After an almost eight-hour wait in the Munich airport, during which we took long power naps in the quiet terminal, we finally arrived in Cairo, exhausted but excited.
We had flown EgyptAir from Munich on a modern plane with a feature-rich seatback entertainment system which offered a travel prayer from the Quran prior to takeoff. We’re in the holy month of Ramadan, and so our practicing Muslim seatmates waited almost two hours with their untouched food trays resting in front of them until the sun had finally set.
The Cairo airport is tremendous, and our arrival terminal was modern and clean. A Uniworld tour representative met us before passport control (I’m not sure how that works) and directed us through the process. Cairo is a major tourist destination, and there were at least a dozen other international flights (perhaps all from Europe) arriving at our terminal within 30 minutes of our flight. Alas, we needed to wait for an hour for our checked luggage to show up on the baggage claim belt, and the Uniworld guy even put me into the lost luggage line where I waited for a while before he decided that our bags probably weren’t lost after all, so he came back and got me. And fortunately, the luggage did indeed eventually show up, 25 minutes after the display board first indicated that no more bags were coming.
The drive from the airport to our hotel took us past surprisingly nice-looking lit-up highlights like palaces, mosques, and churches. And Cairo also has no shortage of eye-piercingly-bright electronic billboards along the highways. In downtown the wide roads have no lane lines – it’s a free-for-all situation which involves lots of honking, braking, and sphincter clenching. The next day, when we could see past the night’s bright lights, revealed the concrete decay of the majority of buildings outside of the hotels and museums.
Speaking of which, every location in Cairo which is frequented by tourists, such as hotels and museums, has vehicular check-in where bomb-sniffing dogs are led in a circle around the cars and buses before entry is allowed. And entering the buildings themselves requires being scanned through metal detectors. To get to one’s gate in the Cairo airport, you end up going through three separate metal detector checkpoints!
We’d read in advance of the trip that many folks in Egypt around touristy areas will request “baksheesh,” or a tip, for any trivial bit of unsolicited and unnecessary assistance, including pointing out the way to get to somewhere that you’re already heading toward. We brought fistfuls of $1 bills to be able to give out, though of course$1 is really too much in most situations, but we didn’t want to have to get out Egyptian pounds, at least not yet. I went to the restroom in the Cairo airport after arrival, and on my way back out a worker held the door open for me and made a finger-rubbing gesture with his hand to indicate that he wanted some baksheesh. Sheesh.
Uniworld, who runs our entire trip (besides the international flights), is well-organized and thorough. We have a dedicated guide for the whole several-day adventure, which includes two nights in Cairo, a seven-day cruise, and then two more nights in Cairo before leaving. Fellow travelers are all couples, but not all older. I’d say that most are from the UK or US, but there’s also a South African couple, and perhaps some younger Koreans. We’ve met some really nice couples from the UK on holiday. I’m looking forward to getting to know folks better during the cruise along the Nile.
As I write, we’re on a plane from Cairo to Luxor to begin the cruise portion. Yesterday we visited The Egyptian Museum, a citadel, and the Mohammed Ali mosque, all in Cairo. Highlight photos of these places are provided below. We weren’t allowed to photograph Tut’s 22-pound gold death mask, one of the best-known art works in the world.
Today’s ultimate tidbit (TUT): We were told (and often shown) that in Cairo, stoplights are just suggestions.
Today’s metal detector count: 5
Today’s audio recordings: Take a listen to these audio recordings of two different airports. One is Munich, and the other is Cairo. Can you guess which is which? This one’s easy, and probably unfair, but the noise level difference is representative of what we personally experienced. Thanks to Colleen for the idea of mystery recordings.
Major Meander 
Sheesh for always being asked for baksheesh is right! Good one. And I’m already loving the audio clips. I think the ‘music’ of a place comes through in an interesting way through ambient sounds. Thank you Honey 🤗
This is a wonderful way for me to learn about the area and museums without having to go! I wouldn’t have imagined how decayed Cairo looks.
What was your impression of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo? Back in the ‘90s it showcased haphazard arrays of priceless artifacts! I hope today it is more organized.
It is still like in the 90s, but perhaps even more disorganized because they are in the process of moving things out to other museums now, including the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), which was supposed to open in 2004 but is still a work in progress, haha. There are displays of things without any indication as to what they are, and many things look like they’re disintegrating in place behind the glass.