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I'm on Mars.

Flying into Cairo, it really looked like another planet.  Dreary
regiments of tan urban blocks marched through the desert in ranks.
 Near the airport, I looked down and saw little green army men scurrying
through their sandbox barracks.  But how exciting!

From above, the desert parts of Cairo seem toneless and oppressive,
like a city of sandpaper.  But then the airplane dipped its wing
and there, looming beside us, where the Great Pyramids of Giza. 
My mouth fell open.  My mouth has NEVER fallen open.  They dwarfed
everything around them, and looked like they might scrape the belly of the our Egypt Air jet.

"I'm looking at the Pyramids!" I had to tell yourself.  It's a pretty
powerful thing to say to yourself, if you can mean it.

So anyway, here I am in Africa's largest city.  And I love it!

Cairo is hysteria masquerading as a city.  You might have heard about
the insanity of Cairo traffic.  It's worse than you think.  Stoplights
blink helplessly while torrents of black and white taxis roar carelessly
through the intersections.  At major plazas, there are no sidewalks.
 You just island-hop through the gush and squall of highway traffic
and hope for the best. Crossing the street requires a sturdy case
of Zen on the brain--you just set your sights on the other curb and
walk out.  Many tourists make the mistake of stopping in fear, but
the real key is to gauge the gaps before you cross, then walk calmly
as if the cars don't exist.  It's a game of chicken. If you give
eye contact, they'll wipe you out.  Such an easy way to bite it.

And everyone honks!  No one leans on their horns, like they do the
world over.  They tap them, as if they keep passing friends in the
coffee shops.  Rather than an expression of aggression or frustration
(like in Manhattan), horn honking in Cairo is merely a reminder of
mutual existence.  "Hey, buddy.  There's a rusty car with faulty
brakes zooming toward you at top speed. Welcome to Egypt."  The honking
gives the city its flow, but also its voice.

It's mayhem, to be sure, but somehow it works--Cairo has an ongoing
dare with the forces of death. I've been walking a lot.  Walking
in this city is mind-bendingly stimulating.  Everything you see has
everything and nothing to do with you.  Every street corner is occupied
by a young soldier with a machine gun, assigned the futile task of
keeping the peace. (I like to ask them for directions. They love
that.) On a standard walk in Cairo, you can (as I did) see the following:
dead puppies on the sidewalk; three-year-olds scampering behind you
begging for baksheesh; a lunatic stopping traffic on an 8-lane highway
by beating up an innocent veiled woman; mutilated pig's heads, swarming
with flies and up for sale at a market; children playing football
in the courtyard of a 1200-year-old mosque; old men snoozing as they
grasp 3-foot bongs full of apple tobacco; the literal upsetting of
an apple cart; grown men bathing in the Nile; fathers rocking their
infants to sleep; kittens begging butchers for scraps; minibus vans
colliding with donkey carts; a blind old man being gently conducted
across a superhighway by a smiling stranger; well-coifed socialites
disdainfully side-stepping murky puddles in the street... you get
the picture.  Paradox in operation: feast and famine, sweet violence,
poetic obscenity. A rising crescendo of life and death and disease
and prosperity. It's an opera without a melody. Makes Manhattan look
as quaint as Grover's Corners.

And always, since I'm from America, I hear one more recurring motif
in Cairo.  Schemers approach me one by one, as nattering as the flies,
to try to cheerfully separate my from my money. Everyone has a racket.
 Imagine walking down the street, and having snaggle-toothed Cairenes
leap out at you to offer some of the following come-ons:

"Where are you going?"
"Meester!  Psst!"
"Hey!"
"Nice shoes, Meester."
"Taxi?"
"Where you from?"
"This shop! Special for you!"
"Hey, Meester, smile! English?" (Or was he calling me Mister Smile?)
"Ungh!  UNGH!!!!" (From a woman selling tissues. The second grunt
came when I declined, and she poked me.)
And my favorite, from a lethargic lad selling plastic Sphinxes at the Pyramids: "Cats."

I am the Walking Dollar Sign.  The side effect, besides growing frustration,
is that you begin to trust no one, even the people who want genuinely
to welcome you to their homeland.  Because, for all the grime and
grift, Egyptians are very kind people.  I've had six-year-olds come
up to me (which must be scary for them) to ask me my name and welcome
me.  Another kid with a small stand across from my hotel was smitten
with the idea of an American so nearby:
"Where you come?"
"I'm from New York City. America."
"America," he said. He thought a moment. "You know Michael Jackson?"
I had to confess that, no, we were not on speaking terms as such.
He nodded, I think with a touch of disappointment, and handed me my water.

And now a word about the heat.  Yesterday I drank 4 liters of water
without visiting the loo. (Bottled water only, unless you like gas
and the runs.) And that was just strolling around the city. I have
revised my personal definition of "Genius."  Real geniuses aren't
the ones who can design rockets or cure cancer.  They're the ones
who can adequately describe Egyptian weather in human terms.  Suffice
it to say (as I told my friend Jason) that the weather in Egypt is
a subtle form of homicide. It's no wonder the ancients got so worked
up about their tombs. It was a relief to die.

