Wandering Down the Street

Today, I have decided to take you along as I walk, taxi, walk, and finally taxi back home, all in the name of a quest for the “the best pasta in town.” Last Thursday, I set out from my flat with a short list of chores that needed to be accomplished before Friday. Hubby, you see, had scheduled an Institute picnic for Friday at which my job was to look pretty and make a good impression on everyone present.

To accomplish this Herculean task, I needed to rip hair from my face, buy a decent bottle of liquor or wine, and practice my Arabic so it would look like I hadn’t spent the last two months nesting. Obviously, I was in trouble before I had even started out the door. I couldn’t get an appointment at the spa in Zamalek, wine in this town sucks and I wasn’t going to share from our South African stash, and in three Arabic lessons, all I’ve managed to retain is how to buy vegetables and even that was rather shaky.

Undaunted, I made an appointment with my friend for an at-home eyebrow wax. I then spent twenty minutes finding my sun hat and making taxi packets before heading out the door without my now forgotten hat.

(Taxi packets are my pre-made rolls of money that will cover the cost of my taxi ride to and from wherever I am headed within Cairo. I fill them full of piaster notes and always make sure to put at least one large pound note on the outside as this is what the driver will first see when I hand it to him after I alight from his vehicle.)

Traffic that day was unusually heavy and it took twice as long to get to the liquor store, Drinkies, than usual. Once there, I perused the shelves for a minute and eventually decided to torture my hosts with Egyptian champagne. I packed the bottle away in the satchel I brought for that purpose and began my long walk to lunch.

Walking anywhere in this town takes patience, good eyes, comfy shoes, and extra dose of patience for good measure. You see the “sidewalks” here are often inaccessible because cars frequently park on or across them. They are also littered with garbage, animals, and the feces of said animals. The final icing on this cake is the danger of walking around buildings with air conditioners hanging out their windows, as these often rain down Freon and dirty water on unsuspecting pedestrians below.

The following is a typical walk to the end of a typical Cairene street. Imagine that you have cars parked on both sides of your already narrow street. This feat of parking prowess ensures that there is only just enough room for a small car to maneuver its way down the street. Since the sidewalks are generally inaccessible, you elect to walk on the road and jump between cars every time someone honks at you to get out of the way.


Annoyed and about to be driven to murder by the constant beeping of horns, you look around and see what appears to be at least 100 feet of uninterrupted sidewalk. Like the good pedestrian you were taught to be back in the Real World, you hop over to your designated area and proceed forward. Only this is what greets you at the end of the 100 feet:


Your path blocked, you look to the right to see if you can squeeze between the cars and continue on your way. Instead you see this:


Frustrated, but still patient, you retrace your steps until you find two cars you can safely squeeze through. When you finally find such a spot, you look around and realize that you just walked ALL THE WAY BACK TO WHERE YOU STARTED!

That was how I spent Thursday afternoon. All I wanted was two eyebrows, a bottle of bubbly, and a bowl of pasta. Instead, I walked up and down the streets of Cairo losing what precious little was left of my sanity.