Boulak

Forty-eight hours after my arrival here, my big expensive bag finally showed up. The airlines will no longer deliver lost luggage to your residence, so I had to make my second trip to the airport in as many days. On the way there is a domineering mosque, possibly Fatima, I'm not sure. On the off chance an Egyptian ever reads this, please forgive my mistakes.

And a site celebrating Egypt's October 1973 war "victory" over Israel. Pretty sure the conflict ended in a draw, but Egypt still feels pretty good about the attack it coordinated with Syria.

Clip-clops mingle with the whoosh of automobile tires.

 

Dealing with Egyptian Air Services was a Kafkaesque maze -- a gray mass of government officials and a bureaucracy in its purest sense. I waited nearly an hour in a cramped office with 7 or 8 employees, most of them sitting around fanning themselves. Then another wait of 45 minutes in the departure area while an EAS functionary walked off with my passport, assuring me he'd return. Unnerving. Finally I was let into a secure area of the airport. Fort Knox is more accessible. And here, my friends, is Egypt's toughest tourist ticket -- the lost luggage room. Hope you never have to visit.

 

On the way home, my driver realizes the airport highway is gridlocked. Up ahead, traffic on the Sixth of October Bridge is not moving, so we detour around Cairo's northwest edge, where date and watermelon farms vie for space with a sea of unfinished apartment complexes. Sixty percent of everything I've read about Egypt has turned out to be wrong, so please take this with a rock of salt. My understanding is that if a building is perpetually under construction, its owner is granted a tax break. The same dodge is used in the Mormon communities of northern Arizona.

 

The serendipitous result of this detour is that it takes us through the Boulak neighborhood, a poor enclave where the asphalt turns to dirt. I've never seen it on any map.

 

Like the City of the Dead, which I hope to visit later, it's a municipal gray area that the city fathers would prefer to disown. Under President Sadat, thousands of Boulak residents were forcibly relocated. Now they're just ignored. Garbage piles up as a result.

 

It's the kind of place where you can get a chicken butchered on the spot.

 

After a few blocks, the taxi stops. I am stunned to learn Boulak is steps away from my apartment. Fiery, raging Cairo is full of surprises. Tomorrow is Friday, and the radio talk shows and cabdrivers want only to talk about the surprises that lurk over the weekend. But I can write the headline today. The Brothers will be bloodied. Strategically, there's nothing they'd like more. And the wearying cycle continues.