Killing time at Cairo airport

Yaaaawn I’m so tired. There’s a twelve-hour sleep looming in the imminent future, but not quite yet...

My last morning in Alex was a bit rushed. I only made it onto the 8 am Cairo train when it had started to move – something I thought only happened in movies.

I must be fitting in because I’ve been told I walk like an Egyptian. Which I think means that I waddle like a pregnant hippo in a tent. But walk like an Egyptian - isn’t that a song by the Cure? Or am I thinking about Killing an Arab?

Speaking about killing, I’ve picked up on this morbid joke favoured by central and southern Africans. “After New Year’s, anybody who organises a conference should be shot”, the head of African science policy told me in a taxi. It was a joke, I realised when everybody else laughed. And of course it was, albeit a very poor one in my opinion.

I heard it again, this time by an equally senior person in the African Union. So-and-so should be killed if they try this again. Ha ha ha. Er? Culture clash, I think it’s called. Although, if I make the same joke when I get home, you’ll at least understand.

I finally, at least, got a chance to visit the Egyptian museum that I missed last time I was in Cairo – about 13 years ago. Tutankhamen’s mask… I mean, have we advanced since then? At all? Really? Well, they didn't have battery powered nose hair trimmers, did they? So that's settled.

Right, time to board the flight to Kenya. I hope all works well, I’ll land in Nairobi tomorrow at 4.30 am. Urrrgh. Then to Joburg and home on Wednesday morning. It had better all work out, or I’ll kill all air traffic controllers in Africa. Er.

Finally in Alex

Why is it that all the hottest countries in the world always have the trickiest dress codes for women? I arrived in Egypt this morning and realised that none of my clothes were appropriate. With summer on the way in Cape Town I hardly own anything with sleeves. But here, it really makes a difference. After being asked whether I was married in a way that left nothing to the imagination as to what the purpose of the inquirer was by every man starting with the guys in passport control, I wrapped a scarf around my hair and put some tights on under my long skirt. The change was astonishing! All of a sudden I felt - respectable, for lack of a more suitable word. And - not to mention - stifling hot.

Well, when in Rome, as they say...

I had help getting from the airport in Cairo to the train station and on the right train by a US navy expat stationed in Alex. Waiting for the 8 am express over a cup of hot tea, he told me his theory on the cultural evolution of the South vs the North. The people near the equator only have to reach out to get bananas, he said, so they evolve into stupider people than those in the North. Now, where did I hear that before...?

Alex is brilliant. Great food, safe to walk, lots of history everywhere. And the med - there's something special about it. I feel close to home.

From the hotel you can see the bay where the lighthouse used to stand and where the palace where Cleopatra and JC (or was it Marc Anthony) used to have their trysts. Now THAT was a romance worth writing home about...

Nowhere Near Nairobi

It’s a funny sort of world when you realise that in order to be where you are, you could have stayed in your own bed another night and left for where you are today tomorrow.

Let me explain. I’m in Limbo, a sprawling wasteland also known as Gauteng [chaoteng] - the area around Johannesburg of Pretoria that looks a little bit like a piece of the American Midwest. I’m not supposed to be here. It’s all a horrible cock-up, involving hour-long delays, 40-minute transit times at Nairobi airports, and – yeah, you get the idea.

I’m on my way to Alexandria for a conference of African scientists – a big one, and I was looking forward to a leisurely day in Cairo before boarding the Nile-bank train for the Emperor’s city.

Alas, fate had other plans for me. What with the lack of flights actually connecting cities on this continent, it was either this dismal suburban guesthouse near the East Rand Mall near Johannesburg International or a night in Nairobi, risking more delays on my journey.

I’m instead catching the Air Egypt direct flight tomorrow, which leaves at 10 pm and lands in Cairo at the crack of dawn on Friday. Then I’ll catch the 3 hour train direct to Alexandria and the conference, hopefully only missing a couple of hours.

That way, I won’t have a night at the Nile Hilton, which I’m sure will be a sour loss, nor will I see the Egyptian Museum I missed when I was there over a decade ago. But at this point I will only trust non-stop flights.

