Goodbye Turkey, Hello Egypt!
Well we arrived safely in Egypt yesterday at the lovely time of 1:30 in the morning. A new country beckoned like an oasis in the desert in summer and I was raring to go and explore it…. And then I got into an egpytian cab and all of that fell away like bad dandruff as the thought of not dying in a screaming fireball of metal and rubber tires took up the entire front row of my attention.
We had just come from Istanbul where the lines on the road were treated as just a suggestion not a law so we laughed when people said that the ones in Cairo were even worse. ‘Haha!’ I said laughing in the face of those who mentioned them, ‘Thats impossible!’
But not only was it possible but the reality of it was twice as awful as I could have imagined. Think fareground dodgem cars with pedestrians with deathwishes and you will begin to understand. The rules of driving in cairo (in fact everywhere here) seem to be:
a) drive as close as humanely possible to everyone else as fast as possible swerving madly
b) if you are going to crash then beep your horn really loud and repeatedly and call the other driver a son of a camel farmer who sells questionable goods.
c) never use the brake. Brakes are only for use when swerving madly and swearing is not going ot work.
d) indicators, road lanes, working cars, seatbelts, old age. These are all for those western devils and have no use in Egyptian society.
e) if it is between 9am and 5pm you will receive double points for each near miss so goto a) and multiply it by two units of madness.
Did i mention that no one here has let alone uses seatbelts? Well they dont. They also try to rip you off constantly which i will have to tell you about later. “hey are you egyptian?” they say. then they try to talk you into visiting their uncles “authentic” papyrus shop. mofos.
But don’t worry mum! I’m sure you have been in the same situation in the past and know its just the usual crazy shit that happens over here 
Anyway, we are now in a nice CyberCafe in Alexandria which is up the top of Egypt 3 hours from Cairo. I can’t believe that Israel is so close. And Sudan. And everywhere else that is usually outlined in red with flashing bits on CNN. When you are actually here its another story. Everyone is quite nice (not as nice as the Turks though so far) and it quite chilled. Alexandria is a coastal town and is the place where the Pharos lighthouse used to be which was one of the Wonders of the Ancient World.
Tomorrow we are going to go to the Alexandria library which is a replacement for the Ancient one destroyed by fire (i think). Should be good.
Anyway… I think i might go cos i cant be bothered writing anything else. I’ll keep you guys posted on stuff. We are staying in Alexandria until friday morning and then its back to Cairo for the rest of the day then our tour starts properly!! I dont know if i will be able to update you guys once its going cos we are on a boat for some of it (on the nile!) so inet cafes might be hard to find. i’ll try though. In the last week and a bit Rox and I have been to Europe (Turkey), Asia (Turkey) and are now in Africa.. crazy eh!?
Anyway, until next time….!
Ash
PS:
Rubicon guys…
The mp3 player you gave me was really cool but it broke randomly the third time i used it. WHAT THE FARK? I dont know how that its possible considering it doesnt have any moving parts at all. I still have the reciept tho so i might try to sort it when i get back to london on the 28th. Hope you guys are well. I glanced at the bug reports you have been sending me but i couldn’t work out what they were on about. Accelerator? what the hell is that all about? hehe
