We flew at a ridiculous hour of the morning. In fact our flight was at 7 am so we needed to be at the airport 2 hours ahead. There is UBER in Hong Kong! Easy peasy we grabbed an uber car and were at the airport in plenty of time.
We landed in Cairo around 4 or 5 pm, and faced bedlam!
The terminal where we arrived was ancient, perhaps as old as the pyramids themselves. It was an international arrival terminal.... Wtf, why would a country have foreign visitors arrive in the dumpiest place in the whole airport?
To get cash in local currency you had to wait on a line and it turns out you can purchase your entrance visa for $25 there as well.
Enter customs area, zoo central. There are no lines, just mobs of people milling about, we finally find a line of some sort and wait patiently until we get to the customs officer. He adheres the visa to our passport, and stamps them. Now we are able to collect baggage. Chaos. We finally figure out what belt our luggage is on and retrieve it. Exit into the arrivals hall.... No ATM, no taxi cue, just hundreds of hack drivers yelling at you to take their cabs. Very cheap, 200 EP, well they are literally correct, 200 EP is about $10, but no one will use the meter. We also know that the agreed on price is not what will be the exiting price....
I wait with the bags while Bill tries to sort out which are the legal cabs and which are the black taxis. He returns with 2 fellows, one older and one younger. At first I think that they are together...but no, they are rival drivers vying for Bill and my fare. They have agreed to 150 EP and are now fighting between each other over whose cab we will get in. Bill indicates that the older guy was the one we spoke with earlier and he feels obligated to use him. The younger guy gets really angry. I was worried there would be fisticuffs or a fatality. Another cabbie tries to talk the younger guy down, but it just incites him further. The other cabbie finally puts his arms around the younger guy and pulls him to the side. We climb into the cab, a little be fearful would there be further retaliation.
We exit the airport, so far so good. The driver now is engaging us with, "you know, it's Christmas Time here and would you mind if we went to duty free?" We agree, as we are unsure what is involved and off we drive, fast, really fast, with the cabbie talking to us and showing us his family photos on his cell phone. All the while driving like a bat out of hell. We don't know where in Cairo we are heading, we don't know what area our hotel is in, we don't know if we are actually going to duty free, we don't know squat and are so tired we don't care. We finally arrive at a u-turn on the highway and he backs his car up into a space directly next to the barrier. he tells us to get out and bring our passports. We enter a store of sorts, there are seemingly random things on the shelves, ancient perfume brands (Charlie, Taboo, etc), small appliances, major appliances, and we are heading to the back of the store. We enter the cashier's area and our Debbie, Zeriff, asks us to give our passports to the cashier, which we do, and after some beeps and other noises, out pops several receipts. We are then escorted to a table at the front of the store where a man is praying just behind his desk. We are instructed to sit down, I am incredibly uncomfortable as if this man is praying aren't we invading his space and prayers?
After a short while, he stands up and takes his seat adjusts his glasses and takes our passports. He writes something on the receipts and asks us to initial and sign on the piece of paper. In a few minutes Zeriff comes back and says, OK, thank you, time to go, we give booze and cigarettes to my brother. His brother is in the store and takes the items, which we never see, from Zeriff and we exit into the cab.
We are bewildered and amused at this experience and now turn our attention to finding our hotel. We don't know where we are on the map. Roads rarely have street signs on them, and a single straight road may have multiple names.
We drive a bit and the cabbie stops and asks someone for directions. We drive another 100 m and repeat the process about 4 times. He pulls the cab into a parking spot in an alley and says ok, you hotel is up here, follow me. He takes my bag and we walk through the alley out onto a busy street which turns out to be Talaat Harb and he leads us to a building entrance.
This is the sketchiest building. The doors are open, the entranceway is strewn with trash. There is an ancient elevator in the center of a large circular staircase much past its prime. As we climb up, there is more trash on the stairs, little light, I am telling Bill that this can't be our hotel, it's too sketchy. Up another dingy flight. On the third floor, there is a business and the lighting is better. Continue to climb, the 4th floor another business, a book store, and on the 5th floor the Paris Hostel/Hotel. it seems that the Paris has listings under both Hostel and Hotel. It is clean, well lit and the proprietor, Wallid, is waiting for us. He tells us that we can use the kitchen any time we want to make coffee and breakfast, there is bread in the fridge. He shows us to our room. It is small with two twin beds, there is a toilet and sink in a small room and I am about to ask where is the shower, when I spot it. It is above the toilet...a hand-held sprayer and several drains in the floor. It is clear that the entire bathroom will becomes soaked when the shower is used. TP must be stored outside the bathroom in order to keep it dry. As I shower that night, I find myself laughing as the mirror, sink and toilet get covered in water spray.
The beds were quite soft and lumpy. After China, the land of hard beds, it was very difficult to sleep. There were very few outlets in the room to charge our phones.
