A city in which my profession does not exist

Cairo is a city in which I would officially by unemployed. Despite 22 million inhabitants and nearly the same amount of cars, and what must also be a significant amount of accidents, there is absolutely no compensation for a person’s injuries. Car insurance simply covers the repair of the vehicle (so long as the accident isn’t your fault) and they will call the ambulance for you. Any losses you sustain, hardships you might experience and aches you will have are not compensated. It is one sure way of eliminating all those pesky, ambulance chasing lawyers. On the other, it really wouldn’t be hard to chase an ambulance in this city. We drove behind one for about 15 minutes as its lights flashed, signals wailed and it slowly inched through the congested traffic to cover maybe 100 meters in 10 minutes.

Our trip to Cairo was relatively uneventful, aside for the customs guard mixing up our Jordanian visa for an Egyptian one and letting us into the country without one. Only when we were leaving the airport and I inquired whether one was mandatory and whether we would have any problems exiting the country without one, an airport official managed to escort us back to customs where we were told to purchase the visa, had our passports re-stamped and were allowed to proceed.

Having arrived at nearly 3am, the chaos of this city was not initially apparent. But I knew what was awaiting us and was not disappointed. Over the last two days I’m sure my lifespan has been decreased by at least a year or two. You can feel the pollution on your eyes, in your nostrils; every breath you take is a mixture of exhaust, chemicals, and sand. Today it got so bad that we could barely see across the Nile and the panorama of Cairo that was to be visible from the Giza plateau was simply a grey blur.

Nevertheless Cairo is a must see city simply for the experience of it all, but I would not recommend for anyone to spend more than 2 days in it.

Yesterday we visited the islamic quarter with it's Kahn Al-Khalili Bazaar. This is a definite must see part of Cairo. While roaming all the various shops and stalls, we accidentally stumbled on some fantastic mosques and mausoleums and due to the relatively late hour had them virtually to ourselves, all lit up at night. It was a fantastic little surprise to come stumbling out of the taut filled alleys of the Khan Al-Khalili Bazaar and to walk into the huge rooms of the Mausoleum of an-Nasir Mohammed.

Aside for that we stopped by at the Egyptian Museum with in reality resembles more a large storage facility than a museum, but again is a must see when you come to Cairo.

Today it was the mandatory trip to the Giza plateau inclusive of a visit to a Papyrus museum and a stroll along the insanely polluted Nile. The pyramids, although a mandatory stop on any visit to Egypt, fail to live up to their wonder. This was my second time to them and again I was left feeling a bit disapointed. There is simply so much hype about them - all the information as to how they were build, how precisely all the stone was laid, how they are perfectly aligned with the various stars, how they might have secret chambers etc. Yet all you find when you show up in the desert is a KFC and Pizzu Hut facing the Sphinx and on a dusty plateau three giant rock piles with a few smaller ones strewn around them all surrounded by busloads of tourists and a nearly equivalent amount of tauts. Well, maybe describing them as a pile of rocks is a bit excessive but all I'm trying to say is that I would have been more impressed by a well filled National Geographic movie about them rather than their actual sight.

From here it’s off to Dahab where the air will hopefully be a bit cleaner, the environment a bit more pleasant, the traffic a bit less exhausting and the water a bit clearer.