Arriving in Cairo at 3 AM, things seemed promising. I exchanged a witty banter—or something like that in broken Arabic—with the passport control guy. We were picked up by a hostel representative who kept chatting at us. It was 3 in the morning—all I wanted to do was sleep. Our hostel, despite being in an absolutely decrepit building that smelled like cats and pee, was actually warm and inviting, not to mention clean.
Things quickly turned sour.
After a breakfast the next morning of a hardboiled egg and three pieces of bread, we jaunted out to check out the national museum, which was a five-minute walk away. Turns out on Wednesdays the museum isn’t open past 1:30.
So we decided to reformulate our plans and grabbed a taxi to Old Cairo to check out the Ibn Tulun mosque. It was completely empty, so we roamed around the beautiful mosque and climbed the minaret, which gave us views of a very very dirty city.
Despite not knowing the way to the Citadel, we decided to walk there. I can’t even describe how DIRTY the city is. Trash is EVERYWHERE. It makes Amman look like the cleanest city in the world. The whole city smells of pollution and urine and everything is covered in filth. At one point on our walk, we passed a dumpster that was trickling bright blood into the streets. We presumed it was cows blood—but I don’t really want to know.
The citadel was difficult to find, well the entrance was anyway. We were constantly surrounded by shebab (youngins) whos never stopped asking us “HI WHATS YOUR NAME, WHATS YOUR NAME WHATS YOUR NAME” They would touch us, and at one point Sarah got so frustrated by this kid that she reached out and clotheslined him.
The absolute disrespect women astounded me. The boys that really bothered us were from the age of about 11-20. Above or below that, most were fine. Even the soldiers and police officers made off-hand crude comments that made me so angry. Actually doing anything about it would only have made it worse.
The harassment we received put me in a sour mood, that even the pyramids weren’t that impressive. And like everything else in Egypt, it was covered in trash and smelled like pee. Driving along to the first pyramid, the Red Pyramid at Dashur, the canals that came off the Nile were basically dumping grounds. Trash piled up, souring the water, making this once clean and fertile land a little less so.
One of the more terrifying things I did on this trip was climb down into a pyramid. Things that go down are not meant to get back up. A tiny shaft that went about 200 feet down, descended into the ground. Once I got over my claustrophobia, I had to hunch to even try to get down. The chambers reeked of Ammonia, and after about 3 minutes I was outta there.
I saw the pyramids of Giza by horse. Given how much I hate animals that could crush/stomp/roll over me, I wasn’t too pleased. Thy sphinx was comparatively small.
That night we took a dinner cruise on the Nile. I wish we hadn’t. Fun fact about the Nile: if you fall in you die. The water is THAT polluted. The only good thing about this cruise was the whirling dervish. He was cool. The food also sucked, but since I hadn’t eaten in 12 hours, I pretty much ate every nasty bit.
Continuing the trend of I hate Egypt, the next day we went to Alexandria. I had heard good things about the city, how it was cleaner. From outward appearances, it was beautiful. I wanted it so badly to be Beirut, where no one would look at us and we could stroll along the Mediterranean. It wasn’t so. Boys walked touching us asking us question, seeing if they could take our picture. NO, LA SHUKRAN was our resounding answer.
While in Egypt, I adopted battered wife syndrome. I constantly looked down, avoided eye contact with anyone and would flinch and jump away if anyone came too close. I think we all did.
The last day in Egypt, we went to the Egyptian National Museum. Even though it houses an impressive collection of artifacts, there seems to be little rhyme or reason. There were very few signs to tell me what I was actually looking at. Some of the few signs looked like they had been there since the 1940s. And everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. I may have spent over three hours in the museum, but I learned very little.
One of Sarah’s Egyptian male friends came into town, apologized for his country and took us to the Egyptian Souk. It was so much harder to bargain in Egypt that it was in Istanbul. I found some good things, but the level of bargaining I had to do wasn’t as fun as it was in Turkey. That night, her friend took us on a cruise along the Nile, this time it was much better. The dilapidated stereo pumped Celine Dion (Egypt is overly obsessed with her) and fun twinkly lights lit our way down the Nile.
I was oh so happy to get out of that country. Even though Egypt is SO cheap. The exchange rate is 5.5 Egyptian Pounds for 1 USD, and a full meal can easily be bought for 7 pounds, I never want to go back to that country. It definitely makes me appreciate Amman so much more.
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