In order to get the cheaper flight, we had to take the red eye. We arrived in Cairo around 3 in the morning. I wasn't really able to sleep much on the flight so I was pretty tired when we arrived. Paul, on the other hand, was awake and lively, having spent the entire flight chatting with a German-Iraqi. Paul got the best of both worlds–he got to practice his German while practicing his Arabic. He introduced himself to Rob and me as "Georgio." Fine by me! After passing through some very weak health checkpoint–nothing like the bio-thermal detectors the State Department had promised but rather some old ladies wearing masks who wouldn't let us through until we filled out some paperwork– we exchanged some money and purchased our visas for $15. (Bryna, if you read this, maybe think about going to Egypt next time. You can just get your visa when you arrive!) Egypt uses the Egyptian Pound, a reminder of their former occupation by the British no doubt. It was about 5.45 Egyptian Pounds to the Dollar when we arrived, or about 8 Euro per Pound. Neat currency, though they have no denomination small than a 50 cent piece...which means you can literally get short-changed.
Once we got our baggage, we made our way to the doors. 20 feet or so before, we could feel the warmth and could smell a dusty dry air that I won't soon forget. Georgio was able to get a taxi–odd how he wanted to be payed in Euros– which he shared with us. As we made our way from the airport to the city center (about 20 minutes away by car) we got to talking to Georgio a bit more. Before we knew it, Paul invited him along to our hostel, humorously named "Let-Me-Inn" Hostel. We changed our room to a four bed-room to accommodate our new friend. "Hey, Mom. I just got to Egypt, met a 37 year-old Iraqi man who goes by "Georgio," and am sharing a hostel room with him. Bye" That was pretty much the conversation Rob had with his mom before we went to bed. :)
Our first day there (October 6th) we decided to make our way around the city to get a taste of Egypt. Well, let me tell you. Cairo has 12 million people. It is absolutely huge. Trying to cross the street involves playing a real-life version of "Frogger." I would almost say cars speed up once you enter their paths. The air quality within the city is also very poor. Later on in the trip, Paul had a hard time seeing our of his contacts because of all the pollutants in the air.
We took a subway a ways out of the center of the city where we made our way through busy street markets to the Nile, the lifeblood of Egypt. It is pretty fantastic. As much as a river can be, I guess. Very wide. Very large. After getting our first round of pictures with the river, we followed to current of the river back toward the way from which we came. Along the bank, there are plenty of green areas. They charge an entrance fee, but the you can sit there and admire the rather sparse greenery. We opted to keep walking. After a couple hours of that, hunger finally set back in, and we made our way to a Pizza Hut. Let me tell you, Pizza Hut in Egypt is a classy establishment. Cleaner, cheaper, but not as tasty as in the U.S. Paul had this fantasy of drinking tea in an Egyptian tee shop. I on the other hand, wanted to get a haircut. Let's face it, haircuts in Europe, like clothing, are too expensive. Plus, now when people ask me what I did in Egypt, I can respond proudly, "I got a haircut!" Georgio had to explain what I wanted. It was sort of a weird experience, especially because the barber didn't know English, though he somehow knew how to smoke while cutting hair. After he was done, he squirted about a third of a bottle of gel into my hair and "styled" it. Of the phrases I learned while in Egypt, I still wish I would have learned how to say, "Please sir, do not put all of that gel in my hair!"
Rob came back to get me in time to see the gelling incident and led me to the café where Paul and Georgio were enjoying some nice Egyptian tea. Georgio was on vacation and, like us, happened to find a cheap flight to Egypt. But, he was hoping to return in January during a longer break. So he asked around about renting apartments for a couple of weeks, and pretty soon brought up the crazy idea of renting an apartment for our return leg in Cairo. Having already put some down-payments on different hostels, I didn't really feel like losing out on those. Plus, we're poor students. We're supposed to rough it when we go backpacking. Nonetheless, Georgio and now Paul and Rob, wanted to check out the apartment. This man on the street took us up to this 8th or 9th floor flat which provided a beautiful view of the city over the Nile. We snapped some pictures and told them we would call them after we returned to Cairo if we were interested. Haha...thanks for giving us a place to take some cool photographs! We never called them back. We had neither the funds nor the desire to stay in the apartment/Cairo during our last days in Egypt, but that comes later.
We took a taxi back to our hostel. It was a very exhilarating ride. Namely because there is very little traffic controlling in Egypt. One simply changes lanes and there are clusters of cars everywhere! Headlights/directionals are completely optional. Most of the switches for the horns are where the windshield wiper switch would be. That's how often they are used. Once back at the hostel, we took turns showering. There was no tub, just a shower head in the bathroom with a squeegee to push the water down a drain once finished. Afterwards, we talked with the staff at the hostel about possible plans. It seems like everybody in Egypt knows somebody. Meaning if you need something, whoever you are talking to, knows somebody who can procure the good or service. Our plan was to spend another day in Cairo, then take a 9-hour night train to Luxor. They tried to fix us up with this different itinerary that would have sent us to Abu-Simbel, an ancient temple not too far from the border with Sudan. We laughed at the quote the gave us and explained our poor-studentness. They recommended a flight from Cairo to Luxor, which would be more expensive than the train, but would go 9 times faster. That was something we had to think over, but we did make plans with them to go to the Pyramids the next day. We went to dinner at an Egyptian restaurant. I ended up getting some sort of meat (which tasted curiously like meatloaf) on a stick along with "macaroni," which consisted of mostacolli noodles with some beef and cheese. Not too bad! Then we tried our luck with a confectioner, who made some very very delicious baklava. Afterward, we walked around the streets for about an hour and a half. The night life there is huge. We saw full families walking about at 10:30-11 o'clock at night. After trying on a couple pairs of knock-off shoes (including a pair of sandals I swear were women's), we called it quits for the night. After all, we were going to go see the Pyramids at Giza in the morning.
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