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The Greek Orthodox Cab Driver

Nov 7th, 2010
by Dan.
4 comments

The last day of my stay in Cairo was a Friday. The hotel shuttle dropped us off at Khan-al-Kalili, where we browsed the market for a couple of hours. I finally did get some perfume extracts, much cheaper than they were selling at the pyramids.

The highlight came from the taxi ride from Khan-al-Kaliki to CityStars Mall.

“Hey, are you Christian?” Yes? “Get in, so am I!”

“How much for the ride to CityStars?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll run the meter.” It was the cheapest taxi ride to date, 20 LE when we were done.

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Gallery Update: Pyramids

Oct 27th, 2010
by Dan.
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I posted a couple of pictures from Giza in the gallery.

It’s not much, but I was taking mainly video. :)

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The Pyramids, Up Close

Oct 15th, 2010
by Dan.
1 comment

If I knew I were going to keep this up I would try out Adobe Premier Elements. Windows Movie Maker has been quite frustrating to work with.

The hotel cycles four tours a month on Friday, and this week’s tour happened to go to the Pyramids. We didn’t make it inside on our first time down there, so we wanted to see what up close and personal looked like. We were not disappointed.

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Egyptian Intermission

Oct 12th, 2010
by Dan.
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Thus far I’ve survived nine days in Egypt on business for HAL. It has been an interesting trip so far, and I look forward to catching a fracturing job in the desert in the near future. That should make for some pictures.

The first thing a new visitor notices coming out of the airport is the traffic. The government could probably save a good deal of money and not paint the dashed lines on its highways, since it seems none of the citizens actually use them. Horns are less of an indicator that you’re terrible at driving and more of an indicator that, “Hey I’m coming up on your blind spot, FYI.”

The highways are in dire need of what civil engineers call “controlled access.” People gather along the sides of the highways to wait for buses and vans. They can dart out and cross the highway if they think they have half a shot of making it. Sometimes a highway median consists of eroding and noncontiguous concrete barriers. Traffic signals can be found in downtown Cairo, but I never saw one functioning. There are no stop signs.

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The Nile IS a River in Egypt

Oct 8th, 2010
by Dan.
2 comments

We took a taxi into town, walked over to one of the bridges, and snapped some pictures.

Sailboat on the Nile River

More in the gallery.

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Horseback Ride Around the Pyramids

Oct 7th, 2010
by Dan.
4 comments

Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be an American. :)

We were done with our duties for yesterday by noon, so after lunch we’d thought we’d hit the pyramids. We phoned the driver who had been responsible for us, Muhammad. He said he could only get to the hotel as early as 3:30p. I asked if that was going to be enough time, and he said don’t worry. We wouldn’t be able to get in, but we could get horses and ride and get pictures. I said that was good, and we wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe afterwards.

Muhammad drove us to Giza and pulled over outside of a horse and camel shop. The owner came out, greeted Muhammad knowingly, and told us the trek would be 250 Egyptian pounds (5.68 LE to the USD) a piece. I told him I only had 200 LE, and it turned out my fellow instructor Fernando only had USD. I told Muhammad I was sorry, but we would have to go back to the hotel. The tour owner then came back and said he would take the both of us for $50. Fine, I said.

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