News from Ted
The five hundred or so miles from Gedaref to Gondar were the toughest five days of my entire journey – in part because I was still new to the game. When I returned 28 years later it was virtually unchanged. Then the Chinese came. Today, I’m told, it is paved.
December 17th
By the fourth day I was ready to contemplate the possibility that this journey will never end and to face each problem as part of my life. This is my life and I am surviving it. What else matters? So on the fifth day as I leave the camp I almost immediately find myself climbing steeply against an avalanche of loose boulders to the top of a peak, only to find that a box fell off at the bottom.
Park the bike and walk back down, contemplate the loss of what? Can’t even remember which box is lost, what’s gone? The cameras? Every potential or actual disaster finds me more philosophical. Hear distant voices and engine. Some people have found the box. What are they doing with it? What a way to put Ethiopian honesty to the test! A little further down meet the truck coming up. They are enormous lorries, climbing so slowly, loaded with sacks of grain or cotton. It stops. The driver points to his left. I assume he means he has seen the box. No, he has it there in the cab. I climb in, with helmet and goggles and ride back up to the bike. It is the box with food, torch, washbag, etc.
I am offloaded and settle down to repairing the damage. Bolt torn though the fibreglass. Botch it up with wire. Groups of young men come and admire – and return with a blackened kettle full of cold, clear water for me to drink.
So I set off again. Today the climb is intense. Up and down, and further up and down, and still further up. Always there is a mountain ahead. Loose rocks a constant challenge. Watching the road every minute. Eventually I go over again, sprawling across the middle of the road. Bike flat and my heel jammed under the left-hand box. What’s holding it there? The strap of the boot – there ”for when you come off.”
[Back in London when I was buying kit for the journey, the only items available were a helmet, goggles, a plastic tank bag, gloves and boots. The boots were very simple, but there was a strap and buckle across the arch which seemed to serve no purpose. I asked the kid serving me what it was for, and he said “It’s for when you come off” which made no sense at all. Now it was caught on the axle, trapping my foot under the wheel.]
My goggles have gone. I think they must be in the lorry, which has passed me just as I got the bike upright again. I have found a technique for lifting the bike now, by twisting the handlebar, but with my wrenched left arm it’s a big struggle. Drive on. Bike all the better for a rest. Now country changing radically. Many shrubs, green and red, grassy banks and slopes, with boys popping out naked but for a rag over their shoulders. Alpine country – 18th century Switzerland.
Stop for a rest. Boy of 14 or so pops up through hedge. And holds out his flute. Bamboo tube with holes and binding for mouthpiece. Can make nothing of it and ask him to play. He produces a thrilling and intricate music seeming to play on two registers simultaneously. With embellishments round a simple melody. Lightning finger work.
[I was so wrapped up in my own ordeal that I entirely failed to appreciate the situation. Probably he wanted to sell the flute. The music he played was astonishing – a virtuoso. I left without offering him anything in return. It hurt me later to recall it. A little further along, around midday, I came to a village.]
Chelga (now known as Aykel)
At lunch time. Village confirms Alpine sense. The way groups of people stand around. Less spontaneous excitement. People contained, though curious.
Find restaurant. Quiet. Six men at table. In suits, some with overcoats on. Dark clothes. Conferring discreetly. Much fuss made of them. Their faces shrewd, cunning in European way, but black. Exude power, influence. Mafia?
One of them instructs owner to get my passport. Examining it nonchalantly, with neighbours looking casually, then passes it back. No direct contact except smiles in my direction. Eventually they leave. Behind me, teacher who has kept silent, starts talking to me. The one who looked at my passport is police “general” he says.
He talks bitterly of regime, overthrow etc. Compares Ethiopia to France before revolution. Says I should talk to students in Addis. Warns of bad people on the road who will try to stop me. If I “joke” with them they will steal from me. I must “keep a good face. Don’t walk around Gondar alone.
“But you will have your own trick,” he says.
[I arrived in Ethiopia in the last years of Hailie Selassie’s reign, when it had become an oppressive state.]
On to Gondar. One more ford successfully crossed. Then came off again. The other box ripped away. Repair it with crowd looking on. No hostility. The “improved” road from Chelga is flatter but covered in loose stone. Just as hard. When I finally get on to main road, asphalt, it’s like flying. Feel very good. Triumphant. Deserving. Have all sorts of treats in mind for myself. Luxury hotel with beer, bath and good food.
Schoolboy directs me to Fusil Hotel. Room is $4Eth. Italian hotel. When I get there, boy is there too. Can’t bring myself to send him off but his company is cloying. He wants to please. When I suggest he’s expecting something from me he protests. But in the end, though he helps wash the bike and so on I refuse to give him anything. He gets $10 a month from an American who passed through one day – a Bill Rollafson, a chemist from California. Boy’s father is a priest.
Everything costs more here, and people come up for money. In the road there are some boys who throw stones, some men who look as though they might let go with their sticks. After Sudan the atmosphere is very troubled.
[I rode south to Addis Ababa where some friends, Alan and Bridget, were living. He was there on some UK Government mission. They had invited me to spend Christmas with them. We visited Lake Hawassa, south of Addis, famous among birdwatchers. Then I rode on south towards Kenya.]
A saddle back crane at Lake Hawassa, or so they told me. Not a great picture but it proves I was there.
I wake up every morning wondering what fresh outrage Trump has invoked. Like George Bush, he has looked into Putin’s eyes and presumably drawn inspiration from his soul. I shiver at the thought of what message those basilisk eyes project. Terrorise your own people, go out and bomb something, bask in admiration and gather up your trophies. A peace prize perhaps, a chunk of Palestine real estate. My life has turned full circle. It began in the shadow of Hitler. Will it really end in the shadow of Trump? What a farce.
From the desert to the mountains.
Those days crossing the desert in Sudan were among the most influential of my life, an apotheosis. After my abject performance on that first day, running out of fuel and water and burying myself in sand, the schoolteachers of Kinedra lifted me up and made a hero of me, and from that day on I was treated with the utmost generosity and respect.
My interlude at the tea house among tribesmen of various kinds simply reinforced my admiration. Like every westerner I had heard no end of stories about Arab deviousness and thievery. I took the accounts of their nobility by Lawrence, Thesiger and others with a pinch of salt. Now I had to concede that in their own element they were splendid. The simplicity and respect in our communication was balm for the soul.
Of course, it bothered me that I never caught even a glimpse of the headmaster’s wife. A world in which women were invisible would quickly become intolerable to me, but I was passing through their world and had to accept their customs. The fact that the Bescharyin were all huddled together in the same truck bed, men, women, chlldren, and a foreigner, was proof that custom can give way to necessity. As I was to learn during the following years, it is custom that rules the roost everywhere, however much it is attributed to religious belief or idealism. Arbitrary custom cements society, and it can only be broken by often painful necessity.
Look to Iran for grim proof, if it is needed.
Now the journey continues…
December 13th 1973
From Kassala. Along the railway line. Cracked dry mud. Much of it corrugated. Seemed bad at the time except for some flat stretches where a secondary track close to the line could be used. Before Kash’m-El Girbar, bridge and switchback road.
At a tea-house in Kashm-el Girbar I emulated this man and ate a large piece of delicious Nile Perch, while other customers gathered round my bike. “How quick? How fast?” they demanded. When I was ready to leave, someone had already paid my bill.
From K.G itself I was promised “queiss” track. It was terrible – true washboard all the way. Slept with camels 15km from Gedaref.
[In fact, I spread a sheet on the ground a little way from the track and slept on it, to be woken in the middle of the night by a small caravan of camels travelling over me. I looked up at their huge bodies as they daintily avoided stepping on me.]
December 14th
Next day crowds in Gedaref were oppressive. Left straightaway and found road now worse than ever. Some washboard, but mostly deep ruts – one or two feet, leg-breaking and bike-throwing.
Always having to choose a rut only to find it narrowing, unable to get out. Dropped bike three times, one very difficult– have picture.
So to Doka. Night with police.
[Someone had told me there was a police post on the road to the Ethiopian border town, Metema, and they could be trusted, so I slept on the ground inside their compound.]
December 15th
On to Metema, same road, plus rocks, dips etc.
Went to “best hotel in Metema.” Last night. Corrugated iron roof, rough plaster walls on wooden uprights, earth floor, bar with shelves of drink, owner at small table, upholstered chairs and sofa round another table. First upholstery seen since Egypt. Woman shakes my hand and it comes as a shock to me. I have forgotten about women in public – it’s over two months. At first the impression is charming. Dresses of cotton, knee length – a bit dirndlish. They smile, laugh, suggest that life is a light matter, but in the morning it’s less pretty.
