Cairo!

Jeez, I am such a loser! I have had such an amazing time and I haven't shared much of any of it! I still didn't write about Valley of the Kings! Or Luxor Temple! Or my flight and visit to Abu Simbel yesterday! Or swimming in the Nile River (it was perfect!). And tomorrow is the visit to Giza, for the Pyramids and the Sphinx, then I head home on Thursday. It's been absolutely wonderful!

I think I'll just start with some odds and ends, and save the travelogue for later.

First, because of the fighting in Israel and Gaza, tourism is down here about 60%. And most of the 60% is American tourists, so it's an even worse hit to the Egyptian economy. The Europeans and the Russians are still coming here in droves, but, as my guide Mohamed said today, the Americans are the ones who spend money when they are here. The Europeans just don't spend like we do. So the tourist industry on which so many Egyptians depend is really suffering. On a side note, I asked Mohamed if he was losing 60% of his income as well (as there are fewer trips to be guided, and those that he does guide have fewer people), and he said, no, more like 75%. He actually apologized today for being distracted during this trip, as he is worrying about supporting his wife and children.

The thing is that the fear is just groundless. I keep seeing Facebook posts in the travel groups I'm in about how people are canceling trips to Egypt out of fear. I've jumped in to a few of the discussions to say that I'm here and all is well, but you cannot reason with people who are having an emotional response. It is hundreds of miles from the tourist areas of Egypt to Israel, and the land in between is the inhospitable Sinai. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel when Jimmy Carter was president, and it's still holding, plus they are not letting Palestinians cross the border into Egypt. Finally, the US State Department has not raised the alert level for Egypt since the conflict began.

I keep laughing about the (again, mostly Americans) tourists canceling their travel to Morocco, Türkiye, etc.—have they got maps?? It is as far from Cairo to Casablanca as it is from New York to Los Angeles!

Okay, rant about American ignorance of international affairs and geography is now over.

Cats and dogs! There are many here, and the dogs seem to be mostly sleepy street dogs. I ignore most of them, because there is nothing that I can do to help them. Dogs are not valued by most people in Muslim countries. I have seen some working (mostly guard) dogs, but not a single dog that looked like a pet. So, I don't look.

Cats, though, are not considered unclean as dogs are, and there are many. When we visited a Cairo mosque today, there was the most striking cat outside. I thought she had one kitten, but later we saw her nursing four. But she was so beautiful, black with green eyes that seemed to see everything. She was truly the cat Bastet. Lynn was trying to figure out how to get one of the also black kittens home with us.

The cat, Bastet

And, because she was so beautiful, here is a second one.

Today we visited a fortress, several mosques, the Egyptian Museum, and a Coptic Church, but what I'll write about next was my adventure on the streets of Cairo. We drove past a restaurant today named The Heart Attack: Fried Chicken and Burger. So tonight we decided to walk to it for dinner. (We being 5 of the 10 in our group.) I mapped the walking path using Apple Maps, and off we went!

First, we are near some very busy highways...that we had to cross to get to the restaurant. There are no crosswalks here. If there are traffic lights, they seem to be ignored. (Also, no street signs.) Lane markers are pretty much ignored as well. (I am astounded that we saw our first accident today, and it was a minor rear-end collision.) But, off we set! The first few crossings were uneventful—we waited for a gap and ran like hell. But then we got to a busy road. I think that technically we had to cross 3 lanes of weaving traffic, but it seemed like more and there were motorcycles weaving throughout! Two of our group just went for it, like the Egyptians do. They just stroll out and assume that no one will hit them!!

At this point, I'm standing there with the other two people, and I actually said out loud: "I don't want to die!" Suddenly, someone grabbed my right arm and pulled me into the traffic. I looked around, and an Egyptian lady (in robe and hijab) just towed me right across the road. It all happened so fast! Suddenly I was safely on the other side. I leaned down and hugged her! She smiled at me and turned and crossed back over through traffic. She had just brought me over! (My two friends had followed in our wake, and we were all safe.)

From there, we had to cross several more streets. At one, there was a police officer. The two brave among us crossed, but I was looking at the chaos and hanging back. The officer motioned us to just go on! Into traffic! Note that he did not help us—he just told us to go. Finally, we got to the restaurant.

So the burgers were all chicken, no beef. But the food was wonderful! I got fried chicken with French fries. It was made freshly and so good! Three pieces plus a good sized serving of fries was 150 Egyptian pounds—that's under $5! After the food, we decided to visit Drinkies on the way back to the hotel.

Ah, I have not yet related the tale of the red wine, so I must digress. Our first night on the boat in Luxor, three of us decided to split a bottle of wine with dinner. They had a Cabernet Sauvignon on the wine list and we were game! It was an Egyptian wine, we all like Cabs, and it was 850 Egyptian pounds for a bottle (about US$ 30). So, not cheap, but we were splitting it.

