I’ve been in Cairo so long I had almost forgotten one of my tried and tested cost effective and adventurous activities when away from home: Riding a bus along a route you don’t know, to a destination unknown.
Every time I hurtled through Heliopolis over the years, traveling to and from the airport, I would find my self declaring that I would ride the Cairo trams one day, as my grating old taxi ripped over their tracks.
From Ramses Station, the tram takes 40 minutes to reach Marghani in Heliopolis, which is on the border of Nasr City, where the Suez Road begins. A surprisingly entertaining and cost effective way to spend the afternoon – the tram costs 25 piasters each way.
Of course there are great railway journeys of the world. But who has time? So why not boast that you have ridden the Cairo tram.
Pulling out, adjacent to Ramses Station, I had an unlikely first thought on the tram. I began to wonder whether the Christian west was jealous of Ramadan and the national show of religious unity. When it comes to religion the “faithful have the goods. Christians only seem to ever mass a crowd when the Pope is saying Mass, and even then, it is branded with a theme like global warming.
This is surely the litmus test of the great railway journeys of the world or electric trams; when you get to sit back and philosophize about the world, watch the world go by and dream as you look out your window.
My tram rattled past El Demerdash station unconcerned with the world. This is what I had paid 25 piasters for – I was getting my monies worth and I jumped from one carriage to the next, a boyhood feeling of glee that is associated with fire engines, police cars and trains.
Now on the forward carriage, a different conductor accosted me, and I had to pay another 25 piasters.
Nevermind, it was worth the cost. The jolting and screeching subsided as the line improved and gave way to a new track and the old trolley purred along over the cement sleepers and the gleaming rails.
Out the window, I was passing through the greater Heliopolis region, a green grassy nature strip appeared, on which Cairenes relaxed and sunbathed. We passed the high walls of military fortresses and I fired off a few shots of the tower defenses from my camera and noted a number of vulnerable points. But siege warfare is not my desire.
(I had to get desire into any story about streetcars somewhere and I employ my editor not to cut that pun.)
Back in the day a network of trams connected the hubs of Tahrir Square with Ramses Station. Apparently trams ran along the Corniche from Agouza, past Embaba over the river to Ramses Square. From Tahrir Square they connected Downtown with Islamic Cairo and circled back to Ramses.
Those were the days, hey? A lament many cities cry. Corrupted by the bus manufacturers in the great oil conspiracy, cities around the globe ripped up thousands of miles of electric tram lines and the roads clogged up with diesel puffing buses.
Just ask a native from Melbourne, Australia. They don’t have the beaches, weather or Sydney’s Gay Mardi Gras, but they do have a wonderful, amazing and sensational, network of trams.
All travel writers, I would think, have written at one time or another over the years, “it is not the destination, it is the journey. A cliché, true enough, but all such stereotypical rants have a basis of truth and none more than my own jaunt on the tram. Because the end of the line was just that.
I jumped down from the carriage, the doors not quite opening properly and the driver walked past with a pole to switch the electrics over on the tram’s roof for the return trip. A slight feeling of melancholy came over me for the tram, with it’s ripped up linoleum floor and comfy red bench seats. Wide open windows and a feeling of solidarity amongst the passengers made an improbable outing an exceptional journey.
CityStars is only a short taxi ride from where my tram terminated, so the tram is a good way to inject some adventure into your shopping and something different into your weekend. Or – I’ve just had a brainwave – for those inclined towards romance it would be the perfect way to kick off a date. It would give you plenty to talk about, a shared experience and who wouldn’t desire that?
