I have discovered a new “worst job ever”- serving as a traffic policeman in Cairo, Egypt.
How did I come to this conclusion? Read on my friends!
After a short and fitful 5 hours of sleep Noel and I decided to visit the Khan al-Khalili – one of the biggest bazaars in the Middle East and located in the Islamic section of Cairo.
After a brief walk along the waterfront and a late lunch at a Lebanese restaurant looking over the Nile River – we grabbed an Uber to take us from our hotel location to the Khan al-Khalili.
It was our first experience with day time traffic in Cairo.
Like the traffic engineers in Richland, Washington the Egyptians love traffic circles.
If there are any rules in the traffic circles in Cairo – they were certainly not discernible to me. In general – if there is a gap between cars the driver honks their horn and promptly accelerates madly to get to the spot first. Somehow they avoid collisions.
Picture five different major boulevards all converging on a single multi-lane traffic circle all at the same time with continuously honking horns and aggressive driving. It makes Seattle traffic look like amateur hour.
As we were headed around the traffic circle one of the traffic policeman saw us sitting in our Uber, waved and smiled and said “Welcome to Egypt!”.
After nearly an hour in the car (to go about 5 km) – we arrived at the Khan al-Khalili.
This bazaar consists of alleyways jammed full of people and a huge variety of Egyptian souvenirs such as t-shirts, hats, pottery, and countless knock-offs of various historical Egyptian art. It reminded me of going into “Wings” stores at Myrtle Beach during summer vacations when Tim and Andrew were growing up.
Jam tons of people into these narrow alleyways – along with the vendors all hawking their wares – and you get the picture.
Controlled chaos.
Noel needed a head covering for when we visit temples – so she found a couple of head-scarves from one of the vendors.
As we wandered through the warren of alleyways and narrow streets we learned to enjoy the experience of a different place. I got very good at saying an emphatic “No” to the vendors while walking by – and once they saw we were going to keep walking – they moved onto the next group of potential customers.
After an hour or so making our way through the marketplace we were ready to take an Uber back to the hotel.
Another pro tip when visiting Cairo – you might want to avoid getting an Uber in rush hour traffic. After about 30 minutes of waiting at the market we were finally able to get into an Uber and head back through rush hour traffic to our hotel. The ride back included going the wrong way on what looked to practically be a one-way street and involved a car backing up to let us through – so it was another Cairo driving adventure!
We made it back to the hotel and enjoyed some down time on our hotel balcony over looking Cairo and the Nile River before heading to dinner at one of the hotel restaurants.
We split a mixed grill of different meats which was excellent. To wash down our dinner Noel enjoyed a red wine Sangria and I had a locally brewed Egyptian beer. The food was delicious and we got to enjoy it with a background of honking horns from the madcap Cairo traffic.
It was a great first day in Cairo – which is one of the largest cities in the world with a metro population in excess of 22 million people.
We enjoyed seeing some of the city outside of the normal tourist destinations on our drives to and from the marketplace – and look forward to spending a few more days in this dynamic city.
However – I certainly will not be doing any retirement work as a Traffic policeman in Cairo.
Until next time …