December 16th
Morning in Ethiopia. Camel with small flock of birds on its back. Brillian red beaks, grey and white plumage. Another camel with two men sitting back to back, the rear passenger in bright red blanket (Peruvian?) Both smiling. Huts round, of brick, with conical straw roofs, some tied at top. “Hotels” and “bars”. – women with inviting smiles. The women nursing their illegitimate children and their tightly rolled wads of Ethiopian dollars. Later I notice that it’s the girls who are first to stretch out their hands, and it seems that in this country the women take onto themselves the stigma of sin, avarice and corruption. Leaving the men to enjoy a lofty nobility. It may become clearer but one thing is already clear. The relationships between the sexes, however they are customarily managed in different countries, produce rich and extraordinary phenomena.
I was overjoyed to arrive in Metema yesterday, because it marked a solid step forward. Today it rather disgusts me. I can think of no reason why anyone should want to be here except to cash in somehow. Is it a typical border town? Evey hut is a ‘bar.’ Every building bigger than a hut is automatically a “hotel,” with a rectangle of painted metal slung over the door to say so (usually blue or red).
Dawn breaks outside Metema
The customs say I must wait until 3pm. Thought overwhelms me with horror; The travelling is so hard I have to keep moving, just to keep up some sense of achievement to balance the hardship. I listen to a policeman who says I can do customs in Gondar and set off into Ethiopia.
Had a glass of something by mistake when I asked for bread. Yellow tea, with a familiar taste that I couldn’t place and didn’t much care for. (Although it was faintly reminiscent of Bovril.)
Following day, Metema to Gondar. Road vastly improved. i.e. like a normal cart track. Then fords – 1 and 2, terrifying – 3,4,5. Then very steep climbs, very hot. Bike stalls halfway up. Have to carry stuff to the top.
Sometimes the rock is black, sometimes pink which powders into dust. The light wipes out all contours when it hits the dust – can see nothing but a sheet of glowing pink and white. The improvement in the road was illusory. In its own way it was as bad as any. Steep rising and falling road, loose rocks, desperate dashes into fords and up the steep exits, overheating until engine fails. Twice on the ground within a minute. Near exhaustion at times. Back jolting is painful, left arm constantly wrenched when wheel spins on a stone.
Last big ford of the day is too much. Some men gathered to help and suggest I sleep there. They are building a bridge. I am about halfway between two main villages, have come about 100kms. Wash feet, body, socks in river. Drink some. Have tea with road gang; eat half tin of Sudan mackerel. Lie in bed listening to men talking round their fires. One man has voice that dominates with amazing range of expression. All the men, it seems, have two voices – a normal speaking voice and one that jests and mimics and plays on a higher register with very rapid, light consonants and cat-like vowels.
December 17th
Road continues. Leave the bridge builders early. This is the fifth day of my ride from Kassala. Every day the road has seemed just short of impossible _ and each day new difficulties.
[That night I recapitulated in my notebook what had happened in the last few days.]
I am feeling now as if I am being put to a series of ingeniously graded tests. First outside Kassala, the dust mud, cracked and ridged. – carburetor stuck at K.G. Then, after tea when the good road was promised, the washboard for seventy miles, a rattling and shaking that should have torn the machine apart. No relief – if anything becoming more severe. – until the sun moved into my eyes as the road swings to the south west and I dared not go on. Slept on the camel track. Next day washboard continues to Gedaref where I eat fish, drink tea, and get stared at, and escape on the road to Doka. Now the road is both washboard and rut. Sometimes the ruts are two feet deep and hardly that wide and one must ride through them with boots raised for fear of breaking legs against sides. Where the ruts are less serious the washboard becomes correspondingly more severe.
In Gedaref police station (why did I go there? Heaven knows) I met an African refugee from Rhodesia. He said the police at Doka were nice, so when I get to Doka after seven or eight hours driving, I accept the chance to stop honourably. From Doka next day, to all the other hazards are added steep inclines covered in loose rocks. It’s important to remember that these are not consistent hazards. Anything can happen at any moment. It is dangerous to take one’s eye off the road for an instant. I have gone over twice now, not through lack of attention but through taking the wrong line and being caught in converging ruts or in a bad bit of rock. So I am ready for anything and still dreading it. Even inventing impossible hazards for myself, only to see them realised. The impossible ford, the rocky path along a ravine, etc.
Why no puncture? Why don’t the tyres tear to shreds? I think that might finish me. I am full of admiration for the bike and tyres. Why doesn’t the Triumph just die? It has no need to go on, unlike me. It protests, chatters, faints, but always resumes its work like a faithful donkey. What havoc is being wrought inside those cylinders?
On the third day I passed this extraordinary pillar of rock. I saw it again, unremarked, when I went past 28 years later. I wonder if it’s been given a name yet.
It’s becoming more and more difficult to do “business as usual.” A lot of people ordered books from me before Christmas, and it was a little while before I discovered that Trump’s tariffs had thrown a spanner in the works, and all the books I sent to the USA began coming back to me.
I’ve refunded the majority of those who ordered them. The postage, which came to roughly 300 euros, is lost, of course. Fortunately, many of you responded to my “Subscription Offer” so I am certainly not complaining. I can’t resell the books because their all dedicated, but I’ll keep them, so if any of you happen to be passing by in the next year or two, you can drop in and pick yours up.
Cheers, Ted.
After two more days as a guest of the boys’ school in Kinedra the teachers finally gave me permission (because that’s what it felt like) to continue my journey. I was confided to the care of a government official on his way to Kassala, 200 miles away, from the neighbouring village, Sedon.
Wednesday, December 12th
From Kinedra in morning. Thermos flask of tea prepared. Headmaster’s wife has fed me throughout. Drive to Sedon. There is a Land Rover going to Kassala. Forest District Officer, Mohi el Din, needs brake fluid.
Mochi el Din, in the yellow shirt, asked me to follow his vehicle, but they drove too fast for me. They stopped until I caught up with them. I said I would go on alone. He told me of a tea house halfway to Kassala called Khor-el-fil (Crocodile’s Mouth)
Along the way I passed cattle travelling through a mirage.
I found the teahouse without difficulty, and spent some peaceful hours with tribesmen playing primitive music.
A home-made harp made with a wash basin.
A truck arrived and I wandered over to meet them, members of a tribe called Bescharyin.
When I told them I was going to Kassala they said the sand would be too soft and I should load the bike on the truck and travel with them.
Before we arrived one family got out. Behind them are the amazing mountains of Kassala.
In Kassala, Hotel Africa – 30 piastres a night for bed in room for 6. Slept on balcony. Tea boy had holes in feet. Wanted treatment. Gave him Septrin and stuff, through Egyptian teacher of chemistry. He gave me free tea.
After Kassala the route continued south-east past the huge Kashm El Girba dam to the Ethiopian frontier.
On December 5th the ferry from Aswan came ashore at Wadi Halfa or, more correctly, at a ramshackle assemblage still growing to replace the town, which now lay below the waters of the lake. I had hoped to get back on the bike but was refused permission and petrol, so I had to take the train.
My Dutch friend (hatless) dealing with his luggage. My bike was already in the wagon.
With the Dutch couple I had befriended, I travelled to Atbara, where apparently there was only one hotel. They took a taxi and I followed on the bike.
THE hotel. The rooms at the back were cubicles looking out over a verandah on to a courtyard.
December 6th
Atbara: Hotel courtyard. Pale green lime-wash. Green oil paint. Entered to be greeted by five Arabs with sherry and marijuana. A joint pushed straight into my hand. Played some music but they weren’t interested. Interest centered more on Anthony. Why not? He was suspicious, I think. Later, the southern Sudanese, Fabiano, said the chief Arab was a thief who pretended to be drunk to get others drunk. Used the word ‘teep’ but all his p’s are f’s and his f’s are p’s. i.e. pipty and fresident and feople, etc. We got into quasi conspiracy about Sudan’s internal problems and the Eritreans, but my own astounding ignorance left me unaware that the Eritreans were Moslems opposed to Selassie’s Christian regime, and the southern Sudanese, being Christian, are naturally opposed to the Eritreans. I had imagined it the other way round i.e. underdogs supporting each other. Naïve innocence.
Saturday, December 7th
Bent foot brake [lever] back into place by dropping bike on it. Cleaned Oil Filter. Distilled water – to be found. Tightened nuts and bolts. Some movement on barrel nuts. Tappets? Not yet. Chain tensions; primary all right. Rear chain loosened two turns.
In Atbara we met Thomas Taban Duku and then Fabiano Munduk. Both African Christians from the south of Sudan.
With Fabiano, an evening that started when he came to the hotel with his nephew Peter, a four-year-old boy in brightly striped jersey tunic and shorts. They had come from school sports day. All day I had heard martial music of the Empire drifting across. He explained they had been playing musical chairs. We drank two bottles of sherry between us in a bar, then took him by taxi to his brother’s house. Brother is in police (a captain, he said). Saw one room, open to yard, all in brown and over brick. Brother’s wife spoke no English. He got her to give small bottle of home distilled date liquor. (Like eau de vie)
Dates left in water for seven days, then container put over fire. Above it a lid perforated. On that a small bowl. Above it a bigger bowl as a lid and condenser, filled with cold water.
