Please Tell Your Friends We Do Not Hate Them

This is what a guy in Old Cairo told me yesterday. He had struck up a conversation with the usual, "Where are you from," and, when I said I was from America, he asked if I liked Egypt and whether I found people to be friendly. I said that the people are extremely friendly. That's when he asked that I tell this to people in America.

"Tell them we do not hate them," he said. "I will be honest with you; we hate Bush. But we do not hate American people."

So today, the last day of my trip, that is what I'm doing. People of America, know this; the people of Egypt do not hate you.

I have had countless random people on the street tell me some variation of this. We hate Bush, but you are welcome to Egypt.

Egypt really is unbelievably friendly. Some of the friendliness morphs into hustle, particularly in Cairo, where your new friend is often trying to get you to visit his papyrus painting shop or craft store.

In Alexandria, however, the hospitality is nearly always genuine, and so omnipresent that I literally would not have had the time to accept each offer.

I was walking by an old tea shop along the Corniche in front of Alexandria's Eastern Harbor, when an old man sitting by the window yelled, "Hello! Where are you from?"

I responded.

"Ah," he said, "America! I have been to Boston, to New York, to Charleston. Come inside."

I hesitated a moment.

"Come inside!" he ordered, obviously impatient with my vacillating.

I went into the tea shop, a large, wood-paneled room with high ceilings, overhead fans, and big, open windows looking out on the harbor. It was full of old Egyptian men drinking tea, telling stories, arguing, smoking bubbling sheesha water pipes, or, often, just quietly gazing out at the water.

My host introduced himself as Captain Sayeed, a retired sailor in the Egyptian merchant marine. He had sailed to ports all around the world, but loved his time in the USA - a beautiful country he said, with wonderful people.

Captain Sayeed had the posture and manner of a man accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. But he also listened intently to every word that I said when we were speaking. We sat and drank tea for well over an hour. Whenever something struck him as funny, or when he felt that he had made a particularly trenchant comment, he would throw back his head and laugh a loud, hoarse laugh.

When I finally graciously took my leave, Captain Sayeed demanded that I return the next day. He sat in that spot, in that cafe, every day from about 9am to 2pm. I could find him there. I agreed, and as I am a man of my word, I showed up for more tea the next day. Though, truth be told, my morning tea with the Captain was the highlight of my Alexandrian day. There's no way I would have missed it.

Mohammed Cramps My Bargaining Style

I was having some trouble finding my seat on the bus from Nuweiba to Cairo. The numbers were only in Arabic, which takes me a moment or two to puzzle out, and in my moment of puzzling, a young Egyptian guy with lots of curly hair stepped forward to help me. (This happens all the time - people here are always ready to help a dumb foreigner figure stuff out.)

My seat, however, appeared to already be occupied by some guy's sweater and water bottle. In Arabic, the kid who was helping me told the guy, (I'm assuming here) something along the lines of, "This is the dumb foreigner's seat. Can you move your sweater and water bottle?"

The guy said something which could only have been an answer in the negative, and then turned back to his window. There was more discussion, with a couple of other passengers throwing in their two cents, and the guy giving curt answers and turning back to the window. Maybe he had a friend who wanted to sit there. Maybe he just didn't want to sit next to the foreigner. I may never know.

I glanced back to look for open seats. Two different guys gestured to the open seats next to them. The one I ended up sitting next to was named Mohammed - but he said to call him Moe.

Moe works in Saudi Arabia as the communications manager for a Saudi prince who wants to set up a TV station. He was on his way back to Cairo to visit his family. But the main thing he wanted to talk about was, of all things, his time spent working in Dahab (q.v. my post Dahab and the Egyptian Mafia). This mostly involved detailed stories of his many foreign girlfriends, and his love of tearing around the Sinai in a fast car with a bottle of whiskey and at least one beautiful girl.

As we rolled into Cairo, I asked Moe how much I should pay for a taxi from the bus station to my hotel. An old technique - if you don't want to get ripped off, ask a local how much they would pay.

He said, "I don't know, probably a lot. You're a tourist, so you'll probably have to pay fifty."

Fifty Egyptian Pounds for a cab ride anywhere in Cairo is extortion. A ridiculously high rate. (Nevermind that it's under ten bucks.)

"But," Moe said, "I will help you get a taxi."

We got off the bus, he greeted his family, I gathered my luggage. As per usual, I was beset by offers of taxis. Of course, the first guy wanted fifty.

