Egypt

"Cairo (القاهرة al-Qāhirah) is the capital of Egypt and, with a total population in excess of 16 million people, one of the largest cities in both Africa and the Middle East (the regions which it conveniently straddles). It is also the 19th largest city in the world, and among the world's most densely populated cities."

From <http://wikitravel.org/en/Cairo>

"I want to go home.."

-Shova

As other Jews before us (way way before us), we've decided to cross the border and visit Israel's Arab neighbor, Egypt. Once we found out that we can take a bus from Taba (next to Eilat) to Cairo, we decided to cancel our 5-day stay in Tel Aviv, and stay instead in Cairo, where pyramids abound and the dollar goes way farther (you can get a full hot lunch with veggies, rice, and meat for less than $3, or $2 if you haggle).

Our night was cut short by the iPhone xylophone alarm at 4:30 am. The air was still hot, still scarce, still still. We began slowly picking up our belongings in the dark (the light bulb conveniently blew out the night before our departure). As we were folding shirts and rolling up power adapters, my grandma was putting together a bag of food for us, on which we could survive for the first week, if needed. By 5:30 we were on the road headed to Eilat, jamming to Arab darbuka, with the sun lazily rising to our left. Throughout the drive on 40 South, one could see signs on both sides of the road, warning of a "firing zone." This meant that not only there was no one around us in this 3.5-hour-long desert, but that if we did decide to explore the nature off the side of the road, we could take part in an Israeli Defense Force firing drill, by which I mean get shot.

After staying at the Egyptian Consulate for over 3 hours and getting interviewed by a man in his forties with a decaying mouth, we've finally got the necessary stamps. The consul just could not get over the fact that an Abigail Bergman is not an Israeli citizen. With the stamps in our passports we were finally ready to cross the border. By foot. With our year's-worth backpacks.

It is amazing how much the atmosphere changes on the other side of the border station between Israel and Egypt. For one, the Egyptians offered us tea and waived the security process for us with the exception of paying the entrance tax. They also enjoyed wearing their military uniform Miami Vice style -- unbuttoned, untucked, and unfitting. In fact, few officials bothered to wear uniform at all. The guy handing us our customs declaration paperwork was wearing jeans and a t-shirt; and the cashier at the bus stop wore something even worse, all the while loitering with civilians several feet away from his booth. The ground became covered with cigarette butts and plastic bottles; the vehicles turned into survivor machines from the 80s, with self-made orange seat covers, wooden benches, and license plates; and the people seemed hungrier, happier, and dirtier.

Instead of taking the usual 7-hour-long Cairo bus, the cashier offered us a mini-van ride for the same price. After consulting with fellow-Americans we had met earlier at the Consulate, we all climbed in. We shared the van with 7 other Americans, 2 Sudanese refugees who survived the move to Egypt, and 7-9 Egyptians. The neurotic-looking driver tied our luggage to the roof. As soon as we took off, we realized that our neurotic-looking driver is friggin neurotic, tired, and an insatiable smoker. The guy drove almost exclusively on the incoming traffic lane. We were driving through the dark Sinai with the lights off half of the time, the van lit up by his cigarette ashes and the occasional flashing lights of occasional cars. Whenever we spotted an incoming car, the driver began a certain ritual:

1. turn regular lights on.

2. turn regular lights off.

3. turn brights on.

4. turn brights off.

5. honk.

6. honk!!

7. turn and keep brights on!!!

8. pass car completely blinded as they shine their brights at you.

Step 8 was followed by shova squeezing my hand and burying her eyes in my shoulder. We were doing about 130 km/h throughout the trip, stopping once at a desert restaurant (pictures of restrooms, preventing us both from peeing and eating for a while, are attached).

Finally we got pulled over by another mini-van, who cut us off and slammed on the brakes. Once we pulled over to the shoulder of the road, the driver of the van in front of us jumped out and began yelling at our driver, while one of the Egyptians translated: "car is broken…" "driver wanted to catch us for the past 50 kilometers…" "he has the green bag from the roof…" At that point, I -- an owner of a green backpack, which I thought was on the roof of our van -- became worried. We walked over to the other van to discover the kishke of a backpack: cell phone, chargers, a journal, and other junk. Apparently, one of the bags flew off the roof of our van and broke a plank off the other van. The bag turned out to be someone else's green bag, and the mad driver insisted on keeping it until the American owner paid for his vehicle. It took 40 minutes of yelling between the two drivers with threats to report to the Tourist Police to get the remaining kishke and return to the van. The bags have been re-secured, and the passengers were hushed. We were on our way to Cairo again.

Cairo feels like NYC spilled into itself and then went back in time by about 150 years. The city smells of fried meat, gasoline, dust, and feces. Skinny stray Egyptian cats scavenge both the piles of trash lying by the restaurants and office buildings, and the ubiquitous layer of casual trash -- plastic bottles, cigarette packs, and receipts. We walked through both to reach the Metro station on our way to the hostel. Abby decided not to ride in the women-only car, but rather join me in the last car. We were then joined by the local soccer fans, coming back from a game and carrying a fridge-size drum with two baseball-bat-like drum sticks. After settling in the car, they began drumming and singing their soccer songs and harassing other passengers, oblivious to the promises of civilization.

As soon as we got out of the Metro, we were approached by a 'friend' who really wanted to get to know us (because he 'wants to practice his English'). Indeed, 'friends' are very active in Cairo, trying to spot tourists and lure them into a store or maybe do something else -- I'm not sure, since we've managed to get rid of them eventually. They are incredibly annoying, though, sucking the fun right out of walking down the street. Usually, they would ask us where we were from and then suggest some sort of a better way to tour Cairo (e.g. get lower rates to visit the pyramids, or go on a particular taxi to save money, or buy the 'certified' papyrus from their uncle). And so we began to concoct schemes to get rid of these cons. We were first from the USA, but quickly became from Russia. We were first speaking English, but then stopped talking much in public and talked to the cons in gibberish or Russian. We were first friendly, but that changed pretty quickly too. We were first respectful, but soon I've had to yell at people to get the heck away.

Still, we managed to do the big touristy things. We saw the mummies and, despite the signs and strict security, took their pictures (without flash). We checked out the largest bazaar, managing to fight off hundreds of merchants and haggle down the price of our tea. We got to visit a mosque on the second floor of a palace, where Shova had to don a green Robin Hood cape to enter. We ate some Egyptian fast food at a food courtyard and at a street stand. We slept through three 5;30am calls to prayer, even though the mosque was right outside our window. We survived the traffic. And finally, we visited the pyramids on our own, using public transportation (took about 45 minutes to find). The pyramids are shorter than we expected, but fun nonetheless. After fending off about 30 cons at the pyramids, Shova threw in the towel and suggested going back the next day.