From Amsterdam to Cairo

It rained the morning of our second day in Amsterdam, which kind of put the damper on some of our spirits. We ended up spending much of the day in the hostel, except for some "walking around" time in the afternoon, when the weather had cleared. We were going to do more stuff, but we had blown through a lot of money the first day, and we needed to start to save a little better. Still, we got to take some good pictures, and saw a lot of the city, so it was great. Snow took a nap in the hostel, while Sumon charged the camera and phone. A quick train ride to Schipol Airport later, and we were off to our second country, Egypt. The flight to Cairo was a short one, only about four hours, and pleasant enough. On the our previous flight, we had met an Englishman named Martin who was something of an intrepid traveler himself (hope you made it to your meeting, Martin!). No such luck this time out, though Snow did get an extra dessert from a fellow passenger.

We landed at Cairo at 1:00 AM, and the pilot told us that the ground temperature was about 70° F. Obviously, somebody had a faulty thermometer, since we got off the plane and it couldn't have been more than 50° out there. This brings us to our first major surprise of the trip: It's cold in Egypt! Ok, maybe not cold, but we were expecting 120° weather out here, and it hasn't exceeded 80° a single day we've been here. At night, it gets downright chilly. We had left some warm weather clothing in Amsterdam, figuring we wouldn't need it on the trip after that, but apparently, we should have held onto it.

We decided to stay in the airport until daylight, rather than venture out into a strange city late at night. We wanted to wait for when the buses would start running again, as we had heard the tales of Cairo cab drivers being a bunch of scammers. It turns out the bus drivers may not be much better, but we'll get to that a little later.

While in the airport, we met an American named Scott, and his 16 year old son Francis. They were headed back to Chicago after spending Francis' spring break in Egypt. What an awesome spring break! They gave us some tips on traveling through Egypt, and were all around nice people.

Once 7 AM had rolled around, we decided to make our way to the buses, avoiding pushy taxi drivers the whole way. The taxi drivers in Egypt are do not let up when it comes to offering rides with overinflated fares to foreigners. It's just something to be dealt with when visiting here. Thanks to Lonely Planet, we saw all their schemes coming a mile away. Still, some things you have to figure out for yourself. Such was the case with the bus drivers. We found a bus that was going to downtown Cairo. The driver told us that it would 2.50 Egyptian pounds each. Snow had a 5 Pound note, and the smallest note Sumon had was a 20 Pound note. We went to pay with these notes, not realizing that the concept of giving people back change for their money hasn't quite taken off here. This bus driver was about to accept 25 Pounds for a bus ride that costs only 5! Needless to say, we would not stand for this. We tried to get our money back, but the driver put up this huge fight. He took our tickets back, but wouldn't give us our money! He then switched his scheme, trying to get Sumon to give him 5 Pounds in exchange for the 20. It was ridiculous, and boy did we put up a fight. 5 Pounds is a little less than 1 US Dollar, but it was the principle that was worth making a scene about. We were not going to get scammed that easily out of anything. People really need to be vigilant when visiting this part of the world. Tourists have a reputation for being easy marks, so definitely do your research before travelling! We ended up getting our money back, and we decided to just take a taxi into the city. 50 Pounds was the best price we could get, so we just took it. We ended up staying at a different hostel than the one we originally planned for. This one was cheaper, and more importantly, wasn't overbooked. We left our stuff there and then took to the city. Cairo is lovely, but completely chaotic. The traffic isn't organized at all. The painted lines on the road and the traffic lights are more suggestions than anything else. They're not even strong suggestions. We had read in Lonely Planet that the drivers use their horns in lieu of their brakes, and it's completely true. Pedestrians have no choice but to simply start walking when they want to cross the street and hope they don't get run down. We're not sure how there aren't more traffic fatalities around here. On top of this, we were being harrassed by more scammers, both taxi drivers and hotel workers trying to con us into using their overpriced services and wares. At this point, Cairo was starting to look like nothing more than a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but when you get down to it, these are just the annoyances one has to deal with when travelling to a foreign city where. If you do your research ahead of time, you'll be able to get past all that junk and see the city for what it really is, which in this case is a cultural touchstone in the world. The sights and sounds are as captivating as they are constant. It's a busy city, but an interesting one.

We went back to the hostel and napped for a few hours, then tried to figure out our phone. Sumon's parents had insisted that we take a global cell phone with us, "just in case." We figured we could use the phone to call around to our hostels as well. Unfortunately, when we arrived in Cairo, the phone wasn't working. We spent the day trying to see why that was. It turns out Verizon never actually unlocked the phone for usage outside the US! Thanks Verizon! We just went ahead and bought a pay-as-you-go phone with an Egyptian SIM card, and that got us communicating again. The Verizon phone, meanwhile, was rendered an expensive alarm clock. It wasn't all bad, though. We met a nice Swedish backpacker named Elias in the cell phone store. He was in town on his fifth trip to Egypt, and he was able to give us some tips as well. Meeting all these great people has definitely been the highlight of this trip so far. There are so many interesting people with interesting stories to be met on the road. It's gotten to the point where once we see someone with a backpack, we feel an instant bond to them.

Once we got the cell phone situation fixed, we stopped off for a nice dinner in a restaurant named Excelsior. The food was a bit more Western than we had hoped, but it was good, and cheap, so it was a winner. We went back to the hostel and planned out our next day before passing out for the night. We were exhausted!


Now, a trip update: This post was put up the day before we left Egypt. Since it only covers our first day here, it's obvious we're running behind. It's tough maintaining this blog from the road when you've got to pay for your internet access one hour at a time. Still, we're doing the best we can. We've still got a metric ton of pictures from Amsterdam to put up, let alone all our pictures and video from Egypt. We're really excited about sharing our trip with you guys, and we'll get all the good stuff to you as fast as we can. Thanks for checking in, though. We really appreciate it!

We had to leave Amsterdam as it was blowing our budget...

Snow left her warm clothes behind thinking she shouldn't need them because Egypt is "hot" oh and the magazines Holly gave her!... Sorry Holly the back can only carry so much.

Sumon and Snow right before boarding the plane.. wearing clothes for the "warm" weather that awaited them in Cairo. Everyone else was dressed in warm clothing. Note to other travellers: take a hint from the people around you.