A little out of order — we first arrived in Maadi, spent several days with friends, then headed up to Cairo before traveling on to Alexandria. I haven’t posted much about Cairo because I had been warned that people are a little on edge up there with all the protests so to be careful where I take pictures. That pretty much convinced me that I would be putting away the camera while we were in Cairo.
Leaving our friends’ house — after all of our travels in Egypt, Maadi is my favorite place because it’s where our friends are and the place that most feels like home.
On the walk to the metro we were looking for a cab and Josh let one go by because he wanted 5 LE and from living in Maadi he know that a ride to the metro should cost about 2 (it’s only about 8 blocks away), until I said, “It’s less than a dollar! Just get a cab so we don’t have to haul this luggage any further!” Thankfully, he did.
The side streets can be really narrow — there’s a give and take as cars back up or pull forward to make room for each other. Of course, there’s lots of horn honking too.
We took the metro not only because it’s cheap (1 LE per person, about 15 cents), but because traffic is so bad that it’s usually faster than taking a cab into the city.
Relief that we finally made it to the hotel. We got off the metro in the middle of a dust storm and the grit was flying everywhere. We hiked across freeway off ramps and through dirt lots to get to our hotel because it was much more efficient than getting a taxi. All the cars were sitting bumper to bumper. It wasn’t too far, just very dirty and the sand flying everywhere was stinging our skin. Later that night we bought the kids sunglasses not because of the glare, but to keep the dirt out of their eyes.
from our hotel room — this was taken during the day
the same view the following morning — crazy, huh?
All of these buildings are unfinished because the owners don’t have to pay taxes on them until they are completed. It doesn’t keep the owners from renting them out though!
We braved the sand and grit that night to walk to our favorite koshari restaurant, Abu Tarek.
Did you know that “iPhone!” and “iPod!” and “game!” are also now part of her vocabulary?
In case you missed our visit the first time around, Koshari is Egypt’s national dish made of macaroni, broken spaghetti noodles, lentils, chickpeas, rice, fried onions and tomato sauce. Yes, it sounds like a strange combination, but it’s so good.
Adding the spicy tomato sauce . . .
It’s as good as we remembered.
a visit to the curbside Sunglass Hut for a few pairs of faux-kleys
