Categories
NSTIW The Ordinary

Ta-Ta-Ta-Ta-Taxi

More fun with taxis!

I go out to Giza 2 days a week. I do some volunteer computer-type-thingies for one of the Egyptology groups that work near the pyramids.

From Zamalek, the easiest way to get there is by taxi.

Getting a taxi to Giza is pretty easy. I flag down a taxi and tell them “Giza” and the driver’s eyes light up with (the local equivalent of) dollar signs. They figure they have a rich tourist on their hands.

I then tell them, in very rough Arabic, that I want to go _near_ the pyramids but not _to_ the pyramids. And that I want them to take the ring road. That makes them unhappy because

  • it means I probably am not a tourist and I speak at least a little Arabic, so it means I am going to be a little hard to bilk
  • it means that they cannot drive the surface road route to the pyramids
  • it means that they cannot take me down what I lovingly refer to as, “tout alley”.

This is the main street leading from Giza to the Pyramid entrance. (or one of them, anyway).

Along this street will be young men who will, quite literally, run into traffic when they see a taxi with a khwaga (foreigner)  in it. They usually congregate around the intersections where taxis have to slow down or stop.

It will be several minutes of:

“Hello! Where you from? You go pyramids? I take you. I take you horse ride” etc etc

My favourite experience along those lines is when I told the driver to take the ring road, and he did not. (I wasn’t paying attention. I was listening to music and day dreaming. By the time I realized what was going on, it was too late to make the turn off.)

I let him know that I was not happy that he did not take the ring road. And I let him know that I was not interested in going to the pyramids, or a horse ride, or a guide.

As we approached tout alley, he was waving people off in an attempt to placate the angry khwaga. One fellow ran along side the taxi and managed to get the front, passenger-side door open. He was attempting to get in the taxi to “be my friend”

I told the driver: “La-a. Mish aiz, yalla yalla.” (No. I no want. Step on it).

He accelerated. My new-wanna-be-friend was doing a pretty good job keeping pace. He was able to keep even with the taxi. But he was only even with the rear door.

The front door, which is still open at this point, mind you, is juuuuuuust out of his reach. He can keep up, but can’t gain the extra couple of feet needed to jump into the front seat.

The only thing that would have made this a perfect comedy is if he had run into the back of one of the mini-buses that was stopped along the side of the road or tripped and fallen.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish harm on the young man. He is just trying to earn a living (granted, by being a nuisance and a leech, but still).

I would have laughed my ass off if there had been a harmless pratfall though. As it was, I got a chuckle out of waving out the window to him as he tried to keep pace.

It made up for the extra time required to take the surface roads.

But anyway, that isn’t what this post is about.

This post is about getting home _from_ Giza.

There are a lot fewer taxis available going from Giza at the time I want to leave. (between 5 and 7 pm).

Yesterday I had to wait for over 5 minutes (if you lived or even visited here, you would understand the magnitude of this statement) before any taxi came by. And it was full. It was probably 10 minutes before I got a taxi.

I got in the taxi. It was a pretty nice taxi, as Cairo taxis go. The seats were brand new.

Of course, they didn’t actually fit the taxi and were made for some sort of mutant that had a 36″ inseam and a 10″ torso (the “head” rest was low, between my shoulder blades).

But the taxi wouldn’t stay running. When ever he put the clutch in, it would sttttttutter. About half the time, the driver was able to give it gas and keep it from stalling. About half the time not.

Nor was it a lack of fuel issue. It was something else.

Normally this wouldn’t concern me for a couple of reasons

  • it is rather common for a taxi to die, either out of gas, or to stall and then fail to restart because of a dead battery.
  • taxis are usually a dime a dozen. If this one died, I would simply hop out and flag another

But this time was different.

I had waited a long time for a taxi. Getting out now would mean a long wait for another.

And we were going on the ring road. Where traffic would be wizzing by at anywhere from 50 to 150 kph.

