We walked through town after a cold nights sleep. Even with a wool blanket and bedspread and a hat on my head, my nose was cold when I woke up. Seems it is winter here in Cairo at night, even though the daytime temperatures are close to 70 degrees.
Cairo is an in-your-face city. There are belching cars, stalled cars, police, 17 million people, street stalls, billboards and small shops… everywhere. It sort of smells like a parking garage, in that tangy, burned oil, concrete sort of way.
Our first stop of the day was to pick up our tickets at the American Airlines/One World office. The address we had was the incorrect one, but with an escort to the 7th floor, then an escort to the 1st floor, a walk up a back office stairwell, a conversation with ‘Mr. Williams’ secretary, we discovered the address of the correct office. I guess having that address in my luggage wasn’t brilliant, but it all worked out.
With a known address in hand, we decided we could use some lunch before continuing on our mission. We stepped inside a Felfela take-away restaurant fully prepared to fumble our way through eating a felafel. With about two minutes in the entryway watching the mayhem, we decided maybe the sitdown restaurant around the corner would be a bit more calming. Around the corner we headed, and into the Felfela sitdown restaurant we headed. The place was relaxing but unexpected. There were vines growing, fishtanks, bird cages and tables made from old tree trunks. We were seriously grooving for some felafels, but then recalled that in Egypt they are called something else. We saw them being fried up as we walked in, but we didn’t see them on the menu. Oh, sigh. I ended up with a tomato soup with 4 kafta meatballs in it, an uncooked whole tomato in it, an uncooked hot pepper in it and a side of rice. Edible, but as usual wholely unexpected in presentation. Derrell ended up with the fatta, which consists of a piece of bread (think french onion soup consistency), covered with rice and garlic sauce with 4 lamb shank pieces laying on top. Again, edible yet unexpected. We rounded out the Egyptian meal with a can of Diet Pepsi, fresh orange juice, pita bread, baba ghanoush and a double espresso. Debated about the food and determined it wouldn’t go on our order again list, but it certainly qualified higher on the list than many a travel meal we’ve encountered. As we wandered out the restaurant we also vowed that if we returned we would ask about the falafels or whatever they are called. Pantomiming can do wonders for your diet, but it can also add quantities to your there’s-a-really-weird-tourist-in-our-restaurant column. So, next time we will be weirder.
We were immediately tackled by a tout for a Papyrus shop. With too much talk we ended up following him into the shop to get a card in case we needed to shop later. Alright, fine, whatever. But alas, when in the shop we discovered that this is a full-time, reel the customers into the shop job. There were two other sets of travelers sitting down having mint tea and getting a full-on sales job. We excused ourselves quickly back out to the street. Papyrus shop #1.
Back to our mission. Hail a taxi and take it over to the Lebnan square AA office. With a hand-written address in hand in both English and Arabic (a fine skill writing both fowards for English and backwards for Arabic, that is), we climbed in a Taxi. Oops, our driver is illiterate. We stop at the first available man in the street and he translates the address. We stop at another man and he points us towards the square. We see the first sign (street signs are in English and Arabic) pointing to the square. Oops, no read. After 15 more stops for directions, we get dropped off at the office and grouched at for not coughing up enough $ for the fare.
Taxi paying protocol is peculiar in Egypt. The meters are outdated, asking the price before you get in is rude, so you just have to ‘know’ the price. We asked at the restaurant before departing, but we didn’t know if it was per person or per taxi. Our driver was so incensed with what we offered that we doubled it and figured it was per person. Alas, no he was just scamming us. Bah. Well, it really is the difference between 7 Pounds versus 15 Pounds. At 6 Pounds to the Dollar, that still is cheaper than gracing a taxi driver with your presence for 1 block in San Francisco.
Speaking of money, our hotel is $14 USD a night with breakfast. The 5 star hotels next door have open lobbies, so we get the luxury of staying with the archeologists from Sydney, interacting with the hotel owners and getting a full Western reprieve at the hotels nearby when we need it, without the $150/night price tag. Seems business hotels are really the same price everywhere in the world. Our hotel, Garden House Hotel, is considered mid-range, not budget. That equates to our own shower, hot water (but not always enough water pressure to make the shower work), two British bed pods in the futon padding style, clean towels and sheets everyday, a very bad paint job (paint drips on the opaque windows), a sit down toilet with actual toilet paper, and an adequately clean floor with a dirty throw rug, all with plenty of lights that work. When you squint, it works. Yet upon inspection at this accomodation level, we have absolutely NO interest in exploring what a budget hotel wins you.
Mission returns, we have very pleasant experience with Omnia walking us through our tickets and assigning seats. Then it is back to the taxi ride to downtown. We overpay and leap out quite relieved to be back on solid ground. Maybe next time we will hold our ground on the price.. ah, probably not. They need every dime they can get to keep these Renaults moving. We’ve seen no less than 16 stalled cars with drivers looking under the hoods in the last 24 hours. What a crazy place.
Now for the afternoon wander. The Lonely Planet guide we have has a downtown walk to look at the architecture from the great hey-days of the city. We follow it and get pulled into Papyrus shop #2 when asking for directions to get us oriented. Of course, we are a bit more disoriented than before but we finally get straightened out.
Our walk revealed a guy pedaling through the street with a great hoola-hoop size platter stacked full of bread (yes, right through the seething mass of taxis and buses). We bought a bottle of Coke and got screeched at by the lunatic fat shop owner a block away because I didn’t return the bottle to him which in turn caused the two guys in the truck to start hollering and laughing at us. (If only we knew Egyptian Arabic.) With a slight dent in our psyches from that explosion, we wander through a market complete with live turkeys, birds and rabbits by the pound. We check out the once-great city of Cairo, but it is really, really, really, really grimy, gritty and dusty. Those buildings did have some character, but, wow!, are they ever run down. We see the cinema (subtitled) and read that folks here talk through the movies and hoot and holler at the screen, so we consider that might be a worthwhile try later. We buy two fantastic tangerines from the fruit market, walk through car part alley (outdoor stalls, as well… would you like a gas pedal?) And finally, wilt our way back to our hotel.
We rounded out the day with collecting a heater for our room from the hotel. (We tried for an extra blanket to no avail, but for only 3 extra Pounds a day we got a heater.. it works better than the blanket, so all is good in the end.) And we headed over to the Nile Hilton for a reprieve from Cairo. With a good Italian meal in us, we called it a day. A very long, gritty, crazy, lunatic, Caironese day.
