Shamba za Cairo (Part One)

Cairo bwana, hamna shamba... so you have to understand, dear tourist, that shamba ni wewe. And you will be limwa'd without mercy.

My time in Cairo is short… do I want to do history and culture, or do I want to be
a headonistic, unapologetic mass tourist, and do the pyramids and bazaar experience? (stroking chin and sighing) Such tough decisions. My rationale is that the culture thing requires time, the headonistic mass tourist thing just requires transport and money. Bright and early, my travel companion in this adventure, Jo, and I hail a taxi from our flea bag 2 star hotel (which we booked into at 1am in the morning).

We ask the taxi driver if he speaks English and he confidently replies ‘yes’. Relieved, we enter the vehicle (and old fiat something or other painted in black and white) and tell him we want to go to the pyramids, so how much will it cost. We’ve been told by the hotel people that it should cost about 10 pounds from where we are, and you can knock us over with a feather when he quotes that exact fare. We look at each other – is it possible that by some miraculous twist of fate, we’ve happened upon a guy who doesn’t want to haggle in this here Cairo – don’t quite trust this possibility, but are happy to go along with it.

The traffic jam is real (about 8am) but we’re soon at the pyramids, right as the first few tour buses are rolling in. He drops us off at the entrance. A hard working young man (hwym) runs to us and tells the taxi driver to park his vehicle at the foot of the hill because he won’t be allowed to park inside. To us he says: ‘you come with me, you choose camel or horse, you ride to the pyramids’. Not having just fallen off the cabbage truck (or walked right off a plane), we decline and say we’ll walk to the pyramids. He says ‘pyramids is far, very far’. And we look askance at him, indicating that to us, the pyramid is right ‘here’. And it is indeed, outlined very sketchily through the morning haze.

He says ‘pyramids far, siphinix (as it's popularly called around here) far, you get tired walking… you sure you fit to walk long time?’. We indicate we’ll take our chances. He says ‘you walk through gate you pay 50 egyptian pounds, and you’ll have to walk. You come with me and for trip, you pay depending on size: small (15 min) = 15 L.E., medium (30 min) = 30 L.E., and long (60 min) = 60 L.E.
We don’t understand his pointless…. We’re planning to be here at most – an hour. To take pictures, touch the stone, then bounce to Khan el Khalil, the tourist bazaar. We firmly refuse his efforts to have us sign on to camel/horse rides, and pay the 50 L.E. entrance fee. We then walk to the largest of the 3 intact pyramids, and take a whole lotta pictures.

We’re debating whether to go see the sphinx (we fear that it’s quite far… judging from what the young man said) when our taxi driver shows up and says he’s been allowed to park inside. Apparently the hwym was not being truthful about parking inside the pyramid area. We decide that since we’re here, we might as well see the siphinix, besides, we’ve only spent 20 minutes of the allotted 60.

While taking pictures at the pyramids, a couple of guys try to sell us arab head-dress. One says hello to me and then says ‘take this (headdress) as sign of my friendship’. Thanks but no thanks, and I catch an undecipherable look being exchanged between him and another guy. I end up ‘getting’ the headdress later anyway, because Jo is suckered into it and pulls me into the ‘deal’. 40 LE for 2 sets of 3 pyramids (a crystal set and a black epoxy one) with the headdress thrown in as bakshish.

As we’re happily wearing the headdress and taking pictures (still at the largest pyramid), a friendly young man (fym) walks up to Jo and talks Jo into letting him take his picture. Fym grabs my camera to ‘make picture with both of you’, then decides the light there is not good enough. Come with me, he says, the light is better ‘over there’. We follow him until we round the corner of the pyramid. By this time I’m hot and bothered, and would please like my camera back! What do we find around the corner? A group of camels. Don’t you want to take picture on camel? He asks. I’m not interested… been there, done that… waaay back when mamba village was just starting and they used to offer camel rides as an activity… before the camels started walking the beaches of north coast… Jo is enthralled at the idea, and it all happens so fast I don’t have time to warn that there might be a cost involved.

Up on the camel, grinning at the experience, and they walk the camel a few meters, all the while urging me to take pictures, and asking me to hold the guide rope while they take a picture of the two of us. Jo then dismounts, and the father of fym says ‘you’re happy?’ and Jo says ‘yes’, so ffym says ‘you make good picture, so now give me my money, 120LE for camel ride’. Jo is thoroughly surprised, ‘but you said nothing about paying for the ride’. They settle on 20LE and he is thoroughly disgusted and disheartened at being that conned, that early in the morning.

We walk past the boat museum and ask to use the bathroom. While I’m waiting outside, a cute young boy, can’t be older than 13, walks up to me and says ‘here’s a headdress for you, ‘cause you look egyptian’. I gleefully produce my ‘pyramid kitsch’ and indicate that he can’t use that one on me. He moves on, and I quickly put it on again, a sign that “I’ve paid my dues in that department, thank you very much. If you’re walking up to me, please make sure it’s with a different story”. Ashraf asks which way the siphinix is, and we walk along the road in that direction. We’re now going down a gentle slope, and the bottom is still quite hazy. Ashraf says ‘there it is’, but I can only make out a lump rising out of the morning haze.