The sounds of Cairo

You don’t have to be in Cairo very long to realize that the traffic is horrendously congested.

During my trip, Sept. 12-20, 2007, I noticed there seemed to be no rules of the road there. If you want to cross the road, you must be bold and daring, waiting for an eventual opening and darting across the highway holding your arm up high, fingers splayed.

There were several traffic lights in well-off neighborhoods, I was told, but there were none where I was staying.

My room was on the 18th floor, and the noise still could be downright annoying. There were different intensities of taxi and car horns; some seemed locked in place at times.

The mosques have loudspeakers so that everyone can hear the call to prayer and be reminded to perform the five daily prayers required of Muslims.

The prayers are supposed to be said at times based on sunrise and sunset; however, because of a time change that had taken place recently, there seemed to be some confusion, and instead of five times per day I swear I was hearing it upward of 20 times from local mosques near the hotel, all within a few minutes of one another. After a few days of that, I could distinguish between the mosques by the different voices.

I love the sound of church bells. I know I heard them. I am thinking it was on Sunday. It was lovely.

My air/hotel package was arranged through Misr Travel (630 Fifth Ave., Ste. 1460, New York, NY 10111; 212/332-2600, www.misrtravel.org) and cost $1,894 (including an additional night for $90), with airfare from New York; city tours with qualified guides; bountiful breakfasts; hotel, and smiles upon check-in.

The Ramses Hilton (1115 Corniche El Nile, Cairo, Egypt 12344; phone 20 2 2577 7444, fax 20 2 2575 2942, www.hilton.com), where I stayed for the week in downtown Cairo, is situated on the east bank of the Nile River. It has a nice pool which overlooks the Nile and the highway.

It was the beginning of Ramadan and the river traffic was not particularly heavy. One afternoon I heard a truck horn and a water taxi horn, then I heard singing from one of the many floating restaurants.

Horse-and-carriage bells were indeed a welcoming sound, as was the sharp clip-clop of a horse’s hooves as he pulled his cart along the road. I even heard the tinkling of a cyclist’s bell.

Of course, there was the ever-present roar of motorbikes. Breakdowns and accidents are common in this third-world country, so the shrieking of emergency vehicles was not startling to me.

With the occasional airplane overhead, I was thinking this city does have many different sounds. During my seven days there, I was not ready to call them noises. Not yet.

I sat poolside on most afternoons, thus the laughter and splashing of children in the pool did not go unnoticed by me.

WINNIE SCHALL BAFFA

Leland, NC