[Egipto] Eastern Sahara

Last weekend took me 400 Km west from Cairo, deep into the Eastern Sahara, completely away from civilization (besides of course the wonderful meals prepared by my fellow companion Baqr)

[Egipto] trip to the Sinai peninsula

After being amazed by the drawings made by David Roberts in early XIX century, i decided to follow it's footsteps onto Mount St. Catherine, far east of Cairo, right next to Israel/Jordan /Saudi Arabia international borders.

We arranjed a party of four people to venture inside a rented mini-bus (for 800 EGP, or something like 70 euros, for the whole weekend, including the driver)...being driven and not going on our own proved to be wise, since there was something like 10 police outposts on the way, and i believe "being a pain in the ass" could easily be their moto. The mini-bus extremely experienced driver knew all the "tricks of the trade" (like for instance bringing several copies of today's newspaper, for exchange of a smile and an afirmative nod from the policemen...it seems updated newspapers are on the short side this far in the middle of nowhere).


while crossing the Sinai Peninsula into its eastern coast...





And finally, after 7 hours of a somewhat rough ride through rocky sights, comes a heavenly paradise: Basata! on the far coast you can see a bit of Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia... one could easily forget the tension in the region by gazing into the calm horizon...


Here's one of the many coastal military outposts, scattered throughout the peninsula. Somehow this scenario reminded me of southern Portugal coast, where military outposts have been strategically deployed to prevent arab reincursings coming from the Maghreb some centuries ago.


the night fell in Basata...it was time to go into our 5 hour-long foot ascent into Mount St. Catherine's summit...




Climbing the mount in the night with the objective to watch it's trademark sunrise was a daunting experience...the freezing temperatures could only be balanced by the imense lighting provided by the clear sky and full moon. This provided an extreme and unforgettable experience.

here i am, after sleeping for 15 minutes before the sunrise...i look like a bum...but then again i was completely exausted...and there still was a long way to go until the ground level.




So this was the place where Moses got the tablets of law (ten comandments) from God...heh, and i've been there.

[Egipto] how to be a Cairene

Nourhan, with the Nile in the background
an interesting and bold story surrounds how we met...i have nothing but good things to say about her. Go girl!

This post marks an important step on my blog...even though my blog is particularly aimed at my portuguese friends, i've took the liberty to change the posts language from portuguese to english in an attempt to break the barriers imposed by my wonderful native language. (epá...dava muito trabalho por esta gente toda a aprender português).

Mohammed, a nice company from Cairo
This old man stopped me while walking by downtown, he offered to show me the surroundings and he sure was a great afternoon company, in this photo he's preparing the all-arab "Nana Xei" or mint tea

Ullie, inside mosque Mohamed Ali, on the steepest hill of the Citadel of Cairo
one somewhat recent mosque, built two centuries ago by the Ottoman ruler Mohamed Ali, his - notoriously bad - taste can be seen all throughout the mosque's decoration...somehow he found that Paris at the time had something to give to it's oriental world.

Mohamed Ali Mosque, Outside court
the clock tower in the rear has a delightfully funny story and it somewhat reflects the lack of care shown by the historic exploitation this country has suffered...This was the "piece of crap" that louis phillipe of France exchanged with the Ottoman ruler of Egypt Mohamed Ali for the pharaonic obelisk now gloriously resident in the "place de la Concorde" in Paris. The clock was broken during the arrival in Cairo and has never been fixed...

the gatekeeper at mosque Al Rifa'i

The architectural vastness of Islam, inside mosque Al Rifa'i

myself inside Mosque Ibn Tulun, the 2nd oldest mosque in Cairo, over 8 centuries old

Re-learning how to play BackGammon with Mohamed, an old master

a typical downtown Cairene entrance

my company while in downtown at night...a bunch of curious kids

Citadel view from Al-Azhar park, relaxing while watching the sunset

The Iman with his pupils in Al-Azhar park

[Egipto] uma sociedade tão...

...nhurra.

Acabei de voltar da discoteca ... para meu grande espanto quando lá cheguei deparei-me com uma multidão heterogénea de rapazes e raparigas entre os 20-25...isto numa sociedade onde as raparigas são altamente oprimidas tanto pela familia como por qualquer um dos 24 milhões de habitantes desta cidade. A parada é simples e assustadora: se não for virgem não arranja marido - ponto final. Só o ser vista a dar a mão em publico dá direito a que se construa rápidamente (nem imaginam o quão rápido) uma reputação que dará direito a luz verde imediata para qualquer homem (policias incluidos...esses são outros que falarei mais à frente) poder exercer livre assédio na praça pública.

Portanto pode-se imaginar o quão "na linha" estas meninas andam e consecutivamente o quão desesperados vivem diáriamente estes tótós (que não têm outro nome).

