13. Cairo, Forced Upon Me

I didn’t ask to be in Cairo. I didn’t plan to be in Cairo. I wasn’t prepared to be in Cairo. Yet here I was trying to get in Cairo while looking out for the Egyptian police.

As I waited for my turn through passport control, an Australian woman behind me asked if I spoke English. She saw the little JanSport label on my backpack that said "Made in USA" and thought she’d chance asking if we could split a cab into town. She was supposed to be on the same 3:30 flight that got canceled, but Cairo was her destination and she didn’t get free hotel accommodation. Arriving in a place like Cairo at a time like 11 at night without a hotel is not what I would consider a desirable situation. The vultures outside have infinite number of ways to make a killing off you. A fellow backpacker, however, she seemed to know how to handle herself.

I let her go through the passport control first, which was very quick. However, I was stopped because I did not have the necessary visa. I thought I could get a visa on the spot. "Buy your visa at the bank." Huh? Visa at the bank? Perhaps he meant the office on the side. Checked there. No. Go to the bank. At the Thomas Cook booth I paid $15 for two stamps and exchanged some money. While waiting on line, a guy directing traffic to the various passport control booths saw the two stamps in my hand and helped me sticking them onto a blank page in my passport. Getting into Egypt was then fairly swift.

Where was the police the captain promised?

The immigration officer held my passport and asked me to step aside. Oh, oh. Well, the other guy just needed a moment more to type in the information. I got my passport back, but I was immediately met by a man with an official looking ID tag. "If you have a video camera, you will have to declare it." "No, I don’t. Just a regular camera." As I thought about it later, that was a pickup line.

I was perhaps feeling a little unsure about the little episode on the airplane. For some reason beyond my comprehension, I was therefore particularly courteous to everyone I met. The guy asked about where I was coming from, where I was going, how long I’d be here, etc. in casual conversation. Again, as I thought about it later, I was having too much of a conversation with him. Everything I said gave him an opportunity to refine a profile of me. And it doesn’t take much to draw a rough sketch. An answer to "Where are you from?" gives away a great deal of information about myself, especially the wallet size. When the bellhop at the hotel asked where I was from, I answered, "Athens." – a technically valid but purposefully misleading answer.

He, Samir as I would later learn, led me to the EgyptAir ticket office to check if there was another flight to Riyadh leaving earlier than the 4 p.m. flight I had. I considered that a useful service to me, and was weighing how much money that warranted. I had the distinct feeling that he was going to sell me a tour, which he indeed did. A tour to the pyramids of Giza, Memphis, and Saqqara was $85. I considered it too much, using the tours in Athens as a guideline. A tour to the pyramids alone was $45, to which I agreed. I asked whether these were bus tours. Some answer was produced, which I interpreted to be yes. However, I wasn’t too sure how in both cases, he assured me that he could get me back to the airport in time for my flight.

Samir said the hotel would have a transfer bus, but he put me in a private car. I checked with him that the ride would be free. He replied with a rather cute answer saying that the transfer buses had stopped but he checked with his manager and the ride would be provided for free. These guys have a good answer to anything you say. Mövenpick Hotel was about 500 meters away from the airport.

On the way to my room, the bellhop twice wanted to carry my backpacks. It annoys me that bellhops are always so eager to carry my bag, no matter how light and small it may be. If I had carry the darn thing half way around the world, do I really need him to carry it to my room? After showing me into my room, he stood there waiting for a tip. I gave him an Egyptian pound and half, all the loose change I had, to get rid of him. It was a rather gloomy room on the ground floor. Well, I didn’t expect much for a voucher.

I called Riyadh to let my colleagues know when I would arrive the next day. I spoke to Carlos and told him about the tour. He had been to Egypt a month or so ago. He laughed at me. The tours to the pyramids should be no more than $25. I thought about it. You know, $45 was an awful lot of money for half a day’s work anywhere. I had the distinct feeling that Samir was going to show up alone in the morning.

At 8:20 in the morning (Monday, May 10), Samir called from the lobby. Yep, he was alone.

The area around the airport, Heliopolis, looked upscale, with half descent apartment buildings. As we drove through the city towards Giza, Samir pointed out a few significant buildings and sites to me. The scene turned worse as we left Heliopolis – dilapidated buildings with bricks exposed, dusty streets littered with garbage, donkeys sharing the roads with crumbling cars. We passed by the Citadel. We passed by the City of the Dead, a landscape that’s eeriely depressing. It looked like a giant pit half unearthed in an archeological excavation project. It had its streets and its ruined buildings. The living live amongst the dead. The very poor living, that is.

The Egyptians are by far the worst drivers I had seen. The New Yorkers to the Finns are the Egyptians to the Italians. The lane markers painted on the road are completely ignored. Why should only two cars share the road when three can squeeze into it? Cars pass one another with merely inches to spare on either side. Tailgating, cutting people off, being cut off are simply normal part of driving. It’s a good thing that no one could speed because of all the traffic. As the Bangles would advise, walk like an Egyptian. But please don’t drive like an Egyptian, and above all, please don’t fly like an Egyptian.

