Siwa: Alexander's loneliness

For: Juan Ramon Morales (text and photos)
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I think it was Malcolm Lowry who once said that a city area only if it can find a good bookstore with a cafe nearby.

I do not know the extent to which many subscribe to that thesis. I if I do, sure travelers but more of a metropolis would deny flatly (many of them would be unable to find a book at home or tell a good bookseller keys salesman, but this is another topic).

A few weeks ago I received an email from an old friend Egyptian

A few weeks ago I received an email from an old friend Egyptian, neighbor of one of the most ancient library of Alexandria, Local old Armenian property, Jews and Greeks that his father "bought" after Nasser's revolution in the years 50 the last century. Paragraphs on known almost forgotten, convoluted story a few weeks and fear of the future. And a memory, reflecting a trip far away another, towards the edge of the desert.

Ago 2300 years, a group of young Macedonians passed through these lands after going around the established order of the world, without complex, and with a bright future and perhaps fearful, depends on the historian to read. Egypt was like the Promised Land of the ancient. A civilization as old, exhausted, but full of the details that make travelers move, merchants and soldiers, among others.

The Macedonians, with Alexander at the head, deviated from its logical path to Persia and destination

The Macedonians, with Alexander at the head, deviated from its logical path to Persia and destination, entering Gaza after taking in the Nile Delta. They visited the pyramids, the temples, suffered from the rapacity of the local merchants, and the whole repertoire traveler awaits you (revolutions apart) in the country of the Nile. And there, in the Delta, next to a small fishing village open to a cove surrounded by swamps, founded the first Alexandria, first of many and the largest of all.

Much time has passed since then. The Alexandria today has nothing to do with the ancient city, though many seek similar. But as the big cities that have been, instead it will reinvent known tune every time, always cosmopolitan, always full of people passing, warm, wet, sometimes anger and aggressive, always oriented towards the sea. This whole story is a story one afternoon in a cafe.

The old cafe where Cavafy composed many of his poems

From Trianon es, as Florian in Venice, Café de la Paix in Paris and many other local authors coat, the center where every lover of literature just calling in Egypt. The old cafe where Cavafy composed many of his poems, remains open, continues to serve the broth bitter and exciting East, facing the Mediterranean.

He had been two months in Egypt working on a topic that had little to do with Alejandro, photographing Coptic churches in the Cairo neighborhood of Mar Girgis and Wadi Natron. A fascinating environment but after several weeks began to agobiarme. So, after buying a small volume of Cavafy and the memory of Lawrence Durrell lines, I went to Alexandria one weeks.

And sitting at the Trianon, Yusuf found, speaking voice a little too high with Irish backpackers several tables away from mine. If it was a Muslim country would almost say that Yusuf had more than a glass top (maybe had), while fumbled, got up from the chair and the color of his face would include a whole palette of colors to red. The face of the Irish also changed, but towards paler shades ..... The fact is that one of the tourists spoke Greek, not very good Greek, and Yusuf, guardian of an ancient tradition, would not allow the language of Homer was so drawn or on the sidewalks of Alexandria. And it happened what always happens in these cases in Egypt. The waiter disappeared from the scene, the Irish became transparent to shame, rose left a note on the table, and disappeared. And all fixed.

The waiter disappeared from the scene, the Irish became transparent to shame, rose left a note on the table

That was when the volcano calmed Yusuf verbiage, se giró y me vió. We exchanged glances (mine running as fast as he could, scrutinizing his another debate surely), got up and came to my table. I was looking for a ticket in the pocket to run away from trouble when Yusuf put his hand on the back, smiled with a mouth nailed to a character in Asterix (Arab traders to mas passwords, it could not be otro) and begins to monologar of Nuevo, by suerte more calm, on su ciudad y su poet, pleased to see that it tennis small volume junto a mi coffee and make sure I join Ahorro y piastres a bad mouse.

Y so begins una amistad broken, barely bearable, with one person who recuerdo siempre as if a book is dense tried. Yusuf tiene passages impossible, illegible, tempt you completely leave your company. But almost accidentally, llege una página to where you open one story that engages you, you can sign in DEJAR, and that almost turned on siempre su ciudad y su story.

With Yusuf visited the Catacombs of Kom el Shofafa accompanied by a relative of the person who rediscovered, following the donkey accidentally reopened tuner falling into the void (and nobody ever telling me how he ended the poor. Sad heroes of archeology). A maze of gallery, crypts and chambers, that snake beneath the city and are one of the few remaining vestiges of the city before the Arab conquest.

With Yusuf sought the tomb of Alexander, the Alexandrian Grail of archeology

With Yusuf sought the tomb of Alexander, the Alexandrian Grail of archeology, at the gates of a mosque, old church, former synagogue, ancient temple and God knows what else, whose caregiver threw us in very clear, the yelling, Yusuf crying while laughing. I would have more but the translation of Yusuf ("John is not a discussion, ful only talk (baked beans) his cousin's restaurant ..... ") I do not buy much.

