A Taste of Pigeon in Cairo

The Cairo skyline rising above the Nile.
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After our experiences with touts and hassling in India, we were dreading the idea of throwing ourselves back into that kind of atmosphere. We had picked up a Rough Guides travel guide to Egypt and were thumbing through it on Zanzibar. Full of warnings about touts and how to avoid them, we were convinced that Egypt would be India all over again. In fact, the Rough Guide even made it sound worse! So we extended our stay on Zanzibar by a week (tough decision). And then we pushed our departure back again by another few days . . .

The street view from our hotel room.
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Eventually, though, we decided we had better bite the bullet and haul ourselves off to Cairo. We arrived in Cairo at the ungodly hour of 4 AM. Contrary to our expectations, we discovered that 4 AM may very well be a worthwhile time to arrive in a major city . . . the touts are all asleep (so they don't accost you at the airport), and there's no traffic!

It turned out that wasn't the only pleasant surprise in store for us in Cairo. The author of the Rough Guide to Egypt has obviously never been to India! Dealing with the touts in Egypt is a breeze! And no matter how much you try to convince us that this is because we'd already been through it in India, you're wrong. :) For one thing, the presence of tourist police absolutely everywhere in Egypt means that it is impossible for a tout to follow you for several city blocks without the possibility of you enlisting the help of a police officer. That, and we found the Egyptian people more friendly on the whole. Sure, there are touts who will try to lure you into their perfume shop or their papyrus shop, but for every tout, there are at least 10 genuine Egyptians rooting for you and protecting you from scams as best they can!

The Citadel.
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While in Cairo, we met up with Aly and Rania Nour, brother and sister to our friend Mohamed Nour in Edmonton. They introduced us to some of the culinary and social delights of Egypt, as portrayed in the photos. A big thankyou to Aly and Rania for meeting with us and taking the time to show us some of the sights of Cairo!