Just Call me Nefertiti

It was dark as our plane flew into Cairo. This city is unbelievably huge- all we could see out the windows of the plane were city lights dimmed by a thick cloud of pollution. I read about the pollution in Cairo and how it is damaging the pyramids, I believe it! I can’t say that I’ve ever been able to see pollution at night. We landed at 2230, and headed for the visa stand- we have yet to pass a bank machine and we are broke! Ha! We do have some euro and US dollars stashed in our packs, but our packs are to be picked up on the other side of customs! We literally have 5 cents. We go up to the counter and are required to pay 30 US dollars for our visa’s. Steve asks “do you take visa?” The guy raises his eyebrows and gives us a sour “no”. I don’t panic- as if we are the first ones to show up to visa with no money? Steve says “we have no money” and the guy is laughing- in disbelief I guess. And whats up with having to pay in US dollars?? Apparently they like the greenback and the euro. Another agent says something to him and he directs us to a cash machine. We get cashola and pay for visa’s in Egyptian Pounds- now was that so hard? We passed customs and met our ride. We have signed up for a tour with a company here in Cairo- we decided Egypt would be more enjoyable and much easier if we didn’t have all the responsibility of doing it solo. We were out of the airport at just past 2300 and the temperature outside was thirty one degrees! It was muggy and the air was thick with nastiness. As we got onto the highway, the pollution was like fog in the headlights. The traffic is unreal and I can’t tell if there are traffic rules here- there are lines painted on the roads but drivers hover on them and appear to ignore them completely. I don’t understand this! The horn, high-beams, and handsignals are used as part of the driving- different honks and flashes have various meanings. Despite being late at night on a weekday, the roads were still congested. People drive fast here- at least in Morocco the driving was slow and crazy, here its fast and crazy!  The barricades along the sides are full of holes where cars have crashed through and gone off overpasses or down embankments. I was a wreck while Magan and Sam (our driver & guide) drove us across the city to our hotel...we arrived to the hotel where armed guards sit at the gate, then another one at the entrance where we must pass through metal detectors. I don’t know what to think of that- is it great because we are safe? Or is it because something went down here and I don’t want to know...there is nothing really around our hotel and it feels like we are in a compound. Our room is spacious and actually very nice. We strain to see the pyramids and finally in the dark we can see the outline of one off in the distance! I use all the locks on the door and jam a chair under the knob and we are off to sleep. 

We woke up the next morning, pulled back the curtains and could see three pyramids- through a thick fog of pollution of course. Magan and Sam picked us up to have a meeting with the tour manager. This required a drive into downtown Cairo. This is the ugliest city I have ever seen. All the buildings are cement or brick- it looks as though some of them had been painted at one time, but they are all a grayish brown color due to the smog. Most windows on the buildings have huge air-conditioning units hanging out them and massive satellite dishes are randomly attached to the walls and any available roof space. There are unfinished projects everywhere I look. Most buildings have long sticks of rebar sticking out of the roofs which we assume are for future development. There are half built overpasses and roads that have never been completed. There is litter and rubble everywhere. 

The meeting with Hany goes well...Hany warns us of street hustlers. He explains that egyptians are usually shy, and if people approach us in the street they are likely to be hustlers. A couple hours later we are hustled. Hahaha! They are really smooth here and we didn’t realize it was happening until it was too late...but here is how it went down.  

-We leave the compound in search of a place to eat

-We are walking on a busy road

-Suddenly a young guy is walking with us and we begin chatting

-He is on his way home from work at a hotel

-He tells us the restaurants don’t open until 8pm

-Its only 630pm

-He knows a convenience store where we can buy a drink

-We go there and get overly screwed on the prices but don’t realize it yet

-He says its customary to invite people for tea and suggests we come over while we wait for the restaurants to open

-We go to his family’s business for tea

-Its a perfume store

-Oh shit

-They sit us on couches and we get the whole spiel on how they make the perfume oil from flowers (122kg of petals for one litre of oil!) etc

-Oh and the bottles are blown glass

-I’m loving it and Steve is not

-The recipe’s for egyptian queen’s perfumes were written in the tombs

-I buy a little bottle of Queen Nefertiti’s perfume 

-The hustler gives me blown glass bottle because egyptians think nurses are angels

-We leave and so does the young guy

-We see him go back to where he met us to wait for the next tourist

-We forget about eating and go back to the compound

Neither of us could believe how smooth this dude was! When we got to the perfume store we knew what was going down. Its somewhat awkward trying to get out of those situations...they know every angle. I don’t regret the experience though- I actually really like my new Nefertiti oil. But we are more aware now- a new country with new tactics!