Pity the Muslims, though.  Custom holds that they must wear long
clothing at all times, to cover their flesh to avert temptation.
 In a country where 120 in the (non-existent) shade is common.  Thinking
it would please the locals, I wore jeans to the Pyramids.

Big mistake.

By the time I'd slithered into my third narrow passageway, I capitulated.
 Right there in the Tomb of Queen Shipshape or whatever, built some
4000 years ago, I stripped down to my bicycle workout shorts.  I
went into the Pyramid Islamic and came out a Christian.  Bliss!

I did fine until I got back into Cairo.  Then the snickering began.
 People kept giggling at me.  I wondered if the shorts had a tear
in them.  Then, when I returned to my hotel, the kid with the store looked at me funny.

"Mister, where's your pants?" he said.

I told him that at home these were shorts.  But I felt sheepish and
kind of vulgar anyway.  To them, I was prancing around in my skivvies.
What was I thinking?  ...And a hundred Islamic wives must have left their husbands that night.

I won't bore you with my description of the Pyramids.  But it may
surprise you to know that they're actually located in the suburbs.
They're very old. They're also very large. (So old and large that
you can't get your mind around just how old and how large.) Most
surprisingly, if you slice off the tips of them, you'll see that
they are actually filled to the brim with ruddy, jam-fed British
tourists trying to reload their cameras.

It's also surprising that no matter where you go in Cairo, there's
never any shade.  Somehow, the sun is ALWAYS overhead.  Even behind
an enormous, opaque object like the Pyramid of Cheops, there was
no respite from the broiling sun.  All the buildings in Islamic Cairo
are as crumbly as gingerbread from a millennium in the sun.  And
the locals barely crack a sweat.  Mutants!!!

Before I stop, I want to sing the praises of Egyptian television
commercials.  They are my new standard for unadulterated joy.  Usually--no,
not usually; always--they involve a lovely young woman who displays
and caresses the product while she lip-synchs a Casiotone jingle.
 They're almost always shot, probably with a camcorder, from the
waist up. Holding the product (even roach killer is advertised in
this perky way) she dances to the beat, killing time, and usually
ends the pitch with a wink.  My favorite is for a product called
Party Gum.  Have you ever heard of Party Gum?  And you never will, unless the ads change:
A girl too old for pigtails wears pigtails, brandishes a pack of
Party Gum, and dances in front of a superimposed poster that reads
"PARTY GUM." She lip-synchs, squinches up her face in unrivalled ecstasy,
then (and this is the best part) hitches her thumb toward the poster
as if to indicate "Yep, it's Party Gum I'm dancing about!") and gives
an exaggerated A.O.K. sign.  Then she winks.  It's so blithely enthusiastic
and empty that it could have been Japanese.  Egyptian ads make Mentos
spots look like Senate confirmation hearings.

How could you not love a country like that?

Tonight it's down to Luxor (you mean it's not just a casino?) for
a little Tut action, if you catch my drift. I'm gonna see his condo made of stone-a.

I'll try to get on again on Wednesday, before I go to Israel.  This
internet place is super-cheap.  Yay devalued currency!!!!

I love Egypt!  This e-mail was just the short version!

Any questions?

Swimming pools,
I mean,
Love,
Jase

---
Right now I'm in:  Cairo, Egypt

(Days: 52. Countries: 8. Continents: 3)

Hey, everyone:

I'm back from Luxor, safe and sound.  Yes, to answer the questions
of some of the more neurotic newswatchers out there, Luxor IS where,
only last November, 58 tourists were killed as they visited the Temple
of Queen Hatshepsut. Advisory schadvisory! I myself visited that
Temple (at the same time of day, too: about 10 am) and lived to tell
the tale.  (Our tour guide, the so-called Mr. Sunshine, was there
last fall and actually lived through it--but he didn't like telling the tale.)

I've walked through gargantuan temples by day and by night, and scurried
through ancient tombs.  I've endured 120-degree heat without a hat.
 I've traversed the desert by bus and by train.  I've grown accustomed
to a persistent layer of grit that has settled over my skin.  And
my mental acuity has been tested by some of the sharpest tourist
swindlers on the planet--like hotel owners who can turn off your A/C at the front desk.  

I'm a bit sleepy.

Tomorrow, I'm flying back into the First World: Tel-Aviv, in Israel.
 (Get those push-pins ready!)  Still the Middle East, but the Middle
East with its own "Sesame Street."  

I'll give you actual details in the next actual dispatch then.  Remind me:
King Tut's tomb (and its alleged curse), in Egypt 666 is 777, koshary,
shoeshine boys... all that stuff will have to wait.

Love ya lots!  Feed me some questions so I'll know what to talk about.

And congratulations to all the people who deserve congratulating
(you know who you are...)!  Whizzakers...leave for two months and
everyone grows up behind your back.

Love
--Jase

---
Right now I'm in:  Cairo, Egypt