Day 241: İstanbul - Cairo (القاهرة)

Nov 30 - Call a taxi and head to IST for the last time (our sixth time in/out of that airport on this trip). Its all a routine by now, full security check before and after the ticket counter, fast food on the second floor at the far left of the huge departure hall. Sit down at the departure gate and immediately recognize the dress and look of the typical Egyptian businessman. Also the cadence of Egyptian dialect Arabic, with the hard ‘g’ sound.

Egyptair has improved since I remember. We leave exactly on time, and they serve up a decent meal, even though the flight is only a couple of hours long in the mid afternoon. The heavy rainclouds of Türkiye give way to the brown haze and harsh beige landscape of the Sahara. The long descent into Cairo International Airport is preceded by a long look at the thousands upon thousands of blocky, dusty apartment buildings and traffic-clogged streets of Shubra and Heliopolis. Wait over an hour for our check-ins to appear at the luggage claim. Odette jumps around in eager anticipation that our bags are going to come out any second. The man standing next to us, who has obviously just gotten hair replacements in Istanbul and is returning home, says “well, at least SHE is happy”.

Out into the dark orange dusk of the parking lot, just in time to see the dim ball of our sun give up and sink into the craggy urban expanse. We have a pre-arranged taxi ($10), a war-scarred Peugeot with only enough room in the trunk for one of our bags. The other two packs get lashed on to the roof rack and off we go. Everyone gets a good introduction to what is to ride around in Cairo traffic, as we weave and honk our way through the masses of cars and confusing arrangement of overpasses and on-ramps.

Despite having lived in the greater Cairo area for five years, I never once slept overnight in the downtown area. Because our time is short and the purpose of this trip was to introduce Janet and Odette to the sights in and around Cairo, I decided that it was most efficient to stay here. As much as I have always enjoyed the southern suburb (and home) of Ma’adi, I didn’t want the added transport every day to and from the downtown area.

Cairo is as crowded, boisterous, and noisy as I remember. The streets themselves are a tangle of beat-up taxis, scooters, beneath row after row of dusty building fronts. For me of course it feels so familiar, but for Janet and Odette is is a bit startling. We are dropped off on the side of Kasr el Nil Street, and an old man is waiting to show us the door to our hotel. I am glad we did it this way, as the building entrance (unmarked) is almost completely hidden by a pop-up outdoor clothing market on the street outside. The building is old and very run down (as many are in this part of town), with an elevator missing two walls.

Berlin Hotel is one of the most basic places we’ve stayed in thus far. The hallways are dark and it seems like every surface is covered in dust. There is a taxidermied cobra on the front desk, parts of which are wrapped in duct tape, along with a baby crocodile. No one is very happy with the room, but we have been spoiled in Türkiye and I wasn’t expecting the same level of accommodation here anyway. The kind woman who checks us in advises me, “if you see people in a group discussing politics, don’t stop to talk or even listen. Just move away.” Almost sounds like advice I was given in Iran a month ago.

We don’t feel like eating, so we just wander around to get a feel for the neighborhood. There are the usual pushers out, in force, trying to guide us into stores or hand us ‘free’ samples of whatever, going through various languages quickly to see which one gets our attention. The more experienced ones peg the language on sight and can start in with the opening lines in English, such as ‘just have a look, no need to buy, relax and have tea with us’.

Use the credit card to pull out some Egyptian pounds (about 25 LE to the US$), while a bored policeman in the standard black uniform looks on from a tiny wooden enclosure. It is perhaps one of the most iconic scenes of Cairo, that I remember so clearly from the ‘old days’.