Voltando à história da discoteca: está claro que estas raparigas fizeram um pacto com o diabo e borrifaram-se para o que a sociedade lhes diz...mas a um preço: 250 libras egipcias por uma hora de aluguer.
É verdade...a cena era fabulosa...montes de mesas apinhadas de gentlemans em volta de uma pista de dança com "quadrados de luz no chão", aqueles mesmo à 70's. Enquanto isso na pista de dança os rapazes chamavam a atenção das "madames" fazendo-lhes cair uma chuva de notas de 5 e 10 libras pela cabeça abaixo. Ao que elas claramente retorquiam por passar ao próximo para mais uma daqueles lucrativos "duches-on-the-dance-floor".

A cena deverá ser dificil de imaginar para os que nunca viram tal fenómeno de outro mundo (não restam dúvidas...eu em janeiro troquei de planeta).

Cenas de completo desespero masculino foram frequentes durante esta noite...assim como a ocasional cena de quase-pancadaria, sempre a puxar à emoção...

Pontos positivos: a música e basta!





com isto se percebe que estes rapazes é só fachada...muito livres, muito alegres mas na verdade não passam de uma cambada de...

[Egipto] We don't get this in the West

"Shams (Arabic for "Sun") is a popular female Kuwaiti singer who has just released a controversial song titled, Ahlan Ezayak (or "Hi! How are you!") Accompanied by a slick MTV-like video that lambastes George W. Bush and his occupation of Iraq, the song has become all the rage in the Middle East. Shams croons in the Khaliji style, one of the most intoxicating and seductive genres in pop music today, and yet most Americans have not heard of it - even as U.S. soldiers sink ever deeper into Arab sands. Clearly, it’s time for what The Clash used to call, "a public service announcement - with guitar!" Well o.k., make that "with oud."

[ Shams & George, an impossible affair. All screen captures from Shams’ video, Ahlan Ezayak - or "Hi! How are you!" ]

Arabic for "From the Gulf," Khaliji is a musical genre that has come to represent the cultures of the Arab and Persian Gulf area. Set apart by its heavy use of traditional instruments like the pear-shaped stringed instrument - the Oud, and the Tar and Bendir framed drums, today's Khaliji has changed with the times. Synthesizers and modern digital recording studios have modernized the sound of this intrinsically Arab music, characterized by driving compound Gulf rhythms and intricate sequences of hand clapping. The fact that Shams is Kuwaiti, a people who have been the biggest supporters of American policy in the Arab world, makes her video all the more inflammatory - an indication that the Kuwaiti/U.S. romance is over. And indeed Ahlan Ezayak is a song about love gone sour, "Hi! How are you? - You think you’re so great, I never want to see you again!"

[ After her break-up with the big cheese, Shams sings from atop a wall composed of letters that spell out, "GUANTANAMO." ]

The video opens with Shams singing to a moronic looking digitized George W. Bush at a press conference held on the White House lawn. The gathering quickly becomes an opportunity for the singer to publicly announce, "I’m not your relative, I’m not your sweetheart." The video then dissolves into a subversive montage involving the singer, Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, as Shams sings her song of broken love - "Whether you hurt my heart or adore it, I refuse you. Go buy yourself and get away from me." The surreal video depicts Shams confronting her veiled self in a police line-up, lying down in front of the White House on a wall made of letters that spell "GUANTANAMO," cutting the strings of powerful marionettes (there’s Tony Blair!), and boxing in the ring with Condoleezza. Even the Statue of Liberty can’t help but dance to that funky Khaliji beat. There’s more, dare I say, "feminist" sentiment and rebel rage in this video, than in all of the current rock and hip-hop video’s of today put together.

[ "And in this corner!" - Shams in the boxing ring with Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. ]

Shams saves plenty of ire for her fellow Arabs. The video mocks an aging Arab journalist who wears a ridiculous blond wig in an attempt to be more like a Western reporter - Shams dances along and blows the absurd toupee off the CNN wannabe’s head. Then there’s the scene of a teenage Arab girl excessively influenced by Western standards of beauty, whose own self-loathing transforms her into a plastic surgery disaster - replete with enormous breasts and a Michael Jackson-like nose.

[ Shams confronts herself in a line-up after a police clampdown. One of her personas being a "Westernized" singer, the other, a veiled traditionalist. The message - all rebellious Arabs go to jail. ]

The final scene of the video shows the singer wearing a beautiful white wedding dress and walking off into a blazing red sunset, holding hands with "Hanzala," the scruffy cartoon character created by legendary Palestinian artist, Naji al-Ali. To Westerners, this running off with a cartoon boy may seem an odd ending, but a bit of research reveals the finale as intensely poignant to the Arab heart - for Hanzala represents the Palestinian diaspora and a people’s thirst for freedom and independence.

