City Rating: Egypt

Country ranking by area: #30
Country ranking by population: #13

Date of visit: July 2017

Most people who visit Egypt choose Hurghada or Sharm el-Sheikh as their holiday destination, and make a short stop in Cairo or Gizeh to visit the pyramids at the end of their trip. Apart from that, Cairo is not a typical destination for a city trip. Quite the contrary, Cairo appears in almost every list of the worst cities in the world. This is exactly what Cairo made appealing to me. Visiting a terrible city often provides the better stories than a weekend in Paris or London.

Late night arrival in Egypt

As soon as Matt and I left Cairo International Airport, an aggressive bunch of taxi drivers competed for our favour. One of them just grabbed our hand luggage but we didn’t let go. “How much do you want?” I asked. „20 Dollars!“ the taxi driver replied. We kindly refused and walked away. The internet says that you don’t have to pay more than 5 USD. It was 3 AM already and options were limited. The aggressive driver followed us and offered to drive us for 10 USD. Nevermind, we thought.

We reached the taxi and the taxi driver suddenly wanted 15 USD. Not that five Dollars matter that much, especially if you can divide it in half, but we didn’t want to be the dumb tourists. “We are fine” I said, “we will find another taxi.” Of course, he did not accept that and agreed to the 10 bucks again. But as soon as we were driving he wanted 12.50 USD. “We don’t renegotiate! We agreed to 10 Dollars and that’s the price!” Matt said.

The longer we drove, the more upset the driver got. He suddenly did not understand English anymore, but just repeated that we will owe him 12.50 USD. He almost got physical when we first denied paying the 12.50 after the arrival at our hotel. Finally, I gave him the 2.50, as I was concerned that a fight was only seconds away. Anyway, that was our first impression of Egypt and it wasn’t the most pleasant one. The day after, the concierge of our hotel told us by the way that 12.50 is the minimum price for a taxi from the airport.

Sightseeing in Cairo

Almost 20 million people live in Cairo. That makes the capital of Egypt to one of the 15 largest cities in the world. Cairo isn’t a beauty, but I expected it to be worse from what I heard to be honest. The city is dirty and polluted though. Traffic is absolutely terrible. For 5km you need about 45 minutes in a taxi.

Nevertheless, the city is full of history and culture. A few good sights in the city keep you busy for at least two days (see: City Rating: Cairo). Furthermore, Cairo is quite conservative. Unlike in Hurghada, Sharm el-Sheikh or other more tourist-friendly places in Egypt, walking in shorts is considered inappropriate. Therefore, it wasn’t the best idea going to Egypt in July. We were lucky at least, as temperature didn’t exceed 35-36 degrees.

We had our hotel right at the bank of the Nile River and started the day by walking along the Nile towards downtown. Downtown Cairo is pretty busy and we soon arrived at Tahrir Square. This square has been the location for the Egyptian revolution 2011, which led to the resignation of Hosni Mubarak.

As soon as we passed the Egyptian museum, a guy who spoke perfectly English approached us. He asked us where we were going and that he knew someone in Switzerland – what a surprise! He tried to explain us that everything is closed in downtown, as it was “Muslim time” in Egypt right now. I have been to several Muslim countries and never heard of something called Muslim time.

He was a con man, trying to push us to a jewellery store. We ignored him after a few sentences, but he kept following us. When we passed the jewellery store without entering it, he started yelling at us and gave us bad names in Arabic. It wasn’t the only situation like that during our trip.

We had a similar encounter just one or two hours later. “The bridge is closed, do you want to visit my art gallery?” Yeah, sure. The first sightseeing day in Cairo was not very special, as we spent our time mainly in downtown.

We wanted something special for the night and joined a Nile cruise for dinner. The food was ok and there were also a few belly dance performances. It wasn’t very special in the end but a good activity for the evening. As the highlight of our trip was waiting for us in the next morning, we didn’t stay out late anyway.

The Pyramids of Gizeh

We booked a private tour to the Pyramids of Gizeh, the last remaining wonder of the ancient world, and the most visited attraction in Egypt. A private tour is the most comfortable way to see the pyramids. On the one hand, you’re not in a packed bus with 40 other tourists. On the other hand, the con men at the pyramids will leave you more or less alone. Just be prepared when visiting the pyramids just by yourself. There are several scams waiting for you. One of the most common is the camel ride. They will ask if you want to ride the camel, but won’t let you down unless you pay 200 or 300 Dollars.