We took the bottle and walked across cultivated ground to look at the Nile. Fabiano said the White Nile was a day’s walk away. He obviously didn’t know the Blue Nile only joins the White Nile at Khartoum, 200 miles further south. We walked back to place where music had sounded. Fabian was dodging about looking into bushes, in the manner of Don Genero looking for cars.
[Carlos Castaneda, a popular writer at this time, described his apprenticeship in shamanism in The Teachings of Don Juan and other books.]
I think he was looking for animals or snakes. We had been hearing about his life in the bush – ‘bus’ – when he and his brothers were refugees from Sudan after his parents had been killed – he said – by the Moslem army of the time. He is proud of his brothers. They are twelve. Two are at Oxford, one doing economics, another librarianship, the others are mostly in the army – all officers He is the youngest and least qualified.
The music came from a wedding party in a community on the edge of Atbara. Large square clearing with canvas spread over large area, illuminated by bulbs strung out in a large rectangle. Rows of chairs all round. Many children jostling for good position, scrapping with each other, but although they pushed each other around quite hard there was no bitterness in their manner, and no crying. Fabiano says the children are allowed to be independent but this only works of course in a simple environment with large family structures.
The band arrived in an army truck. We were given favoured seats, and then plates of food were brought specially for us. Tarmeia, bits of meat, salad, sweet pastry, bread and water. Water in gilded aluminium bowls. When music started men would wander over casually, sometimes two together jigging to the beat, snapping the fingers of one outstretched arm, to indicate their pleasure, and reach over to touch one or more of the players. Then they would retire again just walking away slowly.
[Account of Atbara to Kassala in letter home.]
Monday 10th
[The whole of the following week’s experience is described in detail in Jupiter’s Travels.]
Left Atbara. Tried to find way from town. Took an hour. [Everyone said “the road to Kassala is queiss” – meaning good. But there was no road.]
The road to Kassala.
After three hours, in sand up to axles. No water. Too little petrol. Acid in bottle. No money. Come to Kinedra. School. Welcomed. Fed. Refused permission to leave. Headmaster said, must get more benzene first. From car? But car had none. From District Officer at Sedon. But he had none. By lorry from Atbara. But lorry broken down. By lorry next morning. But no lorry.
[After two days at the school I learned there was a bus back to Atbara. I was introduced to a merchant who was also taking the bus and with my five-gallon jerrycan I accompanied him to Sedon where the bus stopped in the night. He spoke no English at all. We lay on the sand in the smpty square to wait.]
“Sudan seňora queiss? You Sudan seňora? Sudan seňor queiss? You Sudan seňor?” Insistent, quiet, gentle. Just teeth in deep shadow framed by turban. Light touches between legs. Seductive, compelling, out of any moral context. Could imagine it.
At last, there was a bus. Bus arrived at 11.30pm. Ford chassis. Heavy riveted steel body built in Khartoum. Out tumbled horde of people. Many with swords. Scabbards shaped like paddles. Crucifix grips. They are a tribe called Bescharyin. From Sedon until Goz Regeb. Most are nomads. Their hair is long and the strands are glued together with oil, called oudak – animal grease, and wear an ornamental curved stick used as a comb, sticking out like an Indian feather, but horizontally. They wear a waistcoat, galabeia, and trousers with crutch below the knees and tied by cord. Three-tiered clothing. All fell to the ground and slept until 4am. I was happy to sleep too, but it got cold and I had no cover. At 4am the bus left for Atbara. Very bumpy. Much coughing. A sort of stale, damp smell. Two B in front of me, hair dangling before my eyes. No expression. Very stern. After dawn people began getting off. Outside Atbara, my companion, the merchant, vanished mysteriously [while I slept.] A family of B’s descended, a pathetic huddle of humanity set down on the sand, with their bundles of mats, sticks, pots and bags, still cold, kids bare chested. They appeared momentarily unable to cope at all.
In Atbara looked for Fabiano to recover cutting, and lost others in the process. Southern tailor’s shop had African flavour. Clear distinction between Arabs and Africans – each considers itself the elite. Tailors rather condescending about clothes they are making. Material from China, Egypt inferior. Suit costs £2.50 up. Got lorry back to Kinedra. Took road in a wide sweep across desert – the road I missed (or dared not find.) which would have got me here faster.
Lorry stopped about a kilometre from Kinedra. I started humping my jerry can across the sand but was soon met by a boy with a donkey, who relieved me of my burden immediately.
I had intended to go to Sedon to photograph the water pumps, but the teachers of Kinedra would not let me leave. They insisted I accompany them to the river bank to take pictures. Waded in the river. They said prayers. Each had orange-sized patch of sand on forehead. Then visits to the village shops, and the home of . . . . . . brother who has refrigerator. Little bags of flavoured ice. Shabby furniture, not worthy of Austin’s [a popular London warehouse of used furniture.]
[I was persuaded to stay two more days at the school.]
Goodbye, until next week.
PS: Like most people I come into this New Year with grave premonitions. I see absolutely no prospect of Putin stopping the war. Trump’s involvement is toxic. Europe must pull itself together. What can I do about it? What can AI do about it? Watch this empty space.
Thank You Very Much
First of all, I want to acknowledge the response to my offer of a One-time Subscription. It has released a small flood of generosity which makes it plain that over time I have established a place in many lives. Not just through this series of travel notes, but in some cases going back through decades. Although I deliberately avoided pinning my appeal to any future book, I do now also have the beginnings of an idea of how to use these notes as a truly valid companion to Jupiter’s Travels. I’ll be developing these thoughts as this series draws to an end this coming summer.
From My Notebooks In 1973: Aswan and Lake Nasser
Finally convinced that there was no hope of getting permission to ride up the Nile, I bought a train ticket to Aswan. I had become close to Amin, the hotel manager, and he confided in me that he was planning to escape from Egypt and go to Brazil, where he already had an older brother, a doctor, established in Campinas, near Sâo Paulo. Legally, he was supposed to do years of military service first, so he would have to leave only with what he could carry. He asked me if I would carry with me, on the bike, his father’s ceremonial sword and deliver it to his brother when I arrived there. I was touched by his confidence, and the sword, in its scabbard, took up residence alongside the umbrella.
I got to Campinas nine months later. Amin had already arrived. That’s him on the right.
And this was me, holding on to the umbrella.
Meanwhile, back in Cairo, Monday, December 3rd
The train to Aswan. Cairo station – traders, stalls, cattle, crowds of persons waiting to coagulate round any seed.
Two references from Faris Serafim [Proprietor of Golden Hotel, Amin’s uncle]
Moatassam Bereir, influential, Khartoum, Foreign Office.
Mohamad Abouleila, Khartoum, Good family, older brothers know Faris.
[I did what I could to secure the bike and, with serious misgivings, entrusted it to the baggage wagon. The train left at 8pm. I was in a compartment with two Egyptian families who spoke almost no English but they had quantities of food for the 16-hour journey which they shared generously with me. We slept in our seats. In the morning I got breakfast in a saloon car and watched the passing scene. The train travelled very slowly, stopping often.]
Company [of conscript soldiers] descends at Essna. [Reminded me of my own national service.]
Just like UK conscripts being shuttled about, showing no sign of anticipation. Wear heavy khaki like us, plus suitcases, etc.
[Looking out at villages.] Stuffed animals over doorways, lizard, a fox.
[I had thoughts about the evolution of pyramids. Why that particular angle.]
My pyramid theory. Natural form of erosion in Upper Egypt. Rocks have caves in them. Measure angles, etc. Maybe some corpse was found in a cave in goat milk. [What was I thinking?]
In front of some villages, stones stood on end, curious effect immediately noticeable, but why? Not big stones, and all shapes, six inches to a foot, but all unnaturally upright. Still don’t quite know how water wheel works. i.e. don’t know what it discharges into.
[The train stops.]
Three peasants working on a plot of earth beneath window of train. As usual earth divided up chessboard fashion with foot-high dykes around 3-metre squares. Two men were chopping vigorously at earth, one old, one young.
The old man was tough and skinny and wore absolutely nothing beneath his galabeia which became evident when he bent down towards the train. Standing by them, with a five-foot cane pointing at the earth was the most imperious lady I have seen. The mother of all the pharaohs. In black, with black headdress, old but refined, face as strong and vigorous as ever. Tall, straight, irrefutable authority. Head a perfect long oval, mouth in parentheses which seemed on the point of curling down in contempt.
