Egypt is undergoing massive protests for regime change. I feel lucky to have visited it just before things would change for ever and I think the Egyptians gods truly liked me :). Anyway, continuing my Arabian Adventures. (Read my adventures from the beginning here, here and here.)
The taxi driver next offered to take me to the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the original wonders of the world. But my thrill was short-lived because the road to the lighthouse was flooded. It looked exactly like T.Nagar with knee-deep water and people wading through, cars ploughing through. The driver instead drove me to the marine drive and said "You take pictures for sometime here". (He left hurriedly somewhere, promising to be back in a few minutes. I think he wanted to get inebriated again). The sea was stunningly beautiful and I slowly came to grip with the fact that I was staring at the Mediterranean Sea! That oval sea between Africa and Europe! I simply couldn't come to believe what I saw. The sky was an amazing blue with sunlight piercing through the dark clouds with palm trees lined alongside the shore.
Boats were bobbing on the water as far as the eye could see. There was steady chilly breeze blowing. I could hear the water crashing against the rocks and splashing up. It was out of this world. I spent a good amount of time taking pictures, just staring at the sea. Beyond the horizon was Turkey and Greece. I had goose pimples as I stood there trying to imagine the Greek and Roman soldiers sailing their way into history to these very shores.
I then went to the Biblotheca Alexandrina, one of the world's largest and the oldest libraries. I don't even want to start explaining what I saw inside. A mind-boggling collection of everything with a connection to Egypt, Roman or Greek. I will let you read about it here. But one thing worth mentioning is a section called "In the after-life". The section itself was sort of underground and was quite eerie. It had a coffin and next to it was displayed all the items that the Egyptians were buried with. I felt like I was standing in one of those voodoo-like scenes from horror flicks.
The ride back to Cairo was uneventful. I skipped dinner (the lamb was still alive inside me) and went straight to bed.
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