The brochure that I got from the tourist information office in the train station in Alexandria had little maps of each area of the Nile River. I had a look at the north coast map and discovered that Rosetta was on the coast, not far from Alexandria. I was also reading that another town was at the mouth of the Suez Canal at the entrance to the Mediterranean. I had thought to go to Suez to have a look at the canal, but this other town, Port Said, would do as well. So I made a plan. I would go to Rosetta and have a look around for the spot where the Rosetta Stone was discovered. Then I to Cairo and prepare to vacate the country.
I got up and had breakfast. There were some people eating their breakfast in the dining area already and we got to chatting about what they could do in Alexandria. Eventually I decided I needed to get a move on if I was going to accomplish all my plan. So I headed out and hopped in a taxi. He took me a long way to the bus station. I wish I had thought to take a photo of that depot. It was about 40 rain cover sheds with a bunch of minibuses under each waiting their turn to go to the destination. I can only assume that each cover was for a different destination. Nothing was in English, so I had no real idea. I had been told that Rosetta was in there somewhere, but because I don't read or speak Arabic, it was like a giant physical version of “Guess the number between 1 and 40.” I guessed the first time at around 5. They told me it was way farther on. So I went to about 33. They told me that it was back a ways. So I went back to about 20, narrowing in on the correct spot. I like the spoken version better. It didn't help that I was asking for Rosetta, but they all knew it by its Arabic name of Rashid. It got a lot easier once I started asking for the right place.
I did eventually get on the correct bus and once it was full, it headed out. It took about an hour to get to Rosetta and cost the grand sum of 4 pounds, about 60 cents.
Rosetta is the place where the famous Rosetta Stone was discovered in about 1798. When Egypt was first being explored, they found all these tombs with all these nice pictures all over the walls. But nobody knew what they meant. They were pretty sure they did have a meaning, but there was nothing showing what meant which. Maybe it was a phonetic alphabet of some kind, or maybe it was more pictorial, like Chinese. But there was nobody around who spoke or knew the language any longer, so hieroglyphics remained a mystery.
Until the Rosetta Stone was discovered.
In 1798 or so, French soldiers were told to demolish a house. As they did so, someone noticed a strange stone that had been part of the foundations or maybe the walls. It had a bunch of writing on it, and symbols. There were three inscriptions. One was in Greek, and two were in Egyptian. One of the Egyptian inscriptions was in hieroglyphics. I'm not sure if the other one was in a language that could be read or not. But the Greek inscription was definitely something someone knew how to read. It was an edict from some government. And since there were three inscriptions and they were together, someone thought that maybe they all said the same thing. So they sent it to a specialist in translation and decryption. (I'm not sure if decryption would be an apt characterization though, as that refers more to codes and cyphers nowadays.) He went to work and eventually had success in cracking the mystery of hieroglyphics. This unlocked all the knowledge and cosmology and everything that had been unearthed of the ancient Egyptians. It was a fantastic discovery and one of the most significant, ever. And it was all because of some eagle-eyed soldier demolishing a house in the small town of Rosetta.
I have always liked the story of the Rosetta Stone and, since it was so close by Alexandria, I figured it would be criminal not to go and have a look around. Of course, it could also be considered criminal to and have a look around without being really sure of how to find what I was looking for. And I didn't.
I got to Rosetta and off the bus, with my pack on my back and started wandering around. I wasn't even sure which way led to the sea. There were no tourist information offices and not many people spoke any English, so I couldn't just ask around. And so, I walked around. Aimlessly. I'm good at that, but given I had a bunch of things that I wanted to get done, that wasn't the most effective way to go about things. I decided that I would give myself about half an hour to make progress and then give it up and head off to Port Said. But the town was really quite interesting in a medieval kind of way. The roads were muddy and mucky and wet. There were horse and donkey carts all over and it just called out, “old.”
