5/22 Day 1, to Cairo

Arrived at the border at half past nine and began the process of crossing into Egypt. I could not have had an easier time getting out of Israel and into Egypt, but my traveling partner did not have it so easy. Doron is an American-Israeli and did not bring his Israeli passport with him, just his U.S. one. The customs agent on the Israeli side then pulled Doron away to fill out some paperwork, so I went and hung out in no man’s land between the two countries (as well as continents).
Thirty minutes later he joined me and we continued the crossing process. We walked into the Egyptian arrival hall, put our bags on the x-ray machine and walked through the metal detectors. I went through without a hitch and started to fill out a customs form, but again, Doron was held up. It had nothing to do with his nationality, but rather the machine picked up on something in his backpack that was not welcome to experience Egypt. After a bribe and handing over the unwanted object, we got our passports stamped and entered Egypt, into the city of Taba on the northern tip of Sinai. We had only eight minutes until our ten o’clock bus to Cairo and had to hire a cab to take us the 1/4 kilometer (got accustomed to the metric system) down the road to the bus stop.
We just made it to the bus on time, threw our bags beneath and climbed aboard. The bus pulled off and within the first thirty minutes, we went through three checkpoints. At all three, the soldiers would ask us for our passports and bus tickets. I did not mind these interruptions because it made us feel safe. We drove west, through Sinai, and through the Suez tunnel into mainland Egypt.
I went in and out of sleep for the next six hours, but once we got closer to Cairo my head was going from side to side in awe. The city is amazing and buzzing with action. Public busses do not close their doors and people just hop on and off, sometimes even hang off the sides. There are not many traffic signals and if there are, they are rarely obeyed. Pedestrians only walk in crosswalks by coincidence and cars seldom stop to allow a pedestrian to cross. Everyone just weaves in between each other, something that took a little while to get used to.
Once we got off of the bus the cab drivers were right there soliciting, making it hard to get off the last step of the bus. Even though we knew the price the driver wanted was more than we should pay, we hired him to take us to our intended hotel (even the “Tourist Police” officer was assisting in the racketeering). The entire way there the driver was telling us not to stay at the hotel we wanted and tried to sell us on his “buddy’s” hotel. We got to the hotel and climbed the six flights of stairs, only to discover that the accommodations were not what we were looking for and walked out. Instead of walking down the stairs we took the elevator, by far the scariest elevator ride of my life. It was a cage of death, with old french doors that did not close. It leaned to one side and shook the entire way down. I almost kissed the floor when we got out, but remembered where I was.
There was another hotel that I read about in my guide book and it was just around the corner. It was pretty grimy, but cheap and had a good location. The rooms was not bad, but the bathroom and building represented the price. Doron and I got a double room and it was something like $3 a night. We got settled and went out for some food. A lot of people had told us of stomach illnesses that resulted in some Egyptian cuisine, so we played it safe for our first meal and visited a McDonald’s (ha ha). It was definitely the most satisfying and cleanest McDonald’s I had ever been in, a little scary. After our dinner we walked around and got associated with the streets of our neighborhood, downtown Cairo. We decided to go to a movie and have a lazy night, thinking it would prepare us for a full day of sightseeing the next day.
After the movie I mapped out an itinerary for the next day and called it a night; I was overcome with excitement for what was to come our way. Finally put the guide book down and went to sleep, by the way, lots of mosquitos.