When we arose, we headed out onto the street and started to look for some place to eat. We are approached by a man who asks us where we are from. We tell him, "oh, I love Americans. America is great". We ask directions to Tahrir Square and he says, come to my shop it is just across the street. We do go as we need to orient our selves and get directions. The shop is a knick knack shop with statuary, papyrus, and perfumes. He says, smell the lotus flower I put a dab on the back of my hand. It is very strong. We get directions and head down to Tahrir Square.
Egyptian traffic makes China look like a walk in the park. There are cars whizzing in all directions. And there are people weaving their way across many lanes of fast moving traffic.We decide to head to a traffic light to get across the street. Our goal is the Ritz-Carlton Hotel as there are no restaurants, eating establishments anywhere to be seen around the square. I am starving at this point because I did not eat the 2nd meal on the plane, so it has been close to 24 hrs since my last meal. We cross at the light and are again approached by several touts and told that the hotel is closed, let me take you to another place. Bill insists that we are ok.
It seems everyone has a friend, cousin, brother, uncle, etc in whatever business you are walking into. The touts are polite, but rather persistent. We walk away and head up to the hotel. There is a large gate across the property and a single entrance with a scanner in it. We are used to this as all metros in China have scanners in them. We approach put our backpacks on the belt and enter onto the property.
There is little activity on the property. We are beginning to wonder if it is closed. We find a patio to a restaurant and sit down. The waiter comes over and explains that breakfast buffet is ending, and we may order off the menu if we wish. I ordered foul.
Bill had the burger
We landed in Cairo around 4 or 5 pm, and faced bedlam!
The terminal where we arrived was ancient, perhaps as old as the pyramids themselves. It was an international arrival terminal.... Wtf, why would a country have foreign visitors arrive in the dumpiest place in the whole airport?
To get cash in local currency you had to wait on a line and it turns out you can purchase your entrance visa for $25 there as well.
Enter customs area, zoo central. There are no lines, just mobs of people milling about, we finally find a line of some sort and wait patiently until we get to the customs officer. He adheres the visa to our passport, and stamps them. Now we are able to collect baggage. Chaos. We finally figure out what belt our luggage is on and retrieve it. Exit into the arrivals hall.... No ATM, no taxi cue, just hundreds of hack drivers yelling at you to take their cabs. Very cheap, 200 EP, well they are literally correct, 200 EP is about $10, but no one will use the meter. We also know that the agreed on price is not what will be the exiting price....
I wait with the bags while Bill tries to sort out which are the legal cabs and which are the black taxis. He returns with 2 fellows, one older and one younger. At first I think that they are together...but no, they are rival drivers vying for Bill and my fare. They have agreed to 150 EP and are now fighting between each other over whose cab we will get in. Bill indicates that the older guy was the one we spoke with earlier and he feels obligated to use him. The younger guy gets really angry. I was worried there would be fisticuffs or a fatality. Another cabbie tries to talk the younger guy down, but it just incites him further. The other cabbie finally puts his arms around the younger guy and pulls him to the side. We climb into the cab, a little be fearful would there be further retaliation.
We exit the airport, so far so good. The driver now is engaging us with, "you know, it's Christmas Time here and would you mind if we went to duty free?" We agree, as we are unsure what is involved and off we drive, fast, really fast, with the cabbie talking to us and showing us his family photos on his cell phone. All the while driving like a bat out of hell. We don't know where in Cairo we are heading, we don't know what area our hotel is in, we don't know if we are actually going to duty free, we don't know squat and are so tired we don't care. We finally arrive at a u-turn on the highway and he backs his car up into a space directly next to the barrier. he tells us to get out and bring our passports. We enter a store of sorts, there are seemingly random things on the shelves, ancient perfume brands (Charlie, Taboo, etc), small appliances, major appliances, and we are heading to the back of the store. We enter the cashier's area and our Debbie, Zeriff, asks us to give our passports to the cashier, which we do, and after some beeps and other noises, out pops several receipts. We are then escorted to a table at the front of the store where a man is praying just behind his desk. We are instructed to sit down, I am incredibly uncomfortable as if this man is praying aren't we invading his space and prayers?
After a short while, he stands up and takes his seat adjusts his glasses and takes our passports. He writes something on the receipts and asks us to initial and sign on the piece of paper. In a few minutes Zeriff comes back and says, OK, thank you, time to go, we give booze and cigarettes to my brother. His brother is in the store and takes the items, which we never see, from Zeriff and we exit into the cab.
We are bewildered and amused at this experience and now turn our attention to finding our hotel. We don't know where we are on the map. Roads rarely have street signs on them, and a single straight road may have multiple names.
We drive a bit and the cabbie stops and asks someone for directions. We drive another 100 m and repeat the process about 4 times. He pulls the cab into a parking spot in an alley and says ok, you hotel is up here, follow me. He takes my bag and we walk through the alley out onto a busy street which turns out to be Talaat Harb and he leads us to a building entrance.
This is the sketchiest building. The doors are open, the entranceway is strewn with trash. There is an ancient elevator in the center of a large circular staircase much past its prime. As we climb up, there is more trash on the stairs, little light, I am telling Bill that this can't be our hotel, it's too sketchy. Up another dingy flight. On the third floor, there is a business and the lighting is better. Continue to climb, the 4th floor another business, a book store, and on the 5th floor the Paris Hostel/Hotel. it seems that the Paris has listings under both Hostel and Hotel. It is clean, well lit and the proprietor, Wallid, is waiting for us. He tells us that we can use the kitchen any time we want to make coffee and breakfast, there is bread in the fridge. He shows us to our room. It is small with two twin beds, there is a toilet and sink in a small room and I am about to ask where is the shower, when I spot it. It is above the toilet...a hand-held sprayer and several drains in the floor. It is clear that the entire bathroom will becomes soaked when the shower is used. TP must be stored outside the bathroom in order to keep it dry. As I shower that night, I find myself laughing as the mirror, sink and toilet get covered in water spray.
The beds were quite soft and lumpy. After China, the land of hard beds, it was very difficult to sleep. There were very few outlets in the room to charge our phones.
When we arose, we headed out onto the street and started to look for some place to eat. We are approached by a man who asks us where we are from. We tell him, "oh, I love Americans. America is great". We ask directions to Tahrir Square and he says, come to my shop it is just across the street. We do go as we need to orient our selves and get directions. The shop is a knick knack shop with statuary, papyrus, and perfumes. He says, smell the lotus flower I put a dab on the back of my hand. It is very strong. We get directions and head down to Tahrir Square.
Egyptian traffic makes China look like a walk in the park. There are cars whizzing in all directions. And there are people weaving their way across many lanes of fast moving traffic.We decide to head to a traffic light to get across the street. Our goal is the Ritz-Carlton Hotel as there are no restaurants, eating establishments anywhere to be seen around the square. I am starving at this point because I did not eat the 2nd meal on the plane, so it has been close to 24 hrs since my last meal. We cross at the light and are again approached by several touts and told that the hotel is closed, let me take you to another place. Bill insists that we are ok.
It seems everyone has a friend, cousin, brother, uncle, etc in whatever business you are walking into. The touts are polite, but rather persistent. We walk away and head up to the hotel. There is a large gate across the property and a single entrance with a scanner in it. We are used to this as all metros in China have scanners in them. We approach put our backpacks on the belt and enter onto the property.
There is little activity on the property. We are beginning to wonder if it is closed. We find a patio to a restaurant and sit down. The waiter comes over and explains that breakfast buffet is ending, and we may order off the menu if we wish. I ordered foul.
This was some of the best foul I have ever had. Creamy, peppery, and rich. It became my gold standard by which all other fouls are measured.
We decided to wander over to the Ramses Hilton to check it out as a possible hotel for our return after the cruise. We got better at crossing the street but it still scared the bejeesus out of us.
The hotel is a basic western style with a huge lobby area and various nooks around with chairs and sofas for sitting. There was a scanner at the entrance and I noticed a bomb sniffing dog and policemen that the car entrance. I was both relieved and scared. We went up to the Hilton Honors floor and met Marwa. What a gem she turned out to be. She made small talk with us and eventually told us to rejoin the program and the price of the rooms will be cheaper. That is exactly what we did. She was patient with us, and our inability to get our membership numbers straight. She also was patient as Bill made our reservation for 12/10 - 15.
Bill went downstairs and wrote a letter of commodation for Marwa for her excellent customer service and sunny attitude.
We left and walked down this alley, and it was an alley neither of us would have walked down if we were alone. It had the look of the remnants of a bomb attack, where people were living in garages, but these weren't garages, they were their homes and businesses. Children stared and smiled and grownup were a bit more circumspect. At one point, there were ab out 6 or 7 goats just munching on some feed in the middle of the road.
We exited on to a main road and walked past a fortified check point in front of some government building. We were eyed suspiciously by a very burly guard, I said hello and we walked on. After going another 50 feet we realized that we were heading into a boring area and turned around. We walked back past the same guard and said hello again, he responded with "Welcome to Egypt" and smiled. So we passed the terror threat test. Who knew that later in the week there would be attacks in Cairo.
We headed back to the Ramses and went to their pub for dinner. We met Graham there who has a dream job. He works for the British Consulate in Bangkok and goes from consult ate to consulate checking protocols and procedures. He has been everywhere and tries to take in the sites when he is not working. He gave us some good advice about the Pyramids.
We entertained ourselves with watching Barca play Real Madrid in an English Pub in Cairo, Egypt!
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