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The head of the boy at my side only came up to my shoulder, but his bright eyes and confident persistence were helplessly engaging.

"My friend, follow me! I show you so many coffee pots, much better than these…these are no good. My friend has good coffee pots, but you must come thi-is way!"

We were squeezed through one of the many tiny alleyways that make up the ancient market maze of Cairo’s Khan el Khalili. It’s best pronounced with a phlegmy cough that softens the 'k' and sounds the 'h', and seems to be home to more shopkeepers per capita than anywhere in the world. The cobbled walkways that run between the stalls are barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast, requiring a belly-dancers' shimmy amongst the cross-legged, reclining, backgammon playing, unslippered vendors for whom languishing is an art played out for hours beneath their dusty signs. Charm and wit is traditionally the means of drumming up custom here. Each street is roughly organised by wares, and at first glance each ‘shop’ exactly mirrors its neighbour. But now the tactics for persuading tourists are generally about as similar as the stock, and questions and jokes are tirelessly repeated,

"Where you come from? Aww, Luve-ly Jubbe-ley!"

But this boy is funny. He is old enough to have some art to his sales pitch, but young enough not to have tired of the fun of selling. Cheekily he peeks into my bundle of Turkish delights and baklava and informs me gravely that I have paid twice the market price. We whistle past 'shusha' sellers and glazed eyes in small cafes, past slippers and djellabah embroidered with silks, through coloured pyramids of spices and along streets sparkling with semi-precious stones to find the friend with the good coffee pots.

We talk about Cairo’s ancient history. He shows me small plastic pyramids which bear no resemblance at all to the ancient rocks that stand in the sand just beyond this city's smog. I thought of how we visited those monuments, on our first night in the city, and how majestically their profiles had stood against the dim moonlight of the midnight sky. My husband cruelly forbade me from taking off with a man with a horse for a gallop through the desert sands, on the grounds that I would fall down a hole. So instead we drank thick Arabic coffee that tasted of burnt chocolate and sat surrounded by wrinkled fellows bubbling their narguileh, loose tobacco and scavenging flies all illuminated by a whirring fluorescent tube. The air was warm and the night was calm in the shadow of the pyramids at Giza, and breezes making the palm trees chatter further down the Nile would blow soft sands over the now silent domain of Saqquara, and the most ancient pyramid of them all. This 'stepped' pyramid was built by Imhotep, mastermind architect of the third dynasty, for King Djoser, whose sculpted image now lies cast in stone, tilted 13 (degrees) towards the sky, peeking through a small hole that shows him his smooth pathway to heaven.

This crafted, cultured peace is far deeper than any to be found in the city. Here, four lanes of traffic whirl through the night sky, criss-crossing the Nile in a blaze of lights and stereo sound and excitable shouts in Arabic. The street life of Cairo squeals vibrant and bright, buzzing with colours, music, smells. Insatiable for every last piastre, it plays on conscience, weakness and kindness to eek out baksheesh for all. When clever taxi tricksters swap your pounds for pittance you’ve had enough. The fighting is over. It’s time to move south to the desert.

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