First night out in Cairo

The remaining distance between the final Rafiah border post and Cairo consisted of a road through Beduin inhabited desert with the odd, sparce, half built village. On our right was the Med and on the left the Sinai. We had an armed escort all the way, consisting of a jeep with 6 soldiers and every 50kms they changed escorts. We crossed the Suez canal on a small ferry. The Suez is about 150m wide and 40m deep and was man made. We entered Cairo about 8:30 in the evening. It is a very large city and reminded me of Johannesburg or London, until we drove over a flyover road and saw underneath hoards of people shopping in the brightly lit sook/market. Very colorful and noisy. Arrived at the Salma Hotel at 8:45 and at 9:15 we had a date!
The bus guide had volunteered to take us in his car and show us Cairo. He - Ayman - turned up with a friend and off we went.
First we crossed the Nile, which reminded me of the Thames, the way the city encases it. On the "island" which you can drive to, we saw Cairo tower, which gives an alround bird's eye view of the city. After that we went to the market, or rather a series of very small shops. We attempted to drive up a few very narrow alleys, passing shops, chickens etc. and then had to come all the way out, in reverse as it was too crowded to go any further. We decided to go and eat. So we went to the Farfaul restaurant. All the time the men insisted on paying and treated us with the utmost respect. The main impression of the place is the size, it is huge. We ate fual beans in garlic sauce, falafal balls, green tahina, 2 salads which I have no idea what they were, egg plant, and drank beer served in bottles the size of wine bottles. For deseart, a Umm Ali, baked milk pudding, pastry and nuts, a spicey dish a bit like bread pudding but with pastry. Then we returned to the market hoping it would have emptied out a bit. There we had a man snip at a piece of black paper and in about 30 seconds he had created silhouette portrates. We walked through the market - I hate to call it that, as each stall is in the arched entrance to a shop. We walked under a road in a kind of subway tunnel, where there were young children and beggers sitting or sleeping. All the woman were modestly dressed. There were many out door cafes, with tables and chairs outside and rows of men sitting smoking hubblie bubblies ( hukkas/nargila), they goggled at us with smokey blank eyes. The coffee houses rent the hukkas out. Our final excursion was to a very high hill, where again we had a bird's eye view of the city. The wind was blowing and I imagined I was standing on the head of the Sphinx looking out over the city. We were taken home without any unpleasent propositioning, stepped out of the car and into our hotel - exhausted.