Eventually I was making no progress on either finding any spot connected with the Rosetta Stone or the waterfront, so I had turned around to go and find a bus out. A man saw me and, I assume it was the big pack on my back that gave me away, pointed down a street indicating that what I wanted lay in that direction. With nothing more than that and the thought that I really shouldn't be giving up so easily, I followed his finger. As I was walking, a man popped out of a shop and jabbered at me a bit. I said something about the Rosetta Stone and he bobbed his head and pointed down the street. Then he invited me into his shop, a barber shop, to get a haircut. I initially declined, but then changed my mind. My hair had been getting unruly lately and it had been a long time since my last haircut, so I went in and got the full treatment. There was a haircut, and a shave. He did something with this string all over my face and ears that seemed to be pulling little hairs out (painfully). He greased and slicked what was left of the hair on my head once he had cut a bunch off. It was amazing. When he was shaving me, he made a great show of putting the straight blade in front of my face as he removed the blade. Then he sprayed it with disinfectant. And finally he selected a new blade, in paper to show it was really new, and placed it in the shaver. I appreciated the gesture to know it was all clean, but I almost laughed out loud at the way he flourished when he was showing me. Even when he was done and allowed me to take a photo, he had a certain flair to his stance.
Then it was off down the street once more. And very quickly I reached the waterfront, and a monument to the Rosetta Stone. I had found what I was looking for, despite having no clear idea how to find it.
I was on a roll. There was a museum as well, inside what was apparently the house where the stone had been found. I doubted it was the actual house because it looked quite new and because the story was that the stone was found while the house was being demolished, and it looked in rather good shape for a demolished house.
Inside, it wasn't that great a museum, but it did give the explanation of how the stone had been found. There was also a bunch of rooms with furniture set up as I would presume the owner at the time had had his house set.
When I first went into the museum, a police officer came up to me and asked where I was from, where I had come from that day, and where I was going to go. It was a bit difficult because he didn't speak much English, and I don't speak Arabic. But he seemed satisfied. Then a short while later, another police officer came and asked me the same things. I was a bit curious about what was up. Then the officer had someone from nearby who spoke English come and talk to me as well. I took the opportunity to find out how to get to Port Said and found out that it wasn't actually possible to get directly there from Rosetta. The best way was going to be to go back to Alexandria and go from there. Hmmm... But in answer to my query about why the interest in where I was going, he said it was just to make sure I was safe and to keep track of me for that purpose. But when I asked if there was any problem with my planning to go to Port Said, he said it was nothing like that. All right, I thought.
Across the street from the museum there was a small park. I went in there and had a look around. There were a couple of old cannons and some kids running around as well.
After a few minutes I decided to make tracks as I was going to have to return to Alexandria before heading to Port Said. That was going to take some time. As I got to the exit, the two policemen who had talked to me were there as well as a couple of others. One of the policemen introduced one of the other men as a detective (I presume of the police force). He told me that they wanted to have the detective walk with me around town. He would show me a couple of interesting places and take me to the bus station. I wondered at this, and I thought they were offering him as a guide. I told them I hadn't the money to take a tour. They immediately reassured me that I wouldn't pay him anything and I wouldn't be tipping him either. They wanted to make sure I got to the bus all right, and then the detective would take the licence bus of the I rode so that if anything happened, they could begin to track me down to bring me to safety. I wasn't sure what town they thought it was, but I hadn't been feeling at all threatened. I didn't fuss about it though and accepted.
The detective showed me the way back to the bus station. I saw a mosque.
And a street market.
Then he took me to an old house, that looked like the outside was fairly new. Inside it though the floors were sloping and it seemed it could actually fall down at any time. But the people there were friendly and helpful as they explained how the house had been in the old times.
