A Christmas Cairo 

A few years back, with winter sunshine in mind, I decided I needed a holiday. It would mean forfeiting a Totnes Christmas – a time of year, despite its overlain trimmings, that I enjoy.

And so with a freshly-minted passport and a ridiculously cheap airplane ticket, I found myself in Dahab, a small seaside town on the east coast of Egypt, known for its sunshine, beach yoga, sun-bleached dream catchers, snorkelling, and the more rarefied discipline of Freediving  – or as it’s known in some quarters, “French existentialist swimming”.

It was like getting a police escort

So there I was, a bloke in his late 60’s, finding himself a bit out of sorts, wandering around toting a Smiley-Face Happy Apple bag – I travel light – thinking that someone would shout “Yo! Totnes! Know it well,” and affably engage. Sadly not a sausage – vegan or otherwise.

Things picked up a bit at a Christmas eve beach party, were I fell into the company of two desperado Egyptian army draft dodgers, and some enthused Tequila drinking.

Consequently the next day my 12-hour desert coach-stretch to Cairo had me all parts rendered inoperative with a bristling hangover, complicated by my phone black-screening on me. Luckily I had scrawled the address and telephone number of my onward Airbnb, located in a gated community called Gardenia, on the back of a serviette. That would get me there. No problems, my dumb-ass tourist brain told me.

As soon as I alighted from the coach and into the battered taxi in a ill-lit suburb of Cairo I knew I’d made a tactical error.

The driver – a man with a smile permanently emanating from his rotund face and a car with one working headlight – took the serviette from me, obviously couldn’t read a word of it – and why would he. Said “No problem,” and we lurched forward into the night. Half a mile down the road he stopped, wound his window down, waved a random over, and showed him my serviette. The word Gardenia was mentioned, but no one was the wiser.

And so it went. It felt like we were driving around in circles, each passed circuit marked incrementally by my driver shouting “Gardenia” at someone and a bunging another 100 Egyptian pounds on my taxi bill. Not a huge amount by UK standards, but I had the distinct impression that my driver may have temporarily converted to Christianity, because I had arrived like a Christmas turkey, with my cargo pockets stuffed with local currency.

I decided at the next ‘Gardenia’ pit-stop pantomime, I would wash my hands of it all, pay my fare, and walk off until I found a hotel.

True to form, we pulled up to yet another kerbside. A young guy stood there on the passenger side of the taxi with a phone in hand. He took hold of the serviette, and another Gardenia-peppered conversation started, and I zoned out. I muffled the bell. I simply had enough of it all. My hand faltered on the car door handle.

I stared down at the taxi’s dashboard. Frayed wires stuck out of it – obviously part of the headlight problem. I turned my head backward, and scanned a row of kiosk shops. Their garish lights leeching onto the night-time street, and thought Edward Hopper would have liked it here. My eye followed to the end of the street. At its corner was a pizza takeaway. Above its shop window was a huge emblazoned, zig-zagged, thunderbolt insignia, casting its golden light over the shops’ forecourt, on which a row of pizza delivery bikes leaned rakishly to one side, accentuated by the large delivery boxes perched on their backs.

The guy with the phone spoke to me in English, and I immediately zoned back in. I noticed a small thunderbolt insignia on the top-left side of his hoodie, and something went ping! I politely took the serviette from his hand, held it flat, pointed to it, and said, “if I buy a pizza, would you deliver it to this address?” And he said, “no problem”.

15 minutes later, and after a strong black coffee, we walked out of the takeaway. Pizza guy ceremonially loaded my purchase into a motorbike’s delivery box, and shouted to Mr Gardenia to follow. And then with a thumbs up, fired up the bike, and turned on the flashing fairy lights that encircled the delivery box.

And off we went into the brutal Cairo traffic.

At speed we weaved between the lanes of a motorway, then peeled off down a slip road. The deep pulse of the flashing fairy lights beaconing us onward. Pizza Delivery Guy was ploughing the way. It was like getting a police escort.

We skirted a river, sped alongside a late-night street market. There was some sort of kerfuffle ahead involving a white pick-up truck and a clothing stall. As we mounted the pavement, and trailed past, I saw balled-up white towelling socks that had spilled from the clothing stall, and I thought: ‘Snowballs? Surely not?’

Within a short time we came to an abrupt halt outside the gates of Gardenia. I was both elated, and partly delusional. I felt like an Abyssinian Prince returning from the fray.

Pizza Delivery Guy then rang the number on the serviette. I heard the ‘Gardenia’ word again.

He turned, and asked me: “Your name, Ross?”

I replied, “yes”, and he says, “she’s coming to gate for you.”

I settled up with my taxi driver. It had been an emotional ride, but I didn’t shake hands with him, wary that he’d charge me for it.

I try to give Pizza Delivery Guy a tip. But he graciously put the palm of his hand to his chest and said, “No. No problem” and with that he fired up his trusty steed, circled around in the courtyard to leave, but at the very last moment came back alongside me, and with a big smile said, “Merry Christmas, Mr Ross,” then scoots off.

I stand there holding my Happy Apple tote bag in one hand and a pizza box in the other, and watch the Christmas lights disappear into the night, and all is quiet.