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In the Wrong Direction
by Lilian Liang
Excerpts:
Fridays were my favorite days in Cairo. The mood of the city changed, became less chaotic. Fridays are Muslim holy days, days of rest and worship, when the crowds that normally fill the streets disappear inside the city’s mosques. It was summer and the heat was merciless, especially inside the crowded temples, but Allah was watching their sacrifice.
Fridays were no less holy for me and my friend Georg, a tall German with a goatee and a ponytail who spoke English with an accent. We were working as interns at a weekly paper in Cairo, and Friday was our day off. Georg was a favorite travel companion, for we were both new to the “Mother of the World.”
That particular Friday was not as hazy as usual. It was early morning and there weren’t too many cars in the streets, except for the fleet of cabs that never seemed to stop. The cabs come in different models, but are invariably black and usually in bad shape, with no seat belts, no working meters and no handles to open the windows. If you’re lucky, the back window is open when you board. If not, you suffocate and pray to Allah for a swift journey.
Georg and I usually traveled by taxi. Despite their problems, we were seduced by the advantages that came with the cabs: They were cheap and the drivers knew the city well, which made trips much faster.
But that day we decided to take the more picturesque, if slower, train. We were told that it would take about two hours to ride the 17 miles to the Saqqara Pyramids . . .
