Cairene Weekend

Salim, a wiry, balding taxi driver in his 50s, weaves in and out of the labyrinth of jostling cars and motorcycles on one of Cairo's countless jammed highways. Yelling abuse at other drivers one second, conducting conversations with other stationary chauffeurs through his open window the next, he ducks into an opening in the traffic to take the junction he wants. He asks me for my phone number so that I can call him whenever I want to 'go somewhere'. We both know that he is going to try to overcharge me for airport parking fees when we arrive at my friend's apartment in the district of Mohandesin, and he has already driven a hard bargain over the fare. I am hungover, the car is hot and stuffy, the air chokes my throat. The concrete sprawl seems to go on forever. A short flight from Beirut is turning into a long haul.

A growling, restless, polluted behemoth of a city, the version of the Middle East that confronts you in Cairo is a world away from Beirut, which seems positively serene in comparison. Its population of around 20 million is 4 times greater than the whole of Denmark but squeezed into an area the size of Copenhagen (population: 1.2 million).

Required to temporarily leave Lebanon within 3 months of my arrival due to visa regulations, I chose to visit friends from Aarhus University who are spending their exchange semester learning the markedly different Egyptian dialect. In a place of such overwhelming size and stature, it's lucky to have someone you can rely on to help you find your way around as a newcomer. Walking through the area between Mohandesin, Midan Lubnan and Sudan Street, a friend and I got completely lost among the narrow alleyways. Here, men stood ironing on the street (an Egyptian take on dry cleaning), goats and horses scratched around in the dirt, traditionally dressed women shopped for food and clothes and men sat playing dominoes and backgammon or prayed inside open-doored mosques. Asking for help to find the way back, we were helped by a number of people giving directions, many not really knowing the way themselves even though we hadn't come far. One overweight man of about 20 years walked with us for over 20 minutes taking us to the address we had given him, purely out of good will. He took us to the address we gave, but the wrong one - for some reason there are two roads with the same name and three buildings all with the same address just in this one district.

We also visited the more touristy Khan el-Khalili market. The taxi ride across town in the interminably busy traffic was itself another mesmerising glimpse of the average Cairo day. The millions went about their business amongst the dirty underpasses, dusty brown rectangular apartment slabs and towering Ottoman minarets, all to the drone of the incessant honking of car horns. Walking around the market, we received constant attention from hawkers and sellers trying to bring us into their shops. Their tactics range from shouting the unimaginative 'Excuse me' or 'Where are you from?' to holding up an item and saying 'Do you know the price?' (easy way out: just answer 'yes'), to using humour. One shop owner called out 'Excuse me, can I try to hustle you please?'. Another: 'Hello, would you like to try to get some?' while pointing to a rack of galabiyas, the traditional Egyptian male outfit still worn by many.

Attitudes towards Western women, from the men in this market at least, are awful and surely some form of education is needed. From mild verbal abuse to shameless physical harassment, the frequency as well the nature of the attention inevitably takes its toll on long-term foreign visitors. As we walked through the market, a man of around my age muttered 'sharmuta' (whore), about the most insulting thing you can say to a woman in Arabic. When we stopped and remonstrated with him in his own language his cockiness disappeared and he looked away.

The medieval Saladin Citadel lies at the top of a hill overlooking the otherwise flat landscape of the city. Here, we visited the magnificent Muhammed 'Ali mosque, an imposing collection of domes and minarets, the interior a breathtaking example of Ottoman architecure. The mosque was added to the citadel in the mid-19th century. Now it is mainly frequented by tourists, Egyptian and foreign, although there were also people praying inside. We then walked across the citadel to the military museum, complete with its rough English translations, excellent range of Ottoman and Muhammad 'Ali-era artefacts and glossing over of conflicts that didn't go so well. Outside the museum are a number of British, American, Russian and other tanks and aircraft used during the '67 war with Israel, Suez Crisis and Second World War.

The best thing about the citadel, though, was the view. The metropolitan expanse of Cairo stretched away as far as the eye can see, with only the many minarets and few skyscrapers breaking up the brown concrete monotony, a fitting image to the impossible vastness of the city. Cairo, of course, was witness to a revolution a little over a year ago. The post-revolutionary road has been bumpy and no new president is yet in place. Despite many Cairenes apparently being worse off since Hosni Mubarak was ousted on 25 January 2011, and demonstrations against the decision making of the interim military government still common on Tahrir Square, there is an impression that people are calm about what the final outcome will be. Seeing them up close and their city in all its enormousness in a single frame, it's difficult not to be in awe.