Cairo first appeared to me in the early hours of a crisp, winter morning.
My flight, along with most others on the bottom end of the market, arrived in the early hours, resulting in hundreds of bewildered passengers all scrambling together to exchange money and buy their visa stamps. Fortunately I managed to complete the procedure correctly first time and passed through Immigration without a hitch.
I met my first “Friendly Egyptian” posing as an employee of the Chamber of Tourism. He claimed to be only helping me, warning that the hotel I had pre-booked a few weeks earlier had now mysteriously shut down. I smiled politely and ignored him. Picking up my rucksack from the baggage reclaim I discovered that someone had already got to it first and pinched my brand new Swiss Army knife (the previous one was confiscated at Heathrow airport before a flight to Argentina three months earlier) as well as my travel cable/padlock. Oh well I thought, walking into the galabiyya-clad affray of taxi drivers who descend upon Cairo airport in meet the naive new arrivals, one of whom became the next “Friendly Egyptian” I was to encounter, this time telling me the taxi that was sent to meet me from my hotel wasn’t coming. As I could see a young man holding up a card with my name written on it standing behind him I once again smiled politely and ignored him.
I was relieved to be escaping the chaos of the airport, glad to be heading on dark, semi-deserted roads to my hotel, excited to be beginning my first twenty-four hours in Cairo.My first task the next morning was to obtain an International Student Identity Card (ISIC), entitling me to discounted entrance fees and railway tickets. So I wasn’t actually an enrolled student at the time but I had taken along some very official looking documents as well as a little baksheesh to oil the academic wheels. The task of obtaining a card however slowly unfolded into an Egyptian odyssey of pharaonic proportions, the outcome of which was twofold. Firstly I was became the proud owner of a shiny new ISIC card, which I was later to lose in Luxor, and secondly I learnt the invaluable lesson of engaging local people in assisting you, and in return offering your ear and patience in playing along a little with their culture of hard/soft sell – not an unfair exchange really.
One of the first sites I had to see were the Great Pyramids in the suburb of Giza. The taxi driver who helped me buy my ISIC card had offered to take me there and back for 70LE return. I eventually went with a taxi I flagged down in the street near to my hotel for a mere 10LE, which was to be the beginning of one of the strangest taxi rides I’ve ever taken.The fun and games began when a young man jumped into the taxi at a set of traffic lights near the suburb and occupied the front seat next to the driver. He promptly began introducing himself and offering his guide services around the Pyramids. I was a little shocked and bemused at the behaviour of our impromptu passenger and threatened to get out of the taxi and not pay if the young man didn’t get out. After much arguing between him and the driver he eventually did, only for another young man to try the same tourist car-jacking a little further down the road. The poor old taxi driver seemed more shocked at this behaviour than even I did and complained bitterly to the Tourist Police once we eventually arrived at the Pyramids.
Visiting the pyramids of Cheops, Micerinus and Cephren is an awe inspiring experience, but the hard sell touting circus is never too far behind you. As with much of the magnificent Egyptian legacies left by ancient man, it is the nearby modern human who you must be wary of. By avoiding eye contact you at least have a chance of giving your ears, your sole and ultimately your wallet some peace and quiet.
But Cairo was just the start to my six-week Egyptian endurance, one that would take me on a emotional journey to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Sinai coasts, the Western Oasis and the Nile Valley with never a sheesha tofa or “Friendly Egyptian” that far away…
