(This is for those who think we’re “Living the Dream” every day.)
“Khalāş” is my go-to reply in Egypt. Enough! It works with touts, begging kids and even dogs. And it sums up this visit, too. Khalāş!
We needed an onward flight from Accra to get our Ghana visas and Cairo seemed like a good idea. We enjoyed our two previous visits to Egypt, especially the pharaonic sites along the Nile and the more remote oasis towns. The new Grand Egyptian Museum was finally open and we had a week to kill before our Saudi Arabia trip.
I wasn’t counting on still being sick. Nor did I realize that the 4-star hotel we booked “only 5 minutes from the Grand Egyptian Museum” wasn’t what was promised on-line. Nor that our hotel- supplied driver had no idea where it was. Twenty minutes to GEM was more like it, $25 by taxi Mohammed said. The taxi we hailed on the street the taxi cost £E200, about a buck and a half. People around the world tell us “We love Americans, but not your country.” The opposite applies here—we enjoy Egypt. Egyptians, on the other hand . . .
Our mood didn’t improve when we found out our on-line tickets for the Museum were only for expatriates, not general tourists and, sorry ‘bout that, the other tickets are sold out. We did arrange without haggling for Imam, our taxi guy, to drive us to Alexandria for a reasonable fee on Wednesday where we were booked for four nights.
Imam, as it happens, doesn’t have GPS in his vintage Chevy. Nor on his battered Nokia. Cell service in Egypt is terrible unless you have a local sim, so our contribution was spotty. We had an actual street address written in both English and Arabic but Alexandria, Egypt’s second-largest city, hasn’t yet gotten around to installing street signs. Imam was getting frustrated, his car was acting up and we were getting pissed. Khalāş!
In desperation we asked Imam to use his phone to call Mohammed, our host. After banging the Nokia on the steering wheel a few times to get it working, Mohammed directed him nearly there. Then the car stalled, fortunately right at the Egyptian Post Office, a landmark we could recognize. Mohammed found us, we paid Imam plus a 20% tip—of course he asked for more—and found our apartment.
No complaints. Thirteenth floor of an old building in a very busy barrio only a block from the corniche. The elevator is old and slow but so far, reliable. Likewise the washer/dryer but the view over the corniche to the east harbor is spectacular. We can see Fort Qaitbey standing on the site where the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World, stood until an earthquake in 1303 sent it tumbling. There are a couple of kiosks selling soft drinks and chips, our favorite fruit lady and you can follow your nose to the busy fish market.
I am getting better but don’t feel up to fighting the city to see the sights. We visited Alexandria 20 years ago and it doesn’t look like much has changed. We have been out walking along the corniche in the chilly wind, searching for food we can recognize and a working ATM—after the first 3 attempts failed we thought it was our card. Things look a little rosier now with clean clothes, Egyptian pounds in our wallet, Micky D’s Double Cheeseburgers in our bellies and our exit date approaching. And we found a Pizza Hut.
Khalāş!