Tuesday, December 4th
Train empties at Aswan and waits. Then on to lake. Unloading is easy enough, though the attendant stands studiously while I hump my bags, then solicits a tip (which I give him, salving my pride by halving it.) From the platform have to drive bike down some steep steps. I let go a bit soon and on the last bounce I lose control and fall into bushes. Malesh!! Short and ineffectual interrogation by soldier, and I follow my self-appointed guide (an Arab Merlin figure) to the stony shore where some people are gathered outside s group of shacks, milling about among bundles. I have a ticket but must pay for the motorcycle. There is one shrewd fat Arab sitting outside a cabin, surveying the mob, while his men work. I give them the correct weight of the bike. and they charge me E£5 without weighing it. Passport control is simple, and the vehicle control looks straightforward, but I’m beginning to wonder how I’m going to get my bulky objects through customs, which is besieged by camel drivers carrying huge canvas and leather bags which I presume they sling over their camels. The carnet man indicates that an amount of money will help me over their problems and I succumb, with half a pound. In fact, if I had known how useless my pounds were to be I’d have been less precise. However, I was through and down to the boat in a flash and forgot completely about changing money.
The problem at the boat then obliterated any other concerns. It was immediately clear that it would be [all but] impossible to get the bike on the boat because my boat was separated from me by another boat. [They were parked side by side on the embankment.]
The first problem was the conventional one – of lifting four cwt down three feet, then to manoeuver it through a narrow passage packed with camel drivers in a terrible hurry. While manoeuvering it round a sharp corner all I lost was one pannier. It was just a matter of persistence. But the final crossing [to the other boat] was inconceivable. Both ships had steel-sided gangways, with openings only wide enough for a person, and the openings did not coincide either with each other or with the end of the passage. The bike had to be manoeuvered through a Z-shaped path, in mid-air at an angle of 30 degrees pointing downwards across three feet of water.
But for the sky-hook that appeared halfway through I think the journey would have stopped there. Even so the bike was resting most of the time on the remaining pannier or the foot brake pedal, which assumed a distinctive slope. There were five people struggling, and I was least use since I couldn’t understand the others. Finally the project passed out of my control, and I had to hope for good luck as I saw the exhaust manifold within an ace of being ripped from the cylinders. The experience affected my view of the boat, which I saw as cramped, dangerous, expensive and inhospitable. The deck, which I had imagined open to the sky, with chairs, was below with no chairs, or indeed anything but refuse and bare steel. Some cars had been brought on from the other side when this boat had been against the bank, and filled most of one half. At the other end, behind some corrugated iron, was a man brewing tea. A desk in front sold chits (or scrip, or torn bits of used paper) but of course took no Egyptian money (except from Anthony because he’d paid for first class.)
[Anthony was a young Dutchman, travelling with his wife.]
Every other floor space, except for a narrow footpath, was resolutely occupied by camel drivers who had their bed bundles down while I was struggling [with the bike]. As the journey advanced it became increasingly difficult to distinguish the people from their luggage. The grimy galabeias merged and an occasional limb or head protruded here and there. Most of them stayed, scarcely moving, for three days and two nights, while drifts of scrap paper, cigarette ends, orange peel and dust, all bound together with spit, built up around them.
The sight of people letting loose a jet of spit on the floor where they sleep is so objectionable that it goes beyond disgust to sheer wonder. How can they? But if you consider the desert your natural home (where spitting is not only harmless but quite natural) then being inside a house or boat is scarcely significant. Considered alongside the meticulous and lengthy rituals of spiritual cleansing which these same drivers undergo every day, it is hard to say who comes cleaner out of the wash – they or the European.
Two nights and three days floating across Lake Nasser.
A view of the first class boat from the third class. I soon joined them, on the roof.
It became clear that there would be no room to sleep even in these conditions, but the other boat which was all but empty was said to be for first class only. However, Europeans obviously have a natural exemption to class restraints in Africa. Should I have stuck with the drivers? It was not a productive thought. Other Europeans would not have allowed me even a faint chance of an understanding with them on such a short journey. I smuggled myself instead on to the top deck of the first-class boat, and I slept out under the sky. Bright moon. Stars becoming familiar. Cold at 3 am but not too much so. Spent time talking to Australian Mike – Macdonald. Something about him remained alienating to the last. A conflict of styles? His funny hat – a Moslem cap – was aggressively incongruous. The forthright manner was not quite true – and concealed a complex and uneasy personality. Protestations of easy independence were contradicted by heavy point-scoring humour, and he lost few opportunities for self-congratulation. Yet there is a wistful, touching desire to find peace with himself (which he failed to find in his monastery.)
Although the Dutchman wielded an equally heavy sledgehammer, he seemed to have found more peace in his 26 years. He and his wife Alice were travelling to South Africa to visit her father (?) It was her idea. He had wanted to holiday in Norway but now he was finding much reward. His treatment of his wife was very masterful, and she was obviously devoted to him, even when he scolded her like a father. A big man, studying “marketing,” son of an old family, with a natural confidence which could make him boorish and pigheaded, but for the moderating influences [of his wife] which he is happily able to accept. He was taken by my idea of classifying people as “alive or dead” but said he would have to study it.
Train from Cairo 7E£n+ 6E£ for bike. Left Cairo 8pm. High Dam 1.30pm Boat from Aswan to Wadi Halfa 2E£ 3rd class + 5E£ for bike. Spent E£5 on boat. Train Wadi Halfa to Atbara 3.60 S£+ 3.61S£ for bike (200kg)
Total £24 sterling.
I’m taking a week off, so in two weeks: Atbara and the desert.
Merry Christmas.
To my readers…
My quixotic notion to offer you an opportunity to reward me for the pleasure you have already enjoyed has provoked some interesting confusion.
A few seem to feel it’s almost immoral. “If I’d known I was going to be asked for money I would never have started reading your pieces in the first place.” Well, nobody actually said that, but I got the hint.
Then others thought I must be asking you to subscribe to a future book – I wasn’t – and refrained because they don’t think the book’s a good idea. Anyway, to those who simply thought it would be nice to give me something for past pleasure, thank you very much. I am quite comfortable with it. I believe I have earned it. And if I DO decide to make a book of it, the money will help. It was also a valuable experiment. It helped me to find out where I float in this ethosphere. Now, back to Cairo.
From My Notebooks In 1973: Egypt
[I’m desperately hoping to ride the bike up the Nile – such a vital, rich seedbed of humanity: Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. There’s a lull in the war. Why shouldn’t it be possible? In the meanwhile, I tried as best I could to understand Cairo. At about that same time it struck me that Islamic countries, from Morocco to Indonesia, spanned the globe, rather like a scimitar, and would be a mighty force if they could unite. I put this to a high-ranking journalist, Denis Hamilton, who happened to be staying at the Hilton at that time. He thought a minute and said, “No. The Shah would never allow it.” He meant, of course, the Shah of Iran. We know what happened to him.]
Cairo, 17th to 22nd November
Waiting for permission to ride to Aswan.
Daily round begins. Groppi’s for coffee, etc. Reuter’s office. The Press office at the Information Building, lunch, a game of chess and then anything to get the evening over with. At first, I think it will be just a day or two. My piece went off to London, together with a message, on Thursday. There was no reply, but the bureau lady has convinced me that because of my faulty slugging they may have got scrambled or delayed. So I repeat my message. [“Slug” was the word used to identify a piece of copy.]
Meanwhile at the press office Frau Amin treats me pleasantly enough and I am lulled by her comfortable conversation (which is quite genuine and kind.) although nobody thinks there is any possibility of my being given permission to drive to Aswan.
Meanwhile there are also the first set of papers from Benghazi to expect. And with Amin’s help at the hotel, I try to grapple with Libya and Arab Airlines, but they are too slippery for any of us. On Sunday I decide to cable Kerim for the waybill number, but the cables are subject to several days’ delay. The telephones however are working properly so I book a call for Monday morning. The days pass. I develop a powerful reputation for chess, dodge nimbly across the frontlines of affection between Amin and Alan and learn what I can from Faris Serafim. [Alan was a pale young Englishman with an upper-class accent staying at the Golden. Amin and I both thought he was probably a spy. Faris was Amin’s uncle who owned the hotel.]
Faris was at Oxford in 1919. I gather he read theology. He is, in any event, a Christian, i.e. a Copt, Egypt’s original tribe. He was contemporary with Nehru and, he suggests without naming them, many other luminaries. He recalls that they founded the International Club and toured Britain (Cardiff, Bradford) to speak in halls and churches about their respective countries. He considers there were some whose qualities were greater than, say, Nehru’s but rejected power when it was offered and contented themselves with being obscurely good.
He himself was from a family which had built a considerable position in Egypt. He talks of his great grandfather, who was “keeper” of the village in the reign of Mohamed Ali, and whose citizens hatched a plot to murder him rather than pay taxes. He escaped but the villagers claimed he had run off with their boxes, and a price was put on his head. He, however, made his way down the Nile and finally contrived a personal encounter with Ali when the guards were some way off.
“Surely you know,” said Ali, “that I have put a price on your head?”
“You can have it for nothing,” was the reply, “if you don’t believe my story.”
The upshot was that he promised to double the tax returns if he were allowed to found his own village, and he did so. This then became El Minya and the Serafims became very wealthy – sufficiently, according to Alan, to give a visiting Cardinal dinner for forty off gold plate. By the same source he is said to have been Egypt’s most prominent businessman, who was intimately concerned in and with the political structure of the country.
