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April 22 CAIRO
I ended up going out all the way in Madrid so the day afterward was not so great and I did not make it to the Prado museum, so I’ll have to make that up when I’m in Madrid the next time on the 25th, before my flight leaves to go home!!! I did, however, get to Cairo perfectly. I had arranged a taxi to come pick me up from the airport, what a ride that was. I had heard how crazy Cairo traffic is, and my first taxi experience drove that home. In a city of 20 million inhabitants (third largest in the world, after Mexico City and Sao Paulo), there are barely any streetlights, lines on the road, crosswalks, or rules. Plus, the taxis are pretty much falling apart and they don’t have seatbelts. On the way to the hotel the taxi drove by this guy and this man was sticking his arm out in the street, and he got his elbow banged into by the taxi, but the taxi guy slowed down to make sure he wasn’t dying and then he kept going. The taxi driver said it was the other guys fault. I got out of the taxi and the door handle came off in my hand. The cars must be powered by horns because they use horns whenever they drive by anyone, when they are switching lanes, when they are driving and no one is around, when they are excited, when they are mad.
I loved my group. There were sixteen people, all of them were Aussies except for the Egyptian guide, me, and my roommate, who was a 40 year old flight attendant (who acted 25) from Canada. The median and mode age of the group was probably 27. Every Australian person I have met has been so friendly, well traveled, and warm. These people were no exception, they were just great. Among the people were a mother and daughter traveling together, two couples in their twenties traveling for a year together, three friends, and four solo travelers. Everyone was so well traveled already. Many small talk conversations started with, “Yehhh mate! Wasn’t Antarctica/Croatia/Chile /other exotic locale just wicked!!!!”
After a nice buffet breakfast, we went to the pyramids. The guide was good and taught us about the mythology behind why the pyramids are the way they are. We went inside Chephran’s pyramid (the one with the tip still on it), which is my favorite one. It is so hot and stinky inside the pyramid and you have to bend over and descend into darkness. There isn’t anything inside it of course though. I ended up running a full lap around it because I wanted to take one final picture of the entrance in the five minutes of it before we left and I started looking for it on the wrong side. As I was running, this guy on a camel calls out to me, “Are you late for Chephran? Because you look like queen!!!” Best pickup line I have ever heard. Then we went to the papyrus museum, where we saw how papyrus was made and I bought one.
We had the rest of the day to do whatever so I took a taxi to the Cairo Museum with these two Australian blokes, Troy and Tim. I didn’t get too much out of the museum because they don’t have audioguides and I am no Egyptologist. But everything was still impressive because it was old. The thing that impressed me the most was the King Tut room. It impressed me so much that I needed to take a picture, even though I knew it was illegal and the consequences could be bad. Plus, everyone and their mom was taking photos in the Louvre and the security guy only said “Hey stop taking pictures” every two minutes. But no, as soon as the little red light from my camera lit up King Tut’s golden mask (not even a flash!!!), this guy comes up to me and whisks my camera out of my hands. He asks me if I speak English, and being the little creep that I am, in a moment of panic, I say no and that I only speak Spanish. There were definitely some holes in my story because he would ask me things in English and I would answer in Spanish with an obviously American accent. After three minutes of him not giving it back to me and pretending to call the police and one Australian and one girl from Holland coming to my assistance, he gave it back to me and I got out of there.
Troy, Tim, and I decided to walk back to the hotel even though it was days away because walking around is the best way to get to know a city. Walking around Cairo is something else. Because there are barely any sidewalks, we ended up walking on a highway overpass. Because a lot of Cairo’s residents are pretty poor, trash collection is not a priority for them so in some parts there are all these huge heaps of trash lying around and you practically have to wade through the refuse while swatting away flies. While we were walking we saw a taxi burst into flames, good thing there was a fire extinguisher shop right next to where it lit up, and all these guys with fire extinguishers rushed out and put out the flames.
previous travel blog entry
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