A Rendezvous With the Pyramids

I exit the airport into the warm, foggy, dusty environment of Cairo. Outside the airport is pandemonium. I notice the ratio of men to women is just as bad as my engineering classrooms. This is public life, yet women are visibly absent from it.

The first thing I hear is “Taxi madam, taxi madam?”

I groan. Why are there always so many taxis for so few people needing taxis? It’s not a good product market fit.

I don’t know this yet, but I will spend the next days perplexed by everyone's concern for my transportation options. "No I don't want a taxi...no I don't want a horse drawn carriage...no to the tuk tuk....and definitely no to the camel. No, not now. No, not later. Yes I'm very sure."

I meet the driver my hotel has sent - I’m never above turning down free rides. He speaks a little bit of English. Even before he asks me my name, he asks me if I have a husband. I will spend the next two weeks perplexed by everyone's concern for my marital status. This will be one of the first questions nearly every stranger asks or gestures to me throughout Egypt. None are hostile, all are friendly, some I’d venture to say a little too friendly. Drivers, receptionists, waiters - all baffled at what kind of awful custodian would let his little bird go someplace all alone - each of them prepared to take up the mantle to save me from my aloneness. Pretty birds get locked up in cages and women are unfortunately treated much the same in these parts of the world. This is one aspect of a cultural difference that I desperately hope can get squashed by globalism.

Upon hearing “no" to the husband question, the follow up question is always “why”, at which point depending on their English fluency and potential intentions I either curtly say “I don’t want” or launch into a girl power tirade about how women don’t need a keeper. They either laugh, look at me with fear should this virus spread to their own women, or maybe (hopefully) a tiny seed is planted that this crazy American is onto something.

It's after midnight, but it's one of the final days of Ramadan and the city is alive. We drive by a lively game of tennis. There’s many scooters on the road and not a single helmet. Maybe Egyptians have 9 lives?

The roads actually do have lane markers on the road, but everyone drives like they are offended at the idea. My driver squeezes through between a van and a giant truck. The truck is honking loudly and I'm holding my breath. The cars are unbelievably comfortable in proximity, inches away. Everyone plays a game of chicken with their beat up bumper cars. Every sense in me screams of needing space.

We drive by many beautiful shiny buildings with murals on the fences. These are the military and government buildings. Masses of tall residential soviet style apartments made of cinderblocks are next. The lights of the modern gas stations and glitzy hotels next to an abandoned windowless building don’t fit together. It reminds me of Tirana, Albania - a place neither here nor there, confused in its evolving identity and stuck between the old and new worlds.

—

The pyramids are marvelous on the outside, as expected. I found myself disappointed with the inside, as all the real goodies are in museums an ocean away. The inside is like going into a cave - long narrow tunnels, some spots requiring you to hunch over. In the dead middle is the chamber where there used to be the sarcophagus, mummy, and all the treasures.

The city creeps up right up to the very borders of the Giza complex, making it hard to really be transported into the past.

Cairo is loud, hot and aggravates all my senses. Even the weather report simply says “dusty”. The air is heavy with smoke, animal poo, and undoubtedly pollution. No green, no space to breathe, just red and gray concrete for miles and miles. Numerous street dogs, clearly unloved, staying alive by rummaging through the not-small mounds of trash on far too many street corners. To me it looks....sad. This isn't how anybody should live. Our planet deserves better. We don't love this planet, don't cherish it. We pollute it, hurt it, leave our trash. One day it'll be too late. I hope I'm not around to see that.

I found I wasn't alone in escaping to the city park to get away from the chaos. As I was walking on a trail lost in my own thoughts, a family comes up to me and asks for a photo. Sure, I say, reaching for the cellphone.

The woman looks at me strangely. "No. Photo with you."

Now I'm wondering what obnoxious American thing I did this time, to warrant a stranger wanting me in their family photo. I never did get to ask, since we had few words in common. I didn’t know this yet, but this is just one of many times I will get asked for a selfie. Between the revolution a decade ago, the ensuing political instability, and Covid, tourism had taken a big hit. It became rare for Egyptians to see western travelers outside the high walls of the exclusive Red Sea resorts, and it became hip for young girls in particular to take a selfie with them.

I was too surprised to do anything but oblige. Her two girls and husband line up on either side of me and we cheesily smiled for the camera. I sincerely hope that picture of me in a baseball cap and aviators, loose t-shirt and long hiking pants, sweating bullets from the heat doesn't end up on top of the family fireplace.