Let the Haggling Begin!

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  Cairo, Egypt
Saturday, January 1, 2005

Well, I have arrived safely in Cairo (yeah!) Yesterday I left well and fine on a 7am bus from Jerusalem. Can we say culture shock?! After two weeks amongst only Palestinias, it felt quite strange to suddenly be thrust into the Israeli world. A quicky survey of the bus station and the bus itself showed no signs of any Arabs that I could see. So I tried to lay low as the bus was obviously about 98% Israeli...I didn't want to have to dodge any questions about what I'd been doing for the past two weeks. A German man did sit next to me and immediately began talking about religion and how I must be a Christian on a pilgrimmage for the holidays. I tried to dodge all questions and just agreed with everything he said. It's really a strange feeling to have to
pretend you weren't were you were for the past two weeks and to almost feel guilty for it?! I can't explain what it feels like. Other than that, it was a comfortable 4.5 hour ride to Eilat, a buzzing beach town on the Red Sea.

I caught a taxi about 7 miles to the border with Egypt. Being the nerd that I am, one of the major things I researched before leaving on my trip was how much taxis *should* cost from certain points

Cairo on the Nile at dusk

. You learn pretty quickly how much a particular journey should cost. But there is only so much you can do. In any case, I knew that from the bus station to the border it was as low as 20 shekels and really no more than 30. So a young taxi driver approached me and tried to charge me 35 and I said I'd meet him at 25 and he reluctantly agreed. Well, in the middle of the ride (we were in the middle of NOWHERE), he looks at me through the rearview mirror and says "you WILL pay me 35." I couldn't believe this jerk. So I agreed as I didn't feel like being dropped in the middle of the desert and walking the rest of the way. This brings me to my #1 lesson...always have exact change! I was helpless as I only had a 50 and would need change from this idiot. So I got my bags out first and then stood right in his doorway while I waited for my change. Lesson learned.

It took about an hour to cross because their system was really screwy and you didn't have much direction in what steps to take and you had to go to so many stations and get a stamp here and pay a fee there and blah blah blah. First, you go to the money changing station to change money and pay your Israeli exit fee. You walk forward to where you are tag teamed by female IDF who interrogate you on the purpose of your trip, what you did in Israel, did you speak to another human being, what was their name, blood type, etc. I think I was asked about 5 times yesterday "do you have any weapons or ammunition on you?" I kept wondering what would happen if I said 'yes' because to me it was such a ridiculous question, but I guess that is the reality here

New Year's in Cairo

. At the border on the Israeli side I met an awesome girl from Mexico, Lily. She picked up and moved to Cairo a few months ago to learn Arabic and is working as a hairdresser in a beauty salon. She had been visiting a friend in Israel and so I had a new traveling buddy which is always fun. Unfortunately, they weren't going to let her out of Israel b/c the passport biatches were pissed b/c she didn't want an Israeli stamp in her passport. They interrogated her for about 10 minutes. Then you walk through the little shop and you are back outside. You walk on the sidewalk to a gate where plain clothes IDF are waiting. They shout at you to STAY! and then randomly let you through, but not before your 100th patdown for weapons. Then you are in no-man's land for a bit and are in the hands of the Egyptians. Lily and I walked around aimlessly as there was no one to be seen anywhere...it's not well-organized to say the least. Well, it turns out that the passport stampers were on a lunch break and so we waited by the booths for them to come back. Lily had problems again as she had already used her single entry visa into Egypt and they were going to make her go back to Tel Aviv to get a new visa. There is
a game you can play here with visas that is very interesting. People who only want to
visit Sinai, need just a Sinai only visa. So Lily asked for this instead and was able to lie about where she'd been...saying she'd been in Sinai and never in Israel. It's all such silly games, but they need to be played in order to get around the area

Our outdoor cafe in Cairo

. Then you walk to the giant x-ray machine where you throw your bags down to be scanned. Then you walk back outside and towards a giant gate where a few men are waiting to check your passport for the 1000th time and they smile and say "Welcome." You are let through and into the hot desert sun of Taba! There is NO need to take a taxi at this point. Simply walk for about 5 minutes following the road in front of you and you will happen upon a few buildings of crude shops and cafes and the bus ticket window is the first building on your left.

Once in Taba, Egypt...we missed our bus and had to wait another 4 hours for the next one. We sat at an outdoor "cafe" with two goats constantly trying to ride one another for our entertainment. The bus to Cairo was once a very nice one...but is now falling apart. We were the only 2 women on the entire bus of about 30 men. The driver recommended we sit in the back to be away from the men. Unfortunately, this meant we had fumes billowing into our faces the entire time. My jeans were literally black from sitting back there. It was hot as hell and a really horrible 7 hour ride!! We made it
into Cairo about 11pm and again, thank god for Lily who speaks more Arabic than I do and knows the lay of the land. I am already so disappointed b/c the dialect here is different. I was finally getting a lot of Arabic down and able to understand people in Palestine. Here, I can hardly recognize what people are saying :( In any case, we flagged down a taxi and were on our way

Short bus stop near Eilat

.

A note on the driving here. It really must be seen first-hand, but I will try to describe it. The lines on the road mean nothing...it's this fluid drifting of cars from side to side with people effortlessly cutting in and out of one another. A car comes a little too close and a nice little honk notifies them to back off. I swear it was musical chaos...I was in absolute amazement the entire time. I think I counted about 8 different lanes of cars having been made out of 4 'formal' lanes at one point. Add to this people running in and around the cars to cross the road.

I had a reservation for a place for 80 EGP which is about $13. Lily took me to her hostel (Hostel Vienna) instead where I paid 10 EGP, about $1.80!! It's decent enough. She really took me under her wing and invited me out for a New Year's celebration with her friends, who are oddly enough all American. We hung out at someone's flat for a while with about 15 locals and then made our way to their favorite outdoor cafe. There is this funny man who makes food for them and his only English includes the phrase "Everyone here is bitches tonight!" I am NOT kidding...he would yell this out while laughing hysterically every 10 minutes or so. So I finally made it to bed around 4am.

I slept until 2:30 today which I am disappointed about, but really needed the sleep. Honestly, I am feeling much too overwhelmed to have been able to plan a day out and about in Cairo. I will try to get in what I wanted to after the end of my tour...it should be okay

Welcome to Egypt!

. As the subject line reads, I am so glad I am doing a tour b/c this is the international capitol of haggling. Even Lily's nice friends at our hostel are bothering me already. They take me for a dumb tourist and don't know that I already know their game. They've told me that my tour I am doing is crap and they of course can arrange me a better one much cheaper. They followed me around asking what I was doing today and I politely tried to make it clear I was already set with my plans. They tried taking me to their family papyrus and perfume shop and I had to dart out of the hostel without being too rude. It's just so damn annoying. I miss having my 'local' friends to help out with this kind of thing...but Palestine was nothing compared to this.

But all in all Cairo is a proper bustling city very pretty all lit up at night--daytime tells another story altogether, though. I am excited to begin my tour and let someone else deal with the hassle and just allow me to try and enjoy my time. I am hoping that outside of Cairo it gets better, but I doubt it as I'm sure it's all the same in all tourist areas. Honestly, I miss all of my Palestinian friends already...the people here are just not as welcoming--but perhaps that is a symptom of life in a big city.

I hope you all had a wonderful New Year.

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