effect. Instead her response was, ‘Don’t spoil it. It was nice meeting you, my brother.’

  I watched her from behind as she wiggled her humungous cellulite-inflated bum from side to side towards the lifts. Sour grapes – I know.

  Considering Cairo’s chaos and noise you would be forgiven for thinking that Cairo has a vibrant nightlife. It’s actually quite the opposite. Bored later that night and dozing off, I had Business Idea Six: open a nightclub in Cairo and call it The Pyramid. The VIP section and the DJ’s box of the nightclub I opened would be called The Tomb and The Sphinx, respectively, whereas the dance floor, for obvious reasons, would be The Desert. With so many tourists visiting Egypt, The Pyramid was bound to be a hit.

  As I had explained to Emily the previous afternoon, Cairo was proving too chaotic for my liking. I decided to head further north (northwest, in fact) to Alexandria. The story of Alexander the Great, after whom the city is named, has always fascinated me. During his short 33 years on this planet Alexander the Great had conquered most of the known world. I was intrigued that the great Alexander, after grabbing Egypt from the Persians, instructed his architect to build a new Egyptian capital. He then travelled to Asia, where he died without ever having seen Alexandria.

  I had been so impressed with the Luxor–Cairo overnight train that I decided to go by train to Alexandria. As usual, after buying my ticket, I had to find someone to help me locate the right platform, train and compartment, everything on the ticket being written in Arabic. The man I found was an employee of the railways. Naturally he wanted baksheesh after helping me.

  This time I travelled second class, but I was still impressed. It was a very comfortable ride, more so because the wagon was air-conditioned. The railway line sometimes ran parallel to the road. Observing the traffic on the road convinced me that rail was by far the best way to travel in Egypt; it was more comfortable and much faster than road transport.

  I planned to spend the whole day in Alexandria and catch the last train back to Cairo at 22:00, allowing me just enough time to pick up my backpack from the hotel, take a cab to the airport and catch a flight that was due to leave in the early hours of the following day, non-stop to Johannesburg. I knew that the trip was technically over and the next time I went to bed it would be in my simplex (flat) back in Durban.

  Relaxing in the almost empty train on the way to Alexandria, I started thinking that in a few days’ time I was to return to reality and, like other real people, start worrying about real issues like:

  whether Kaizer Chiefs were going to beat Orlando Pirates, or vice versa

  whether the Blue Bulls were going to beat
the Natal Sharks, or vice versa

  what would happen in the next episode of Generations

  who had the smallest cellphone with the most features

  who was driving the smartest car

  who had bought a new house

  who was dating who

  who was getting married

  who was getting divorced

  who was wearing the same clothes as at last year’s end-of-year function

  It was depressing to think that the vast majority of people – thanks to mainstream media – sweat the small stuff and not only worry but are obsessed about small, tiny, minute, useless little things.

  In less than two and a half hours on the train, I was in Alexandria. My first impression of the waterfront city with its old colonial buildings was that Alexandria’s buildings urgently needed a very big scrubbing brush and a very powerful hosepipe.

  I decided not to take a cab or tram from the train station but to walk to el-Corniche, the beachfront. I looked down at my feet: I was still wearing the same built-up boot. If it had carried me this far, I thought, it might as well carry me to el-Corniche. It was not the best decision, but after more than an hour of hit-and-miss and not asking for directions, I finally made it to the beachfront, specifically 26 July Street.

  Alexandria is not referred to as the waterfront city for nothing – el-Corniche stretches for 18 kilometres along the Mediterranean. It just goes on and on and on.

  Within seconds of arriving at the beachfront I had fallen in love with the relaxed atmosphere of the place. After Cairo, any place would, without a doubt, seem relaxed, but I ended up liking even the very dirty colonial buildings in Alexandria. I sat for a few minutes at the water’s edge, just gazing out at the Mediterranean Sea, and found myself making Resolution No. 11: when I finally get married I want my honeymoon to be a Mediterranean cruise.

  It was a very good idea because, apart from other considerations, it was going to motivate me to go for swimming lessons (Resolution No. 4). It’s not that I expected there to be an accident, but considering how much we’d be rocking that boat it would be better to come prepared for any eventuality.