How much would you pay for one of these handsome fellows?

Last weekend some friends and I made it out to the Birqash Market, to briefly exhange the bustle of car traffic with the far more exciting bustle of camel traffic. There wasn't a lot of active bartering, and most of the noble creatures were standing or lying around, with one leg tied to prevent escape. Not that this actually prevented them from trying, and we saw a couple make breaks for freedom before being thoroughly whacked back into obedience by stick-wielding Bedouin. Incidentally, the adjective "noble" doesn't really fit the camel, who seem to have a natural, goofy grin that inspires approximately the same feelings as the blue-footed booby, rather than, say, a bald eagle. So of course we couldn't leave the place without making a good friend, and Matt found just the camel to be our buddy. Jim, our possibly now deceased friend, was probably the scrawniest, ugliest camel of the entire lot. Not only that, he was left all alone, just standing in the middle of a dusty yard without a single companion, camel or man. So when five guys went over and started to devote all their attentions to him, it made his day, or maybe even his life. It also attracted quite a few stares from the locals, who probably found the sight of all the tourists in the market oggling one camel quite funny. Meanwhile we petted Jim until he purred, or rather made a unique sound that fell somewhere between an unmuffled engine starting and Johnny Cash singing Desperado. I just hope that it was actually a sign that he was enjoying the attention, because he might have been groaning in despair.

We were disappointed in one respect: our plans to purchase a camel fell through when found out that camels actually go for quite a bit. The cheapest probably go for about $250, and those probably couldn't make the trip to Zamalek. Now, the more practically-minded readers might be wondering what we could possibly do with a camel. I had similar feelings at first, but further thought convinced me otherwise. For one thing, one camel would feed all of us for the rest of the semester, although we might have to rent about twenty refigerators to hold the meat. But before we sent our purchase to the butcher we could have some rollicking good times making a hit film "Dude, where's my camel," or earn our money back by offering tourists a ride around Zamalek on our camel chariot. Think of a horse-drawn carriage, only better.

Getting back from the camel market turned out to be an adventure in itself. The easiest and most common method for tourists to get to Birqash is to hire a taxi for a few hours, to take you there and back. However, this might cost a person a hundred pounds or more, so obviously we had to find a cheaper alternative. Reaching the market wasn't too difficult, even though we couldn't find the 1 pound microbus we found a van that took us for 5 pounds a piece. However, leaving was a different matter. The guidebook said that a minibus should be waiting at the market, and as soon as enough passengers came on board it could take us to Cairo for one pound. But wherever we looked we couldn't find a bus, or at least one with a driver. The only possibility was a bus in the parking lot that looked fairly abandoned, but when we asked the locals about a Cairo bus they only pointed back towards the entrance. Finally we gave up on the bus and hitchhiked in the back of a pickup. Of course, as soon as we pulled out the seemingly abandoned bus magically appeared behind us, with a full load of passengers. But now it was too late for that, so we had to trust that our driver would fulfill his promise to drop us off at a town where we could catch a different bus. Luckily that did work out, and one (very) full minibus ride we were back in Cairo, safely on familiar ground. But there was one more surprise: when the minibus driver saw a police checkpoint he promptly turned around and took an alternative route around, which looked like it was built for four-wheelers and not old buses.

And now, for a question: How many gods and goddesses are portayed in the Judgement Scene of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead?