2012 Calendar Project: April

April in Cairo. Yes please!

The Escape!

Have you ever been someplace that you felt you couldn't get out of? Like everything around you was conspiring to keep you there? (Much like Disneyland)

I have.

The place: Cairo.

Seriously.
I almost didn't make it out of Cairo that day. (Okay, that might be a little bit exaggerated... MAYBE.)

I arranged for a taxi to take me two places that inauspicious morning.

First, to the Pyramids. I wanted to snap a few photos.

Second, to the airport, to leave the Middle East for Europa.

All I wanted was to drive up to the Pyramids, stop, take some photos and then go catch my flight. I had timed accordingly, requesting the taxi pick me up three hours before my flight would depart.

Well.

I wasn't specific enough. That was my bad.

You see, being an Westerner and therefore unused to the idea that everyone around you in the Middle East expects you to be drippingly rich and stupid enough to be bamboozled into parting with your money, I was bamboozled into parting with my money!

Ugh!

It was the second time in two days.

The cab driver, who supposedly didn't speak any English, drove me over to the pyramids and then kept driving... It was not unlike the time in Venezuela that I wanted to go into Caracas but the cab driver kept going past Caracas... (Thought I was going to die... but anyway.) We drove over to a little souvenir village on the far side of the pyramids and parked in front of a store where two men were waiting with a raggedy looking white horse with very tall, spindly legs.

One of the two men, with a big pot belly and a dishonest gleam in his eye welcomed me and immediately helped me onto the horse, while I was busy protesting and confused about why I was getting onto the bloody animal to begin with. I had no desire to ride a horse around the pyramids! I didn't have time for it, I was still saddle sore from the previous (awesome) day of horse riding and I realllllllly didn't want to smell like a horse on the airplane!

Well.

Before I could un-bamboozle myself, I'd been switched to a different (less naggish) horse (when they found I had been riding the previous day and could ride) and given a "free" guide (mandatory) to take me around the pyramid park and show me all 9 pyramids...

The fat man in charge told me some ridiculous price for the horse tour for Two hours time.

I was exstatic! A way out!

I had neither two hours or anywhere near his asking price in cash. I started to dismount and then somehow I ended up negotiating a "reasonable" price for the ride (basically most of my leftover Egyptian poundage).

Except I still didn't want to be riding that blasted horse! Ugh.

The guide was very friendly, which is probably the only reason I stayed on the darned animal.

When did I become such a pushover? When I got to Egypt, that's when.

Time seems to be a very fluid concept many places outside of the US/UK. Have you experienced this? I repeatedly told my guide I had only 45 minutes to see the pyramids and he kept talking about the long route we would take and see everything! Finally after about 15 minutes I told him very firmly, "In ten minutes we have to turn around and go back or I will miss my flight!"

 Look at how teeny-tiny the sphinx is!

So finally Mr. Tourguide put the kibbosh on the long tour and took me directly to the lookout point for the biggest set of pyramids, I snapped some pix and then got back in the cab, fairly steamed at my driver for bringing me to the horse place (where he had very obviously arranged to received a kick-back on anything I paid.)

The ride to the airport was uncomfortable. I was mad. I didn't trust the driver. And when we stopped seeing signs for the airport on the freeway I became concerned. The driver pulled over to the side of the freeway... and then he opened the trunk... ? I have no idea why. He got on his phone and began making calls, looking very suspicious and speaking in heated, rapid Egyptian.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting in the back seat of the car. My bag is in the trunk with the cab driver on the phone next to it. I can see him through the space between the trunk and bottom of the car through the back windshield. I start contemplating what I'd do if I needed to make a break for it:

1. Phone is in my hand. Call the operator for help.

2. My daypack is with me in the back of the car. Grab it.

3. Run.

4. Hide.

That's all I could plan. I had no weapon as I was packed for a flight. We were stopped on the side of a busy freeway on a wide, flat, open expanse of desert. The nearest anything was at least a mile away on either side of the freeway (ritzy housing developments with green grass and palm trees).

I kept rehearsing the self defense pattern from Miss Congeniality: S.I.N.G. (Soloplex, Instep, Nose, Groin).

Finally, as I made to grab the door handle of the cab and get out, the driver (who had been watching me watch him) got back into the driver's seat and we hit the road again. I kept my eyes glued on him. He looked very nervous.


I'm really not sure what that whole thing was about. But obviously when you're a female traveling solo, you're going to be on the defensive when you're uncomfortable. Listen to your gut. It's normally right. Mine said this situation was shady.

After switching directions on the freeway and backtracking at least ten miles we finally made it to the airport. I had around 45 minutes until my flight was scheduled to depart. I hopped out of the cab and shot daggers at the driver with my eyes. He still looked shady. When I got into the airport I did a once-over of my bag - all of the exterior compartments and easily accessible areas. Heaven forbid anything be put into my bag that would cause problems in the airport!

Then I checked in. Apparently checking in with only 45 minutes to spare in Cairo really isn't a big deal.

BUT.

Don't expect to be able to print out your boarding pass at the airport there! Ridiculous.... Ten minutes of running around like mad to print off my documents, followed by very un-thorough security screenings and I was in the terminal, then on the plane, which was gloriously nearly 3/4 empty so I had an entire row to myself in which I could smell like a horse without feeling bad about it.

I never relaxed until the flight touched down in Malta and I'd left behind all traces of Cairo.

I won't be spending anymore time in Cairo on my own, I think.

Spy Movie Hotel Room

The second and final night that I spent in Cairo, after a long day of walking, pedicuring, swindling locals and horse riding was spent doing menial, but necessary things. Things like walking down the street to a gas station to buy a Galaxy Chocolate bar, and then heading over to a local type of fast-food restaurant a couple of blocks from my hotel.

Well.

It was official. I was without a guide or group wandering the streets of Cairo, once again. And you know, it was rather fun that evening, for a while at least. I think (I wish I could remember) that I ate at a fast food chain called Ma'Momen. It was one of the places our guide deemed safe for us non-Egyptians to eat. Fast food in Cairo is NOT like unto fast food in other places. Sure, there are KFCs and Arby's and McDonalds' all over Cairo, but I'm a local-style traveler (within reason). And eating at Ma'Momen was an adventure! No one there spoke English. There were lines and lines and lines of people crowded into the open-to-the-street style walk-up ordering pavilion. I reviewed the photos of the local food and pointed to something that looked like a Kafta sandwich and the young worker looked puzzlingly at me, so I said to him "Kafta?" and pointed once again. He punched something into his cash machine and motioned for me to wait to the Left. Everyone around me received numbers on their receipts that would be called out when their orders were ready, but my order-taker didn't even bother giving me one, knowing that I didn't understand Arabic and wouldn't be able to read the number.

So I stood around, watching the swarms of Egyptian men around me, ordering, shouting, lulling around waiting for their food to be dished up from piles of Falafel, skewers of hot sliced kebab and vats of chopped tomato and onion. Within a few moments, of me standing there, the atmosphere around me changed from one of slight hostility to the blonde woman standing in what must have been mostly a man's venue to curiosity to friendliness. The workers would take turns coming up to the counter next to me and smile or wave. The customers around began to nod at me and some even said "Whereareyooooofrom? Youarewelcome!" And then my food came, I had no idea what it would turn out to be, but it took about four workers to hand me the bag and they waved as we all said goodbye and I headed away down the street.

I ate as I walked. I was on a mission. You see, when I was gleefully galloping across the desert on my gorgeous Arabian horse, I unintentionally made a sacrifice to the gods of ancient Egypt: My camera's lenscap.

HORROR! PANIC! Argh.

Knowing that it was futile, I embarked on another walking safari of Cairo, this one at night, to find a new lenscap for my camera. Cairo at night is even more seedy and dirty than it is in the day. I stopped at various electronics shops only to be directed further along, further away, to another street, another district. I passed the auto shops, the clothing sellers with their windows full of bright neons, I traveled through Crowds of Egyptians all staring at the foreigner who dared mingle with them in the dark. It was a gutsy thing, I must say. But I was determined to give it my best and try to save my camera lens.

Finally, after walking miles and having spent the rest of my energy, my legs protested walking any further. I found the main road that my hotel lived on and began to walk back. Miles and miles. And then I was home again. Back to the small room on the sixth floor of a building that had been nice sixty years ago. It was passable as far as lodging goes. Much better than my room in Amman! I flipped the breaker to turn my AC unit on, once again. (It would run for twenty minutes and then shut off, only to come back on after flipping the breaker again.) I dared open the creaky shutters once to find my small window overlooking a large street, caked and covered in years of city grime. The previously muffled city sounds came through at me, loud and crisp. I closed the shutter and quickly locked them again and sat down on my small single bed, covered in a rough nappy brown blanket and realized what this room reminded me of...

It was the room from Spy movies. 

It was the room you see the ex-pat or person on the run hiding out in: Small, dingy, confined, non-descript and unmemorable. Except that it will be forever burnt into my memory as the hotel that I stayed in that was like the Bourne Identity.

But it had a wonderful, clean, newly remodeled bathroom with a fabulous bathtub that I spent the next hour doing laundry by hand in.

View from The Capsis Palace Hotel. Ramsis Road, Cairo. Photos from TripAdvisor.

Oh! And because I know you're dying to find out just how I managed my missing lens cap problem: Zip Lock baggie wrapped around the lens + hair scrunchy to hold it in place. LOVE my ziplocks while traveling.