He knew Strawblow and the two men who helped him to the right hand of Durante and recounts that those two men soon found themselves in jail (this was, of course, on the American side in the 30’s).
[This strange final comment was meant to defer suspicion lest officials came to read my notes. Egypt was effectively a police state. “Strawblow’ was Sadat, “Durante” was Nasser. The words in parentheses were just rubbish.]
The revolution in Egypt stripped Serafim of his wealth, and his true worth is now demonstrated by the ease and dignity with which he assumes his position behind the desk of the Golden Hotel, one of the properties that remains in the family. Land and cash were nationalised. Buildings were merely heavily taxed.
His reflection on the Aswan Dam, on the need to mechanise farming, on the ability of Arab culture to survive the machine age (he says it will – I, as usual, remain pessimistic.)
Menu at Riche [a local restaurant]:
Dorma (stuffed cabbage & marrow) 18 piastres
Awa (Zeiad, Marbut) 4 ½ piastres
Soup/spaghetti 5 piastres
[One piastre was worth one British penny, or 2.5 cents US]
Robes are called Galabeia in Egypt, Shuka in Turkey, Djellaba in Morocco/ Algiers.
Walking on the crowded catwalk across Tahir Square in Cairo I noticed that though the crush looked impenetrable, when you walked in it there was always space allowed you – provided that you didn’t move at your own pace.
[Tahir Square was a huge intersection in Cairo. To enable pedestrians to cross it an equally huge catwalk crossed over it. Thousands of poor Egyptian workers, all dressed alike in blue galabeias, crowded over it.]
Cairo is the first city (I presume I shall see others) in which fate as much as mortar seems to fix the fabric. In Tunis the poorest seemed to have some sense of social movement, could dream and hustle a bit. Perhaps it’s so here, but the impression is different. Cairo is intensely populated. 6 million in a relatively small space. Many of these (I don’t know how many) are newly arrived from the farms and are as completely uneducated and unskilled in city ways as can be. It is they who root the city in its ways.
In Cairo I can fill my stomach twice a day for ten British pence, and this is in the heart of Cairo and going no further than 100 yards from the hotel. At the same distance is a cake and coffee house [Groppi’s] where a light breakfast of eggs, coffee, toast and marmalade involves the waiter in bringing eleven separate items – a glass of water, a glass containing cutlery and napkins, two heavy hotel silver jugs of coffee and hot milk, a cup and saucer, plate of toast, slab of white butter, a silver pot of marmalade, another of sugar, salt and pepper, and the eggs. The cup comes from the kitchen full of boiling water which is poured out at the last minute. It takes the waiter an appreciable time to unload the tray. The price is 28 pence, about the most a citizen of Cairo could be asked to pay anywhere in the city.
Anyone living here within grasp of Western standards is plainly able to enjoy the best that the city can offer, while the poorest are able to subsist on the crumbs he sprinkles in his wake – a penny for guarding his car, two pence for polishing his shoes, a penny for simply being somewhere regularly on the off-chance of a service to perform, and so on. There is little evidence of resentment on the one side, or contempt on the other. Once the donor has evolved his routine, and his small area of patronage becomes familiar, the relationship is warm and benevolent on both sides.
This mutual respect is fostered by the clear duty imposed on the Moslem by his religion to donate a distinct fraction of his wealth or income to others in need (I think 10%) The other duties are: to pray five times a day, to keep himself clean – particularly the ‘private parts,’ to do to others as he would be done by, and to visit Mecca once (if he can afford it). The stability of this system depends on a general belief that it is right, good and practicable. Morale and morality go hand in hand. Where external forces seem to strike at the viability of Arab society they are easily seen as a threat to every Arab’s self-respect, without which he cannot be satisfied with his place in society. I am sure that Arab dislike and contempt for Israel is rooted in the view that the Jews, whose ethical system compares so closely to the Arab system, have betrayed themselves and God for personal gain. Israel is perhaps the Trojan horse of the West.
In the aftermath of the ’73 war, Cairo lives in a euphoria of vindication. Egyptians are convinced of a great victory. They have shown the world. Now they can negotiate honorably, and after a few weeks are ready to discuss their mistakes and weaknesses, to begin the process of dismantling their former idols. Other Arab countries who suffered defeat (the Syrians) or who could take no active part in the war (Libya, Saudi Arabia) are less willing to call it off. While Egyptians can joke about Quadaffi fighting to the last Egyptian, the Libyan feeling is that they too want their self-respect established in more dramatic terms. Thus the oil weapon is used not simply for its tactical value, but as a sword for Islam.
It now seems that a negotiated settlement is possible (no more) at considerable inconvenience to the West and given agonising re-appraisals by Israel. Such an outcome, now or later, presumably involves a general recognition that the Arabs are free to go it alone as a society united in its religion and ethical practice and financed by a realistic income from its resources. What then?
Mine is not a political reconnaissance. I have met no members of government, enjoyed no confidences from the wealthy or influential, but I will relate what happened among the people I did meet, experience always being more valuable than promises or advice.
Next week: Up the Nile without a paddle
It’s not too late to reward me for three years of wonderful story-telling with these notebook extracts, you can send me a one-time $100 subscription.
Before we get to the notebooks…
Listen, I know you’ve been enjoying these notes. At various times I’ve asked for feedback, and some of you have been very articulate. I don’t have a very large email list but it’s stayed fairly steady for the three years I’ve been doing this – and of course a lot more people have been reading me through social media.
Now I have to ask myself, why am I doing this? It’s work – quite a lot of work. I justified it originally by the books I was selling through the site, but the truth is you’re not buying them from me any more, probably because you’ve got them already – and I’m grateful for that, of course – but still I feel the need to be acknowledged in a practical way. The plain truth is it costs more to maintain the web site than I get from it in income.
I’ve heard from many of you over the years. I feel I know you. I think some of you would like to contribute, and it’s up to me to give you a way to do that.
Several of you have said you’d like to see the diaries as a book. It’s an interesting challenge – “The Real Motorcycle Diaries” perhaps – but much more difficult than my autobiography and probably more expensive. So here is what I propose (I’m trying to banish the word ”deal” from my vocabulary):
You send me $100 (or your local currency equivalent) to reward me for three years of wonderful story-telling. Let’s call it a One-time Subscription. That seems fair to me. You’ll find the offer on the books page of my web site.
If it all adds up to enough to finance a book, or some other solution, I’ll do my best to make it work. And if you have other ideas about what to do with these diaries, let’s talk about it.
Meanwhile, there’s all of Africa still to look forward to.
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS IN 1973: Alexandria and Cairo
November 14th
My day for sightseeing starts poorly. Showers spill fresh floods across the roads. Visit the tourist office and meet with bovine response from ladies assembled there. To garage first, to find a spanner and manual gone. They give me another spanner, but the manual! So easy to think STOLEN. Still brainwashed by tales of thieving Arabs. But the younger of the men – that charming, soft-spoken best of men who wears the khaki overalls reminds me that I took it to the petrol station to buy oil. Of course! My own stupidity, but on their faces only great relief and pleasure. We march off together in the rain and find not only the manual but the spanner also. Once again virtue triumphs and my Western paranoia put to shame.
Drive to Montasah Palace (King Farouk’s summer house). Fine marble staircase – with rooms arranged in tiers around space open to roof with cheap-looking stained-glass partitions off floors. But light is very good. Otherwise, expensive bad taste. Bathrooms lined with alabaster tiles, but sanitary equipment and design ugly. Foolish trinkets in cabinets. Empty house, empty lives.
Fascinated by the showers. Cage of hot water pipes, showers from above, jets from below. Perfect Edwardian plumbing miracle in that ‘chromed’ metal with dull sheen – was it nickel plating?
Gardens just an ostentatious display of date palms and small firs. Rough lawn. Best of a bad job. Back to hotel for lunch. News of discord between Israel and Egypt disturbs atmosphere. I decide to leave after lunch, rather than stay another night. Aat end of lunch a telegram arrives. It’s for Pacaud. He opens it and takes a sharp breath.
“Mon fils est mort! Je le savais. “ [My son is dead. I knew it.]
His grief is profound and inconsolable. There is a short story to be written about us four at the Normandie. (Mme Mellasse.)
Road to Cairo. Groups of mud houses, dripping hay from the roofs. What are the round cupolas? To collect water? Stables also. Some beautifully made of mud columns, spaced to exclude bigger animals. Huge sails of barges, tall as houses (sixty feet) rising out of the railway line must be road, fill with wind but still require two men pulling. Sail tattered. Many of them stretching out in line ahead. Hard to tell whether there’s room to pass, but must be.
Cairo and the road in blackout. With only my polaroid goggles to protect me from flying sand and diesel soot, it becomes difficult to see where the road is or what’s on it. Bullock carts, donkey carts, cyclists, all unlit, appear on the verge. I catch a lift behind a fast taxi and as an act of faith follow him blindly into Cairo. An hour at 50-55mph. Not comfortable. But Pacaud’s description of route serves me well. Only the one-way systems finally cause difficulty.
