Cruizin’ around Cairo

I have safely arrived in Cairo and it’s pretty damn cool, seeing the pyramids at Giza from the plane was quite an amazing sight!! Right now I am sitting in a little internet cafe right near the Nile. I expected the Nile to be all brown and dirty but what I have seen so far is beautiful and blue.

Unfortunately the friend I was supposed to be staying with in Cairo hasn’t made it here yet. He was playing basketball in LA the night before he his flight to Cairo and he came down on his ankle akwardley and heard a few nasty popping sounds. He’s gonna be ok but he’s on crutches and won’t make it into Cairo until at least tomorrow evening which means I’m rolling solo until then. Until he arrives I am staying in a hostel in downtown Cairo, just a 15 minute walk from the Nile. Well, I think it’s a 15  minute walk … I got really lost on the way down here and it took me a lot longer than it should have so I can’t be completely sure   Getting lost wasn’t too hard, very few of the intersections have street signs and most signs are only in Arabic which isn’t incredibly helpful to me. To be honest I should admit that I have actually been lost twice already. Due to a miscommunication between myself and the cab driver who brought me from the Cairo airport I got dropped off quite a ways away from the Hotel Osiris (the hostel I’m staying at). He didn’t speak much english, I don’t speak any arabic, and I’m pretty sure he couldn’t read because showing him a map of where I wanted to go didn’t help the situation at all. (According to my Lonely Planet book the iliteracy rate here is pretty high) The cab driver did seem to understand the name of a city square somewhat close to where I am staying and that is where I got dropped off. 20 minutes later I managed to get to the hostel, nicely soaked in sweat from carrying 3 heavy bags around in the 100 degree heat. It didn’t bother me though, I’m too excited about being here to be bothered by much

I’m off to go find some food, I haven’t eaten yet today and it’s 2pm here so I’m getting pretty hungry. I’ll try and get some Cairo pics up soon …  I hope you all are doing well!

P.S. Don’t be shy about commenting on my posts or sending me emails, it gets a little lonely out here on the road and I always appreciate hearing from people.

~ by cstoehr on August 20, 2008.