 We have a couple days before the tour starts and decide to take a trip to a famous church. This outing requires another adventure through Cairo. The church is known for the story dating from 929AD. The king found a passage in the bible indicating that mountains could be moved by prayer. They decided if this could be proven than Christianity was legit. So they told the Christians they had 3 days to move the mountain and they could keep their church and religion. Long story short, St.Simon the Tanner led the prayers and moved the mountain/church. This is our destination. Megan mutters that we have to go past “the dump”. We don’t as questions. As we approach, Sam says, “this is the Christian quarter”. And we are driving past a mountain of garbage- an actual dump in the city of Cairo. We don’t get far though, the road is flooded with nasty deep dump sludge water. We back out and have to find a new route. There are dogs eating garbage and some sort of large animal carcass on the side of the road. Evil looking dogs...we begin to weave our way through the streets surrounding the garbage mountain and I am appalled. It’s the most horrible place I’ve seen. People are living among the garbage, they sort through it separating recyclables. The streets looked like part of the dump with bugs and garbage and dogs everywhere. The car barely fit through the roads because they were so blocked with garbage, people, animals and old cars. There were children covered in dirt and wearing rags. I felt guilty for having money when they clearly had none. Megan cracked the window to ask directions and we all began gagging- we had to hold tissues over our mouths and nose. We made it out of the garbage and to the church. It was impressive, an outdoor amphitheater type church that can seat thousands of worshipers. We saw a carving of the Madonna in the rock that apparently appeared spontaneously. It was all very interesting but I mostly thought about how we’d have to drive back through the Christian quarter. It was just as horrible driving out. Our next stop was in the “rich part of Cairo” to see the city view from lookout. The rich part didn’t look much different from any other part...garbage and rubble, half built buildings, cars driving like crazy. We got to the lookout and had a vast view of the city. Cairo is massive, we could not see the pyramids because of the smog. As we were taking photos and gazing, a man walked to the edge of the cliff and emptied a sac full of garbage off the bank. Unbelievable!!! It disgusts me. We drive to another lookout, Megan gets out of the car and throws rocks at the stray evil dogs, then its safe for us to get out. More polluted city views and more garbage. I can’t wait to leave Cairo. Our final stop for the little excursion is at a family run hole in the wall for some traditional food. We have our first “coucherie”. The place is tiny and part of the charm is a few inches of mystery sawdust covering the floor. The food is being prepared at the front of the shop in big pots. Our coucherie arrives to the table in stainless steel cereal bowls. We are given a stainless jug of water and one stainless cup for the four of us. I thought maybe this was how prisoners ate. Steve ordered us a bottled water. The food is fantastic! Our first real egyptian food- made of rice, macaroni noodles, beans, a tomato sauce, some kind of oil, fried onions...mmm! Steve loved it- which is saying a lot considering it is a vegetarian dish. We are safely returned to the compound...I am liking the compound more and more.

The next day we venture into town. We get directions and the address to the hotel written in arabic. We leave the compound and a few minutes later we are walking by some men on the side of the road. They say “taxi?” and Steve says “yes”. One of the men pulls a car out of the garage while the other gets out two plastic lawn chairs. The car pulls away and we sit on the side of the road in the chairs. Soon a taxi pulls up following the other car. These dudes got in their car, to go tell their taxi driving buddy that they found him customers?? We make it to our destination- a store to get some sunscreen and shampoo. We walk around to find some lunch and are constantly approached and stared at. We know better and ignore them. We find a pizza place and have egyptian pizza for lunch. We flag down a cab and the driver uses the directions to aim for our hotel. We miss the turn but the driver finds a new way- the driver doesn’t speak english- so he shows his appreciation for the directions by kissing the paper and laughing. Steve is laughing in the front seat. Out of nowhere there is an oversized speed bump. BRAKE! The tires squeal but we still nail it hard- I hit the seat in front of me as Steve braced himself on the dash. Ugh. Once again, I am happy to be back on the compound. That evening we meet with the rest of the tour group and our guide. There are five Australians, two from Singapore, and us.