A busy sleepless day in Cairo, Egypt ( part 1 )

After waking myself up at a little after midnight thinking that I had a flight booked I downed coffee and coke then slowly came to realise that both the timings and the caffeine were a big mistake. I tried in vein to get back to sleep for a few hours before finally being able to drift away and catch at least a couple of hours sleep only to then be rudely brought back to the land of the living by the noises of the hotel waking up and the light streaming through the rooms thin curtain.

I tossed and turned for a few more hours, but I always knew that check out was at midday and as the room rate was extortionate I was super sure that I didnt want to slip over into being charged for an extra day.

I suppose that I could have checked into a dingy one star hotel and crashed for the day but instead I decided to leave my main rucksack in the aiport hotel and go check out the classic touristy places on Cairo, the Citadel; the pyramids; the sphynx; the national museum; the old town.

Outside the hotel was a taxi driver who spoke great English and we came up with a price of 250 Egyptian pounds for me to hire him for the day, or whatever was left of it, and although that is a bit high, but the hotel was near the airport which is a fair way from the city centre, he had a modern car with aircon and with his good English it meant that I could at least get a good conversation out of him instead of just grunt and repeat over and over again the destination I wanted to go for hoping he would catch my meaning.

First on the agenda was a driver by the old Citadel, graveyard and old fort. Being close to midday already I figured that I would not have much time to waste going round them all, but I checked them out and took a few good piccies before we stopped off at a Papyrus shop. In Egypt they call shops Museums as a marketting ploy, and all it really means is that they give you a thirty second introduction to whatever it is that they are sellin before the shopping and the haggling starts.

With prices around 150 for a small piece of work to 2800 for the medium size bits, none were cheap but the trick here is either to not bother going in ( there really is no information to be gained and nothing is on display except the items for sale ) or to feign total disinterest and see how low he drops his prices. In the end I refused to be tempted at any of the small pieces and when he pushed I indicated a few of the medium size ones that I liked but told him flat out that they were way out of my budget.

For his new "friend" he first cut the list price in half" but this was stil 1400 and I continued to tell him that i was not here to shop and that I didnt have a budget for such lavish items. After more bargaining I slipped in a low bid of 300 ( which on reflection was still a bit too high ) which he of course refused and when I went to leave he then dropped the price to a flat 500 and meant that he "was not making any profit" but just liked me and wanted to be sure that I told all his friends about his great shop and gifts ( like hell he wasnt !?! ).

Next stop was the pyramids themselves and here things got a little silly and ugly. I had already told him that this was my third visit ( its actually my second but I didnt want to be hassled too much ) to the pyramids and I was just going to kill time and take a few photos, nothing lavish and with in no desire for special needs like a camel or horse.

Despite this he took me to his friends camel and horse place that was a good fifteen minutes ride away and then they told me that the entrance to the area was 60 and they expected another 60 for the horse. I told him flat out that I was not going to pay that much and yet still he smiled, gave me the usual flannel about I could pay whatever I thought it was worth and then my taxi driver / guide drove away which sort of left me at their mercy.

The big mistake on their part was that this was the very same dirty, cheating, no good guide that had screwed me over the last time when I was on riding the camel, his shifty eyes and carefully rehearsed speach about being good to each other for mutual satisfaction unmistakable as well as being instantly recognisable.

Sticking to my guns, I refused to be cajouled into buying anything from his friends or the 'random' locals we happened to be passing by, and after I told him that I could ride a horse perfectly well ( a little white lie but done for a good reason ) and thus he could send back to the shop the boy who was leading my horse ( and would expect a tip if I didnt send him back right away ).

From then on, I took the lead whenever I felt he was slacking the pace, refused to let him take my camera for photo opportunities and managed to reach the pyramids in good time. The fact that you can walk off the street ( right across from the pizza hut over the road ) through an entrance and be at the pyramids within seconds is one of the reasons I was angry, as the route we plodded over was mostly empty dessert and took a pain staking fifteen minutes.

After no more than five minutes at the pyramids, and not even given the oportunity to pay extra to see the sphynx up close, we headed on back to the shop which took another fifteen minutes and all along the way back I was figuring out what a fair price would be for the use of the horse that I didnt want or ask for but never-the-less accepted. In the end I settled in my mind at 25 for the horse and only 1.50 as tip for the so called guide, though really all he did was take me on a long winding path that ate up time and serioulsy hurt my backside.

When I got off I almost caused a fight as the horse owner, the guide and two of their friends all stood around making noises that I had agreed to 60 and that as they took it so badly I threw back a few insults and comments that the main reason I was out for so long was that their shop was so very far away form the pyramids and that I had said all along I only wanted a quick look to take a few photos so if anyone was wasting anyones time it was them and not me.

The final result was that I just stood firm against them all, refused to budge even an inch and then just headed on back over to the taxi where the driver did his best to act as peacekeeper before letting me in and driver away. It was all a bit act, they still made on the deal and they knew it, but they feel they have to or else every tourist will do it and drive the price down. The only regret about this is that I forgot to get a hold of the entrance ticket before we had the big row as of course they were not in the giving vein afterwards.