So, after the last plane landed, I got myself through customs with no hitches. The visa was a piece of cake, just pay the man, get your sticker, and move on. I looked like what I am, a tourist/backpacker, and customs doesn’t give a fuck about guys like me. This is probably wise on their part.
So I’m sort of wandering around, and a taxi driver approaches me, wants £80 to drive me into the city. I’m like, no way, there’s a bus that’ll get me there for way less. He tries to tell me there is no bus from the airport, yada yada, but I get on a shuttle and get to the airport bus terminal just fine. At this point I’m feeling quite good about myself and take some notes to the effect of “You’re not an idiot.” And then I waited an hour for a bus that I never saw, and shared a cab into the city with some other backpackers. I tried to get the cabbie to take me to an ATM, as my funds were low, but he didn’t understand. This is a recurring theme: English is useless here. Or nearly. So he dropped us off at the Cairo Museum, which was closed (probably for ramadan), and the other backpackers covered me. We wandered a bit in search of an ATM, no luck, so said our goodbyes and split off our separate ways.
Thus began one of the great trudges of my life, in search of my hostel. I walked one way, and then another, and then a third. Then I ran into some British people with a guidebook, who told me how to get to Ramses Square, which is very close to where I’m staying, and so I set off walking. Unfortunately, what they said would be a 20 minute walk took the better part of 2 hours. There’s nothing quite like the self doubt you get when walking alone with a heavy pack in a foreign city, with no map and only a vague idea of where you’re going. So, I finally get to the square, and I can’t for the life of me find the street I’m supposed to go down to get to the hostel.
So I call my mom, shout some (this is the loudest city in the world), mom gets on google to try and help. I’m trying to figure out where I am, exactly, because I’m not sure after all the walking and the self doubt. So I walk down one road for a little while, find a hotel with a sign in english, and she does directions from there to my hostel, and kinda directs me. I’m on the phone with her, and she’s talking me through getting there, when this guy comes up to me and asks me in english, “Can I help you?”
So I show him the address of the hostel, and he knows the way, and we start walking. I never for a moment doubted this man; I could tell he wasn’t a con man or tout. Just a man, doing something good. Along the way, he shows me a blob on his hand that at one time was a cross. “I’m christian,” he tells me. “Coptic?” I ask. “Yes,” he said. And then I get up to the hostel, and there was showering and sleeping, and then wandering in search of food.
Up next: first impressions of Cairo.