So a breakdown on the ring road is a little hairier.

Oh, did I mention the wind was blowing and the sky grew dark?

So the taxi dies a couple more times. The last time right on the on ramp to the ring road. I analyzed the situation and figured

this is my last chance to get out before we get on the ring road.

He got it started again without even slowing down. And I chose poorly. I stayed in the taxi.

We get on the ring road. Traffic is moving fast today. (sometimes it is at a crawl).

Taxi stalls.

He pops the clutch.

Taxi stutters and starts. We drive on.

Taxi bogs down.

At this point I am actually a little nervous about a semi ploughing into the back of us as we crawl along at about 20kph.

He limps it to the side of the road.

Ok, time to get out and try to grab another taxi.

I am texting back and forth with the good doctor at this point keeping her apprised of my situation (“remember, I want to be cremated and my ashes flown back to seattle”)

So, NSTIW:

standing on the side of the highway

in the whipping wind

trying to hail a taxi

nobody is stopping

It was kind of amusing and I was actually chuckling about it.  To sum it up I will cut-n-paste from a message I sent my wife as I was standing on the side of the highway

Could be worse. Oh wait. It is raining.

It was only another 5 or 10 minutes before I was able to flag another taxi.

Good times…

Categories
The Ordinary

Change

This happened quite some time ago, but I can find no post about it, so ….

I am in a taxi downtown, sitting shotgun.

We are winding our way through Midan Tahrir on our way north. This is one of the larger cluster f*cks traffic wise in this area.

We are dodging buses, mini-buses, micro-buses, other taxis, car, motorcycles, scooters and the occasional intrepid pedestrian.

A taxi pulls up next to us on my side of the car and the driver is holding out a 50LE note and yells “fi fakka?” (got change).

My driver says “ay” (what?). I repeat what the other driver says.

My taxi driver replies that yes he has change.

The other taxi driver hands me the 50LE. We are still driving mind you. We are through the traffic circle and are heading north at this time.

I hand the 50 to my driver. The taxis part like, well, the red sea, to go around some tourists trying to run across the road to the Egyptian Museum.

My taxi driver rummages through his pockets and makes change for the 50. Which he hands to me.

I wave to the taxi driver, he pulls his taxi close and I hand over the change. A chorus of “shokrun” and “ma salema” ensues.

We go our separate ways.

Another ordinary taxi ride in Cairo.

Categories
Uncategorized

Egypt has ruined my ability to spell.

My 4th grade teacher, Ms Mintz, would argue that I never could spell worth a darn (her words, not mine) but that is beside the point.

To explain, you will often see signs in “english” around Cairo and around the country at large. Many of the menus have “english” on them. You will see road signs in english.

My favorite road sign english story is this:

As you drive in from the airport into downtown, you will pass dozens of road signs. All identical. They all say

DOWNTOWN

with an arrow pointing straight ahead.

Well they are all almost identical. There is one that looks just like all the other ones except it says

DWONTWON

Exact same shape, size, font etc. The best part about this is that I must have passed that sign a dozen times before I realized it was misspelled.

Additionally you will see logos on clothing or other merchandise that are knock-offs. You will see

Deisel clothing

A t-shirt with “Cat” on the front  and “erpillar” on the back

John Deer

Jimmie Walker scotch ( I guess it is dyno-mite)

There are so many examples of this here.

Then there are the signs on business and shops. Like this one.

pustry

Love me some pustry.

Anyway, I no longer see misspellings. What is even worse is that I see words that are properly spelled and think

That can’t be right…

Categories
Uncategorized

I hope I never need an ambulance

I was at a function somewhere recently ( I don’t remember where) when someone brought up the subject of

If I need to get to the hospital, should I just get in a taxi or call an ambulance.

I laughed and replied:

Get in a taxi. It will get you there faster and it’s not like the ambulance staff can do anything for you.

Then this article came out in Egypt Today.

Brand new, shiney ambulances. I am still going to get in a taxi.