The pyramids are simply fascinating and we spent probably two hours there. Not only at the pyramids but also at the Sphinx. There are so many unanswered questions about the pyramids, which make the structures some of the most mystic in the world. It’s also possible to enter the pyramids for 30 dollars, most of the people say it’s a waste of money though so that we didn’t do it.

Our tour guide was an Egyptologist. She did an excellent job and was so kind to us. I asked her whether she does these tours every day, and she answered “I wish I would. Maybe 2-3 times a month!” Tourist numbers decreased rapidly over the past years. We had to pay her 10 Dollars for half a day work. This was far below what she deserved so that we tripled the amount.

We finished the tour by having lunch in an Egyptian fast food restaurant. Food in Egypt has some similarities to the Arab cuisine, but still has his own character. I cannot remember a single dish I didn’t like in Egypt. Although the Egyptian cuisine heavily relies on vegetables, meat lover will find what their hearts desire too. There is Kofta or Kabab, and Shawerma was the street food I probably saw the most.

Travelling to the Coptic quarter also known as Garbage City

Just after we got back to our hotel, we asked the concierge of our hotel to organise a private driver for us. Our goal was visiting the Cave Church of the Coptic Christians first, and going to al-Azhar Park afterwards. The driver asked for 20 USD, which was fine for us.

In order to get to the Cave Church, you have to drive through Manshiyat Nasser, the so called Garbage City, a slum on the outskirts of Cairo. It is home of Cairo’s garbage collectors, called the Zabbaleen or “Garbage people”, and most of them are Coptic Christians. It’s kind of a rough way up to the Cave Church and living conditions look very poor in this quarter.

It’s not easy for Christians in Egypt, but it seems they are better protected in Cairo than in other parts of the country. After 10-15 minutes we reached a checkpoint. The driver showed the guards his tattooed crucifix on his wrist and they let us through. Apparently, most of the Christians in Egypt have tattoos of Christian symbols.

As soon as we left the car, a guy approached us and started telling us about the church. It was a rookie mistake of us that we did not immediately stop him, as he asked for money in the end. We didn’t pay him, as we did not ask for his service. We even tried to ignore him as good as possible, but he followed us closely and didn’t stop telling us things about the church. Usually, it’s best to say straight away that you don’t have money in order to avoid an uncomfortable situation in the end.

The church is pretty impressive, it has been established in 1975 and it’s the largest church in the Middle East. 70’000 people visit this church each week for the service. The church is actually within the rock and you can also visit other buildings that belong to the church. Meanwhile, it’s one of the tourist sights of Egypt’s capital and it’s definitely worth a visit. As a bonus, you have a nice view over Manshiyat Nasser when you’re standing in front of the church.

We finished our sightseeing tour in Al-Azhar Park. It’s a gigantic park in the middle of the city, where people recover from hectic Cairo. This oasis was just what we needed after a morning at the pyramids and an afternoon in garbage city. Tired but also pleased, we enjoyed the sunset over Cairo in the park, before having dinner in the park’s restaurant (the food was excellent).

The third night was our last night. Matt and I did not want to finish this trip by going to bed early, but by experiencing the nightlife of Egypt. We soon found out that there is a strict “couples only”-policy in Cairo’s nightclubs. Therefore, we headed to a bar, which was almost empty. We went to another one afterwards. There were about 40 men and two women in this bar… Nevertheless, Cairo seems more or less like a dead place at night. This is a bit of a shame for a city 20 million people live in, but you can’t have it all.

My travel experience in Egypt

My trip to Egypt had ups and downs. In the end, I was happy that I saw the Pyramids but also the hectic city of Cairo. The capital of Egypt is a city I’ll most probably not visit again. However, there is a chance that I add another trip to the country in order to see some other places.

Tourism in Egypt has decreased by 70-80% in recent years, prices are at rock bottom and unemployment is very high. People had hope when Mubarak was overthrown by the revolution. Now with Generel al-Sisi, things got even worse for the people in Egypt. The government oppresses the population, there is no freedom of speech or free press and terrorism has risen as a result from that. Sad but true, because Egypt has a lot to offer.

It’s a country full of history and fantastic sights. Not only the Pyramids are worth visiting, but also the Luxor Temple, Abu Simbel, White Desert and much more. Things will be better someday, but the risk for tourists are very low in my opinion. Therefore, it might be the right time to visit Egypt now.

 

Find the travel reports of the other countries I’ve visited here!