1400th Hash – 19 January 2007

Today was the 1400th Hash for Cairo Hash 3. That means the 1400th time the CH3 (this particular hash group) have organised a Hash. It’s being going since about 1980 I think. This week it was at lower wadi digla, and there was a champagne stop near the end of the walk. We also got orange commemorative polo tops. When I say orange, I mean ORANGE! I think it’s probably the only orange thing that I own :)

The walk was really good. Way longer than the last two, a few steep bits, but really good. At one of the check points they’d even made this big 1400 CH3 sign out of bricks that were laying around. It was really good. There are loads of people there too. Over a 100 I think. Maybe a dozen brand new people, plus loads of people that don’t come every week. The only problem with so many people is that we were strung out over about half a km so had to wait for ages at each check point.

The last checkpoint was at the top of a big hill and you could see the champagne stop from there. Because they could see the grog no one wanted to stop. A few of us stopped and waited, then we decided there was no point, everyone else was streaming down the hill so I scrubbed out the lentils and we all made out way down the hill. After the Champagne stop we completed the walk - only about another km along the road back to the cars.

Leeanne had made some print outs of the songs so we handed out song sheets so people could sing along. It went ok, they were still out of time, but at least everyone was joining in. I need to finish up the song book, otherwise I’m going to be gone before they get printed!

The circle was funny, it’s probably only the second time I’ve seen the proper religious adviser at work. He wears Viking type horns and yells a lot. He kept dragging people into the circle because they were talking while he was trying to do stuff. One of his horns fell off towards the end of the circle and they made him skull a beer from it. It was pretty funny.

It started to get cold so they wrapped up the circle and everyone headed back to Maadi. We were going to the On-On but it didn’t start for another hour or so. Luckily because all our stuff had been at Leeanne’s we went back there and bummed round for an hour or so. Chris hadn’t slept much last night so tried to have a nap. I didn’t think he’d make it through much of the On-On so I took my stuff with me to the On-On.

Food was provided for 40LE, roast pork, some pasta type thing and some other stuff. I wasn’t really hungry so I stuck to my vodka’s. I’m becoming a little alcoholic – two nights in a row. Although, I didn’t drink much on Thursday night. We took a load of vodka and beers to the party, but because we left so early we didn’t get to drink them and the drinks at the club were ridiculously expensive (over AUD$10 for a vodka). Tonight however I made up for it. I think I had about 10 drinks, but they aren’t very strong at the rugby club, so it was more the sugar rush from the sprite that was killing me than the vodka.

We mostly just sat around drinking and chatting all night. Leeanne was heading off to another party in Zamalek so Chris split a cab with her about 930pm. I wasn’t ready to go so I stayed on and caught a cab home about midnight. That was my first brave attempt to cab home from Maadi on my own. Luckily I’d been paying more attention lately to where our driver takes us, otherwise I’d never have gotton home. The cab drivers here are all so dodgy! They don’t know where half the major land marks are. Even if they normally work in that area. More usless than Melbourne cab drivers and that’s saying something! Anyway, the cabbie got me almost to Mohandiseen, we were only a block away from where we needed to be and he pulled over and asked someone. Two more turns and I was on familiar ground and was able to yimeen, shimal and alatool my way home.

It was a really nice day and night. The weather was perfect while we walked around the desert, the atmosphere at the rugby club was very friendly and everyone seemed to have a great time.