"Twenty," I said.

"No, no very far away!" It wasn't far away. It was less than 6km. I started to walk to the next guy.

"Okay, thirty-five." Progress.

"Okay, twenty-five," I said.

"Let's go."

Then Moe walked up. He pat me on the back, said how much he enjoyed my company, gave me his cell phone number and said to call if I needed anything in Cairo. He helped me carry my backpack to a different taxi.

"This guy will take you. I've worked it all out for you," Moe said.

I thanked him profusely, and got in the car.

"Okay, you can pay this man fifty when you get to the hotel. See you later!"

And the car tore off into the vicious hurly-burly of Cairo traffic. Moe had just assumed that, as a tourist, I would have to pay tourist rates. I don't know what is the morally right thing to do in this situation. Suck it down and pay many times what a local would, because I'm from a rich country? (An Egyptian guy at my hotel said he would have paid ten, fifteen tops.) Should I try to get the dirt cheapest price I can? Is there, perhaps, a happy medium? I don't know. All I know is that my cabbie, who had overheard my bargaining, was grinning like a madman for the entire drive.

Dahab and the Egyptian Mafia

When we checked into our hotel in Dahab, a Sinai beach town with a hippyish backpacker feel, there were three young Egyptian guys behind the counter screwing around. One turned to us, grinned and introduced himself and his friends. They were the Egyptian Mafia - the guy at the end of the line, tall, with curly hair and a cell phone in his hand was the Drug Dealer. Then next one, wearing a slick, Ben Shermanesque shirt with three buttons open, was the Killer.

"And me, I'm the Don."

They all laughed. More general screwing around ensued, jokes flying from all sides, in English and Arabic, and they got us checked in at a leisurely pace.

The restaurant at the Sphinx hotel is called the Funny Mummy. This is where Lee and I eat breakfast every day, facing the Gulf of Aqaba, sitting on comfy cushions on the floor. This is how we were welcomed to the Funny Mummy on our first day:

A guy with a mustache, who we had not yet met, came casually over to the table with a couple of menus, and said, "Good morning my friends! Where you come from?"

I said, "California." I usually say California rather than America. Everybody has heard of California, and it seems somehow hipper.

"Ah, Americans! You are welcome. Fuck Bush." He gave a sardonic yet friendly half-way grin and walked off to get us some coffee. Then one of the Mafia came over and sat next to us.

He said, "Good morning," and leaned way back on the cushions, checking his cell phone. He looked tired.

"Too much party last night." As he typed out a text message with his thumb, he explained that he had stayed out late at a club, and had to work this morning at 7am.

We've now been in Dahab for four days, and have gotten to know by sight and brief repartee a number of the guys who stand in front of bars and restaurants and try to rope in tourists. Their lines vary from, "Please come see the menu," to "Did you hear the joke about the hippy and the nun?" It's a form of the Hustle, which is pretty much omnipresent in the parts of Egypt tourists frequent, but this hustle is always done with an easygoing sense of fun.

Last night, Saturday night, we went to a party at the Tota Bar, the front of which resembles an old clipper, complete with portholes and a rigged mast. Crunchy, thumping Trance filled the bar, and tourists danced in the middle. Out back people hung out around fires, and drank beer. The bar/restaurant hustlers mingled, played pool, and put their verbal skills to use hitting on the foreign girls. Working in Dahab must be many a swinging young Egyptian's dream.

The Last Remaining Wonder of the Ancient World

Yesterday we went to the Giza plateau, 30 km from downtown Cairo, and spent the day in the presence the pyramids of Khufu, Kafre and Menkaure. They have been visited, and written about, by travelers from Herodotus to Mark Twain, so it is a bit daunting to attempt say something about them. Here are a few observations:

• At 4000 years old, the Great Pyramid of Khufu is the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - nearly two millenia older than its nearest competitor, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It is also the only Wonder that is still in existence.
• The Giza Plateau is full of tourists and persistent hustlers offering horse and camel rides, tours, and sovenirs. The pyramids are still one of the most awesome things I have ever seen.
• The Cairo suburb of Giza comes right up to the foot of the Giza Plateau. If you look one direction from the pyramids, you see desert. If you look the other, you see the smog and sprawl of a city with 20 million inhabitants.
• There is a KFC at the bottom of the plateau. The Sphinx's inscrutable gaze appears to be locked with that of the grinning Colonel.