Landing and first impressions

As promised, we were looked after as soon as we landed, and we went on outside our merry way, following the clickety clack tempo of our duty free stash of alcohol, to the 6^th of October area, West of Cairo (It is difficult to purchase alcohol here and if you can, it is very expensive). 
As a personal reaction, I was first struck the heat as we came out of the airport and somewhat reassured by the dry yet strong heat.

Once on the bus, there was no traffic. A very small aparté, I was told today that the driving test here consists in manoeuvring between some road signs once forward and once backward (5 minutes and that’s it for the driving part) and do a one to one test on main signs on the road and there you go, you can drive!. It explains the way things are here because a week ago, I used to think that Turkish taxi drivers were mad and had no idea!!! Foolish me! Nothing, even kind warnings from friends can quite prepare you to the street chaos.

Anyway, as I said, on the way to the hotel, we did not notice it so much. We noticed, instead, the landscape: it is dirty, as in VERY dirty with trash all over on the side streets, the roads are in a state that I had not seen yet, but the most astonishing is the concrete jungle, or rather, the semi concrete jungle. There are several buildings, which had clearly started being erected and have stopped. Places that have two floors and the pillars of what should be the third one sticking out in the air, in expectation for the actual roof. Now, what stroke me is that despite having no concrete walls or windows as such, the first floor of this very same building is inhabited... And from the airport up to where we settled temporarily, there were hundreds of those, lingering on the side of the streets, half built but yet inhabited; as if someone had, from one day to the next, made all the workers disappear in the middle of their work. Two potential reasons I am told; the first one is that in Egypt, you do not pay a tax on your property until it is completely finished and the second being the Jan 2011 revolution and the lack of financial support ever since for the completion of those concrete empty and half built havens...

But yet, as we (the four of us saw it almost simultaneously) contemplated the looks of our new host country, reflecting on the filth, general chaos and trying to draw parallels between the places we have seen or lived in, here they came and the four of us saw them almost simultaneously. The shadow of Khufu appeared between two of those strange and half built blocks, rising majestically and disappearing as we drove by. It appeared once again and there they were, the great pyramids and with them a strong feeling of awe, despite the distance, the speed of the bus and the haze over them. As we looked at them, all the original feelings, especially the ones still trying the deal with the cultural initial shock, they are the ones that suddenly put my heart at peace and reminded me why I had always been fascinated about Egypt and why we had accepted the position here. They do mesmerise you and really put my heart at peace for a moment.

After a landscape punctuated by more sand, oasis of buildings, we saw more sand and then another oasis, without forgetting the occasional green patches, we arrived at our hotel.