A Canadian Girl in Cairo: Indy 500 on the Streets of Cairo

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Indy 500 on the Streets of Cairo

Taxi in downtown Cairo

Or, regular commuting to work in Cairo.
This is the scariest thing I have ever experienced. It is SHOCKING how crazy people drive here. In Canada and NZ, these people would have had their licences removed for good, but here it’s the norm! Traffic rules are non-existent and signalling and headlights are only fancy decorations on your car. I have seen everything from mopeds (with a family of 4 on them) to cars from the 50’s to brand new Jeeps driving down the highway (as well as a pile of precariously stacked boxes of explosives, I kid you not!) The highway to my school is 5 lanes across, and at the best of times there are 7 cars across. They drive down the middle of the lanes as well...the white lines are decoration only. I could reach out the window and touch the other cars, which of course I don’t since we are going 90 km/hour. Then you add the people who are crossing the highway at random places and it gets hectic!

People honk for many reasons, and they seem to know what each honk means. Obeying the honk is something else. Short honk means I am passing you, I am coming up behind you, I am passing you on the shoulder, you are drifting into my lane, or I am going to squeeze into this small space. Longer honks mean you are not moving out of my way, you are going to crash into me, you are stopping and I don’t know why, get out of my way or we are in a traffic jam, I will just honk. Seriously.

Then there are the taxis. Taxis honk when they see a light skinned person like myself from down the street, then as the come up behind you, then as they pass and then again once they have passed…and then they back up and ask "Taxi?" Just in case I didn't hear them...

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Information About Cairo

The Lonely Planet says: “The crowds on a Cairo footpath make Manhattan look like a ghost town; your life will flash before your eyes each time you venture across the street, and your snot will run black with the smog”. All true!

The Lonely Planet also says: “This city has an energy, palpable even at 3 in the morning, like no other. It’s the product of 20 million people simultaneously crushing the city’s infrastructure under their collective weight and lifting the city’s spirit up with their uncommon graciousness and humour”. Again, all true (try finding water in any tap in my flat around 6 pm during Ramadan- EVERYONE is using water to cook!)

“So blow your nose, crack a joke and learn to look through the dirt the see the city’s true colours. If you love Cairo, it will love you back”. So far, so good!

The ancient Roman city of Babylon is where Cairo started. The core foundations were started in 969 AD by the Fatimids, who conquered the old city and began a new one. They named it Al- Qahira after the planet Mars (the Europeans butchered the name and it became Cairo). There are many buildings that still exist that were built in that time, and in times before that. Cairo is considered the Mother of the World, as it survived dynasties and Pharaohs whims as the city grew larger than its walls. The effects of each ruler can be seen in certain areas of the city. Cairo continues to grow today, with suburbs now reaching the pyramids. The estimated population for Cairo is 20 million people!