Of Parties and Partings

After what seems to be an eternity of getting ready and saying goodbye, we’re finally entering the last stretch of our stay in Cairo. The departure is imminent and the farewell parties are in full force!

Kieran was lucky enough to have first go- a collection of his motliest crew convened at our house last Thursday. In fact, this was not strictly speaking a leaving party. We’d decided to bring his birthday forward a few weeks to ensure he actually had some friends to celebrate with. Lots of fun was had on our roof- old games like “Pin the Tail on the Donkey” brought back memories of my single- digit birthday parties. Soma even made Kieran a special cake that at least two of the guests recognized as being Thomas the Tank Engine! After a couple of hours, all kids were burned out and had departed. Kieran and Rohan wended their way to bed and Soma flaked out accordingly!

From left: Nina, Kieran and Adam rifle through the party bags.

Next day we were up bright and early- seconds away for round two and this was the big one! At seven that evening, about sixty of Maadi’s finest would descend (or more appropriately ascend, given that the party was on our roof) for our official leaving party. The day sped by- people came with traditional tables and chairs; more people came to set up the lights and the bar; beer, wine and soft drinks arrived in massive quantities and by late afternoon Samir from the Deli had arrived. Now unless you have lived in the Middle East for any length of time you will not truly understand just what a legend a man like Samir is. He is gold dust for the simple reason that HE SELLS PORK SAUSAGES AND PORK CHOPS! To be honest, once the rumour had spread that Samir was both supplying and cooking for our party, the RSVP’s flooded in- so was it us or the pork? Who knows, but by eight that evening our roof terrace was kicking!

The barbecue was as good as had been promised- aided by some lamb pies and prawns that Soma had secured from another “diamond geezer” supplier of ours. Once fed, a few hardy souls set about the one remaining task of finishing off my bar. Over the past few years, I’d amassed a fair sized collection of obscure liquors and spirits, none of which were headed to Tanzania. Unwilling to chuck them down the sink, we chucked them down ourselves instead until…….I woke up the next morning!
Daniel holding an early Chubb attempt at a Long Island Ice Tea- we got it right in the end!

After a Saturday that will go down in history as the forgotten day- Daniel and Janice coming around with some Latte from Café Greco being the only highlight- I woke up Sunday for the start of my last week as Commercial Manager of Sidi Krir.

The day was nothing to write home about- not until my official works leaving do started that evening at the Four Seasons in Garden City. Another hot tip for anyone planning on eating out in Cairo- Aqua is a very stylish, very posh little restaurant on the second floor and well worth a go! Soma and I were joined by my boss, Tom, his wife Barbara and my soon- to- be- ex- colleagues Colin, Sherif, Wafaa and Sayed. After a far more civilized dinner than had been enjoyed on our roof, Tom made the customary, but very generous speech about my contribution (which as is clear from the increasing size of this blog has been somewhat limited as of late!) and presented us with an array of leaving presents. We are now richer to the tune of three very nice Syrian alabaster candle holders, one video camera and a crystal clock- I’ll try to do a fly on the wall video of the move!

Works leaving do at the Cairo Four Seasons. From left: Sayed, Wafaa, me, Barbara, Sherif, Colin, Soma and Tom

Thus are the official leaving parties done. We’ll have friends round this week to say some proper goodbyes of course. I’m not quite sure how it will all pan out. Soma and I aren’t that emotional (read- we’re both cold hearted!) but there are some fine people we’ve met in Maadi that we will miss a lot. Friday in Tanzania will be a working day, not, as has been the case since 2005, spent meeting up in Café Greco with our good friends Viv, Tim, Carol, Paul, Daniel, Janice and an assortment of other fine people.

I’m not sure when the next update will be to this blog. I’m writing this on Monday- the home computers get packed Thursday and that same day I walk out of this office in Dokki leaving this laptop in my ex- to- be office. For now it’s a case of continuing to say bye to Cairo- the next posting will most likely be from a new life in Tanzania. The Msasani Peninsula, Little Scholars, South African wine and right hand drive cars await us!

Ma'a Salama ya Sidi Krir!

