During the football I was surrounded by a dozen kids, all staring at me and calling Mr Lee. I moved away, to take some photos, and they followed like they were attached to me by a string.
On of the football players came over and asked me if I was a scout for an English team.
After the game we headed back across the cemetery to Ahmed’s home, followed by the kids yelling “y’Lee” all the way back.
We sat in his house while a multitude of visitors came by to see me, his sister again and her husband, his brother and various uncles and children.
The house finally cleared about 11pm at which time Sameya, Ahmed’s gorgeous wife, brought in another huge tray of food. Ahmed explained that we had to wait for all the guests to leave before eating otherwise they would be obliged to feed them also.
We finished the food and had a shay, then off to bed. I finally dropped off about 1am.
I was awoken a few ties in the night by the ducks on the roof having a fit and by local time-dyslexic cockerels crowing away, then my alarm went off at 6am.
Up and showered, Ahmed and I bid goodbye to his mother and little Sameya (his niece) and walked into the village where we caught a tuk tuk to Abu Hamed where we bought breakfast (flatbread and foul) and boarded the train to Cairo.
Ahmed disembarked at the stop before Cairo and I continued on for 10 minutes.
Getting off the train at Cairo, I left the station and found myself in a bustle of taxis and traffic. I picked a direction and random and started walking, looking for a hotel where I could get onto the internet to find another hotel in which to stay.
After 15 minutes I grabbed a cab and asked him to take me to Giza. He asked “why Giza” – I replied “why not?” and told him that I wanted a hotel. “Which hotel?”. “Any hotel”.
He took me to one in Sphinx square where I went to the desk and they asked for US$100 so I promptly left and he took me to the Amoun hotel where I’m now sat in the basement restaurant and bar with a beer, having paid 410 LE for 2 nights.
No comments:
Post a Comment