We got into Cairo from Athens on Tuesday. We got our first experience of Egyptian 'hospitality' at the airport when tens of taxi drivers were all fighting for our business, taking our bags without our permission and heading to their cars promising "cheap price, very cheap good price." We finally bartered a price we felt good about and headed to our hotel, the Hotel Mayfair in the Zamalek neighborhood. Zamalek is kind of like Ile de la Cite is to Paris, a big island in the middle of the Nile with the city stretching out on either side. The hotel itself was nice enough, but it was a situation where you could definately tell you were in Egypt. We had a shared bathroom, and the shower was just conveniently located (no door or curtain) over the toilet. Apparantly they're fans of multi-tasking there. They also got a shock when we ordered a triple room. They saw Lauren in our party and asked if we wanted one double and one single, but when we said we were all together they looked at us like we were crazy.
With our remaining daylight we just walked around Zamalek and the Nile in search of a restaurant. We settled on an outdoor patio / riverboat place and got a nice dinner. The food prices were a wonderful comparison to Paris. We got a huge meal for about 350 Egyptian pounds, or about 90 US dollars for all three of us. We finished the meal with two shishas - the flavored tobacco smoked out of a hookah - 
that were pretty different and entertaining. We got grape and Coca Cola flavors. It was very relaxing, all in all, as we spent about 3 hours at the restaurant and then went back to the Mayfair to go to sleep early to get ready for an eventful day at Giza on Wednesday.
No comments:
Post a Comment