CAIRO-ASWAN

THU, 08 02 2001
8:30
Visit the meat & fish market. Totally crowded. Look for the market restaurant. Can't make up my mind to stay there. Finally we eat at a small place next to it. The owner is very much concerned and prepares small fish for us. Back to the hotel. Carry our packs to Syntagma. Take Metro to Daphni. No people in the stations. Bus to the airport. Enter the wrong hall. I have no idea where to go. Find the Egypt air counter. It's mentioned on the electronical board. Security staff is checking the packs. The hall is without any window. Brano wants to go out again. I suggest that there must be some terrace. In again we go. Pass the check. Keys, watch, coins make the machine peep. Even the camera. The young security wants to search my clothes. Have to take off my jacket and to put it on the conveyer belt. Look for the terrace. No open space. All rooms closed. Must be hell in summer. Finally the flight is announced. We get a gate. Another waiting hall. Transfer to the plane. Take off. Greek islands. Recognize Ios and Santorin, Sikinos, Folegandros, Anafi. Cross the Mediterranean sea. Agriculture areas at the Nil Delta. Geometric structures. Landing in the desert. Passport control. Have to buy a stamp for the visa. Pass the checks. Duty free shop. Buy a box of Bolivar cigars. Leave the airport. Bus to Tahrir square. The bus driver races into downtown, nevertheless we are only 5 passengers.
When we get out unfortunately I ask another passenger about a hotel. He persuads me to have a look at Mahdi Hotel, which is in the area where he lives just two or three stops by metro. We walk quite far to the metro station. New metro. Tahrir square is a foyer of hell. Mahdi is 5 stations far. Takes nearly half an hour. Get out there and have to wait for a friend of our guide. Takes another 20 minutes. Then we walk quite far and finally reach the hotel. Costs 120$ a night. Great. Phone the galerist whose tel. number I got from a friend. Why didn't I phone him before? He tells me the name of a reasonable hotel in the very center. Ask the guide for the price of a taxi. Why didn't I ask about taxi fares and hotels at the information desk in the airport? He says 70 pounds, 20$. Have to carry our packs back to the station and take Metro to Tahrir square. There we board a taxi together with our friend. The price is 20 pounds Mr. Muhammed tells us. Takes us to 26 July street, Pension Roma. Pay the taxi driver 20 pounds. Our guide also stretches out his hand for the money, but I give it to the taxi driver. The normal fare is about 3 pounds I get to know a day later. Pension Roma is full. We try at hotel Panorama. Awful. Our guide argues for a price of 80 pounds. The receptionist later would have given it to me for 50 pounds. Brano looks for another hotel. He finds Hotel. Nittocrissi close to where we are. It's 50 pounds, wooden floors. Reasonable. Leave our friend at the escalator. Happy to get rid of him. Leave the hotel a little later. Walk around. Eat at a place near Hotel Central.

FRI, 09 02 2001
8:30
Heavy blankets, cold at night. The bed is a poor construction. Hotel Nitocrissi. View down on garbage. Narrow street that has been covered by a roof. So all the litter is on this roof. Breakfast. Just rolls and 2gr of butter packed in alu. Take some shots down the yards inside the hotel. They look apocalyptic disastrous. Decades old dirt covers everything. Walk up to the roof terrace. It is surrounded by a 2m high wall, huge space. A world of it's own. Garbage there too. Think there is no garbage disposal like in europe. The people have to get rid of the litter anyhow anyway. Leave the hotel. Ask for a room at Pension Roma. There is one. Take it and transfer the luggage. Change at a bank near a heavy protected jewish temple. Peculiar architecture. About a dozen soldiers. Later on we walk to Opera square. A traveller from Canada, Peter, adresses Brano because of the Bolex Camera. We walk together into a market area. Finally reach the antiquities and jewelrys shops. There are also other tourists. Close to this part of the suuk is a touristic area. Buses of tourist companies. We take a small bus back to the centre. Gets totally crowded. Claustrophobia. Take shots from the window. Have lunch at a place where Peter has eaten before. Order a lot of dishes. Lentil soup, aubergine paste, tahin, salad, falafell.

