Taxi Guy

A booklet we read when we arrived in Cairo suggested there are as many taxis as internet cafes. So far, I'd say there are actually more. A taxi seems to pass every five seconds, and every single one optimistically beeps and slows down in the vain hope that a stupid tourist can be parted of much more money than a sensible Egyptian.

Larissa wanted to visit CityStars Mall today so we decided to get started on the taxi experience by jumping in the first one that stopped. We asked how much it would cost to take us there to which the reply was "How much you want?". Based on what what other people told us, we plumped for 50 LE (fifty Egyptian pounds is roughly equivalent to a fiver).

You could almost see the dollar signs appear in his eyes along with a comedy cash-register sound effect. At that point, I knew we'd offered far too much, but we rolled with it anyway. At the end of the hectic journey of near-misses, furious beeping, landmark-pointing and direction-asking (whilst driving alongside another taxi-driver!), so impressed was he that he managed to get us there in one piece, that he started banging on about backsheesh (an unofficial but expected source of secondary income in the form of regular tipping). We decided however that 50 LE was extremely generous based on his reaction at the beginning and so just walked away whilst he greedily argued his case on deaf ears.

It turns out we were quite correct not to pander to his nonsense as we got a metered taxi on the way home that cost exactly half the amount. It even had air-conditioning, if you count all the windows being open to rid the cab of the stale stench of armpits as air-conditioning.