Happy Birthday To Me

Without a doubt, I will never forget my 29th birthday. I awoke at around 4 am to the Adhan (Muslim call to prayer), which was eerily beautiful, blasting through downtown Cairo on old crackling loudspeakers. Of course it would have been more enjoyable if it hadn't woken me up at 4 am. Then again, what happened next was even less enjoyable; gunshots began to ring out in the morning air, coming from Tahrir square, where a "celebration" had turned into a violent clash between the military and a few thousand hard-nosed protesters who were violating the curfew. The gunshots got louder until they seemed right outside the hostel (I found out later that that's because they WERE right outside the hostel), and then finally stopped around 6am.

Now, at no point during this incident did I feel unsafe; up on the 7th floor of our building, doors locked, no reason whatsoever for anyone to come inside, I felt rather secure. It was a pretty crazy way to start my birthday though; sitting up at 5 am listening to gunshots in the street while I google "egypt news" over and over again to see what's going on. It turns out that a few protesters were shot and killed in the clash, and today there were around twenty thousand people in Tahrir square by the time 4 PM rolled around, all protesting the army's tactics.
A few cars were burned (black smoke pictured when I get a chance to upload it), and general uneasiness could be felt in the too quiet streets of Cairo.

You all know that I'm crazy, so it should not be a big surprise to learn that I went ahead with the tour I had planned today. In fact, I increased the number of destinations in case I might be unable to go out in Cairo again, given the unrest this morning.
And so, today, I went to a papyrus shop, Memphis, a massage oil vendor (this stop was short lived), ate a terribly expensive but great lunch, rode a camel up to the Giza Pyramids, saw the Sakkar Pyramid, and a carpet making school (don't ask). The obvious highlight here was the Giza pyramids... neither pictures nor words can approach the magnificence and grandeur of these man made mountains. The only thing that even came close to rivaling the majesty of the pyramids was the kindness and beautiful soul of the Egyptian people which I witnessed today. My taxi driver, Solo Islam, was so kind to me, stopping to buy me a drink with his own money because I looked hot, and answering all of my dumb questions with wonderfully broken english, a near unreasonable amount of in-car-dancing, and a continuous smile.

My guide at the pyramids was just as excellent, customizing for me a tour which included about 50000 stops for about 50000000 pictures.
We joked about camels and talked politics and pharaohs, took tea together with some guards, and hugged goodbye like brothers after our 2 hours together. There are so many kind souls here, which in turn brings out the kindness in tourists(as well as the wallet; I was giving out baksheesh (tips) like never before), few as there were. Typically, at any one time there are around 3000 tourists at the Giza Pyramid site: Today there were 27. It made for great pictures, but you can really tell that the tour guides, and in fact most of the other outwardly happy Egyptians, are having a hard time with this whole revolution. Sure, it's a step in the right direction, but people still need to put food on the table.


On the way back to the hostel, I asked my driver to swing by the square to see how things had settled. The 20000 protesters there, the barbed wire cutting traffic and pedestrians off from the square, and the loaded army APCs quickly let me know that things had not settled at all. As i rode past in my taxi, I felt a lump grow in my throat as the final realization of my future here in Egypt came crashing down around me: I am going to have to leave this country today, I thought. I told my driver to wait downstairs as I gathered the rest of my things, and departed to "meet a friend at the airport". I couldn't bring myself to tell the hostel owner the truth, which is that the escalating and violent protests scared away yet another tourist.

I have a few simple rules when I am traveling, which are designed to keep me safe and nerve free.
One rule is that if I ever feel personally threatened while traveling, I should do my best to extracate myself from the situation if at all possible. Secondly, I always have to make sure that, once I do enter a place, I have a safe way to get back out of it. I honestly do feel threatened by these protests, which are escalating quickly as anger turns from the Mubarak regime to the new army's apparent inability (or unwillingness) to prosecute those individuals felt responsible for the corruption in Egypt (Mubarak chief among them). And there is no way that I can guarantee to myself that Cairo will be safe enough in two weeks for me to fly out of; I only know that it is safe enough right now. So, with a heavy heart and great sadness, I will be leaving Cairo and the wonderful people of Egypt early tomorrow morning for Frankfurt, and then I will go on to Barcelona. Not to say that Spain won't be amazing, it's just that I was hoping to get to spend some more time with the people here, enjoying the sights and sounds of this timeless place.

But, as always, safety supercedes fun. A birthday to remember, no doubt about it; gunshots, pyramids, my 7th continent, and some incredible experiences. I will try and upload pictures soon, the bandwidth here sucks. Y ahora, vamos a Espana!

C