SAT, 10 02 2001
9:00
The blankets of Pension Roma are as good as blankets for horses. Even mosquitos at night. Very small ones. Was nearly asleep when I heard the sound of one of these bastards. Take a shower. The gas bottle for the instant water heater is in the bathroom too. Just heats the water a minute then it collapses. Try it again. No chance. The toilet doesn't work properly either. The water is running permanently. Breakfast as yesterday. Rolls and a homöopatic quantity of butter. Meet an old man there. He is from France, but mixes several different languages. He is a fragile, tiny, white bearded gnome. Jumps from one subject to another. Napoleon Bonaparte St. Helena scotish guards wolves at high tatra second world war Norman Mailer oasis of siwa good luck bolsheviki third reich napoleon close to moscow.....
Leave to look for a hotel. Visit Hotel Richmond, 5th floor at Sherif Street, Hotel Minerva, Hotel Grand, 26 July/Talaat Harb Street and Hotel Claridge. Choose a room there. Transfer the luggage. Eat at a restaurant parallel street to 26 July St. Have a tea at Haret Saray el Azbaheya. Walk towards the railway station. Ramses Square is hell. Extremly deadly traffic. Countless busses, minibusses, taxis. Scores of people selling things, cooking on small carts. Finally we reach the station. Ask at the information. Tickets are sold on platform 11. Far off. Two halls. Many counters. Get sent from on counter to another and back and to the other hall. Ticket to Aswan is 70,00 pounds, 20$, first class. Brano hasn't changed money. Actually he has no egyptian money. Have to find out where we can change. It means to cross Ramses square again. All the way back. Disastrous. Change at an office called Forex. Back to the station through all this crowd. Have a rest at the station Café. Quite expensive there. Walk over the pedestrian bridge. Shoot from there. Gets dark. Young people adress us. Very interested and friendly. Walk back to 26 July Street. Pass hardware retailers. Check for welding glasses. Finally find some but don't buy them. Why? Reach parallel street of 26 july Street. Pedestrian area. When we look for the restaurant we have eaten yesterday we have to learn, that the owner has died today. The restaurant is closed.
Eat at a restaurant with very bright light and a huge billboard, air brush technique. Brano gets in contact with an old man. He is 80 years old, english, lives in Portugal and is a traveller. Walk towards Talaat Harb. There is a Falafel take-away. Crowded. Finally succeed to get some.
Talk to a young man. He works as a barman in Sharm el Sheikh at Hilton Hotel. Originally from Kuwait, he had to leave the country during the invasion some ten years ago.
He works for 250,00 Pounds a month, 70$, 5 days a week up to 12 hours a day. Shows how corporated money gets more and more and more and how he will never be able to buy anything of western consumer goods. Marriage is not possible as he can't afford it. Women have to be virgins in this country. He is already using alcohol and stopped praying, he says. Take a walk to the metro station together. Have to check where we have to go tomorrow morning. Visit a small fruit market and return to the hotel. No bed sheets, no towels. Have to argue for the sheets. The receptionist says there are no. It's the fault of the manager and that man is not there anymore. He just earns 250,00 pounds a month.

SUN, 11 FEB 2001
6:00
Rather quiet around the Hotel at this time. Walk around to the Metrostation SADAT. Two stops to Ramses square. There it is already like hell. Taxis, Buses, rushing people. Have to carry our packbags. Concert of horns. Luckily we can make it to the station. Wait at platform 8. Too early of course. Have to wait half an hour for the train. First class is reasonable. Not crowded, Air conditioned. Second class looks similar. First class is with a few cockroaches. Unfortunately all the windows are of this poor First World standard: they can't be opened, designed for not to be opened. We take shots from an open door. An elder man is in charge of the waggon, carrying luggage, advising to seats. Some other men are or seem to be chiefs. He opens the door for us. When the chiefs see it, there are several, he has to close the doors. We offer a small bakshish and he opens again. This game goes on for hours. Gets normal by the way. Train is very fast. Too fast. Next to the waggon is the restaurant car. Waiters are sweating and heading through the train, serving tea and meals. The train is shaking a lot. Flat landscape, palm trees, fields, geometric design. A channel is following the railway tracks. Villages, towns. The banks of the channel always covered with litter. Woman washing clothes, carpets, dishes, metal tins, cooking pots. Beside them litter, litter and litter. Dead dog treibt im Wasser. Dead calf lying on the Böschung. Dead calf im Wasser treibend. Train passes several villages, towns. Infact many. The whole Nile valley is somehow urban region. Gets dark at ?. Last three four hours journey in darkness. At arrival in Aswan a man adresses us and leads us to his? Hotel. It's close to the station. Small balcony. Roof terrace. Very new. Splendid matraces. We stay. He informs us about the boat to Wadi Halfa. It Leaves tomorrow at 14:00 or 15:00. Ticket office is in town etc. Later on he takes us to a Take-away fallafel place. Informs us about prices. There is a tourist price for tea 1,00 Pound. Normal price is 0,50 Pounds. For fallafel is the same. Wonder how it is for hotel rooms. Infact, a little later when I want to pay the waiter asks for the tourist price. Split. Walk along the Nile and go to sleep.