So, our waiter (we had the same for all our meals on the ship) brought the bottle out for our appraisal. Yep, there was the name, Beausoleil. And, right under that, the smaller word, Syrah. I told the waiter, no, we ordered a Cabernet. He pointed to the label: See, Beausoleil. And I pointed to the menu and said, no, Cabernet! And he was clearly confused. He had brought us a bottle of wine that said Beausoleil, and it was a red wine! Yep, that's what he said. At this point, the management got involved, and after a while it was established that there was no Cabernet. We agreed to try the Syrah, and it was...I'll be charitable and say that it must not have been a good year in Egypt for syrahs. I don't think any of us finished our first glass.

Then, last night in Cairo, at the very nice restaurant on the 32nd floor of this hotel (the Ramses Hilton), Paul found a Napa Cabernet on the menu and order it. And—wait for it—the waiter brought the same brand, but not a Cabernet. Again, much confusion ensued. After about 15 minutes, the manager returned, very apologetic. He had searched each restaurant in the hotel (there are 5 or 6) and there was no Cabernet to be had. He explained to me that he had imported 10 bottles, but that the very night before, the final bottle had been sold. (The happy ending is that whatever red wine Paul did order after that turned out to be a 2014 vintage that he and Lynn both said was excellent. (I was drinking a strawberry mojito.))

Now, back to tonight. We decided to walk to Drinkies, a liquor store, on the way back to the hotel. After a short walk (with only minor roads to cross), we reached Drinkies, a little hole in the wall liquor store. Finally! A Cabernet for the stellar price of under US$10! Egyptian beer was about $1.50 a bottle, so several bought that too. Then we traipsed back to the hotel. And there was another enormous highway to cross. This time I chickened out when the others dodged through, so there they were, in the median, and there I was, thinking I'd never see them again. Finally, there was an Egyptian man about to cross, and I crossed with him (keeping him on the traffic side!). Nervewracking, but, at the same time, exhilarating. After we crossed, I offered him a dollar and he declined several times. We shook hands and bowed our head to each other, then he said, "Dollar?" I laughed and gave it to him. From there, it was just a short walk with only moderately traumatic road crossings, and we were back at the hotel. The Cabernet was quite good!

Oh, I forgot the other thing that is optional! Headlights!! Probably a quarter of the vehicles, from cars to buses, were driving without any headlights. Insane!

Here's a video I took from my hotel balcony. If you watch closely, you can see the pedestrians just strolling through the traffic. They don't even run!

One thing I noticed tonight that was different was that we did not get bugged by anyone on the streets. We were in a shopping area most of the time, with lots of Egyptians out eating and strolling. Not a single person tried to sell us anything. That is very different that what happens at all the tourist areas. We even had local "river pirates" hook ropes to our ship to get pulled along. They'd shout up if they saw an open window or a person! (It was actually quite annoying as the boat stayed under our window for hours, with the sellers yelling up at the boat.)

As we entered the only lock that the boat went through on the trip down the Nile, two young river pirates shot around us and into the lock in front of us in a rowboat! They called up to us—we were watching the lock transit from the top deck—and then hung on for a while after we started up river again.

When you enter and exit every tourist site, you have to go through what we are calling the gauntlet, as series of shops and sellers. They get in front of you, they follow you, and heaven help you if they hear your name, because then they are calling after you. And then there are the children selling! They should be in school, but instead they are hanging around where ever there might be tourists, selling bookmarks, bags, whatever. We were told not to buy from them, as that would just incentivize them to keep selling instead of going to school.

The vendor gauntlet

Anyway, tonight on the walk back to the hotel, no one bugged us! It was quite refreshing to be able to meet people's eyes without them acting like I'd offered to buy everything that they were selling!

Hmm, what other oddity should I write about? Well, the ship's crew was all men, from waiters to the three men who cleaned the rooms on our hall. When I asked about it, Mohamed said that most families want their wives and daughters home each night, and the ship's crew live on the boat for days at a time. There are certainly plenty of women working, but most (not all!) I have seen are in lower end jobs. At the first hotel in Cairo, I did meet a woman that was there for a conference. She had her Ph.D. and had come to the US for a conference. She was delightful and we are now Facebook friends.

There were several birthdays in other groups on the ship, and the entire restaurant staff come out to celebrate with song and dance. It was quite wonderful, and went on for perhaps 10 minutes each time. There was one guy from the kitchen staff who really knew how to shake his bootie—he didn't dance for the second birthday, but I was glad to see him back for the third! I couldn't video the whole thing, but here's a taste. And they were so joyous as they sang and danced. But that has been true of just about everyone we have met here. They don't seem to resent us at all and seem quite happy when they can do something for us. Of course, it is a tipping economy, but I don't thing that they could all fake this pleasure. Of course, I could be wrong. It's been known to happen.

Tomorrow we are off to Giza and the Pyramids, then we go back again at night for the light show. Should be fun! There is also a plan afoot to see if we can bribe our way into a pyramid. Apparently, it has been known to work. I just heard about this tonight and put extra money in my pants pocket for tomorrow. I'm in!