A great view from Pizza Hut
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008Cairo is an interesting city. Is is lively and modern. We spent some time strolling through its different areas and a little time in Islamic Cairo. We noticed that taxi drivers here are a little like the ones in India. There always seems to be a problem… either they want to change the fare you agreed to before you got in the car or they want to drop you off early and not take you all the way. We learned pretty quick that it’s best not to argue… just say ‘no’, remind them they agreed to a specific price and call it quits. They protest a bit but then tend to relent after a few minutes… although those ‘few’ minutes can be a fairly tense eternity sometimes.
We took a taxi to Giza to see the pyramids. As we get close, the taxi suddenly stops and a random guy jumps in only to start touting his camel/horse/guide services…. we say ‘no’ and stare blankly ahead to emphasize our disinterest. He gets the idea and jumps out… two more of these guys later, we arrive. As I’m paying the entrance fee, Paula is approached again and says no. When I return, he approaches me… paula says ‘no’… he says ‘you be quit… no talk’. Clearly he doesn’t know that yelling a western man’s wife is not going to make it possible for him to do business with me… oh well.
Walking around the pyramids and the sphynx was intersting. Surrounding these phenomenal feats of construction is a ton of trash and a bit of graffiti which is disappointing. Either way, it is still surreal to stand in front of something that was built by an extinct culture thousands of years ago. After we finished walking around, we went across the street to the Pizza Hut. As we had our pepperoni pizza, we looked out the window and realized, as the sun set over the pyramids, that this is probably the best view from a Pizza Hut, ever.
admin