Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'Hear what?'
'The gunfire . . .'
'I just saw a load of guys with guns running into the fields. They looked like Muslim
Brotherhood, so I thought I'd come back and check on you . . .'
'Where are those police, the only time you need them?'
But Turbo only gave a crumpled grin. 'I'm glad they're not here. It's probably the police
those Brothers are shooting at.' He paused. 'Either that, or a really wild wedding. Well,
you did say you wanted to get under Egypt's skin, didn't you, Lev?'
Battered and bruised I might have been, but on 20 August 2014, almost nine months since I
tasted the Nile's first waters in the Nyungwe forest, I stumbled into the smoggy suburbs of
Africa's biggest city. After endless days tramping north through traditional villages, corn
fields and tall date palms, it was surreal to see the skyscrapers of Cairo hanging in the sky-
line. This was a city of twenty million people, a true metropolis, and I was walking into it
a broken man.
As Turbo ferried me into the centre, through the affluent western suburb of Zamalek,
all I could see through the windows were plush hotels, fancy restaurants and upscale yacht
clubs. Turbo gestured at the unveiled Egyptian girls shopping for designer handbags in
the boutique stores and, at once, I was reminded of Paris or Rome. Somehow, in only a
moment, I'd been sucked out of my voyage and unceremoniously dumped back into the
modern world. The idea that I was close to Europe, close to home, welled up inside me.
Digital billboards shone down, electric taxicabs whizzed by - and, by the time Turbo left
me at the hotel, I could quite imagine the end of the expedition; only a few short days of
walking were left between here and the coast.
In the morning, rested but not healed, I was met by Ibrahim in the hotel lobby. As he had
been at Luxor, he was eager to show me around his home city. Cairo is one of the oldest
cities in Africa, its modern-day incarnation founded in 969AD on the site of a settlement
much older yet, that of Ancient Memphis. This was the city from which the tourists who
once flocked to Egypt would set out to see the magnificent Pyramids of Giza, or the Great
Sphinx itself - but it was a very different side of Cairo that Ibrahim wanted to show me.
As we set out into this 'city of a thousand minarets', he turned to me and said, 'I'm taking
you to see a side of Cairo most tourists won't ever hear of.' He paused. 'Lev, I'm taking
you to Al Zabaleen -
Garbage City.
'
Leaving the centre of Cairo, Ibrahim led me to the hilly suburb of Mokattam. Unlike
the heart of Cairo, with its gleaming skyscrapers, ornate Islamic minarets and digital bill-
boards as bright and garish as Piccadilly Circus or Time Square, Mokattam was a sprawl-
ing shanty town. Yet, Ibrahim had another way of describing it. 'This is Cairo's Christian
ghetto,' he said. 'There are thirty thousand Coptics living here.'
