Friday 14 December 2007

Cairo

note that black cloud in the background



I had many pre-conceptions of Cairo before arriving. non of them were right, apart from the pollution or the black cloud as they so ominously call it. it is a wonderful city. today i think i truly came to grips with it. the people are wonderful and vibrant and the history fascinating. the ancient egyptians used to worship two gods, Horus (the god of order) and Set (the god of chaos). when shown together they symbolized a balance of the orders. modern day cairo is exactly that, a balance between anarchy and order. there is no order to cairo's traffic, yet when placed together it becomes one flowing organism. when broken down and isolated into smaller fragments one would see anarchy, yet viewing the greater whole, one would see order. this strange balance is replicated in everything that cairo does.

Il Cairo e' una citta' affascinante. Ricca di storia e di cultura, ma estremamente caotica e disordinata. Ci vogliono almeno 2 o 3 giorni per riuscire a capire come muoversi in mezzo al traffico ed ai cairoti. Solo allora si riesce ad apprezzare quello che l'Egitto e' in grado di offrire.

Lungo le strade della citta' e soprattutto nei luoghi turistici si viene letteralmente assaliti da persone di ogni tipo che cercano con ogni mezzo di ottenere qualcosa da te. Diventa veramente difficile distinguere i semplici procacciatori d'affari da chi invece cerca di stabilire un rapporto in modo del tutto disinteressato.

Colonna sonora: "Everybody's talkin' at me" Harry Nilsson

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