Hey Dan. It's been fun reading your blog entries. Certainly brings back memories of my time in Cairo. As you have noticed, we usually found it best just to "rent" a taxi for the day although it did involve several trips to brother-in-law's jewelry stores and brother-in-law's carpet stores and ... You are really going to enjoy the Egyptian history once you get out of the city.
That I did, the temples were absolutely amazing!
With all it’s craziness I actually really enjoyed Cairo, it was nice to “really” experience the city instead of being shuttled around with a tour and having everything laid out for you while being protected from a lot of the hassle.