As our departure date looms ever closer- 3rd November is now a little more than a fortnight away, the bitter sweet experience of the “farewell tour” is now underway. What with all this jetting around through the past couple of months, I had not actually paid a visit to the Sidi Krir power plant in what must have been ages. Colin Parrish, our Plant Manager heartily agreed and suggested very enthusiastically that this absence had to end.

Thus it was that, on the morning of Wednesday October 17th, I found myself in the passenger seat of our Pajero, pulling out of Maadi to start the oft driven schlep up to Sidi Krir. On this occasion, however, something was a bit different- the weather. Now weather in Egypt is not something you dwell on too much. “Oooh what a sunny day it is, I wonder what it will be like tomorrow” tends to run a bit thin once you get into the third month of blazing heat and zero precipitation. In fact, one thing very noticeable about Egyptians is that they never really talk about the weather- it’s hot, get over it!

Well today the weather was worth talking about. For the first time in months it had actually rained the night before- and not just a small shower either. For hour after hour, rain poured, thunder rolled and lightning flashed. In fact, on the way home the previous evening, the dark, miserable rainy weather had evoked a very brief flash of homesickness in me- one that vanished once I stepped out of the car, mind! The rain was so solid and so heavy that, in the wee small hours, it started to come through the gaps in the terrace door and window and was dripping solidly down onto the corridor floor. I was actually quite grateful for this- being a tenant, I was not on the hook for the repair and, more importantly, we now had a cast iron excuse for the water damage inflicted by a session or two too many in the paddling pool over the summer.

Anyway, Mohammed and I made painfully slow progress across Cairo, whose lack of a decent drainage system was becoming rather apparent. We worked our way through umpteen lake sized puddles and around countless vehicles which, being on their last legs in the dry, had given up the ghost completely in the wet. After an hour we reached the Heliopolis apartment of my friend and colleague Sherif. With Sherif aboard we made our way west to join the Cairo- Alexandria road.

With the rain behind us, everything from this point had the grim predictability of a journey which had been made over fifty times before with the added tinge of knowing that this was actually the last time I’d be doing it. As things on the road flashed by- the unspeakable service station halfway on the road, the huge equine sanctuary with Delboy like statues of horses adorning the entrance, the “Lion Village” zoo- I bid a quiet goodbye to them. We even played Mohammed’s favourite CD (the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, which I’d bought him a year or so ago in an attempt to stop him from ever again asking me to listen to his cassette of the Bee Gees in concert with Barbara Streisand).

We arrived at Sidi Krir at lunchtime- the usual McDonalds salad will not be missed. After an afternoon of very dull accountancy, the details of which I will not go into, we headed off for a last night at the world’s worst Hilton hotel- the Borg al Arab Hilton. It says Hilton on the signage but in reality I have spent a few nights each month for the last three years staying at a pink Arab version of Fawlty Towers. The only fond memory I have of the place isn’t even mine- it is of our cantankerous Texan CEO trying to have a shower and getting scalded in the process. After a few beers with Colin and Charl (a South African piping consultant here ostensibly for our ongoing outage but seemingly for the sole purpose of needling Colin and I before the Rugby World Cup final) I headed up to enjoy my final night in the place.

After a few more hours of bean-counting the next day, I started to say my goodbyes. I donned the glasses and helmet for the last time and headed to the maintenance building with Colin where I caught up with a few soon- to- be- ex colleagues. After a final photograph with Colin and Sherif (a team photo is a fairly traditional goodbye rite for all visitors there) we made our way home- a final slog back to Cairo.

Sidi Krir Power Station- the reason we came to Egypt in the first place!

A final team photo outside the admin building. From left Colin Parrish (Plant Manager), me, Sherif Moussa (Financial Controller)

Although I left Sidi Krir without much emotion, I must confess I’ll miss the place. Although I’m no engineer, it is a place I’ve come to grow fond of. The people have come together as a team and have taken a pride in their station. Unlike many engineers they have not just accepted my visits but have really embraced what I've been trying to do, proving that Beancounters and Dilberts can work together! However, it is the whole repeated ritual of these trips that will be remembered fondly for a while yet. Listening to awful Bee Gee cassettes on the long, dull road to and from Cairo, swapping weak jokes with the likes of Adel, Abdallah and Nabi, semi drunken gossip with Colin in the Hilton bar and braving the worst a supposedly five star hotel can throw at you are now firmly ensconced in my memory.

