14 March 2000 (evening)

After the Egyptian Museum we get back on the bus and drive through Tahrir Square on our way to the Khan al-Khalili bazaar or souk. At the Khan al-Khalili we are free to wander for an hour and then we’ll meet at the Naguib Mahfouz Restaurant for dinner.

One of the many beautiful “gates” in the souk

Stacked cardboard boxes overflowing with plastic sandals, toy cars, hair ribbons, and baby clothes. Rug menders. Bolts of cloth. A man balancing a massive tray of bread on his head as he walks. Another man balancing beach balls held together by nets. Minarets poking above roof tops.

The narrow alleys of the souk smell like cat piss, cigarettes and perfume. Scrawny cats are everywhere: prowling, fighting, dashing underfoot. Budgies in cages chatter overhead. Merchants stand in the doors of their shops, urging us to examine their alabaster chess sets, “faience” scarabs, toy leather camels, silver jewelry, pyramid lamps, and bubbly jewel-colored blown glass vases.

The narrow alleys of the souk

Men sit at tiny tables in front of shops, drinking tea and smoking water pipes. We pass a brazier of glowing coals, a cart with smoky roasted sweet potatoes, and another cart, elaborately sculpted, with glass panels on the side displaying nuts and toasted melon seeds.

Carved door: Naguib Mahfouz Restaurant

The door of the Naguib Mahfouz Restaurant is honey-colored wood, carved in an intricate pattern. I try to determine if this is the coffee shop where Naguib Mahfouz does his writing, but no one seems to know. Long strings of blue and silver beads hang like a curtain in the window. The floor is a star pattern in marble. The vaulted ceiling is patterned with geometric shapes pressed deeply into the plaster and painted green, orange, brick, umber, and blue, creating a tapestry tent illusion. The walls are wood paneling accented with mashrabiya, mirrors, and prints of Old Cairo. Our table has an etched tin top.

Bill does the ordering. We have an appetizer of salty pickled carrots, baby onions, and  hot peppers followed by pita bread and crackers with yogurt sauce, hummus, and tahini. Next comes Egyptian lentil soup and then a main course of eggplant, okra, and meat casseroles in curry and tomato sauces, spooned over plates of rice. We have no room for our bread pudding dessert but eat it anyway.

Mosques with minarets lit from below. Flashing neon lights. Streets packed with evening shoppers. The dome of the opera house, washed in light. Goats penned outside a shop. Rebar bristling from roofs like chin hairs in need of plucking. A truck smashed into a guard rail and abandoned.

Merchant and his souvenir shop

Back near our bus a thin, curly-headed girl, maybe five years old and wearing a pink flannel nightgown that’s been through too many washings, is selling packets of Kleenex. There’s a mosque nearby. Its doors are open and men are hurriedly kicking off their shoes and going inside to pray. The rear door of a public bus opens and people leap on, even though the bus is moving and already jammed to capacity.

On the way back to the hotel Moustafa tells us the average income for an Egyptian hotel worker is 2400 pounds per year. By contrast, farmers earn about 900 pounds per year — roughly $300 US. The “middle class” in Cairo have an income of about $10,000 US per year. Moustafa has completed a four-year course in Egyptology and Tourism. Bill employs four guides and they’ve all done the four-year course.

Evening shoppers in the Khan al-Khalili