Golden Hotel is a bit intimidating at first. The upper floors resemble Alcatraz.
I don’t know now who recommended the Golden Hotel but it was an inspired choice, despite the cockroaches.
Thursday, November 15th
To Reuter Office. Dullforce is middle-aged, lean, grey-haired, unsympathetic. Wife likewise. Brisk, and busy.
Write about arrests. These bureau people are much like the police (in fact all daily newspaper people). Received the minimum of help, much disapproval. It’s the worst kind of arrogance, but I find myself largely immune to the consequences.
Pass on to the Cairo Information Centre, for permission to drive to Aswan.
Eat at Estoril Restaurant in alley off Tallaat Harb. Not very good.
Meet two young girls outside Suez Canal Co. offices. Birds are singing loudly in trees. Animated conversation with men through the bars. Egyptians always good for a laugh. Very warm people. After an attempt at lessons in Arabic, go for an endless walk through ‘garden city’ with Youssef, an accountant with Nile Transport Co. who described himself as “economist.” Earns 35 Egyptian pounds a month. (i.e. £6 a week). In five years’ time he will earn £8 a week. Says he likes the security. Went to East Berlin in Egyptian Youth delegation. Conversation oozing with emotion, empty of content. Leave girls and speed off in a taxi to something resembling an outdoor Peabody Building. Dodging from bloc to block until suddenly, without warning, into small flat bright with several hundred watts and solid with people. I counted over sixty with difficulty. Drums and tambours banging away. Two families celebrating the betrothal of two young people. Immense gaiety, no alcohol, ‘belly dancing’ by men and women (with scarf tied around hips). “Mucho Corazón”
Friday, November 16th
Gizeh pyramids. It’s a general holiday. Pyramids are at the edge of Cairo. West of Nile, on a raised area. A throng of guides, horses and camel drivers make an appreciation of the pyramids impossible. To have first stumbled upon them must have been marvelous but I can find no sense of awe for these lumps of stone. Less barbaric than Teohuacan, but still a monumental egoism. The marvels are all abstract – geometry, astronomy, etc.
I can’t resist the importunities of a guide who is clever enough to be less clamorous than the others, but he shows me very little. In a tent he gives me good tea made on a primus stove by a pretty wife dressed in pink. She boils the water and tea vigorously, decants it, boils it again, decants it again. How the sugar got in or where the tea leaves went I have no idea. Hard upholstered couches on two sides.
Walk away to pyramids. Into second pyramid (Queen Sharfeen?) One tomb with hardboard partitions. Graffiti early 19th Century. G.R.Hill and Scheistenberger etc.
To first pyramid. Meet two unintelligent lads, but girl with them is more aware. Into Cheops. Inside like something out of [the film] Metropolis. All scaffolding and duckboards.
Jack Hulbert was a much-loved actor and comedian in the prewar days – with a big chin and a twinkle in he eye – you can see the resemblance, though how Faris the camel driver knew about him remains a mystery.
Ready to leave when I give way to camel driver, and now my reward. Because he gives me a great ride, over an hour, into the sand dunes, on “Jack Hulbert” [that’s the name of the camel.]
He is bright, humorous, great fun. We take a roll of pictures. Him and his mate.
But what in God’s name does the average package tourist get out of it all?
I really rode that camel, rein, switch and heel. My thighs were aching from the unaccustomed movement. JH lurched and swayed and hobbled along, with brief bursts of crazy trotting. I crossed my legs, Arab style, over his shoulders. He is six and will go on probably until he’s twenty-five or so. Sacks of ‘clover ‘at his side under heavy embroidered cloth. Take two sets of pix. First roll failed to attach to spool. Drivers called Faris Hamse (No. 62) Mandor Shahat (77).
I’m disturbed by my failure to respond to the pyramids and question the quality of response in others. I know perfectly well that if I want I can whip up a storm of fancies and imaginings but I was determined to let the pyramids do the work. As props for a mind hungry for sensation they do very well, no doubt, but as objects to inspire pure awe or wonder I think they fail. Man has demeaned them in scale and industry. Rockets can be built taller than Cheops, more intricate, by more people, and sent to the moon. They have been surrounded by bric-a-brac, haggling, and petty detail.
I’ve been told that it’s better to see them first at night, through ‘son et lumière’ and that it’s a very good show. I quite believe it, but that’s a different matter. With sufficient skill at my command I believe it would be possible to illuminate the history of mankind by “son et lumière” in my kitchen.
The pyramids have an absolute virtue, but depend, like all other earthly things, on perspective. When the perspective is altered, whether by a persistent camel driver or a new catch-penny museum built up against the face of the pyramid itself, the pyramids fail and it is up to the individual to supply, by an act of imagination, what has been stolen. I refuse, because I feel I will become an accomplice of the despoilers.
[I seem to have gone through a rather arrogant phase. Perhaps it was the only way I could find to deal with such a short exposure to such an extraordinary phenomenon.]
If you’d like to reward me for three years of wonderful story-telling with these notebook extracts, you can send me a one-time $100 subscription.
Here’s a portion of the Michelin map I used at the time:
Against the odds I’ve got through to Egypt, and in Alexandria put myself though a crash course in engine repairs. But there were papers I wanted, still coming to Benghazi from the Sunday Times. The owner of the garage was going to Benghazi and said he would get them for me.
Tuesday, 13th
I give my message to the Libyan at the garage. He refuses my Egyptian pound. Says he will pay. Shames my earlier opinion of him. (Although he certainly sought to impress me with his Mercedes). He lives in Barce. Take pix of garage men. Put in new roll of Kodachrome. In my tourist suit I sauntered forth, bristling with Pentax. The feeling was dismal. Suspicion, dislike. Was taken to task for photographing a lady with two children begging across the street. The man followed me for a block, until an older man interceded. “Portez-vous bien,” he said. “Vous pouvez photographier les hommes s’ils acceptent.”
Onto the promenade to take pic of front. Iron grip on my right arm, shouting, instantly surrounded by people. Man in T-shirt, pullover, brown trousers and sort of fez-cum-cap. Face distorted with anger, suspicion, certainty that he had the enemy in his grasp. Shouted for police. “From where you come?” London, I said. “No, no,” he screamed. Soldiers arrive from Navy post right next to me. He insists that they pin my arms behind my back. There is obviously some difference of opinion about the gravity of the matter, but I am marched off to the barracks. Once inside everyone is at great pains to make me feel safe. Captains, majors, and a colonel smile at me and ask me not to let this change my opinion of Egypt. Eventually I am carried off to the general. He sits dignified, dyspeptic, myopic, behind desk loaded with (among other things) medicines. (Parendravite, in pack, other bottles of nameless draughts or lotions). Slowly he peruses my passport, my paper of permission, my ST cutting. Remarks on telephoto lense. I unload the camera and give him the film. Can’t say I mind. The pictures were not dear to me. The major copies down all the details. Then next door, tea with an army brigadier. Asks friendly questions about my journey. Both brigadier and general saw the publicity value to Triumph. He lived in Knightsbridge for two years, next to Harrods. Drive back in blue jeep.
Headquarters spacious, but nothing remarkable. Offices all have army beds made up for the night. Some sense of discipline. Not a bad impression. Walked away looking for my citizen-captor but he had moved on.
Wish I could say I was frightened, but not so. The first moments surrounded by small mob shouting in Arabic, I simply thought, “Well you meant to provoke something, so now we’ll see what happens.” My concern was mainly that it might embarrass the Sunday Times in Cairo, or the old lady at the Pension Normandie. Still hope nothing follows from the incident.
