You may ask, wherever did this journey begin? Was it upon taking the leap of faith and buying a ticket leaving the day after my contract ended with no expectation of a job upon return? Or was it embarked upon by locking the door to my condo with just a pack on my back and grandiose visions of pyramids and camels. No it was far before this, perhaps rooted within the daily routine of sand and surf and diving ingrained deep within my psyche from nearly a year of my life living on the road. More relevant was the guidance of the Borders sales rep who suggested "Midaq Alley" by Nobel Prize winning Naguib Mahfouz, who spun an enchanting tale of the excellence and depravaity of a spectrum of personalities inhabiting an old section of Cairo for which I am now searching. Waiting in amidst a chaotic churn of travellers for the flight out of Milan, I asked the man behind me in the line if he knew if Midaq alley actually existed -- to which he replied yes, and that it inhabits a section of Kahlili that is both honored and preserved by the city in recognition of Mahfouz's foundation of the genera of Egyptian prose. We continued to chat and he revealed that he'd been living in the UK for 30 years, and was returning as he did often to meet with friends and family and relax in the warm weather. "Johnny", the name which he kindly supplied to alleviate the challenge of remembering his Egyptian name, was a boisterous and playful little man, the kind who'm you'd neither be surprised if he pulled a magic lamp from beneath his coat, nor if he was the genie himself from within the lamp. Near the end of the flight, he requested that I assist him and use my passport at the duty free to purchase another 4 bottles of whiskey to add to his vast burden under which he was already struggling. He was fun to be around so I readily agreed having no reason to do otherwise, and after zipping thru customs and immigration, we bought the whiskey and met up with two of his smiling joyful friends who had brought along a car that was barely big enough for his massive trunk full of presents and the barrels of booze.



Zooming down into the teeming city, Johnny freely exclaimed that there was simply no adherance to the standard rules of traffic and that the divider lines were simply there for decoration, making even more evident our tendency to drift drunkenly across the road only to suddenly swerve in response to another vehicle's careening. They asked if I would be willing to accompany them to meet up with a friend, and realizing that opportunities for a personal tour by locals around otherwise forbidden parts of Cairo were fleeting and far between, I readily agreed, making my answer ambiguous enough that I could determine whether he was merely offering to be polite, or whether he really wanted me to come along. The latter was the case, and this becan a forey deep into the industrial center of the city, down streets cluttered with metal scrap, and mules straining under the heavy loads of cogs and wheels and other whatnots.



Popping out of the tiny car like a load of clowns, we were met by a noble man in command of his demeanor, a gracious ond observant host who beconed us into the back room of his warehouse past massive chains and conveyor belt treads and gears easily 3 meters high. We sat around a large desk that dominated the majority of the low ceilinged room stuffed with a bookcase, a refrigerator, and a couple cabinets that were overflowing with large stacks of bills bound with rubber bands. Nazmy, the host comfotrable in his suit, was chainsmoking long thin cigarettes behind his oak desk and quietly commanded attention and respect, seemingly having earned his title of "Godfather" as they called him only partly in jest, through his financial acumen, his looks, and his resourceful ability to machine complicated parts out of paperclips and thumbtacks. So we all sat around drinking tea and smoking and laughing with Johnny occasionally stopping to translate the gestures at which I could not guess. Thus renewed a conversation between close friends who have been reuniting for the last 40 years, having been together as children, raised their children together, and still return to ponder and laugh and reminisce and simply understand each other.



Things started getting a little crazy when Johnny, something of a pleasantly lecherous old man, pulled a stack of viagra tablets from his magic pouch and offered them to his friends like candy -- though they all agreed that a young pup like myself should not even think about it (haven't yet...), and proceeded to make recommendations on different postures, and jokingly tried to stick a waterbottle up one of his friend's booty -- somewhat surprising me in what I thought was a very sexually restrained culture.

Nazmy had ordered a lot of food, kindly accomodating to my vegetarian requirements, and continuously fixed me sandwitches and tea -- I was so honored I almost had no idea how to react -- the head of a large business receiving me like an honored guest. With a full belly, and turning down as many offers of whiskey that I could politely refuse, the not really having slept in 48 hours kicked in and I was just barely able to stay awake until we all decided to leave in amidst a flurry of picture taking, stuffing us back into the sardine can on wheels, and zooming down to Midan Tahrir, the gleaming neon pulse of the city. I hopped out with fond farewells and tears in my eyes with how kindly these Muslim brothers had received me, found a little backpacker's hostel on the 9th floor of the main thoroughfare, got some grub, and am chilling out now to type this letter. Whew!