Rickie

"Call me Rickie" he tells us. We are finally on the bus that we will
ride to the hotel. "Anything you need, you tell me. Egypt is a great
country. Anything you need, you call me."

We careen through the streets. Four cars squeeze into two lanes, and
horns beep. The horns are not angry horns. Drives use them to say
hello, I'm taking over this lane, and this light is taking too long to
change so I'm coming through. People shrug off the sound. Donkeys and
their passengers move to the side and everyone negotiates their space.
If I hadn't ridden in cabs in China and Thailand the traffic might
have bothered me, but the rush and noise seem quite calm to me.

"Ahh." Rickie says. "We have crazy divers here. Egypt traffic مجنون (Mjnwn)"

"They just make the lanes too wide." Is Jerry's response.

Before I left Canada I read a bunch of books by Egyptian authors. One
of the book, The Yacobian Building involves the intertwined lives of
groups of people who live in a building. Some of the people live on
the roof. While reading it I understood that people lived on top of
the roof, but I never thought of how that would work. As we make our
way to the hotel I start to see it. The tops of some apartments have
rebar sticking out and loosely woven palm that provides shelter to the
people living there.

The official population of the city is 17 million. I can't see how
they could possibly count everyone here. As we were taking overpasses
and winding our way through the city I thought the apartment building
were not that high. Then I looked down and realized that the road we
were driving on was five floors above ground level.

Mosques, army headquarters, army mosque, football field, more mosques
and finally a bridge. My first sight of the Nile. It's almost 2am and
couples are crossing in groups, people are fishing, and crazy.... cars
are parked in the outside lanes. They pull up, stop, and everyone
climbs out and gazes at the water below.

When we finally get to the hotel I can see how security is an issue
here. Our bus pulls up to the parking lot. The driver identifies
himself and Rickie, and the the bus is sniffed at by a dog. Men with
guns eventually lower the steel pillars in the roadway and we drive
into the lot. Now we are just a metal detector and x-ray machine away
from bed. Man am I tired. I can barely appreciate the grounds.

"So. You need AnyThing you call me. I can find anything in this town.
You just tell me." Rickie smiles.

Blah. Blah. Blah. Princess's former castle. Visiting dignitaries.
Blah. Blah. Blah. Egyptian cotton and a feather pillow await.

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