[ Shams and Hanzala walk hand-in-hand into a blazing red sunset - true love at last. ]

Naji al-Ali lived in forced exile from his native Palestine for his entire life, and while a refugee he created over forty thousand satirical drawings that were published in newspapers and journals all across the Arab world and beyond. His disheveled pint-sized Hanzala character, quasi-biographical, and representing the homeless refugee, was first published in a Kuwaiti newspaper. Naji’s drawings railed against the pervasive corruption in the Arab world and its lack of democracy - as well as voicing opposition to the Israeli occupation of his homeland, but he paid the ultimate price for antagonizing the powerful with his editorial cartoons. In 1987, while working in London for the Kuwaiti Al-Qabas newspaper, Naji al-Ali was shot and killed on the street by unknown assailants, his life had been cut short at the age of 51. Naji once said of Hanzala:

"This child, as you can see is neither beautiful, spoilt, nor even well-fed. He is barefoot like many children in refugee camps. He is actually ugly and no woman would wish to have a child like him. However, those who came to know 'Hanzala', as I discovered and later adopted him because he is affectionate, honest, outspoken, and a bum. He is an icon that stands to watch me from slipping. And his hands behind his back are a symbol of rejection of all the present negative tides in our region."

The implications in the emotional ending of Shams’ video are clear. She has turned her back on all of the "present negative tides" to marry Hanzala, who it turns out, is not the physically stunted and victimized child we see - but a sagacious and heroic spirit as old as the "refugee problem" itself. Shams has married the resistance. If you want to know what Arabs are thinking and how Arab artists are responding to the conflagration in their neighborhood, turn off FOX and NPR, toss out your dog-eared copy of Newsweek - and watch this video.

[ You can read more about Shams and her notorious song at the Common Dreams website, and at Juan Cole’s Informed Comment blog.]"

[Egipto] 30 de 45 dias

Guardião dos túmulos em Sakkara
Em volta das escavações levadas a cabo pela equipa francesa em Sakkara, há três destes guardas armados, montados a camelo e posicionados no topo dos montes mais altos que rodeiam o local.

Já lá vai quase um mês desde a minha última "aparição"...muito muito trabalho e posso com toda a honestidade afirmar que em 30 dias, só tive um dia de folga...em que aproveitei para apanhar o comboio até Luxor, numa viagem de cerca de 750km ou 10 horas ao longo do Nilo, a apreciar o Egipto profundo.

Cenas do quotidiano no interior do túmulo de Irukaptah, em Sakkara
Irukaptah foi o "chefe Talhante" faraónico do início da 5ª Dinastia, o seu túmulo é famoso pelas cenas do quotidiano da sua especialidade.

Vale dos Reis
vir aqui seria absolutamente necessário...passar pela casa onde Howard Carter bebeu o chá das cinco enquanto se preparava para mais um dia de escavações em busca de Tutankhamon.

Grafitti em Grego, no templo de Luxor
a zona da antiga Thebes, capital do antigo alto Egipto é conhecida por ser um destino popular turístico durante o período clássico...o local prolifera de graffitis em grego e latim.

Amanhecer no Egipto profundo, algures entre Cairo e Luxor
foram 10 horas e 750 Km de viagem de comboio em 2ª classe (e tudo o que isso implica no Egipto) ao longo do Nilo

Entrada de túmulo, 5ª Dinastia, Sakkara
num aglomerado de túmulos ligeiramente afastados do faraó, ficam sepultados os súbditos mais chegados...o manicure, o talhante, o escriba...esta é a saída do túmulo de Irukaptah, o chefe talhante

Paisagem no vale do Nilo
ao longo das férteis margens do Nilo, são estes palmeirais e plantações que dão sustento à populações à milénios.

Mercado em Attaba, Cairo.
esta fotografia, tirada por volta da meia-noite de um normal dia de semana, retrata o dia-a-dia (ou será o noite-a-noite) dos cairenses mais pobres - uma vez que nenhum egípcio com um curso superior ousaria ser conotado com a "ralé de Attaba"

Mercado em Attaba, Cairo.
aqui pode-se encontrar de tudo um pouco, desde a falsificações de boa qualidade a cuecas tipo "para-quedas", passando pelos tecidos lustrosos, móveis, carne, bolos, lustres...

Graffiti Escocês(?) Templo de Luxor
em pleno século XIX o egipto era alvo de excursões vindas maioritariamente de frança e inglaterra, este senhor W. Boggie em 1820 achou por bem acrescentar o seu nome a um mural faraónico no templo de Luxor.

Hieróglifos no templo de Luxor

Mesquita datada do séc. XIII, construido sobre as colunas do templo de Luxor.
numa interessante mescla de arquitecturas, os árabes aproveitaram à 800 anos os alicerces desde milenar templo faraónico em Luxor para construirem o seu local de devoção.

Uma nota à parte: foi-me dito que a palavra inglesa "mosque", em português: mesquita deriva de uma palavra em latim que quereria dizer "lugar dos mosquitos", numa alusão em tom de troça ao cheiro que emana destes sitios onde caminhantes são obrigados a descalçar-se. O nome correcto em Árabe é "Mes'Get".


Prometo contar nos próximos dias as peripécias e as introspeções colecionadas até agora nestes 30 dias no Mundo Antigo... serão mais 15 e no dia 19 deste mês espero estar a chegar à Portela.