Cairo, Egypt

Today is Greek Independence Day, but we are now in Cairo. The two hour flight to Cairo from Athens on Egypt Air was in a fairly new Boeing 737-800, the first class cabin contained 6 rows of seats, the economy class cabin started at row 20, seat pitch was ok and the food was good.

We cleared customs and found a limo (small Toyota) taxi to take us to the hotel, the cost for the 30 minute ride was $16.82 US. After the traffic in Istanbul, Rome, Paris, and Beijing, we thought we were ready for Cairo, nope, hard to describe the traffic and the driving. There are 19 million+ people in Cairo and I believe at least half of them were on the road we were traveling. The roads are in good condition, well signed and marked with traffic lanes. The road we started on was marked with four lanes, but somehow the cars made five and in some places six lanes, the driver told us not to worry which right away means you should be worried. The seats belts were non-existent and the driver drove very fast weaving in and out of the traffic, some cars actually drove with two wheels on the curb, lots of honking helped the drivers navigate (maybe echo location?) pedestrians walked out in the midst of this traffic, street sweepers swept the streets working within inches of the cars whizzing by. We only saw two accidents on the way to the hotel so the drivers must have good reflexes.

When we arrived at the Hilton Ramses which is located on the Nile, across the road from the Egyptian Museum, and two blocks from Tahrir Square, the hotel guards inspected the car, looked us over and had their dog sniff the car before we were allowed to enter the hotel driveway. Our luggage was x-rayed and we had to walk through a magnetometer. The hotel is 36 floors and upon arrival our room had fresh fruit and pastries to welcome us. The gifts shops are full of wonderful things and at a 10% discount since there are fewer tourists than normal.

Tomorrow we have hired a private driver to take us to the pyramids, and the sphinx, later we will take a Nile cruise. The lights and sounds at night are quite spectacular, it is said that Cairo is a city that never sleeps, even with the current midnight curfew!