I have arrived in Cairo at Terminal 3 of the most spread out cluster eff of an airport I have ever seen. I drop $15 on a visa and change 300 Euros into 2700.00 Egyptian pounds. The guy on the train told me Egypt is mad cheap and I'm hoping he's right. 3 or 4 pounds should get me a meal and another 3 or 4 will get me a drink. I walk right through Customs, Egyptians were used to visiting Americans until the Bushes started the war on terror and tourism dropped 75%. They're happy we're back and they LOOOOVE Obama. I walk outside the airport to ask where to meet my friends coming from SF via NYC.
“Tear-meen-al one, my mah-an”
I jump a bus marked terminal one and find a seat. I stick out like a sore thumb but I don't feel any eyes, in fact no one even seems to notice, this makes me feel a little better. For once I like the anonymous feeling, I don't need any attention quite yet. I arrive at the terminal with a couple hours to spare so I wonder around the mall that is:
1)air conditioned
2)inexplicably ½ empty of stores
3)closed at 1 in the afternoon
After wondering around this empty, glass covered cave looking like a lost tourist for what seems like eternity I ask the guy at Radio Shack (the only open store) where I can get WIFI, he tells me the whole place is hooked up. I wire in and update all the people that need updating. Guil askes me for Lance's number. He can walk to Lance's house from his yet I'm getting messages from Portland, OR for phone numbers. I should trade Portland information for Fed Ex'd dry ice packed Los Gorditos burritos.
As Phil and Danille's arrival time approaches I head back to the airport where I am approached by cabbie after cabbie all asking if I need a ride, where I am staying, etc, etc over and over...after 20 minutes of fending them off one finally hooks me. I tell him I don't know where the hotel is but we have one, I don't know what the deal is with a ride but I think we have one. It's a hustle, plain as day so I don't make any promises but because I have said “Maybe” to this guy he's shooing off all the other hustlers It's like we're in prison and I'm his bitch...I'm fresh meat, that's for sure.
Just after forever and just before I give up hope Phil and Danielle arrive and the frenzy starts up again. I tell Phil the prices this guys has given me and they are better than the ones he was quoted so we take a meeting with the guy. He tells us he is employed by the Dept. of Tourism, this is bullshit, but his prices are pretty good and we talk him down a couple bucks so we all feel good. We drop some cash on him, get a phone number, make a few plans and he puts us in a car with a hilarious psychopath; dude plays like he's gonna jump out of the car at 100 KPH,
stops in the middle of the interstate bridge crossing the Nile so we can get pics 
and weaves cars like Parnellli Jones. Dude's rad. He drops us at the hotel, we check in and return to the lobby to see “The Lights and Sounds of the Pyramids” which sucks...it's really, really awful. And boring. It is awful and boring. By the time it ends Phil and Danielle have been awake for 3 full days. We get back to the hotel and crash. Tomorrow we hit the Pyramids for real.
