Alexandria

Hi everybody

How are things? I hope you're doing well and enjoying the hols. Sorry about the belated write-up for the Alexandria trip but here it finally is! Hope your find it interesting.

First, with the help of the Lonely Planet, a bit of history. Alexandria, a large port city on the northern coast of Egypt used to be a major light of the Hellenic world. It was home to one of the wonders of the ancient world, and it's legendary library was flocked to by scholars the world over. Nowadays that legacy isn't very evident though (it's often said that Alex is the greatest historical town with the least to show), with heavy overcrowding and some badly preserved monuments. Nevertheless, we had a super couple of days here, and it was lovely just to get away from the pollution in Cairo and the intensity of Cairenes.

On our first night here we didn't do much. We'd finished a long week at the hospital, and just wanted to have a refreshing and pleasant stroll by the Mediterranean. The corniche here is really long (Alex is nearly 20km long from east to west but only 3km wide), and it was nice to soak up the relaxed atmosphere of the place, lined as it is by outdoor cafes, fresh fruit sellers and street entertainers. We ended the day on a different note though - at a 1980s disco where we were the only partygoers.

The next morning we visited Fort Qaitbey, a big castle on the western end of the corniche that was used by the Mamluks to protect the city. The area is, however, much more famous for being the home of the Pharos Lighthouse, a beacon considered to be one of the ancient wonders of the world. Alas, in the year 1303, after seventeen centuries the structure was toppled following a violent earthquake. It was fun to walk around the fort anyway, and we even saw some of the granite pillars that probably came from the lighthouse.

After the good time we had at Qaitbey, though, there was a revolution within the group! The Egyptian students had planned to spend the rest of the day by the beach, but seeing as we were to leave for the capital again the next evening, many of those in our posse wanted to continue exploring the city. There was a big discussion and folks started to get restless in the heat (gurning was practiced, empty water bottles were launched in the air, shoes were scuffed), but after half an hour we decided to split into two groups. I decided to join those who were going to carry on wandering for a few hours and would catch up with the others at the beach later in the day. We ended up visiting some really beautiful mosques and then walked though a lively souk, before seeing two of Alex's more famous attractions, Pompey's Pillar and the Catacombs of Kom ash-Shuqqafa. A walk through the Montezah Palace Gardens, a royal retreat on a rocky area overlooking the sea, and a quick swim in the beautiful but incredibly salty waters of the Mediterranean were a great way to end the evening. You should come! The most bizarre moment of the trip, though, came at night when all of us were relaxing at an ahwa, an Egyptian coffeehouse. A man on a battered bicycle approached us and started to give us the funniest street performance we'd ever seen. First of all, we were captivated by his appearance - he looked exactly like a brown-skinned Paul Daniels, and was dressed in a shimmering gold tank top and silver trousers. After introducing himself Ahmed pulled this sword out from nowhere and, in one swift motion, managed to slice a baby melon in half. He then proceeded to wrap the blade in layer upon layer upon layer of aluminium foil so that it was completely blunted and not dangerous at all, before balancing it on the end of a stick which he held horizontally clamped between his teeth. Impressive? But the show wasn't finished. Ahmed then whipped out his trusty portable stove, and after a few minutes, poured some boiled water into a pot. To this he added a few other choice ingredients and, with a (roughly translated ;o)) cry of
'Hey, wait! Look at me again. I'm now going to conduct a grade six science experiment on top of my head!',
managed to balance the whole collection once again, before finishing in exhausted triumph.

We were together as a group for almost the whole of our last day in Alexandria, and after completing some personal tasks I joined everybody else at the Graeco-Roman Museum. It was a really interesting introduction to the founding of the city by Alexander the Great, its development and layout by Alexander's general, Ptolemy, and the city's subsequent rise and fall. The Roman Amphitheatre was also a cool site, with this pretty clever construction such that there was only the small spot from which a speaker addressed his audience, denoted by a marble circle, from which voices carried to the whole amphitheatre - all extraneous sound resonated far less.

Just before the train back to Cairo, we squeezed in a visit to the new Alexandria Library, or Bibliotheca Alexandrina. It was inspired by the original Great Library, once said to have been the greatest of all classical institutions, and is massive. In fact, it's eventually intended to hold eight million books. From the outside it looks like a discus laying on the ground at an angle, designed to represent a new ray of learning rising over the Mediterranean, and it's flanked by a cool outdoor pedestrian area. Unfortunately we didn't have time to visit the planetarium and exploratorium which complete the new complex, but we had a guided tour of the main museum, which was interesting. The feature which captivated us the most, however, was an exhibition of winning pictures from the World Press Photo 2003 photojournalism competitions. The aim was to vividly and poignantly present any aspect of the human experience and life in general. There were all sorts of quirky, funny and moving shots but there were three that especially haunted us.

It was a sobering way to end the trip, but the journey home was good. I was sitting next to this young Egyptian girl and after reading some med for an hour we got talking and I ended up listening to Cairene pop songs for the rest of the trip. I'm gonna buy some before I leave so you can hear it yourselves when I get back to London in eleven days.

Till then,
Moc