First Day in Cairo

At some point today I forgot to be tired. I was exhausted for a while there, but it faded. Now, sitting on my hotel terrace, desert winds in my hair, surrounded by green plants, sandy buildings, honking horns, I feel it creeping back in. Ah, but everywhere I see palm trees and life!

In the taxi from the airport, I tried to take in every sight, every sound, every detail. This place is amazing. Chaos doesn't begin to describe it. Cars and people going everywhere, in every direction, people everywhere, jumping in front of you, everywhere movement and chaos. But there's a rhythm to it, if you look at it right, if you listen with the right ears.

A bus was driving in front of us with the engine exposed. That is Cairo, I decided. Cairo is a city with its gears exposed. Spinning and throbbing; chaos and noise. Single sounds cut through: there's a musical bird, over there, a cat mewling, a woman laughing, the muezzin's lilting wail. Everything smells like gasoline and apple tobacco. The desert's sweet smell is there too. Almost like the smell of the ocean, only different, so different, like two sisters. My mouth is filled with sand, the cars are covered in sand, dust coats the entire city.

I think I am in love.

My apartment overlooks the Nile. And about 20 minarets poke out of the sprawling city below.

So much more to say, but I am exhausted, at last. At last the distances I have covered today have caught me. A thread was severed when my plane took off. As soon as I left European soil, I became someone else. The distances I have covered today, have not been in miles, in kilometers.

There is just so much I need to think about. So many things inside of me are cracking, moving, shifting, settling into place. Already I can feel my muscles relaxing. Do you understand how much it means to me that I will not go to sleep cold tonight!

To survive in Cairo with your sanity intact, you must have great inner calm. You must become the eye of the storm around you, or the sandstorm that is Cairo will erode something vital inside you. You could become stone in a town like this. You must let yourself become sand!