5/1/8: Arrival in Cairo
We used the automatic check in and somehow Julian managed to move himself a few isles down and lose me my window seat.
It was about a three and a half hour flight to Cairo and all went reasonably smoothly. The man next to me was a local who was now living in Switzerland, he gave me some interesting ideas and tips on things we might like to do.
On arrival, with a bit of effort we bought a phone card and worked out how to call a couple of hotels in the city. We were ing the worst with taxis etc at the airport - but it wasn't as big a problem as expected. Julian revelled in the haggling with the various drivers. We checked into our hotel on an Island on the Nile called Zamelek after settling in we went for a walk and then got a cab downtown looking for something to eat. Found a cheap quality kiosk style takeaway called felfela (?). A few people trying to befriend us - Julian made a new friend for life who just wanted to sit down with an Australian and talk - how about at his friends coffee shop down this alley ?
We bought Tim a new pair of trackpants from a street stall - probably paid too much - but again had a lot of fun devising strategies to haggle the price down.
On the taxi trip home the driver seemed to be lost and drove around and round the neighbourhood, stopping asking people on each second corner where our hotel was and then apparently driving in a different direction to the way they were pointing (one way streets perhaps). We were getting a bit annoyed when we suddenly swung into our street. We were very surprised when the driver demanded double the amount we had negotiated We felt on the contrary that he should be giving us a discount for being incompetent and not knowing his way around. In the end - we threw the money we had agreed to pay in the window and walked off with his yells echoing in our ears and down the street.