MON, 12 FEB 2001
8:00
Well sleep. Good matrace at new hotel QUEEN. Look for the ticket office. Second class is 88,00 pounds. Look for a bank. The damned change money business. Of course the nearest bank is far off. Crowds of customers in the bank. Try to use the money machine. Doesn't accept my card. No connection to the card issuing institute? Meet Said, the self entitled hotel manager at the Café we have been yesterday. He hasn't slept whole night, he says. At 5:00 he looked at a bus, but no tourists. Tells me a story: his son is ill and needs an operation. What kind of disease, asks I. Some water under the heart. Kid is 5 years old. Operation will cost a thousand pounds. Later the story continues. The boy has fallen down from second floor and is in hospital now. We split. Pass the train station, buy a ticket to high dam and get the luggage at the hotel. Any passing taxi driver is pushing the horn when seeing us. The train to the high dam is 3rd class and very slow. Exciting landscape. Desert. Stones, and rocks. The harbor is very close. Buy the ticket. Pass a gate. Passport control. Next control is X-Ray. Brano has to unpack his camera. We ask about the influence of the apparatus on films. The answer is, they don't know. I start to unpack my bag searching the DV cassettes. Then the official says, I shall take the luggage and just pass off the X-ray apparatus. Put the bags next to the wall and walk through the X-Ray arch. Peep, peep. Take the bags and leave. The soldier wants to stop me but I just tell him that the other official has told me to do likewise. He for sure doesn't speak english but agrees and let me leave. The next check is at a gate where a huge crowd is gathered accompanied by piles of consumer goods, bags, whatever. We use a gate next to it. An official welcomes us, checks our passports and sends us to a hall, 50 meters far. Huge hall, tables, peoples showing the contents of bags, officials searching in peoples bags. The official who adresses us, just asks what is inside the bags or not even that and sends us to another counter. A lady passes a form, we fill it and show it at another counter. The official asks from where we are, checks the visa, puts another stamp on it, tears off a part and then shows the door out to the boat. The lake is down the stairs, a cruiser to the left, loading activities at a small boat. Again a stop. Small hut, one man. Police. 2,00 Pounds. What for? Police. But what for? Yes! Police. Walk to the boat. Chaotic loading activities. Packs, bags, packed and wrapped goods, plastic chairs, boxes, loose things. Small trucks arriving. Another check. Tickets are taken out of the cover and thrown in a box. The cover thrown away. Great. Ask for the ticket for to show it my company. Official takes one of the covers and passes it over. We enter the boat. Passport control. Official takes out the remaining form we had to fill out in the hall. Another man takes the three small pages given to us together with the ticket. Throws it into a box or nylon bag and hands over a small piece of paper. This is for a meal on board. We enter the boat. It's about 14:00. Get aquaintance to Graham and Lukas from Australia and a lady from Belgium. Graham is travelling since two years. All over Asia. Later I meet Bob. He is from Hong Kong. He lives on an island, 30min far of the city. No cars there or just a few. Loading activities until evening. Shouting, new loads of goods arriving. The upper deck at least totally filled up with boxes, loose customer goods and people laying in between. Shoot from the roof of the captain bridge. The horn nearly deafens me. Tea is totally sweat. No lemons even no orange. But the boat is full of boxes with oranges. Didn't take any water, terrible thirsty.