Return to hotel to shed my embarrassing emblems of spy/tourist – the jacket and the Pentax plus lenses. Pull on sweater and walk off to find an older area of the town “quartier populaire.” Not far away I plunged into a narrow street blocked by a lorry. Men passed by grunting under the weight of sacks full of empty cordial bottles. They were being stacked in a “cave” There were may have been up to sixty sacks full. Street level, the houses have doorways and separate lockup areas suitable for small shops open to air, or workshops. In one, two men worked on a great heap of straw or reed, making brooms. Outside another, looking like the debris of a vanished civilisation, stood a number of gilt chair frames as used for public receptions and fashion shows, and a number of people were more or less busy stuffing the seats. A boy passed with a tattered basket of leather straps. A small boy was counting his small hoard of piastres and little notes on the pavement. Fruit, grain merchants. One had a display including corn, whole, broken and ground, dried beans of various kinds including one that swarmed with weevils. I pointed them out and the shopkeeper seemed quite pleased with them. “Sousse,” he kept saying. The beans were for making “fool” as it’s pronounced, a delicious imitation of spiced minced meat, rolled and cooked in sausage shape. Sunflower and sesame seeds also. Then some young people gathered about me. Up to then no-one had approached, and although I was probably being observed, had not realised it. They asked something and I replied as usual that I was English. Then a man with dark blue jacket with leather elbows and mourning strip on lapel asked me for my papers. [They lay the left arm across their upturned right fore-arm and display the right hand. This means “papers.”] but in changing my jacket I had left my passport at the hotel. A certain amount of excitement was noticeable, and I was conveyed through several hands along the street, each one looking more disreputable, although obviously of higher rank. All unshaven, nicotine-stained, coughing. Chain-smoking in Egypt is endemic from the age of seven. Crowd gathered. Several called out “Yehudi”, but as question rather than a menace. Put down in chair outside café. Do I want coffee? Tea? But not so friendly. Just formality. Crowd again. Proprietor throws water at them. They scattered and reformed, everyone coming to look at the Jewish spy. Eventually the chief takes me to his “secret” office. Worthy of any exotic spy film – a hutch buried inside a building, airless, windowless, ceiling barely eight ft. whitewashed, 8ft square, Desk. Pictures on wall of groups of soldiers. One group certainly of British officers in tropical shorts, etc. On desk a montage of magazine cuttings of girls, like soldier’s locker door. Made to sit facing door with my coffee brought to me. Faces kept coming and staring straight at me, long and without expression. By now I felt the crisis was over, but when I was first hustled in there I was ready to expect anything. Nothing is so unnerving as to be propelled into a small space by a noisy crowd you can’t speak to. At last I was ushered out again into a shabby sedan and sandwiched in rear seat between two police in very plain clothes. Three young men in front seat turned out to be chief’s sons. To Police HQ. Made to stand before young, moustachio’d detective who failed to get the Normandie by phone. So off to the hotel to get my papers, although by this time it was clear they had caught no big Jewish fish, but a British boot, which might nevertheless be booby trapped. Even then, having examined my papers (of which the Sunday Times cutting was by far the most persuasive) I was returned yet again to HQ to be formally dismissed with an apology and returned once more to my hotel and the genial M.Pacaud whose appetite was now thoroughly aroused, and equaled the one I had found for a delicious lunch of fish mayonnaise and moussaka.
M.Pacaud’s version, delivered with gusto to the others, was that I had set out in the morning, determined to provoke an incident, with cameras and an obviously sinister wardrobe, and having failed to arouse any interest had climbed onto a pedestal and pointed a telephoto lense at a Russian submarine in the harbour. However my arrest by the Navy having been disappointingly civilised and apologetic, I had returned to the hotel, changed my jacket for an Israeli sweater and, deliberately leaving my papers behind, had sauntered off to the toughest neighbourhood available and behaved as much like a spy as possible while also drawing a merchant’s attention to his infested wares. All of which provoked much laughter and had a grain of truth to it. But Pacaud’s story of the Italian journalist who was sentenced to ten years’ hard for taking a photograph from much the same place suggests that I may have got away lightly.
This curious cave was shown to me by Sa’ad, near his house in Benghazi. The inscription carved into the rock above the entrance, he said, identifies it as a refuge for Jews, but he couldn’t say in what period. Does anyone know?
[As all these events and meetings followed hard on each other I was struggling to make sense of them, trying to find words that fit.]
If and when my fate allows me to complete this singular excursion, what will I have to tell my fellow men. What knowledge will I have that is not already theirs. Or if not theirs, ignored deliberately. I shall say that you may meet any man in the world face to face, one to another, and if you take care to stand on level ground you will meet sympathy, goodwill and generosity. But if you set yourself apart, or above, or allow yourself to be one against many, fear may intervene and produce alarming distortions.
Like any growing thing, a meeting between men flowers from a seed that must be delicately sown and nourished. There is no crash programme, for though the stages and seasons may succeed each other in the space of a moment, each one must have its space and be given its time.
Next week: To Cairo and the Pyramids
Despite all warnings and expectations I came through the frontier from Libya with ease. Far from being shot on sight, I was treated like royalty. A valuable lesson. When it comes to borders you never know until you get there. But now I was in Egypt, at night, totally unprepared. My Michelin map has little to offer. Sidi Barrani, Mersa Matruh, El Alamein, Alexandria – just names from World War II. Rommel vs. Montgomery. Here’s what I noted, word for word.
November 7th
In the dark. With only polaroid glasses. What has happened to the visors? Both gone, in Benghazi with Kerim? Drive slowly through Salloum. Cows, several, in the street. Then on to Sidi Barrani. Petrol. Then police post 18 km from Matruh. By now I’m high on the certainty that I really am in Egypt. I’ve saved £55 and several days. Only problem is getting the letters from Benghazi.
Police stop me. Five minutes, they promise me, shuffling through all my papers. They keep passport then suddenly say I must drive, to Matruh behind that car, to the control. The car sets off fast. I put away papers, zip up bag, etc, and go. He drives at 70. Halfway there I reach for the rt hand pannier. Yes, lid has gone. Wallet has gone. Shocked numb, I stop, turn. And drive slowly on the wrong side back to the police post. Nothing. Yes. Two Peugeots have stopped, going each way. The drivers are out and looking at the ground. One waves me on. Incredibly, I go on. Why? I knew they must have found something. What else should it be but my stuff? But I obeyed his signal. Writing this is very painful. I can hardly admit that my nature is so feeble as to surrender so easily to an imperative wave of a hand. It bodes ill, I feel. Later I found the pannier top. Then further on, the truck driver who was helping saw first glove. Further on I found the second. Obviously the wallet should have been between them. Nothing. Demoralised I went on to Matruh. There I was given my passport. I went back to the road, determined not to let go.
Vaccination certificates, driving licenses, Amex card, cable card, picture of Jo, of mother and Bill, of me for visas. And money: Zambian, Ethiopian, Australian, Brazilian, American, – £30 in all. I have marked the distance from the place where we stopped looking. I drive back on the clock and set up a pile of stones. Drive on a mile, then work slowly back and forth. Nothing. Could the wallet have fallen first? Maybe, with lid only locked at the rear end it flew up and stuck, letting the wallet fall.
I drive back to the police post. The fat young Arab is not pleased, but he lets me look. Then I begin to search the verge from that point. Within fifty yards I see a bundle of papers against a shrub. Wallet broken. No money. No address section. No credit cards. Half of one license. No passport pics. Rest intact. Clearly the Arab found it, threw it away again before the police. If I had been able to speak Arabic he would have been caught at the police post. But it was a sad reverse after my triumphant assault on Egypt from the West. And ironic, after all the stories about Egyptian dishonesty. It is now 2 am, too late for a hotel. I am received by police patrol at Matruh and so flattered by their interest and sympathy that my morale is restored. A glass of tea, handful of huge dates, corned beef and bread. Then I’m offered a bedroom. The pock-faced Arab stays with me and engages me with Arabic lessons. Breakfast – Fetarr; Lunch – Redden; Dinner – Ashair. Week, month, year. It’s 4 am now, and the others have put on fatigues and built me a bedroom roofed by soft-board panels.
November 8th
I sleep well. Happy, all’s good and bad equally. So it goes on. Next morning I go back and find, where wallet originally fell, address pages and pics blowing in the desert. But no credit cards. A ten cruzeiro note and half a Tunisian pound. Halva for breakfast, the police on the road to Alex say “Where’s your special permission?” All crumbles before my eyes. Entry to Egypt is just a comedy. It’s the road to Alex that counts. Now they will send me back. The policeman says, No. In Matruh they will give you permission. I don’t believe it. Up to now all such official predictions have proved false. Why should I believe this one, because it’s convenient.
Well, they would have given me permission – if I hadn’t already got it. [I must have found it stuffed inside the carnet] That first meaningless scribble, performed by an illiterate, was the only paper that really mattered, the paper to carry me, as a foreigner, through the radar country between Matruh and Alex.
NOTES
Saved £55 – lost £35: Net gain £20 and three days.
A World War II relic in the desert: Not much, perhaps, but it affected me.
Alex is a labyrinth. Alamein has War II tanks but got little chance to see them. Good lunch + pint of beer costs 75p (English). Petrol about 25p a gallon. Pipeline under construction along the road. Ends halfway. Resumes outside Alex. Dia about 10”. Water, I suppose. Some asbestos pipe, some steel. Little military to see. Donkeys and camels to plough. Turn over top 3” of sandy soil. Plots here and there. Sea is a miracle of blue. Beach white. Cemeteries for everyone – German, Greek, British. Italian. “Manqua fortuna – non valore.” Many police controls – always friendly. Impressed by my newspaper cutting. Can’t gauge whether I’m first foreigner to come through.
Women now graceful. Poised. Balance tin cans of water on their heads, makes them seem precious as any pottery. On to Pension Normandie.
[I arrived in the centre of Alex. A tout directed me to a hotel on the top floor of one of the graceful buildings near the port. Called Pension Normandie, run by elderly Frenchwoman. Noticed smoke pouring from an exhaust pipe. Obviously there was work to be done.]
Monday November 10th, Alexandria
[I found a garage where I could work on the bike. I had never removed a cylinder head and pistons before, but I had a workshop manual. The two garagemen were no help with it but kept me in sandwiches and cigarettes for two days.]