We crossed a branch of the Nile, and got onto the Pyramid Road towards Giza. Samir asked if I would like to see a papyrus museum. I innocently asked if it’s something like the Egyptian Museum. I simply forgot that a shopping stop had not been scheduled. The impressive sounding Papyrus Institute was nothing more than a store peddling paintings. As Samir and I entered, lights were turned on to greet the lone first visitor of the day. Drinks were offered and were emphasized to be free and part of Egyptian hospitality. A quick demonstration of how papyrus sheets were made was performed for me. The ancient motifs of the paintings and stories were explained to me. Then I was allowed to view the paintings.

I was not entirely impervious to buying a little souvenir. Two small sheets with the Judgment Day motif interested me a little. The asking price was 120 Egyptian pounds. It came down a little. I was rather ambivalent especially since I had no idea how much these things are worth. The whole problem with being forced into Cairo was that I had not done any homework on the place. Finally the guy asked me how much I was willing to pay. I said 60. It was not good enough. I went on to see other things. Moments later, he came back asking for 65. "It’s only $20," he reminded me. Indeed, it reminded me that $20 was a rather large sum for a painting around here. Although it’s hand painted, it’s most likely done in an assembly line fashion, and you know how cheap labor is. I said no to 65. Then he came back saying that 60 was okay. I now felt honor bound to buy the piece. The negotiations had not been nearly long enough. If the guy was willing to go for 60, it’s probably worth only 30. The painting came with a page of description and a warrantee.

Samir asked if I would like to ride a horse or camel to see the pyramids. That might be interesting – to sit on a camel and pose in front of the pyramids as millions before me have done. Haggling was again necessary to get the price down from 40 to 20. I was adamant that I would otherwise let Samir drive me to the pyramids.

I had never ridden a horse before. Mohammed, of perhaps seventeen or eighteen, led me through the streets towards the desert and the pyramids. It felt a little funny to be sitting high on a horse, to have someone walk the horse in front of me, and to go through what looked like a corner of Cairo. The people there must have seen many who had gone before me, so no one seemed to pay much attention. That is, except those who wanted to be my friend.

I was very surprised how close the pyramids are to the city. It is perhaps not more than a kilometer or so from the pyramids to where the decrepit buildings end and where the desert starts. The pyramids appeared to be much smaller than what I had thought and less impressive. Whatever treasures found here had been moved to the Egyptian Museum. What remained are piles of stones. Perhaps the fascination with the pyramids lies in the great length one often needs to go through to get there and in the accompanying great anticipation. When the city was forced upon me through an accident of circumstance, the fascination and anticipation were simply not there. Besides, the circling vultures took a great deal of pleasure out of the ride.

Once we reach the desert, an old man ran up to me and put in my hand a small bluish stone. Unfortunately, my natural instinct was to take it. He then said, "some money for my children." I gave him a pound, but he was not satisfied and asked for more. I gave him another. He wanted to sell me some scarf and agal, similar to the Arab headdress but of a much lower quality. We kept going.

Mohammed let me off the horse on the back side of the Pyramid of Chephren. I sensed that the trade his master was plying wasn’t exactly officially approved. The great amount of horse and camel dung littered in the desert seemed to suggest that such trade went on regardless. Mohammed warned me not to take anything from anybody. I walked around Chephren to the entrance to the crypt. One guy came up to and dumped a scarf and agal set in my arms saying it’s a "gift". I am sure the Egyptians are the most friendly people in the world and give gifts to total strangers, but I am also quite sure that to such friendly people a reciprocating gift in the form of some type of currency, of an order of magnitude larger monetary value, is reasonably expected. I had to chase the guy down to give the junk back.

I climbed down the passageway into the pyramid. At the end of it was the burial chamber with the sarcophagus. The air in there was humid and low on oxygen. The climb down and the climb up weren’t hard on the back as Mohammed said, but hard on my legs. My legs were almost ready for a muscle cramp.

At one corner of Chephren stood four or five camels with policemen sitting atop. The few tourists there posed for pictures in front of them. Camels and their drivers wander about. As I got back to the other side and got back on my horse. One driver followed me trying to get me to ride his camel. Finally I relented. He put his stick in my hand, took down his "turban", wrapped that around my head, and took my camera. I asked, "How much?" He answered, "No problem." It took no more than a few days in Riyadh for me to learn that "no problem" is Arabic for "It’s going to cost you." I had made a great deal of jokes about that with my colleagues. How quickly I forgot the lesson I myself formulated. How could I not practice what I preached. How I did not insist on an agreed price was beyond stupid.

