cairo

cairo is a big, bustling, crowded, dirty city.

one of the hostels we stayed at was on the sixth floor of an otherwise abandoned building. the bottom floors looked like a bomb had gone off in them and the building felt like a real life jenga tower. there were cats roaming around in our room and meowing all night.

that top picture? not fog. its pollution.

its so smoggy there that david and i both had cold like symptoms and coughs the whole time we were there. there are some really gorgeous districts in cairo, but our stay there confirmed that we are not city people. david got really sick and we had to go to a doctor. going to the doctor here was like stepping back in time. a nice office with fabric sheets instead of disposable paper for the benches. a big glass front bookcase full of reference books, and not a computer in sight.

its unfortunate that we didn't get to see much of greater cairo, we were mostly downtown.

the pace that cairo runs at is insane. buses don't stop and people just jump off and on them while they are moving, they hardly even slow down for old ladies. all vehicles are stuck in constant traffic. they are all about the hustle and bustle, one taxi driver shut my leg in the door because he was in such a hurry.

scammers here love tourists. they hunt you down and don't let you go. they'll tell you that your hotel burnt down to get you to another one. you cant ask anyone in the vicinity of a taxi driver questions about where the bus station is etc, they will just flat out lie to you. we were at a bus station, staring at like six buses and we asked police officer which bus goes downtown. he said there were no buses in cairo, and he could get us a taxi for a good price. really? no buses in cairo? everyone that is not trying to get you to buy something is really nice though, the lengths that they will go to help you find something etc. if you need help is really quite amazing.