Next to it was a mill that was operated by animals. That too was interesting. I could have done with keeping the 16 pounds I paid for going into the two places, but I didn't see the need to make a big deal. I was being looked after and that was enough. I did have to pay the guy at the mill 5 pounds as a tip, but that might have been because I was allowed to sit on his chair and eat my lunch. After that, the detective led me to the bus station, put me on a bus, took the bus driver's information (and I think offended the bus driver in the process by assuming he would have nefarious intentions), and waved goodbye. There was not a cent asked of me in return. If it weren't so ludicrous to me to think that I was in any sort of danger, I would be far more touched by how well they were trying to treat me in that small town. (And I was touched by their concern for a visitor.) It just points up the way people treat visitors to their lives, when it is far away from the big tourist areas.
I got back to Alexandria and got a ticket for a bus to Port Said. It was later in the afternoon, leaving at 4. By the time I would reach Port Said, therefore it would be well after dark. I thought about just staying in Alexandria, but decided that I wanted to see the Suez Canal and if worst came to worst, I could just hop another bus to Cairo and be done with it all.
While I was waiting at the bus station for my bus to show up, I was distracted by a girl with probably the most amazing eyes I have ever seen. I couldn't look anywhere near her without my gaze being drawn by her eyes. They were a piercing blue. On the premise that she could only say no, I went and asked if I could take her photo. She said yes.
The bus left and the sun set and I witnessed an amazing moonrise over the Nile Delta, all orange and flitting amongst the clouds. It was magical and I sincerely wished I were stationary so that I could have taken a few photos.
The trip took about 3 and a half hours and I arrived in Port Said at about 7:30. I kept hoping it was going to be easy to deal with once there. And it mostly was. I got off the bus and, as usual, had to deal with taxi drivers wanting to take me somewhere. Of course, I had no idea where to go or what hotels I might be able to check into. So I ended up with a taxi guy who told me he could take me to a cheap-ish hotel for 10 pounds. I was down to where I had only about 300 pounds in my pocket and that was going to have to last me through the next day and night until I got to the airport and my plane. I wasn't going to the bank again. Once in the taxi, the driver asked for his money. I pulled money out of my pocket and went to give him 10 pounds, but he saw the twenty in amongst it all and took that instead. I protested, but he just smiled, patted me on the knee and made like we were great friends. He got instead a, “Don't touch me, you thief.” But he didn't speak much English, so he didn't understand, although he should have been able to tell I was angry. I don't think he even got it when he asked me if I wanted to get something to eat after the bus ride and he got a clipped, “No!” in response. Nor did he seem to understand when he asked if I needed money changed, and got the same no in response. And he definitely didn't get it when I said he was only getting one shot to take me to a reasonably priced place. I was almost certain that I was going to somewhere expensive, but he surprised me. I ended up in a hotel that cost 85 pounds. More that I really wanted but well within the 100 pound limit I had set for him. So it had worked out, even if the guy was a dink and a thief. I should have got out of the cab when he did, or kicked up way more of a fuss, but in the end it was a buck and a half, and it just wasn't worth it.
After checking in, I went for a walk. Again I wasn't exactly sure where I should look to find the canal. But this time, I had a plan. The canal was to the east, so I got out my compass and made sure of where east was. Then I headed that way. It wasn't too long before I hit a long row of shops with a walkway on top. I thought that might be it, but I had also found a pizza place. And I was hungry. I went in and had a very, very good pizza at Lorenzo's Pizza place. And Lorenzo told me that, yes, the canal was on the other side of the shops. He told me how to get a look and after my meal, I headed down the street to a place where I could get up to the walkway and see the canal at night. And it was a very nice sight, at least as far as sights of canals, which are just trenches filled with water, can be. I had been very satisfied with how the day went. I did actually find everything I was searching for, despite having almost no plan beyond, “Well, I will just go and see what happens.” It was something of a miracle, in many respects, that I managed to find everything, so quickly, with so little preparation. It was just one of those days when things work out, I guess.
And I also found a great pizza place, and a candy store with things like Werther's. Candy I haven't seen in a long, long time was in that store, and I could have spent a bundle. But I didn't have a bundle to spend, so I was content with a chocolate bar and knowing that it was there.
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