A day late! Nov 4
Had no time to write abut yesterday…. and you’re about to find out why!
We started our morning by visiting the Cairo Citadel, it’s a pretty fascinating complex and it’s really a shame you can’t explore it more! We got an education in Baksheesh that day, right when we got in the main area of Citadel a guard asked us if we wanted to see the museum, we said yes. He brought us around this “closed” area where there were mannequins in the various cells and told us a story about the prisons that stayed there (he probably has no idea). After that we had to tip him. Later I was taking a picture of the city since the citadel has a fantastic view, a guard motioned for a better vantage point and then pointed out of the buildings you could see… then started asking for a tip…. GAH. We checked out the mosque in the citadel, it was pretty fascinating, a nice quite place finally! We had to remove our shoes and our socks got soooo dirty!!
Once we decided we had enough of the citadel we tried to catch a cab to 2 mosques (Rafai and Sultan Hassan) that are really close by but we didn’t want to walk along the highway. Of course the cabbies refused… instead they offered to bring us to the 2 mosques, wait for us, bring us to the other one we were interested in (Ibn Tulun) and then home… for 80 Egyptian pounds, a rip off (but not too bad) but it had the benifit of not having to look for a bad for the rest of the day. The mosques of Rafai and Sultan Hassan were very nice and tranquil (especially considering they’re in the middle of Cairo!). I don’t know which mosque it was but a nice young man showed us the various tombs and explained the significance of things, he also explain Islam to us and answered questions we had, FINALLY someone we actually wanted to tip… so we did, generously!
Next was Ibn Tulun….. NOT our cabbie brought us to a mosque right next door and told us that we couldn’t go towards the one we wanted to see because the police closed it (LIE, we saw people in it from the mosque he brought us to). The mosque he brought us to actually ended up being pretty cool because the guy there let us climb on of the spires and we got a great view! Still kind of pissed that we didn’t get to go to Ibn Tulun but we did get a great view of it!
Next was our ride home to get ready for the wedding, surely we must be done getting screwed right?? RIGHT?? WRONG!! By the time we made it to the hotel we were out of small denomination bills, the cabbie said “first rule, no change” so we had to give him 100 EP, we weren’t pleased!!
It was kind of crazy though, in the car he pointed out the neighborhood he lives in, it costs 250 EP like 45$ for a months rent… for a single room for him and his wife. I can’t even imagine how bad it must be, so I guess it’s not the worst thing that he screwed us on 2 occasions… or at least that’s what I’m telling myself.
NEXT POST… AHMED’S WEDDING!