The guy took pictures liberally, which was fine with me. When all was done, I gave him ten pounds, which I considered to be quite generous. He turned a sour face and asked, "Are you happy?" What kind of a question was that? To reason with him that ten was good considering Mohammed was getting only twenty for a hour of work was futile, though I tried very hard. I suppose he’d always ask for more no matter how much he got. The countermeasure would be to give half as much as I was willing. I gave him another five. Was I happy? Of course not.

Onward to the Sphinx. Again, Mohammed let me off at the back side of the site. I bumped into a group of Taiwanese tourists, led by an Egyptian who spoke rather good Chinese. I listened in a little. By the time I got out. Mohammed was there to get me to leave. I was more comfortable with riding a horse now. He let me have the leash and held onto the horse’s tail. On the way back to where we started, we walked through a cemetery on the edge of the city. Some women mourners in abayas could be seen.

I had wanted to give Mohammed twenty pounds for what turned out to be more than two hours of touring around the pyramids. I tried to give that to him before the Sphinx so that his master would not see it, but somehow he asked me to wait. A little distance from the city streets, he asked for his tip. I gave him the twenty. Then he asked, holding out the twenty he just got, "Are you happy?" The tone of the voice startled me a great deal, as I thought I had been reasonable to him. "Yes," I replied baffled. What is this collective interest in my emotional wellbeing? All the small talk along the way amounted to nothing but a ploy in the end to squeeze out a few more pounds out of me? Could he possibly be genuinely concerned about my happiness with this ride, as I had told the camel guy at one point that I was not happy?

If he wanted more, fine, what’s another ten pounds. "No, that’s too much." He walked on leading the horse. Then he asked me for a pen for his brother. It baffled me a little and took me a moment to make sure what he just said. So I gave him my pen. As I would learn from LP later, kids there ask for money and pens. As to why pens, I have no idea.

Mohammed’s master got his twenty pounds. No more, no less. I checked with LP afterwards. A horse or camel should not cost more than twelve pounds a hour. I guess the horse itself was the one thing I didn’t overpay in Cairo.

On the way back to the airport, Samir bought some local food, called fuul, for me. They looked like pita bread, one kind with the pocket filled with beans and one kind with what tasted like falafel. We stopped again to get a Pepsi. I kept wondering how much more he’s going to tack onto my bill and how much of a tip he was going to ask. He took me all the way to the check-in counter at the airport. He made sure that I had his card, since I told him that I had planned to come back for a much longer trip with friends. He shook my hand, and didn’t ask for any tip.

When I was in the waiting hall, and went to the bathroom to freshen up. One happy janitor hopped around showing me in. Then he disappeared. I washed my face and went to the hand dryer. Before I could do anything, the happy janitor hopped into view with tissue paper happily presented to me. I was a little amused. As soon as I took that, he hit the hand dryer and turned the nozzle up towards my face. Then he happily disappeared. Well, I had never seen such a happy janitor. As I was leaving, the happy janitor magically appeared again. "Psss," he called to my attention, and rubbed his thumb and his index finger gesturing for money. I looked in my pocket. Sorry, nothing smaller than ten pounds. I had learned to keep the small bills separate from my wallet and with the smaller bills wrapped outside of the larger ones. The happy janitor said he could give me back change. What a hustler. I gave him a dollar.

Ed asked me about the feasibility of bringing his parents, who had seldom traveled, on a trip to Egypt. I thought about it and recommended bus tours, which is very much against my travel philosophy and principles. Yet there is something to be said about shielding yourself by going with a packaged tour. You are there to see the ancient monuments and the museums. While my stay in Cairo had been very short, I was rather unimpressed by the people, or at least the ones a tourist was likely to encounter. Sure they had great a civilization 5000 years ago, but what have they done lately? Actually, what have they done in the last 3000? The monuments are impressive, but it’s a little sad that the better-off descendents of those who built the great pyramids are living off the tourists.

Understandably the tourist trail is a magnet for all sorts of hustlers bent on making a quick buck off the unsuspecting. Add in the cultural differences, economic disparities, and a destination that’s once-in-a-lifetime for most visitors (read non-repeat business), it is small wonder that the attacks shall be fierce. Some of the con games I had encounters on the tourist trail in Xi’An were even more deceitful, elaborate, and choreographed.

Since I had given away my pen, I didn’t have one to fill out my exit card. I asked a guy who’s also filling out a card, but I had to wait for him to finish. A cleaning woman saw this and offered her pen, a rather nice pen too. Then she went about her sweeping. I found her again to return the pen, but she didn’t ask for anything – a rather refreshingly different response. Perhaps one should not let himself be so conditioned by all the nonsense from the master hustlers to the point of suspecting every little favor people do for one another.

By the way, yes, I flew Egyptair again. Destination, Riyadh. No sexy women sitting in the cockpit on this flight.

Terrence
Riyadh
Friday, May 28, 1999