Tales From a Female Traveller

“Welcome to Alaska” - Arriving in Cairo – FINALLY

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My time in Dubai was almost overshadowed by my excitement about getting to Egypt that when I finally got on the plane I just crashed out from all the pent up exhaustion. The flight was okay and I made sure I was awake to see the plane fly over the Suez Canal and the Red Sea and it seemed to take FOREVER for the plane to make its descent into Cairo. When it eventually landed I was so full of emotion that I was torn between bouncing in my seat with excitement and bursting into tears of joy like brides do at weddings. I just couldn’t believe I was finally in Egypt and I had worked so hard for so long that it almost seemed like I was in a dream. It sure was a dream coming true and the only thing that sucked that was I had no-one with me to share my childlike excitement with. I know that a lot of you, especially B and Jess would have given their right arms to be there and as the plane taxied along the barren looking runway of one of the ugliest airports I’ve ever seen, I thought of my friends and how I missed them and wished that they were seeing this crap airport and feeling the same emotions I was. To me, it didn’t matter that the airport was as shitty as an abandoned military base after being shelled, or that it was swelteringly hot, or that it was the most confusing experience of getting a visa… all I cared about was the fact that I was actually IN Egypt, a place I have been fascinated with nearly all my life.

When I was younger I used to have this rubber mummy toy that I got as part of a Halloween toy package. I fashioned a Tutankhamun Sarcaughagus out of scrap cardboard and re-created King Tut’s death mask of plastic and copied the Egyptian designs with permanent marker from pictures I had in my set of Encyclopaedias. I’m quite sure my Nan still has that little coffin with the rubber mummy somewhere. I loved movies like Cleopatra and The Mummy (the originals) and even the old black and white Tarzans and I would read stories about Akhenaten changing Egyptian history through a book (by Cyril Aldred) my wonderful but late Pop once gave me. I actually still have that book displayed on one of my many bookshelves at home along with a now more massive collection of ancient history texts and novels and it stands as one of the first things that introduced me to my love of history. So I just could not believe I was touching down on Egyptian soil. To finally see, after all this time, everything I’d read about, all the things I’d learnt and seen while doing my degree, is simply an experience no words will do justice in describing.

Even getting the visa was an exciting process and it’s probably the one page in my passport that I am most proud of. I disembarked from the plane with my spirits high and my anticipation even higher and when I reached customs there were so many people lined up to get through that I knew it was going to take an age. So I decided to take my time and try and soak up my surroundings for a while. All this and I wasn’t even out of the airport yet!! I actually got a little confused and just decided to join a line and wait my turn and I hadn’t read anything about visas in the Travel Bible because I was too exhilarated when the plane flew in that I completely forgot I even had it with me. So I had no idea about how to apply for the visa, all I knew was that it was a visa upon arrival. As I was standing in line I heard a couple talking and realised they were Australian and when I turned around they were just behind me in the line.
“Are you as confused as I am??” I ask them jokingly, to which they laughed and said in unison “Totally confused!!” It turns out that to apply for an Egyptian Visa you arrive at the airport and turn up to one of the travel desks, say a Thomas Cook, and tell them you want a visa. They then take your money and hand you two postage stamps. In all the thrill that was going on I just said “THANKS!!” with a stupid big grin on my face and raced from the Thomas Cook counter to re-join the customs line and it wasn’t until the long pause of the line forced me to look at what had been stuck on the page in my passport did I realise I had been given postage stamps. For about 3 seconds panic rushed through my body and my heart stopped. Had I just been ripped off and bought postage stamps and been stupid enough to believe that it was a visa? No… turns out that it’s actually THE coolest visa on earth and the stamps are actually quintessentially Egyptian. So once I realised what was going on, my heart resumed its fast paced excited beat and the huge smile happily returned to my face.

After I made it through customs unscathed I burst out of the airport doors into the second most shocking heat I had ever felt (the first most shocking being the heat in Dubai). I paused in the shade of the entrance to arrivals looking out at the billboards with pictures of King Tut and Queen Nefertiti and taking in the smell of Cairo and was so busy relishing in my moment that I barely noticed or heard the small Egyptian man offering to give me help. “You need help?” he says enthusiastically to me. “No thanks.” I say back to him and immediately switched on my internal rip off radar. Unlike the visa, I knew it was going to cost 60 Egyptian Pounds to get from the airport to Downtown Cairo and not a penny more. Anything under 60 was a bargain, so when he offered me a cab for that exact amount I took him up on his offer and he swiftly took the cart that was holding my bags and races off towards the lift down to the parking area. I actually had to run to keep up with this little guy… his legs were short but boy could he move! He was quite accommodating too and was full of useful information, turns out that he was actually an official tour guide working a second job as an information officer at the airport so I was just lucky he approached me because cab rip offs in Cairo happen every second. Even my cab driver was amazing and as he drove me at incredible spend out of the airport security check and through the streets of Cairo towards Downtown he pointed out every single significant monument, building, area, person or crack in the wall along the way and even had an interesting story or historical fact to go with it.

When we arrived in Downtown the traffic was horrendous and I was at that point thankful that the price of my cab was fixed rather than metered because it took quite a while to get through. I originally had picked out the Lialy Hostel from the Travel Bible to stay at and when I arrived and hauled myself up the stairs to the second floor I was told that they were full. I was preparing for a situation like what would have happened in Thailand where they could care less about getting you a room that when I asked if they could recommend somewhere else I was taken aback when he not only recommended The Rameses II/King Tut Hostel on the main backpacker strip of Talat Harb, but also sent his porter to take my pack and guide me personally to the hostel. Talk about service!!
So off we both trudged off to the Rameses II. We stepped out into Talat Harb and the chaos that I witnessed was just amazing, there were so many cars and people. Cairo is unlike any city I’ve ever been in, not only are the cars gridlocked and blasting their horns at every interval, but the people on the sidewalks are also gridlocked and I get the distinct impression that if the people in Cairo had in-built car horns, then they too would be blasting them and joining the great Cairo Car Horn Orchestra.

I had to actually keep a slight half run going to keep up with the porter who had raced off down the street as I was ogling at the scene on Talat Harb, but if I stopped for just a second I would lose sight of him and have to jump up to try and catch a glimpse of where the heck he’d gone because he wasn’t looking back to make sure I was following, he just charged his way through the crowd and crisscrossed his was through the traffic. I soon learnt that this is the ONLY way to get anywhere on foot in Cairo. Head down, hands on bags and charge ahead. Most of the time walking on the road is a better option that the sidewalk because there are so many people that to get anywhere you have to slow to the most frustrating pace. We’re talking slower than the tortoise in Aesop’s fable about the Tortoise and the Hare…. thus the road is a better option, plus all the cars are stopped in traffic anyway so there’s little danger of much happening and even when the traffic gets going, navigating your way across the road is easier than crossing the road in Bangkok, but just as hectic. People simply either go around you or slow down to let you across, even if you’re not on a pedestrian crossing.

When we arrived at the Ramses II I was so thankful that I had a room to myself with a private bathroom and a tv and I just crashed out for a while. Afterwhich I just roamed the streets of Downtown Cairo for a while and ran into a guy who wanted to show me the market. He seemed nice but my instincts were telling me otherwise and I found a way to ditch him. I really just wanted to walk around and navigate by msyelf and when you're following someone you can't do this. So he insisted he walk back with me..(I lied about which hotel I was in and he wrote down his address in Arabic which I said I would get translated and meet him at 7.. yeah right). So my first few hours in Cairo were quite good... Egypt... Bring It On!

posted by Lucyspeak @ 6:43 pm