Welcome to Cairo, Egypt!

The day of our flight absolutely flew. Before we knew it we were hanging in the airport with our families waiting to send us off for a long, long time. Well, we don’t know when we’ll be back but it will surely be a while!

Our flights from Boston to London and London to Cairo went pretty peacefully. We tossed and turned the whole way, I might have slept a wink, or two. Next thing we know we land at Cairo Airport…

“Welcome to Cairo!”, our taxi driver Sayed says excitedly.

A city of pure chaos, quite possibly the city that never sleeps. It’s humid, dirty, but yet I love it already. Liz on the other hand is still trying to catch her breath after traveling from a first to a third world country on an overnight flight. Overwhelming isn’t the word when it comes to this city. It’s huge, so huge that it’s said to house 25 million people. Yes, 25 million. The largest city in all of Africa and the only city in Africa that has a Metro (subway train system).

The constant horns passing by our hostel used to be a little bothersome. Now, they’re just part of the atmosphere. Our hostel “Alexander Hostel” which is located on the second floor of an extremely old building in downtown. You have two choices to get to your room, take the old stairs up two floors or take an elevator from the 16th century. Well, even if it’s not from the 16th century… put it this way, it’s ancient, and really creepy!

We check in to our room and we’re happy with it. Hey, for $12usd per person, per night we got ourselves a nice little “double” room with ensuite bathroom. After check in we meet with Haitham, the owner of Alexander Hostel. He speaks with us for a while over egyptian tea, our “welcome” drinks which were on the house. The tea was excellent and a few minutes later we were introduced to Kareem our new friend from Germany who is on vacation here with his brother Marcel.

Liz & I decided that we should probably head out to look for something to eat and we followed Haitham’s recommendation “Koshary (Kushari)”. Within 5 minutes walking distance from our hostel was our new dinner spot. We walked in, and we were literally the only foreigners, tourists, what ever you want to call us. It was a neat little place with two floors, ground floor takeout, or sit down dining upstairs. We followed directions and headed upstairs. Once seated our waiter comes over and asks us “3 pound, 5 pound, or 7 pound?” (small, medium, large). We went with the two small plates with two Diet Pepsi’s. When it arrived it didn’t look too appetizing, although once it hit our mouth we were in love. At least I was… Koshary just might be my new go to meal here in Egypt. Total cost for a extremely filling sit down meal with two sodas… 18 Egyptian Pounds or $3.17 USD.

Later on we meet back at the hostel and we run into Kareem and Marcel again. They are heading over to the old bazaar (Khan-el Khalili Market) to walk around, have some tea at El Fishawy, and smoke some shisha. They invite us along and we figure, hey why not!? Twenty minutes later we’re in a taxi heading to Khan-el Khalili market with our new friends and Kareem has turned into our tour guide. He’s been to Cairo before and he’s extremely knowledgeable when it comes to downtown, haggling for taxis, and Khan El Khalili. A 15 minute taxi ride later and 5 EGP or $0.88 USD we arrive at the door step of one of Cairo’s main attractions. Within minutes of walking around the market, twice I’m offered 1 million camels in exchange for Liz. Keep your camels, she’s priceless I say!

We stop in at the most famous shisha bar in Khan el Khalili called El Fishawy. Kareem orders up 2 coffees, 1 water, 1 tea and some apple shisha. Minutes later our order arrives on the table and we’re in the middle of the market sharing laughs and conversing about how “different” Cairo is to our home towns.

Another 88 cent taxi ride back to our hostel and we’re done for the night. Not before we stop into Gad a spot that is hopping with people, even at midnight! I pick up an order of egyptian pancakes and we’re off.

Ahh, pancakes and bed… what an ending to a great first day in Cairo.

Did you enjoy this? If so, be sure to check out our photos from Cairo, Egypt so far!