Our days tries to take us away from this, to the glory of the past, albeit occupied. The Roman amphitheater is tucked into a small park between newish apartment blocks, shocking white under a flawless blue sky. Roman heads of stone line one fence. The catacombs are a short drive away, a cornucopia of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman influences. Its the first real Egyptian tomb I've seen, but it harkens back to past trips, connects me with some context. A trio of sarcophagi, empty chambers with shelving where the bodies once were, but generally pretty bare. The same can be said for Pompei's pillar nearby, rising from a patch of earth bare but for a pair of small sphinxes. (To be fair, a major excavation appears to be going on.). I had wanted to walk between the two sites, figuring it would be quicker than our big bus, but the streets look pretty beat up, a state of dereliction usually seen in war zones.
I think that Alexandria's glory is in here British colonial past, as this city thrived a century ago, a city filled with artists and writers. I would have loved to have seen Lawrence Durrell's house, where we wrote much of his Alexandria Quartet. And an overnight, or at least a beer, at the Hotel Cecil, still standing across the crescent where the most recent incarnation of the Alexandria Lighthouse, beside the square from where Cleopatra's Needles were liberated in order to serve the good people of London and New York. We did drive past the hotel, which holds pride of place at a rather nice part of town filled with green spaces and cafes, a neighborhood ready-made for a walk, but our itinerary didn't allow for it, and our noisy hotel was too far away for a stroll at dawn.
One thing with organized trips is you don't really get a sense for a town. In Morocco, we made that happen, bailing out on the group midday in order to explore. Ping-ponging between tourist sites doesn't allow one to feel a place. I never really get a sense of Alexandria; my feet never paced off the length of her city blocks, my nose never filled with her scent. In our self-exploration, Lai Yong and I got some idea of Cairo, but that place seemed to sprawl, and that sprawl made it impossible to know in such a short time. The same can be said about cities like Seoul or Taipei. Where is their heart?
In the morning, the road toward El-Alamein bisects a massive marsh. Apparently, this is what the Nile did during its annual flood, nurturing crops and creating fishing grounds. In that spirit, today I spy a number of white-capped fishermen in skiffs, testing the waters before the massive petroleum factories.
This stretch is known as the North Coast. Development stretches for dozens of kilometers along the shores of the Mediterranean. Much of this is already inhabited, but large sections are developing simultaneously, which reminds me of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan, a city clean and tidy, but with little scenes of life or humanity. One billboard promises, "Summer season '26 planned here." Which, from the current state of development, is not very lightly.
Being a British group, our purpose here is to visit the military cemetery. I'm breathless at the sheer number of crosses here, a sensation I felt with all the names the Vietnam memorial in DC. So many men. And this is just the British. Other allies are buried elsewhere. Identical crosses fill this narrow little valley, sunk in dry earth, though well-irrigated to bring color, life, into the bushes randomly spaced between the graves. Backing the cemetery is a large rubbish tip. It seems an app metaphor for what old politicians and generals do with young men such as these. We'll later pass the Italian cemetery a few miles out of town. Which got me wondering, of course, where are the Germans?
The drive back to Cairo cuts across a featureless landscape. This is real desolation, unlike any desert I've ever seen, and I've traveled in many, and lived in a few.. With no mountains as waypoints, the emptiness feels infinite. And this is what they were all fighting for. Beside the highway is a scorched block of asphalt. Rectangular, the size of a sedan. I hate to think of what would happen if you were stranded out here.
The world begins to take on a hint of green again, then all is pastoral. This is Wadi Natrum. We detour to St. Macarius, a monastery fortified like a castle, with solid defensive structures
and self-sufficent agriculture. The earth-colored rounded structures remind one of Tatooine. I knew of Coptic Christianity, but wasn't aware that they make up 10 percent of Egypt's population. The head priest leads us around, seemingly at ease with himself, but also quick to scold, a rebuke immediately followed by a warm smile. I've encountered many such men in my travels, and their radiant calm tempts me into leading a similar self-reflective life spent surrounded by the natural world. But the outside world inevitably calls me back. In this particualar case, it is in the form of Cairene traffic.
On the turntable: Kate Bush, "Never for Ever"
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