2/11 Alexandria Egypt

Wednesday 2 November                    Alexandria

Stretch class. Didn’t like the move from lunge to sitting back on heels. Didn’t feel right. Some confusion over whether we were doing ABT but we didn’t.

Took to the jetty and walked out through the throng of taxi drivers. Strode purposefully through patchy areas of swanky jewellers and market stalls before intersecting with the waterfront – described by Michael Palin as “Cannes with acne”. A pleasant enough stroll during which we never felt isolated or at risk.

 Found the library on the waterfront. Shaped like a huge discus emerging from the ground, with a large ball next to it that represented ???.

The outer walls are carved with giant letters, pictograms, hieroglyphs & symbols from every known alphabet. 

Entry is beneath the overhang which is where the people have gathered for the rally 

 Library has room for 8 million books in the vast rotunda space.   Took a couple of photos, speculating whether J would be the first recipient of the Mandurah Library Alexandria Award to actually visit the place. As we reached the door towards the back, it became apparent that the library was shut! Closed.Ciuso. A handwritten notice proclaimed that “the Revolution” had occupied the building and was engaged in sorting out the books “for the benefit of mankind”.

 My father would have given them all a dose of opening medicine. We walked round the back looking for alternative entrance or effective camera angle. About this stage, the rally outside the entrance transformed gradually from calm and restrained with thoughtful clapping to emotional rabble rousing. We heard frequent mention of what sounded like “tourist”. While being mindful of the Irish tendency to mention “tourist” when they need a drink, this sounded ominous and the DFAT advice emphasises staying away from demonstrations or public gatherings. So we headed off.

Lulled into false sense of navigational competence by this first stage, we attempted the more demanding inland route to the catacombs of Kom Ash-Shuqqafa and Pompey’s Pillar & the Serapeum. It appeared to be no more than 2km but we fell short of the large walled-off area around those tourist precincts and ended up wandering round in a giant loop for more than 2 hours. We did come across the Roman Amphitheatre on the way (only one discovered in Egypt.) 

 This was almost exclusively in a pretty basic part of the city. There were many herds of fifty or so sheep milling around in the street, where they seemed to live. Evidently, it was also where they died – out in the open. Some of our fellow passengers found that astonishing and barbaric. There were a number of cows as well. Butchering took place there and then and sides and bits of sheep were hanging all over the place. One alley was filled with them, so that shoppers had to duck under the meat as they went about their shopping.

Just 1 small flock, this street was full of them.

The Egyptians were consistently warm and friendly. They called “welcome” with broad smiles and asked how we were. No attempt to engage us in chat and certainly not to sell us anything. This was butchers and repair men greeting us because they were pleased and grateful that we were there.

The large area with the amphitheatre and the clean and impressive sphinx statue was only worth a couple of photos through the fence.  By the time we reached the catacombs, C was rooted and sat outside with the camera etc while J went in. From there, it was relatively simple to follow the tram tracks back to the port. Less simple in practice because the tracks did not match the map and the traffic was awfully slow. Largely because two if the four lanes were taken up with market stalls and pedestrians flowed into the other lanes. We actually overtook about half a dozen trams.

We chose a fridge magnet from the stalls inside the port area then retired for lunch and the afternoon quiz. J updated the photos and C lazed in the spa, soaking out some of the leg knots. We ate at the buffet for a change, while many of the passengers had headed off up to Cairo on long trips. Some of the coaches didn’t get back until 9pm.

C decided he just HAD to go and do internet.  So after dark, with laptop under his arm he headed off to somewhere unknown, in a place that we have been told to exercise extreme caution.  It was only after he left that I began to feel really uneasy about him heading out there.  Turns out the internet place was just over the road, cost .50cents for half an hour and $1 for a body guard to get you back across the road.

Evening we did the regular 8pm quiz (we didn’t win but the two of us produced a fair swag of points, including mentally rebuilding the periodic table of elements 45 years later. We invited ourselves back into the box seats for the violin performance and then slowly subsided through the evening game show.  Bed early.