One morning, after he had been two weeks in the city, Yusuf told me that the next day we would leave to Siwa, the oasis near the Libyan border where Alexander received the oracle of Ammon lips announcing its glorious destiny, and maybe more things that did not count, giving rise to their peers and historians to imagine all sorts of myths.

The paradise of “middle-aged navels”

And the next day we left the desert in a bus full of a family of at least 40 people on the way to a wedding at the oasis. If you have not ever traveled in a bus Egyptian, prepare you for what here would 9 hours Paco Martínez Soria movies (or perhaps Ozores ...) and programs like Saturday Night, with overweight diva singing her youth and lost lovers and meat drowned in outdoor clothing. as my grandmother. A friend described the program as the paradise of the "middle-aged belly buttons", graphic and sufficient.

Siwa is one of the oases that dot the desert, that this area of ​​the Sahara receives the evocative name of Great Sand Sea. The road follows the coast of the Mediterranean, passing the ancient battlefield of El Alamein, to Marsa Matrouh, Libya almost on the border, afternoon and going deeper in the Sahara, the evening, fireplaces with several natural gas wells ablaze the horizon to Libya.

The Sahara mud architecture could not stand the storm and roofs collapsed like a meringue pie

The "city" oasis main revolves around the remains of Shali, the ancient city of mud that swept an unexpected storm a few decades ago. The Sahara mud architecture could not stand the storm and roofs collapsed like a meringue pie. Today, the city is more a set of concrete administrative buildings, luckily a few heights, contrast to the small villages of mud and palm, between the salt lakes in the oasis, that give the place a wonderful charm.

The best way to get around the roads of Siwa is a bike. Locals still use donkey carts and cars are few, which it is a real pleasure. And from Alexandria Yusuf not stop talking. It's amazing how a topic with other chains. In fact, hear sometimes is like having your car radio turned on. You know I occasionally lose the thread, but you can always go back to listening and on and on, although usually in a different subject than had at first. It's one of those people who must also listen. You're just a spectator who encourages him to go and he never will contradict. I've never had need for it or think it's healthy, for the good mind and maybe even having opposite physical.

The trip was for me, and with the return ticket around in my pocket, the top of my days in Alexandria. Yusuf would lead me to know everyone important oasis, as we all knew him. It later turned out that he had never been there and nobody knew him, but that was no problem for it to be preached throughout the city, asking directions of people who did not know anyone. But, And here we were here we would still.

And a great silence, just some background lark

On the way to the ancient temple of the Oracle, Cycling, with a temperature all unpleasant, were passing small towns full of children, where the dry smell of dry leaves and overripe fruit wrapping as you would pedaleabas. The temple, what's left of it, is a small complex rebuilt in Roman times. Not a single tourist in the small hill where the desert stretched beyond shallow lakes of Siwa. And a great silence, just some background lark.

Places like this have always fascinated me. Am, I admit, a true "geek" of history. Being in the very oracle of Ammon, almost alone and in silence, you can not compare it to anything. The Oracle room is just a small room with no ceiling no more than 40 square meters. Thinking it's more than possible that this small room became pharaohs, Roman emperors, some of the greatest generals of history and the very Alejandro is, simply, incredible, and the feeling of living in your skin the weight of all those people over the centuries can almost feel.

Yusuf, on my back, smiled quietly (itself a miracle). A true Alexandrian in the same place as the founder stepped without any doubt. And a small smile spread across her face.

Maybe that's what Alexander himself felt in that room that changed world history

Returned to the city in silence and that night we took a bus back again to Alexandria. No it would have on the head Yusuf, lost in daydreams, but it was the loneliest hours I remember from those days. Maybe that's what Alexander himself felt in that room that changed world history, his own loneliness to the world, something every good traveler has felt before or after.

A few days later he returned to Cairo and home. Yusuf walked me to the train station almost silent, talking about things unrelated. As early as the platform give me a small package, Giego a book written and published in 1906, course Cavafi poems. And he went.

I have the book here, em my table. We have not seen him. Only some letters and some emails (Yusuf is one of the last people I know who has surrendered to the evidence of emails and impersonal). Many of mine go unanswered and many of yours are incomprehensible, but has a way of writing, from topic to topic and always with silence to let you reflect, which lead me back to the banks of the Sahara, that little room with no ceiling from which, who knows, the fate of the world changed forever.

Thanks friend Yusuf, yet.

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Comments (1)

  • Javier Brandoli

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    It is a pleasure to edit stories like this. I guess when we devised Viajesalpasado liked to think that people like Juanra write in this project. Then it was a question whether we would find. VaP. is full of people who are telling stories buenisimas from all over the world. Sorry for the sincere relief and congratulations Juanra!.

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