Cruisin' Through Traffic

Cairo is probably one of the few major cities in the world where horse traffic can be found in the downtown core. This was taken on the Corniche in Cairo near the Conrad Hotel, one of our many horse carts moving bags of something heavy among taxis, buses and cars. Most of these horses are Arab crosses, sometimes with a little draft or thoroughbred to increase the size. And horse people think that Arabs are spooky? Not here.

Time To Dye

Driving into the Wissa Wassef center the other day I found lovely red wool hanging off the palm trees. It must be the season to be spinning and dyeing the wools for their tapestries. They do their own dyeing from herbs and plants grown on the property.

Eat Your Heart Out, Yas!

This is my tea mug. It's big. It contains enough tea to jumpstart my brain in the morning. The even larger object sitting on my chair next to my tea mug is a 2 kg mango. I ate it for breakfast. It was delicious.

One of the varieties of mango grown in Egypt is known familiarly as beid el tor, or in English bull's balls, for fairly obvious reasons. These enormous mangoes ripen more slowly than many other types and are usually used to make mango juice. When someone brought me one the other day, however, it was popped into the fridge until the following morning, when it was devoured with much rejoicing. Poor Yas, living in frosty New York where there are no good mangoes.

The Colours of Tools

The other day while taking a scenic route out of downtown Cairo we passed through Septeya, a district that is basically the giant Home Depot of Cairo. This wonderful area specialises in tools and construction materials. As a life long hardware store addict, I'd rather go to Septeya than City Stars. The brilliant yellow of the storefront and the glitter of metal and colour hanging out to view caught my eye.

Empty Eyes

In a crowded city in a crowded country it is always a mystery why there are so many empty apartments staring down on busy streets. Some are built by parents for children who decide to live elsewhere, others, well who knows the story.

The Canal Cleaner

We have large machines that move around the canals cleaning the water hyacinth and other interesting objects out of the canals, but sometimes they need a tidying between mechanised visits. As I was out riding the other day I noticed a man in a row boat steadying the boat near the shore of the canal while a boy scooped handfuls of hyacinth out of the water, tossing it onto the shoreline.

Jazz Old And New

We just recently finished a jazz festival in Cairo, ten days of free jazz in some of the most interesting venues in the city. I saw the first night at Manial Palace, but getting up at 6 am on a farm isn't conducive to late nights listening to music however fun. This was a Spanish/Cuban group playing with some Nubian percussionists on the first night. The mix was wonderful and rich. But then that is the whole idea, to have music bring people together.

Instant Tooth Decay

For me, cotton candy was an unusual treat of sorts, something only available at a carnival. In less wealthy sections of Cairo or Giza boys can be seen carrying tall sticks with plastic bags of cotton candy stapled to them. Just what the dentist ordered.

A Sign Of The Times

This simple shot is for people who know Cairo and more specifically Maadi. Lucille's is an American hangout, a transplanted diner where you can get great cheeseburgers, apple pie and cheesecake. It's a tiny place and the "smoking" vs "nonsmoking" designation was always a bit of a laugh, but now things are changing in Egypt and it will all be nonsmoking.

Another Traffic Jam

I went riding with a friend to the pyramids of Giza the other day when on our way into the Nazlit Semman area we found ourselves in a narrow alleyway with a heavily laden donkey in front of us and facing the donkey a wide truck taking up most of the alley way in front of the donkey. An Egyptian standoff that the equids eventually won when the truck backed up to a wider spot.