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Flying over Egypt gave us an insight of what we were to encounter over the next few days. There was a patchwork of cultivated land, desert that spanned for ages and what appeared to be a child's building block version of buildings in circular formations scattered around the landscape. The towns looked brown and completly devoid of greenery, which we discovered later was not true as the buidling block high rises that house the people and businesses are actually taller than the trees, hiding them from high aerial view.
Cairo was not one of those cirular townships, instead it was a sprawl that went on beyond as far as you could see. Whilst our plane was in a holding pattern we found the edge of the old city discovering, that it had expanded as far as where the mighty Sahara desert starts. We flew over the Pyramids of Giza, which looked tiny from up above, before flying back over the city towards the airport for landing.
It became quite daunting very quickly once we had collected our baggage. This was the first trip where we hadn't organised the fine details and let a tour company control the majority of
our stay. Not speaking Arabic and not understanding the tipping culture and haggling procedures put us at a disadvantage from the start. However, we were met by a smiling Egyptian man holding our names on a laminated piece of paper. He directed us to a waiting car and took us straight to our hotel, which we were very greatful for, as the drive to a Giza hotel was far from the airport.
We arrived at Pharaoh's Hotel in good time, tipped our driver a shiny gold pound (which he and the front tourist police examined very closing in smiling appreciation) and had our bags whisked inside before I even got out of the car. Wow, this was service and it was only a 3 star hotel! After signing in, a "bell" boy took our luggage and us up into our room. He turned on the air conditioning, fridge and tv and told us about the restaurant. He was so helpful, that we realised that another tip was in order. It was becoming very apparant that the people worked for tips in this country, which is why everyone is so efficient and friendly. We gave him some pence, as we
had no Egyption pounds small enough to warrant his assistance. This is something that we knew we had to rectify soon to prevent our embarassment each time.
We went for a walk outside to get our first site of the city on foot. We were located in Giza, which is a city on the west side of the Nile. A short walk for us over the bridge to the East side of the Nile would allow us to be in downtown Cairo, as the 2 are only separated by the river. Cairo + Giza = Great Cairo. Somthing that we learnt from our tour guide the next day.
We got approached twice on our walk by "friendly" guys that asked the same questions - where are you from, how long have you been here, what tour company are you with, etc, etc with the final punch line always being to follow them to their shop. It was very hard to politely refuse and so being new to this area of the world, we had to sit through the whole discussion, even though we could have guessed what was coming. They are very good salesman, trying to gain your
trust before delivering their intended message. Quite annoying really, but they are just trying to make a living in a country that has a great variance between the rich and the poor. We later learnt that the middle class was slowing disappearing and so the rich and poor divide was becoming more noticeable with the poverty levels increasing. The tax man also collects a flat rate of tax of 10% from rich and poor alike in Egypt, which doesn't help with the country's economy or by differentiating the lower class's ability to pay tax.
By this time it was getting late, we hadn't found a restaurant to eat at and we were extremely tired from all of our farewell parties and packing up of our life in London, that all we felt like doing was falling asleep. We went back to the hotel and sleep was our master.
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