Cairo Highway Cafe

The driving sun had passed over the yardarm as we descended Aswan High Dam. Ahead lay Luxor, 241 kilometres north, purportedly a three-and-a-bit hour drive if you don’t stop at the three temples Esna, Edfu, and Kom Ombo. Departing Luxor at 6am for Aswan my Nubian drivers, yes plural there are two, preempted the southward crush of tourists, potential erratic conditions, and choked roadways. We took in the temples and it took seven hours. What to do? It’s 2:00pm. It will be dark in four hours any tourist knows not to be out on these roads after dark.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

Two days prior I had hopped on board a felucca to sail up and down the Nile River for a few hours between Luxor on the west bank, and Ramla on the east. The boat captain Jimmy, and his crew member Abdul, suggested the trip to Aswan by road, and recommended the driving service of their Nubian friends. I keep mentioning Nubian for perspective, because around here they are not the most trusted by Egyptians. I agreed, and Abdul put through the call to book. Jimmy’s felucca is named the Jimi Hedrix, and a couple of times he handed the tiller to Abdul, disappearing into the prow for a quick spliff, re-emerging ten minutes later in a haze of herbal smoke. Why would I doubt Jimmy’s word on the drivers.

Forty minutes on water was hot work. Jimmy plunged the Jimi into a bank of tall reeds down river, and thew anchor. Apparently this was the sign to disrobe, jump overboard for a swim in the Nile, known to be crocodile habitat. Abdul was first, followed by Jimmy clutching a bar of soap. I sat onboard, alone, like a vestal virgin, nonplussed. Momentarily. I am surprised by how strong the current is.

Now you know the how and why of the Aswan situation, the drivers, their white cargo, and fading light. The obvious alternative route was to return on the Cairo Highway. Virtually a straight line through the Sahara Desert, and could be done in three hours. One small problem, foreigners are forbidden to travel the highway in any mode of transport after midday. The reason is clear.

Egyptian authorities have placed a significant security presence across the country, including armed security officers at critical infrastructure (Aswan Dam), and roadside checkpoints (Cairo Highway entry and exits), extra measures at important tourist sites (the three temples visited earlier today). And for good reason, recent attacks include gunmen opening fire on a bus carrying Coptic Christians in Minya province killing 7 people, 3 security personnel killed by a suicide bomber in Central Cairo’s Darb al-ahmar district, a roadside blast killed 4 people on a bus near the Giza pyramids, and the list grows.

Throwing caution to the desert wind, I hid from view in the back seat, the view from the front amply filled by two burly Nubian men, we made a play for it. We were going in undercover.

Surrounded by impatient drivers in the rumbling convoy of vehicles all eager to hit the highway, wedged between oversized big rigs we inched closer to the entry. What seemed an interminable time later, actually fifteen minutes, I emerged from my backseat hideaway at high speed surrounded by the Sahara Desert.

Not the endless golden sand dunes of tourist brochures, not the desert where from a shimmering mirage Omar Sharif came galumphing astride a camel. This was rubble, pebbled, rocky, dirty, shifting sand creeping across the bitumen aided by grizzly wind, looking like a child’s abandoned sand pit. And then in the distance, signs of life.

At first it looked like a bomb site, nothing made sense. Barely intact, thick chords of wire twisted in agony held up gaping crumpled walls. It was wreckage. Not one of the smaller surrounding out-buildings had fared any better. The closer we got, smoke could be seen wafting in the afternoon breeze through blue curtains hastily hung across the remains of an arched window. We pulled off-road, parking alongside the one wall capable of holding itself upright. No front doors, no front wall to speak of, a car and motorcycle parked inside on the dirt floor, scattered plastic tables and chairs, discarded gas cylinders, a Pepsi freezer chest. Ordered coffee for three, passed on the menu item. The drivers lit up, falling into an aforementioned table setting, then sardonically asked for an ashtray. We had arrived at the Cairo Highway Café.

As tempting as it was, we didn’t overstay, now more than halfway it became a race before sunset. There was one more hurdle to overcome. The driver’s knew if pulled over, police could still order the car back to Aswan, even if it was at the tourist police checkpoint we’d need to pass just kilometres from entering Luxor. Knowing there’d be no smuggling me through, I was sat in the front seat in full view, my passport full of Egyptian pounds to secure safe passage into the city.

Guilt is not something I wear easily. Nothing like a police box housing uniformed, well-armed, grim looking, badged tourist police to set my brow sweating. The last vestiges of sunlight glint off the processing officer’s sunglasses as he leans into the car window taking the passport from my tremulous hand. I had been sworn to silence no matter the outcome, Driver #1 would handle everything.

We sat. What was it, ten minutes, twenty, a lifetime?

Fifty-five minutes later it was dark when we met the felucca lads Jimmy and Abdul at a prearranged destination, and sat on the restaurant’s open rooftop overlooking the Nile River with Luxor glittering on the opposite bank, two Egyptians, two Nubians, and one Australian partaking the house specialty, the middle eastern banquet.

Click on a pic to enlarge.

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