Cairo is a city of stark contrasts. It is an absolute madhouse, every nook and cranny (even the cemeteries) packed with people, cars, and bicycles, yet extremely safe, possibly the safest urban area in the world. Cairo almost never lets up – it bombards you with noise and pollution every day of the week except Friday when the streets are so deserted and the city so quiet that you almost think the air is cleaner, too. It has all the characteristics of a third-world country – poverty, illiteracy, flies, smog, huge slabs of meat hanging everywhere and dripping blood, even a few lepers, but it also bears the mark of the first-world – internet cafes, every imaginable fast food joint, even Kenny Rogers Roasters and Arby’s, malls, and cell phones. Walk by the American University in Cairo and you’ll see a young Egyptian woman in skintight Levi’s jeans and Gucci shoes stepping out of a BMW and gingerly making her way through the maze of small children asleep on the sidewalk.
They say if you drink Nile water you will surely return to Umm al-Dunia (‘the mother of the world,’ as Cairo is known), but if you do drink directly from the Nile you are more likely to get bilharzia (a disease caused by parasitic worms found in snails in fresh water) and never want to come back. Diseases aside (and there are plenty), there is no shortage of things to do in Cairo. Contemplate one of the seven wonders of the world, visit the Egyptian Museum, take a felukka ride on the Nile, eat koshari (a typically starch-laden Egyptian dish), bargain in the souks and bazaars (remember never to express enthusiasm about anything you want to buy), smoke from a hookah, or engage your taxi driver in a philosophical discussion on the merits of harassing women.
