Ancient Sea Swim

Dawn’s red lines were pushing on the lightly dark lines in the sky, I and my cousin were set to leave to the north of Cairo, heading to sea chores of the Mediterranean Sea, of Alexandria. my cousin is younger by few years, fairly taller than me, and extremely shy person, with a habit of sleeping whenever there was nothing to be done.
For the trip, we planed of taking the most easiest and fastest way, calling a taxi, since you actually cant call a taxi of the city streets and him, to take to totally different city, we had arranged for taxi from the night before, we agreed that he would pick us both early in the morning. The car was 1939 Oldsmobile, a small machine with reasonable speed in crowded city like Cairo. When we were set to go, I jumped inside the car on the small Cochin, with colored rags on it to hide the metal parts, pointing out. I rolled down the window, checked to see if all my stuff was in the right place. I tried to remember if I did lock the apartment’s door, I asked my cousin have you fed the fish ?, he nodded with his eyes closed, which I presumed meant yes, I singled to the driver who was about to light up a cigarette, and off we go.
It would be my first visit to Alexandria city. I had heard so many stories about that city. The ancient roman ruins, statues, where both the Romans and the Egyptian empire had ruled together, the famous light house to date was located as well.
I asked the driver, “have you been to Alexandria before?”, he replied behind a cloud of cigarette smoke, ”Yeah last year, me, my wife and, my two kids”, “Did they like it? the city and all?”, I asked. “Nothing like Cairo,” he replied with the cigarette hanging out if his mouth. “You see” he told me “people from Alexandria are not fond of us people from Cairo”, I interrupted him “what! Both of you are from the same country! Though”, “Yeah I know that” he said, but you see, he said, “Alexandrians look at themselves more, of a Greeks then Egyptians”, he explained. Honestly, I still did not like his explanation, but we agreed that the city was beautiful, and the seafood will make anyone get along on one table. It appeared that our route leading to the Alexandria city passes through the mighty pyramids, As the sun rose behind the largest pyramid, Kufu , it looked like a scene from that Elizabeth tailor movie, Cleopatra. The pyramids stood still there in the middle of the vast sands of the Egyptian desert. It was nothing like the post cards, or art history books pictures. These stones were awesome creations of humankind, never disturbed by blistering harsh winds of the desert.
I asked the taxi driver about what he thought about the Sphinx statue leaning down, facing west far from where we were. He had to fade out the high-pitched music on the radio and replied, “I would eat anything if you were buying” I said, “what you mean?” He replied, “I thought you are asking me what I wanted to eat ?”, “oh no my friend” I said what you think about the improvement the government did with the sphinx ?”, he laughed and nudged my cousin who was in deep sleep next to him, and told him “your brother back there is hard to get him buy us some food”, We all laughed, this was no first time a taxi driver in Cairo’s street will make you question what you just told him. I have had this type of incident before and I ended up buying for the whole family, so I understood that he was hungry.
I pushed my cousin’s seat in front of me.”Yo! lets go grab a bite”, he was a sleep again, I patted him on the shoulder, “lets go eat something”, he said something which I did not understood and went to sleep again, so I asked the driver, to stop by one the many food stands, along the road made normally for truck drivers. The sun was already beaming, wasteland and hills along the way, in the guidebook these sights were the journey, which Moses and his people took when departing Egyptian grounds. This is amazing I thought to my self, this place is a living, breathing history museum.
The air was heavy with sea salt and fish smell. I knew from there on that we had arrived. I paid the driver, the money we had had agreed on, but from some reason he thought it was not enough, this was a second familiar situation I had encountered before. I agreed, and paid an extra “tip”, we exchanged goodbyes and he left. The city looked noting like Cairo looked. The buildings were smaller, streets were less crowded, and the people were dressed in their traditional dress, big black trousers, and white shirt, with a small fishing white hat.
I was tired from a three-hour trip. Yet I wanted to explore the city, so I wasted no time, I told my cousin, “lets drop the bags in the apartment , and head for the waters”, he replied “ Ok but am not swimming”, ”What” I interrupted, “and why is that?”, “I don’t feel like it”, he explained. “fine with me”, I told him that I am leaving right away, I changed my clothes quickly. I headed to the apartment’s door, looked back and shouted at the living room, “I am going to the beach”.
Armed only with a towel, I went down the stairs, through a big door, I saw couple of small kids walking by no shirts, no shoes on. So I figured the beach must be near by !, ascended up to the room again, and left my slippers in front of the room’s door and went back down. Now I thought I was ready to headed to the water, I looked around to find the kids whom just passes but they were no where to be found, now I had to find someone to follow I or just ask where is the sea, which seemed like stupid question in a city surrounded by water !.
By now it was two or three o’clock, and the beach was nowhere to be found. Walking barefoot seemed like fun idea in the beginning, but by that moment it was no fun, I wondered how those kids managed to walk in such hot weather on the road. I thought of my self as native Mayan Indian walking on fiery stones. This is it I thought, I‘d just ask for directions, I looked around me, there was a small shop near by, right by the side of the street. I rushed very quickly, a bell rang as I got inside, there was middle aged man, setting behind the desk, reading and sipping a cup of what appears to be tea, so I asked him right away, “where would the beach located?”.
He raised his head looked at me, squinted twice, opened his mouth and replied “its over there”, pointing the wall across his desk, which I assumed to be north, I thanked the man, and opened the door, the bell rang again, as I opened wide, wave of heat hit my face, and back on the street I went.from the middle aged man’s pointing, I figured that it must that area behind couple of buildings. I walked one block, near by a traffic light, I took a right turn from a narrowed road populated by tress, I walked more toward the end of the buildings, there was a narrow opening, I heard children’s voices playing and shouting, and seemed like there is adults as well, I approached where the voices are coming from. As I approached, it became clearer and clearer, and the sea expanded, from that narrow opening to a huge blue thick line, seagulls were chanting, with the sound of the waves, in the background. I got what I came for, after five minutes of wondering, it seemed like five hours. I had a feeling of triumph, as if I just discovered an Oasis in the middle of a desert. I put my towel on the sands, took off my shirt, did some warm-up exercises, while looking at all the people around me, enjoying nice sea breeze. I walked slowly toward the waters, cold splashes hit my skin, as I get closer, from where I stood I could see Greece, very far I thought, “this is exactly what it must looked like”, around the ancient Greek times, I took a deep breath of air , and jumped as the waves were approaching the sands. Inside the waters it was cold, and loud and bitterly salty, my head made it to the sea surface, water dripping from my head, I looked with blurry eye toward Greece again, and I thought what if I can make that ancient swim.