Two days working on motor. Changed a piston. Sculpted the other. Garage life. Consider the number of old Citroens running around Alexandria. Compared with the European view that Arabs have no idea about maintenance. Obviously the truth lies elsewhere. Consider also the things that have not happened to me. I have not been robbed, solicited, harassed or treated as a Martian. On the contrary, from Tunis to Alex I have been fêted. Why? Clearly I stand in a different relationship to them. Monsieur Pacaud [a distinguished Frenchman also staying at the Normandie] would have it that the Egyptian makes no connection between his financial and personal relationships.
My helpers at the garage; near the railway station in Alexandria
Thus, at the garage we haggled over 5 piastres, yet I received much more than that in value. Sandwiches, tea and coffee were brought in impressive quantities. Cigarettes, which are a piastre each, donated freely. The first garage man says he has ten children, earns £E 7.50 a month (well, even if it’s more than that ten times the amount leaves him poor.)
Next week: My arrests
We left our hero (that’s me) stewing in Benghazi, hoping to get help. My visa forbids me to enter Egypt overland. Egypt is at war with Israel. After waiting uselessly for some news from the Sunday Times, my sponsor, I decide I might as well try anyway. Meanwhile I know that between Benghazi and the frontier are famous Roman ruins, not to be missed. These are the notes exactly as I wrote them.
November 5th, leaving Benghazi for the frontier
Kerim’s counsel – visit Cyrene and Appolonius on the way back.
Egyptian consul: “It is absolutely impossible for you to go through to Cairo.” Everybody else more or less emphatically agrees, although when they see I’m determined they say “maybe since you’re journalist”, and so on.
For myself I treat my visit to the frontier as an excursion and set out convinced that I shall return in four or five days to collect the papers now on their way from London, and to put myself and my bike on the plane to Cairo for about $60. I have found this cheaper than road transport for the bike (lowest quote £53) and although a boat would be cheaper there is none till the 20th – in two weeks’ time.
So off to Derna at 2pm. Lose my way slightly and detour by airport, emerging onto main road where the police checkpoint has massive queue of travellers in taxis. But I slip past unnoticed. Travelling East the fez gives way to turban, the women’s white cloak to the check pattern blue and red. Road good but uneventful. Even Michelin green bit is only an average road in the hills of Provence, but rising inland the air becomes quite cold. (although only 1000ft up, at most) and land much richer in vegetation and farming. Building projects, new houses the ‘new town’ with the mosque and grain silo
Realise I must have missed Derna road – and now on the road to El Beida, which means taking the antiquities in now rather than on the way back. But first nightfall intervenes. Find shallow dip between scrub wooded hills, where patch of grass has been cleared and levelled for my particular use by an ally.
Set up tent. Build fire. Cook Bulgarian mixed veg and peppers with corned beef. Coffee. Very good. Use battery/recorder device. Works well. 8.30 pm. No more distractions. Go to bed. Hear distant male voice, wandering past, coming to me from all directions, talking to dog, which yelps obediently. Can’t help a mounting sense of anxiety. And when the voice breaks into a lusty song I scramble into my trousers, shirt, sweater, jacket, boots and light a cigarette, and advance to confront the enemy. Amazed to find a flock of about fifty sheep gathered by roadside, (hundred yards away). In the middle, two cloaked, turbaned figures; Bright moon gives their clothes a rich appearance. (Next day I see it is only sacking.) We exchange greetings – try to converse but fail. I return to tent and sleep calmly, like one of their sheep. Awake to find them gathered about me. Gazing at the paraphernalia assembled (and am now packing) to pass a night which they endured with such simplicity.
[Although I am not religious, I was aware that this part of the world, called Cyrenaica, had an important part to play in the bible story, and I was powerfully affected by the biblical imagery conjured up in moonlight by noble-seeming shepherds in shining raiment ”watching their flocks by night.” Even more so next morning when, without the trick of moonlight their “raiment” was reduced to sackcloth, their turbans to rags, and they to poor, shivering peasants.]
It is freezing. Dew turned to ice. Fingers numb. Tent soaking wet. Pack and leave.
To Shahat, which is Cyrene. Ruins. Pictures.
[I was totally unprepared for what I found. A huge city of Roman ruins, totally deserted but for one Englishman, a French commercial traveller, and a minimal hotel staff.]
Frenchman at Tourist Hotel. Again, that curious French logic which somehow devalues the Arab quality while paying lip service to it. But good company.
(Jacques Puistienne, African Sales Director, Rhone-Poulenc-Textile, 5 Avenue Percier, 75. Paris 8e. 256 75 75)
Also, English ex-soldier, now wireless/radar installation engineer, living in chalet at hotel. Plastic on horns [???] British bring in brew-it-yourself beer. Says Libyans can’t cope with their technology. Mental age of fourteen.
Party of [Libyan] Air Force bigwigs arrive on guided tour accompanied by Air Force photographer with flash. Very American. After lunch they sweep in and out of Cyrene in ten minutes.
Englishman: “Border is military zone. Itchy trigger fingers. They shoot first then ask. One more Sunday Times man gone.”
All the world loves a lurid tale.
[I leave in the afternoon for Tobruk]
On past Apollonius, and the rugged coast road (the old Italian road) where again the sun catches me. Tent. Mosquitoes this time. Net works well – one bite. Stay up longer this time. Night warm. Sleep well. Morning dry. No condensation. Leave at 8 am. Derna. Tobruk. Hot sun. Meet Noel Moloney in road. Teaches at Oil (‘Isle’) Institute. Invited to tea. Stay for lunch. Wine. Wife Italian. Giuseppina. She hates Arabs. He says they’re childish. Earns £500 a month. 60% take abroad. Buying flat in Ancona. Another in Rome, and farmhouse in Ireland. Says the Libyans regard foreigners as “exploiters.” Has little affection for them. Remarks that after a while the students and staff at institute seem to have fondness for him.
Small children can’t play with Arabs because of skin diseases. [says the wife]
I become increasingly impressed by the difference between my experiences and those of other Europeans. “It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t treat us like Martians in the street.” Says Libyans under-use him. Works less than six months in the year (but paid full time.)
They invite me to sleep on my way back. [I am totally convinced they won’t let me into Egypt.]
At 3pm I set off for the frontier. 75 miles. 65 minutes. Convinced I can’t hope to pass but can’t resist the fantasy that I might. Arrive before sunset at Libyan police post. They take my currency exchange form. Why? They show no surprise at my passport. Obviously, they are indulging me in my little escapade. I humour their indulgence. I drive on, waiting for the man who says “No.” Have rehearsed all sorts of speeches about the meaning of war, the importance of adventure, the Arab cause, etc. Come to row of mobile site offices and barricade. More Libyans, but this time they stamp my passport. Now it’s serious because I’m not 100% sure that when Egypt sends me back, Libya will take me. Ridiculous. They wave me through. What, all the way? Yes. I drive into the main customs area, and with delightful innocence plough past the massed taxis, turbans, and mountains of carpet in plastic bags. Eventually I’m hauled back to the “Captain” who presides at a desk on a rostrum.
There, a roly-poly man, unshaven, moustache, takes me personally under his wing. Jumps all queues, gives me a glass of tea. Then:
(1) Man reads my UAR visa, several times looks at “No Entry” qualification. “Access to the UAR via the coast of N.Africa and Salloum is not permitted.” But seems to see nothing there of interest. Takes me to –
(2) Where, with a semi-literate they fill in a Roneo’d form. Great problem with XRW964M. Then give me the paper. I stuff it in with the carnet. Then –
(3) And (4) is another flurry of papers, given and exchanged. I no longer have any idea which are Egyptian, which Libyan, but keeping track is full time as Roly-poly beckons me on. At one point I lose sight of the first paper, something to do with police. “Is it important,” asks Roly-poly. “It isn’t. Never mind.” I give way, knowing I shouldn’t. Change money at (5), pay for licensing bike at (6). Back to (3) for argument about carnet. Then at (7) Libyans discharge it. to (8) where a police officer behind a row of ledgers so thumbed as to be eroded like old stone bannisters, says he’ll give me three months and hands me two heavy steel number plates. Bemused, I totter off with my load.
“That’s all,” says Roly-Poly. “Now, can I help you in any other way?” I don’t know what to do. Fumble towards my pocket, then decide against it. He looks corrupt, but that’s as likely to be my prejudice. Why assume it? He seems happy enough when I thank him and turn away.
Earlier, he asked, urgently, “Did you thank him?” referring to the captain. Puzzled, I replied “I always thank everyone.” He laughs loudly, but I’m no wiser. Did he mean bribe, reward? Meanwhile I’ve found that first cryptic form again, and stuff it away with all the others. There is no room for passport and wallet in the tank bag. I lay them over big gloves in the rt-hand pannier. Lock up and leave. The impossible has happened. I’m in Egypt.
Next week: The rocky road to Alexandria.