To Bawiti and Beyond- Camping in the Desert

Day 1

The first thing I noticed about the room we’d taken in the International Hot Springs Hotel was that, despite it having no air conditioner, it was actually pretty cool. Looking around, we were in a clean and basic hexagonal room with windows situated in just the right position to get a good throughflow of air. “These desert people certainly know how to design a cool house”, I thought.

“These desert people” were in fact Peter, a middle aged German man with a penchant for traditional galabeyas and his Japanese wife. They had come to the village of Bawiti some 14 years ago, set up this hotel- come expedition base camp and had run it ever since. I guess running a hotel anywhere must pretty quite hard work. To set up a hotel in the middle of a desert in a foreign country however, requires a level of drive few of us have. Peter and his wife employ a large staff of local people, both in the hotel itself and in the desert excursions they also offer. Listening to Peter talk about the area, looking at the postcards created by his wife and the camel blankets he himself sells, you can see a driving passion for the desert and its people. His Arabic might be a bit broken and spoken with a German accent but this man seems determined to take his place as part of the fabric of local society- attracting much needed money to the area, employing local people but taking pains to respect the local environment seems to be a pretty good way to achieve this.

The village of Bawiti is found close to the Bahariya Oasis towards the easternmost extreme of the Western Desert and is about a four hour drive from Cairo. Walking around the place, we felt well and truly taken back in time. The village is very hot and dusty, with low built houses cramped up against each other. The only real hint of modernity came with the numerous offroad vehicles which shared the narrow lanes with the far more traditional mules and carts reflecting the way the tourist industry shares pride of place with traditional pastoralism here. After about twenty minutes we sought shade by heading into the oasis itself. When thinking of an oasis as a child, I always imagined a small lake surrounded by a dozen or so palm trees such as is seen in cartoons. Actually a real oasis is much bigger than that. We found ourselves walking through a large forest of palm trees. Apart from the respite from the heat, we took in the fact that this place was replete with food- every tree had something edible hanging from it. At first we minded our manners- respectful of the fact that our guide was fasting for Ramadan. However he insisted we try some of the fruit and soon enough we were working our way through some of the sweetest, freshest dates we’d had in a long time. Kieran found a lemon tree and, inexplicably started on a couple of lemons too!

Kieran and I coming out of the Baharya Oasis

After much walking, we eventually emerged from the oasis, slightly tired and very full. Kieran announced he wanted a piggy back so we took that as the cue to head back to the hotel.

Sunset came soon enough and Kieran and I climbed to the top of a small hill behind the hotel called Gebel al Ingleez (the English Mountain). The name comes from the fact that in times past, the occupying British forces had a base on the hill to keep an eye on Senussi tribesmen coming through from Sudan and Libya. Kieran and I watched the sun go down over the oasis and came down for a visit to the hotel playground and dinner before bed.

Day 2

Unusually enough, I woke up before Kieran did- although not by much. After about five minutes, he woke up, got out of bed and trotted over me and asked if he could go to the playground. I told him that today was a very big day and he needed to keep his energy for exploring the desert. Soma and Rohan joined us soon enough and we headed to the playground for a pre- breakfast go on the swings. Breakfast was basic but very good- local balady bread, cheese and eggs along with the traditional foul dish so loved by Egyptians everywhere.

At 9.30 we met Peter in Reception where he gave us an introduction to the desert. We were to leave the hotel and drive through the Black Desert. The Black Desert is approximately 40 million years old, dating back to the Cretaceous Period. At that time, the continent of Africa started to split in an East- West direction (apparently it is still doing so at about a centimeter per year). This split created massive geological upheaval resulting in a lot of volcanos spewing up a lot of lava- this lava is what makes the Black Desert black. We would then head into the White Desert which, apart from being white, is even older still. Dating back 70 million years to a time when only one continent existed, the White Desert is the fossilized remains of a seabed. All interesting in theory but we were anxious to see it all.

We met our guide, a local man called Arif. We packed our belongings into an already full Landcruiser and headed through Bawiti into the desert. As promised, we headed first of all through the Black Desert and it certainly lived up to its name. There was very little sand- it was mostly very dry, very hot black volcanic rock. After half an hour we did manage to find some real sand and accelerated the car to the top of a large dune from which we could see a very impressive black panorama. From here we had our first experience of the sounds of the desert- absolute silence!

