36 hours in Cairo, Giza, bootlegging and a horse named Michael Jackson

So our adventures with long bus rides have begun. We took the 3pm bus from south of Taba to Cairo. This was a 8 hour ordeal, we arrived in hot and humid Cairo at 11pm. Cairo puts a new definition to city smog and pollution. After a fierce negotiation session with a cabbie, we went to the recommended hotel, they were full so we settled for the red headed step-child downstairs. A little dirtier, a little cheaper but the front desk guy spoke English because he was engaged to a girl from Cleveland and was moving there in the spring. Whilst working as a waiter at the Marriott in Cairo he managed to seduce a tourist and 'ala-kazaam' he was moving to Cleveland. Muhammad took us to a shwarma joint and dropped us off at the nearest bar so we could grab a beer and put out the flames of 8 hours on the bus.

So the next day the mission was clear, see the pyramids and for me get rid of all the winter stuff I packed by sending it home. This has been my 'cross to bare' since leaving Jerusalem, rid myself of an extra 4kg of crap. So we struck out bright and early with our guide to Giza, it was cheap prob $15USDpp. I took a hit off Salim's hookah while we were eating breakfast and I can now safely say I don't really see the point in smoking a hookah. Cigarettes are at least portable and you get your own smoke and don't have to share a Hookah mouthpiece with 4 other dudes in some dirty alley coffee shop in Cairo...I digress.

Anyways after 45 min in the worst traffic jam in recent memory we got to Giza, we later found out the traffic jam was due to a surprise visit by Pres Mubarak to Cairo. When this happens an already tenuous traffic situation becomes hopeless. So we get to Giza, get our tix and get into the site. Despite being one of the remaining natural wonders, the Egyptians have not done much to build up the surrounding area or clean up the place...i.e. pave the roads, clean up the horse crap, (Justin stepped in a steaming pile in sandals on the way out..I was crying) until you get into the Giza site. So we saw the Sphinx and walked the pyramids, very big, very cool and my utmost sympathy goes out to whomever built those things because those stones are big and heavy, and Cairo is definitely hot.

The pressure to ride a camel or horse is unrelenting, and after dismissing several touts. I submitted to the pressure if the guide could produce for me the "fastest horse in Giza". Apparently you can't ride around the pyramids in anything other that a walk, however there are some sand dunes about 500m to the east where I saw many Egyptian kids basically tear-assing around on these mighty Arabian steeds.
The horse idea was in retrospect a mistake, they used this weird English/western hybrid saddle, I was convinced the girth strap was not tight enough and I made the mistake of trying to ride while wearing a backpack with 20lbs of stuff in it. There is a reason you never see photo's of cowboys riding with backpacks, it is very uncomfortable to try and gallop with a 20lb counterweight sloshing around on your back. So getting this "steed" into a gallop was next to impossible and we basically were being chased by the guide who was whipping my horse from behind. (For the record, he was not the fastest horse in Giza) Combine this with the backpack and we are in ankle deep sand, the saddle is sloshing around and these horses have this really stiff short-legged gait. Bottom line the sooner I could get the horse out of trot, canter or gallop the better. After the walk of shame back from the plains to Giza, the guide was nice enough to inform me that the horse's name was "Michael Jackson"...fitting.

So I bailed out of the afternoon session to the other pyramid spot, Justin continued with Salim. I got back to the hotel and tried to do a little research on the internet and after giving an English lesson on body parts to the front desk guy, meeting a guest who thought she was an African queen (literally), and getting some half-assed instructions from the hotel manager I set out into the Cairo afternoon lugging my 4lbs of crap with a hope and a prayer. I went to DHL, FED-ex, and Egyptian post office, and EMS. There are no English street signs in Cairo by the way. No dice anywhere, at least for a reasonable price, the one group that would do it ,EMS, would only do it first thing the next morning. This didn't help me since I was on the red-eye to Dar-es-Salam that night. So broken, sweaty and tired, I headed back to the hotel with my 4kg of crap. In the reception I met Sherife and his buddy Willy. These guys were a pair of typical of chain smoking middle aged Egyptian guys at first glance trying to sell me something. However we started talking, they asked what I was doing with this bag of clothing, I told the whole story and they said well sure we can help you out. I was waiting for the catch. "We will hep you wit dis, if you can hep us wit somting?" Ok guys how much do you want? "We don't need money, but can you buy us some alcohol"...I started cracking up. We are in Egypt you can buy alcohol here, what is the problem? Well apparently they only sell crappy Egyptian whiskey and excessively high priced foreign booze. Sherife and Willy have a taste for the good stuff and were after my 3 bottle duty free quota. After I verified that this was not a criminal offense we tore off in a hurry to the Duty free store, after several cell phone calls involving cousins and collective booze orders, they bought and paid for a few fifths of Jonny Walker on my 3 bottle visa limit.

You gotta love these car bumper stickers where they get the translation wrong

We then spent the rest of the afternoon getting more price quotes and specifics on overseas shipping. Sherrife was surprisingly helpful, however I never pulled the trigger on shipping. You can only imagine Justin's surprise when these two jokers accosted him with the same pitch outside the hotel and began their pitch with we are "friends with Trevor, can you buy us some alcohol".

Sharife and Willy

Sharife correctly claimed he was not photogenic