Chapter 15
Cairo, Athens
We flew first to Cairo. We caught a taxi, an old Mercedes with an 007-agent driver. He did not know the hotel I named, but he knew the street and we found it. It has been a very small hotel on the 3rd and 4th floor of an apartment house in the proximity of down-town Cairo.
We had a lucky stay in the Egyptian capital. Heat was oppressive, but for low moisture we did not feel it. Only our thirst has been unbelievable. Temperature reached 110 degrees F in the afternoon. My Soviet movie camera went out-of-order, its prism in the viewer would not hold.
On the first day in the city we wanted to change money and we caught a taxi. It was a Turkish FIAT 131 and its driver has been a copy of my father-in-law. He took us to a bank and offered to drive us during all our stay. We did not need it too much, but for that afternoon we accepted it. We went out to Giza to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. We agreed that the next day we would make a big walk, but two days later he would pick us up to make a trip to Sakkara and Memphis.
Our walk in the city included the Egyptian Museum, the Citadel – another taxi-driver helped us in that – and the big bazaar. As we had a lot of baggage we did not want to by many things, but my son has got his camel puppet. We altered our plans and bought leather jackets, too, just to discover holes covered with pockets. They have been placed on holes in the leather to hide those faults. Well, a poor man cannot afford to buy cheap goods.
The next -- and our last -- whole day in Cairo we used to see the oldest structures in Egypt. The partly ruinous temple at the border of desert, as well as the ancient -- four and a half thousand years old -- mastabas were my most overwhelming experiences. Desert dominated all, even the colour of clear sky has been grey, not blue.
I have been deeply impressed by my stay in Egypt. Twelve years earlier my wife had started a sequence in my brain with her Christmas gift, the book of Tutankhamon, that has been completed that day in Sakkara.
The next morning "our driver” took us to the airport. On route we got out with our faulty jackets to change them in the shop. The jam was so complete that we managed to replace the jackets and then about 300 feet farther we found our taxi inching forward. We have got into the danger of getting late to the airport. Our flight has been saved only that we spotted the Ethiopian representative and waved to call his attention to us. He sighted us and and led us through all gates without any checks. The plane was ready for take-off, they were waiting only for us.
This leg of our homeward trip took us to Athens. And in six days I could get my Honda Civic 5-door hatchback, with a colour of Rhodes red metallic. When I selected this type I had been going through about 40 makes and types and decided for this one to have a car for my taste in case I would not be able to sell it for a good price. To tell the truth I did not buy it to keep. I wanted to do a favour for my family, they both had long dreamed about a house with garden.
We took the bus to the Sarakakis garage. It was an Ikarus city bus assembled by the same garage, as Mr Sarakakis has also served as an agent for Ikarus beside Honda. Our car was ready. Funny cardboard plate numbers have been mounted both front and rear. It read EXP 0001. It was their first car to sell within the diplomatic duty-free system.
I had got a wonderful two-volume guide at the Addis Ababa Greek embassy. One volume described all in the country precisely, the other one was an atlas. I used it to reach the border at Evzones, you can never wish to have a better guide.