Half an hour further on and we stopped at a small volcano. This was clearly a regular stop as other trekkers were already there. Soma helped Rohan totter about while Kieran and I made a bid for the top. In fact we got about halfway up before he asked for a piggy back. That being the case and the fact that the way up was becoming steeper and less clear, we decided to stop there and take in the view. “Kieran” I said, “this is real desert!” Kieran’s response, logically enough was “was the desert before a pretend desert, daddy?” Stumped by this, we sat together for a while, headed back down for more water and continued on our way.

Panorama of the Black Desert, taken from halfway up a volcano

We stopped at about midday for lunch. Arif needed to go to his Friday prayers so we took lunch in a very nice tent structure attached to a small restaurant. The food was basic but good- more balady bread and various salad items were served along with some juices for the boys and mint tea for us.

Another hour of driving in the afternoon found us in the White Desert and never has a place so fitted the name! This was not just pale sand but absolutely brilliant white rock for miles around. Out of this brilliant white landscape protruded hundreds of the strangest rock structures we’d ever seen. This was truly the most unearthly landscape any of us had ever seen! Driving offroad was much easier as this was not so much sand as rock so we were able to go at some speed. With no other car for miles around and a perfectly flat, infinitely wide “road” we must have hit 100mph- it felt almost like high speed ice skating! We ended up at one rock structure known in the area as the Chicken and the Egg- it apparently looks like one although Soma had her doubts. According to her, trying to give shapes to these structures was like a Rorschach test, you could ascribe meaning to anything- spoilsport!

The White Desert

As the shadows started to lengthen, we headed back into the Black Desert and, after an hour, found a suitable dune to camp under. Soma headed off onto it with the kids while Arif and I set up camp. We set up a big tarpaulin against the side of the car and put down some rugs. That half box was our kitchen. Given that sunset was imminent and Arif was desperate to eat we decided dinner should come before the tents. The two of us sat down and started chopping and peeling. Dinner came along with nightfall and we sat down under the stars, with just headlights and a fire for light.

Rohan and Kieran were starting to yawn so we put up the tents and put them to bed. Rohan fell asleep immediately but Kieran kept poking his head out, presumably to check we’d not left him alone in the desert. After a bit more gazing at stars and taking in the sheer silence, we too headed to bed.

Day 3

Unbelievably, for a second day running, I was awake before Kieran! This time, though, I had to wake him too. He was almost awake and I needed to go pee! I didn’t want his first memory of waking up in the desert to be marred by panic over where his Dad was, so he got up and came with me. Fascinated by the concept of “going” in the desert, he too dug a small hole and had his morning pee! Soma and Rohan were by now awake but, not wanting to wake Arif, we headed over to the next dune to play and to watch the sunrise. The pre dawn was light enough but, at six o’clock, the sun finally came over the dune- a magical moment with a reddish orange light mixing with the other- worldly blackness of the desert floor.

Our camp- taken just after sunrise on Day 3


Sitting at the top of “our dune”, I felt extremely fortunate to be where I was. We were the only people for miles around; the kids had unlimited sand and rocks to play in; the air was pure and, for the two hours straight after sunrise, the temperature was very pleasant- the desert chill had been tempered by the sun but the sheer dry heat of the day had not yet arrived.

Arif awoke soon enough and, conscious that we wanted to be away before the real heat set in, we had a simple breakfast, packed up and headed back to Bawiti. After lunch in the hotel we met up with Mohammed and began the long drive home.

Our weekend in the desert was perhaps one of the most magical experiences any of us have had. To spend a day taking in the sights of these geological wonders was amazing; to be allowed to spend a night and to wake up in such an environment was a privilege. Speaking to my Egyptian friends and colleagues afterwards, I was amazed that none of them knew much about the desert areas and nobody had thought of visiting them. Part of me was disappointed that 99% of the people had not seen what constituted 90% of their country, especially given the sheer beauty of the place. On the other hand, perhaps an invasion of the masses is the last thing the place needs. I’d heartily recommend to the five or so readers of this blog that you go visit Bawiti, pass on my best wishes to Peter by all means- just don’t tell too many people how good it is!