Just thought I would fill you in on some interesting characteristics of travelling around Egypt, now that I’m back in Cairo:
I mentioned before at how crazy the drivers were in this city of 10 million. Nobody seems to pay any attention to lines in the road, traffic lights, or even police officers directing traffic. They may moderately slow down, but if they see a gap in cross traffic, they just surge straight through a red light. If police are out directing traffic, they’ll sneak behind them as soon as they turn their backs.
The biggest shock is their refusal to use headlights at night, for some reason. I asked one taxi driver why nobody liked to drive at night with their headlights on, and he told me they don’t use them if they can see without them. This applies to the country as well as the cities. Occasionally they’ll flash their headlights to warn someone who they think may not have seen them. It gets really dangerous on country roads because their are plenty of donkeys pulling carts without reflectors. This all being said, I have yet to see an accident (although I have witnessed a few very close calls).
As you can imagine, this makes being a pedestrian very scary. I find myself continually heading down side streets where the traffic is narrow and lighter or heading for subway tunnels to get across some of the more congested parts of town.
And speaking of donkeys, you’ve never seen anything as funny as someone riding on the back of a donkey. Unlike horses, they never seem to get off the ground. They just seem to roll along with little tiny bounces that resemble a dribbling basketball just before it starts to roll. It looks most uncomfortable for the riders.
Cairo happens to have a very nice subway system, although like everything else around here, it seems to be covered in a fine desert silt. Eqypt in predominantely Muslim, so they reserve the first few cars of every subway train for women only. Every time I see those cars roll by, the women look like they’re having a great time without any men around. Women are allowed to sit anywhere on the trains, it’s just that men can’t sit in these first few cars.
Boats use much the same custom, especially as you head south. I made the mistake of sitting in the women’s section of a ferry boat in Aswan and was politely invited to sit back with another guy in the rear section of the boat. He was very nice about it, but explained that it was their custom.
Taxi’s don’t use meters here, so you have to barter a fare before you get in. You can often get them to cut their prices in half. The most annoying thing about them is that they insist on honking everytime they see a tourist (inquiring whether they might want a taxi – just in case they hadn’t already thought of it on their own). It gets really annoying and makes a walking exploration of the city quite jarring and stressful.
When I was riding in one half hour taxi ride around sunrise, the driver promptly pulled over at the first hint of daylight, got out of the cab, aligned himself with Mecca, put his prayer mat down, got down on his knees, kissed the earth, and prayed for about five minutes. No meter involved since we bartered, so it didn’t cost me anything extra.
The cheapest way of getting around is to jump on a public taxi van. They seem to use the same system here that they were using in Fiji. Usually for about US$0.15 you can hop on a van packed with locals and ride as long as you want in whatever direction they’re circulating. It gets a bit wild and crazy as they boom funky music and try to cram as many passengers as they can in back, but it’s lots of fun. They seem to get a kick out of having a tourist travelling with them.
The overnight train here from Aswan was fine. They’re basically the same trains they use in Europe, and they tend to keep the tourists travelling separately from the general Egyptian population. I managed to get about five hours of sleep last night, which wasn’t too bad.
Security is pretty tight all over Egypt these days. There are armed guards with machine guns riding in the engine compartment of most trains. There are tourist police all over the popular tourist areas, and there are military check points on many roads leading around the country. Most of these police seem very friendly and eager to practice their English on you. Sometimes they’ll try to bum a cigarette off you in the end since just about everyone is a chain smoker around here.
