Egypt - 14 October 2010 (1)

Football in the Air

The call to prayer started at 04.30 and went off again after 05.00.  This morning, our view of the pyramids was hidden by city smog, so there was no point in going up on the roof to take some more photos as I had planned.

Kim, Sue and Werner made it down to breakfast to say goodbye and Kim and Sue waved us off from outside the hotel.  They were going to stay in Egypt for a couple more days before finally returning to Australia after a long and exhausting time away.

We reached the airport surprisingly quickly and with few problems and were met by a local Explore guide who ensured we were all checked in together.  Then we had a long wait for the plane.  During check-in, we noticed a man with a lute.  While we were having a very expensive coffee, which severely depleted our reserves of Egyptian pounds, we noticed the lute at an empty table.  When we were at the departure gate, we saw it lying unattended on a seat after the first bus load of passengers had left.  We got on the second bus, which waited by the gate for a long time to wait until the computer had reported that everyone was aboard.  At the last minute, the lute came on board with its owner.

The flight back to Tunis started off by being delayed.  Anne was sitting on the other side of the plane and she said that there was a group of people having their photo taken under the wing.  Eventually they came on board, all wearing their red football strip. 

This was Al-Ahly, a football team from Cairo, who were off to play in the semi-final of the African league against Esperance Sportif de Tunis.  Unlike their British counterparts, these guys travelled with the common people in economy class and were happy to mix with the other passengers. 

Once we had taken off, the whole plane took on a party atmosphere as the footballers moved up and down the plane.  Most of the passengers were men and most seemed to be fans (not surprising if wikipedia is to be believed when it says that they have 50 million fans in Egypt [pop 83m]).  They shook hands with the passing footballers, sometimes hugging them, as Arab men often do.  Fellow passengers were turfed out of their seats, so the footballers could sit down, pose for photos and chat with their new friends.  The people in the seats next to Heuly scarcely sat down at all as they were busy mingling.  One of the passengers had a huge TV camera with him and other people must have been from the press. 

The in flight service was slow, but that was to be expected as the two stewards took their time, laughing and joking with everyone.  I felt sorry for the single stewardess, who was looking very frazzled as she had to do most of the work.  All in all, I think that this flight was probably more fun than any other I have ever been on – and I don’t even like football!

Once we had got through all the Tunis airport formalities, we met another Lotfi, who was our new driver.  We noticed a lot of police when we went outside.  As we walked to our bus, we saw that the police were surrounding a coach with the football team on board.  All this security seemed excessive after the friendly informality of the flight.  Lotfi got excited and took a photo of the coach with his mobile.

P.S.  When I got home, I went online to look at the result.  Sadly, I have to report that Al-Ahly lost their match in Tunis.