It’s a headache that comes on top of other headaches. As I mentioned before, we did get the funding for a reporter, so I’m recruiting one in the coming months. But actually posting an ad in the Mail and Guardian – something which will earn them thousands of rand out of our pockets and therefore must be seen by them as a priority not to cock up – was a nightmare involving phones with nobody at the other end and undelivered messages. Sales people shouldn’t be hard to get hold of, but these were.

There was also the issue of the computer people not even having started replacing my bust optical drive by the time they had initially said it would be ready, and then getting a bollocking from London for typos in the last edition. Some weeks, it seems, you just can’t win. Oh well, at least the weather is nice (read sweltering).

Fish are friends, not food

Oh my so much to tell so little energy left in fingers. In short - press day went fine this week, London was ok last week and it's getting sunnier. So much for news updates.

Now for more interesting things. This is a sight you don't want to meet you when you stick your head under water on a family snorkelling trip.


But it was exactly what happened to my sister and I this week when we went on a shark safari. Seriously cool animals.

Not so cool was I, however, when heading out to sea. A bit orange, maybe? Wonder what Anna Wintour would say. Nothing - she'd probably faint. Well, at least the sharks would have a clear site of me if I fell in. Let's say that, upon entering 'shark alley', a lifejacket does not seem like such a comfort.


Not that you look much better in the water, in full freediving gear, as my sister so kindly models on this picture. It was freezing cold - about 14 degrees in the water. We stayed in for almost an hour, as you can tell by the colour (or lack thereof) of Sister's lips.


The smell at the back of the boat was unbearable, and that was not just due to seasick passengers but because of this 'bait'. Together with some disgusting rotting Tuna chunks in a drum that would spread out downwind of the boat like a shiny red carpet for sharks these would lure the sharks close enough to the boat for us to see them through the murky water.


At first, nothing happened. Then we changed anchoring site. And then, within minutes, a massive shadow was sighted trailing up our 'chum slick' at a leisurely pace. It had a go at the bait, then disappeared as we hurried on our wetsuits. As Sister and I lowered ourselves into the cage, a metre in front a massive grey body was playing havoc with the bait.


Needless to say, we entered the cage rapidly. However, once in there it was difficult to fight the buoyancy of the suits, which in turn made it hard to keep all appendages inside the cage. If a shark had wanted to, I think it would have been able to grab my left arm on at least three occasions.

In the end, we saw 7 sharks. Seven great whites in two hours! Most of them teenagers, around 3 metres. They grow to double that size. The maximum count in one day that they've had is 37. However, 7 is apparently very good. "It doesn't get better than this" the marine biologists who was our guide said.



Funnily enough, that same night I met a surfer who has just quit after 8 years catching the waves because a great white had tried to push him off his board just two weeks ago. "When they attack, their whole bodies just start to shiver," he said. Safe on the shore, he swore off surfing, deciding that he'd had his good innings and was starting to push his luck. Can't blame him, having seen these...

Homeward bound

Am at Heathrow, waiting to fly back via Joburg. London was rainy, productive and somewhat emotionally taxing. I'm looking forward to the relative simplicity and straightforwardness of Cape Town life. Not to mention missing my little sister, who's been all alone down there for three days.

I'll write a bit more about what went down in London at a later date, when airtime on this thing is not costing me (or, Research Africa) an arm and a leg.

Set on a Jet

Ok, not much blogging recently because I've been looking after my little sister who arrived on Monday morning. I've been taking her round the place, wide-eyed, as she's on her own the first half of next week. Me, I'm getting on a plane to jet set to London for another 3-day jaunt. Air miles Ka-Ching! This time it's the Royal Society that's footing the bill. They're convening African learned societies and academies, and I'm invited...

In other news, a longtime dream has been fulfilled - I'm now set to review movies for hip new South African lifestyle magazine One Small Seed. I'm meant to review 3 DVDs for their upcoming issue - all I could manage as I'm going to be away next week and the deadline is like Friday. Hopefully, it will be a regular gig. I assume it's unpaid, but then I write lots of boring stuff for money so maybe it evens out.