adventures in egypt: cairo

day 1 actually begins at nighttime in cairo. getting from the airport to hotel is not exactly smooth. our cabbie, despite giving assurances of knowing where our hotel is, has no idea where he is going. after circling around the same circle a few times, while i'm thinking "big ben, parliment...", he hits a large metal triangle on the side of the road (which i later figured out were dividers for cars that park on the street). rut roh. flat tire.

we finally made it to hotel windsor which is a pick from the lonely planet. it's in a ghetto area and looks nasty from the outside but our room is clean and cheap and some of the people who work there are actually helpful. you can reserve a room on hostelworld.com, which is a good thing. since i wasn't sure how i'd like it, i reserved a room for only the first night with the hope of extending the reservation if i liked the place. of course when we decided to stay longer, they upped the price on us saying that they gave us a better room than what they are allowed to charge for, blah, blah, blah.... my advice is book and set your rates in advance.

i'm not someone who is usually willing to pay a lot for a hotel but if i ever have to come to cairo again, i will suck it up and stay at the hilton, hyatt, marriott or other quality hotel. $40 can get you a fine room in a charming little hotel in many cities but not in cairo. most of the areas of cairo that i've been in are dirty, loud and tacky. the nicest and most charming areas are along the Nile, which, not surprisingly, are also where the expensive hotels are. if the walk to the Nile was really short and pleasant, i would forego staying there next time but walking there from most other areas downtown is a challenge and the assault on the senses is severe.