Meet Darwich: The East-West Freak

Hitting the slopes of Nasr City

Darwich had been waiting in the sun for friends for quite a while, so he was plenty hot and sweaty when they finally made it to Snow City. It was the hottest in a string of "hottest" days -- a perfect time to give the new ice pavillion at the Fairgrounds on Salah Salem a try.

Even though no one had been yet, there was talk in Darwich's crowd that it was cold in there. As such, the coats and jackets were piled in the trunk. A couple of people in the group insisted that they never get cold, refusing to even consider changing from sandals to socks and shoes, or putting on a long sleeve shirt.

They were soon to learn the truth.

Right when you walk in, attendants make sure you're properly dressed. If you don't have a coat or the proper footwear they provide you with it. This "holding room" leads to a big, wanna-be rustic ski-lodge with a cafeteria on the second floor with a good view of the "slopes". Darwich noticed that a few of the video games -- lined up along the right wall like a tired battalion -- were ski-themed .

There were two choices: skiing for LE30, or the ice museum for LE20.

For the museum you go into this giant elevator-like "preparation" room, where an attendant again makes sure you are hooded and ready. He then opens the freezer door to the ice palace. It's a big warehouse of a space, a maze flanked by large ice replicas of the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids, Abu Simbel, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, etc. At the far end there's an ice slide. At first, the weather seems pleasantly nippy and crisp. As you walk around, it gradually becomes harder to think clearly. The reason: your brain has frozen and your nose is about to fall off from frostbite.

The ice slide seems fun, but not as fun as getting out of this freezer and grabbing a hot chocolate.

For as long as he'd been in Egypt -- almost ten years now -- Darwich had been aching to ski. Growing up in the North east, he'd been skiing since he was 12. But whenever he'd gone back to the States, the timing was always wrong -- always summer-time, nowhere near ski season. He had occasionally come close. In Beirut once on assignment for a magazine, he'd gone up to the Faraya ski resort to interview a ski instructor, planning to hit the slopes afterwards. As the interview was taking place, the ski instructor had to go up the slope to help a stranded skier. As Darwich headed up the mountain in the lift with the instructor, the sky opened up, and a massive snow storm soon blanketed everything in white. By the time the interview was over, the resort had been closed down due to inclement weather.

A perfect case of "close but no cigar," as the saying goes

Here, at Snow City, he again seemed very close. Although he had only bought museum tickets, Darwich asked if he could take a look at the skiing section. Again, a freezer door was opened by an attendant, and he found himself in a vast barn that had been converted into a ski slope that might be more accurately called a ski "field". We're talking 12 levels easier than a double green diamond beginner slope. Like if they had to invent a symbol for that kind of slope, it might be a red heart.

Even so, Darwich noticed, there were people crashing onto the powder, skis up in the air.

Well, you couldn't really call it powder. It was certainly cold, and seemed liquid based, but something made Darwich think it was actually some new fangled concoction involving sand.

Darwich decided his reunion with skiing wouldn't be here, After waiting this long to hit the slopes, he wasn't going to "break his fast with an onion," as the old Egyptian saying goes....

Snow City, Darwich thought. You pay LE20 to see an oddity, a freak show: an ice palace in the middle of the desert? And it really is freezing in there. But no one's going to go more than once, right, unless they really get into the skiing or snow boarding.... and it becomes a past-time, like bowling. But surely the promoters aren't banking on that -- maybe they have other plans in mind. Remember how popular those Disney on Ice shows are when they come into town?

Indeed, on his way out, Darwich noticed a sign that said "Don't Miss Snow City's Alligator Show on Ice". There were pictures of alligators on the ice with performers' heads in their mouths.

"When's the alligator show?" Darwich asked the guy at the door. "I didn't see it while I was in there."

"Oh, that starts later this month," the guy said.

"So how long is this Snow City thing going to be around anyway?" Darwich asked.

"This thing?" the guy answered. "Forever."

"Forever?"

"Yeah, forever," the guy shrugged.

"You mean, forever, like the Pyramids, right..." Darwich said, and the guy burst out laughing.

It was really all you could do with the heat and all.



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