Cairo in the Summer

Well the verdict is in and it is unanimous---I am not a third-world kind of gal. Spending time in Cairo during the hottest possible month convinced me that life is easier and more productive when people can at least escape 115 degrees into a home or work place that is air-conditioned.

The problem is that, in most third-world countries, people cannot afford to air-condition their homes or work places including, if you can believe this, the capital city's biggest and most important museum. Except for the room in which the King Tut exhibit resides (by the way amazing to see in Cairo), the rest of the museum was sweltering, and, ironically, we had saved it for the afternoon believing that at least it would be cool after a full day of being outside visiting the Pyramids, the Sphinx and Old Cairo, all of which were truly a miracle to see.

I have never really thought about the importance of air-conditioning before, but I am a firm believer now that it can change people and ultimately a society. On a small scale, one is better rested, in better humor and more motivated if they've slept in an air-condtioned room. I know because I have had to, in my lifetime, toss and turn rather than sleep in a room without. On a large scale, if people can escape the heat, they can work harder and be more productive, particularly in the afternoon, when life shuts down because the heat is so oppressive.

I was frankly shocked when I visited Cairo. The people are literally and figuratively hot under the collar, and the place it showed itself most was on the road ways. Driving in Cairo is truly death defying. There are no street lights, signs or respected lanes. If there are three lanes, the drivers operate as if there are five. The beeping and shouted insults are incessant, and pedestrians walk out into the road as if there are no cars bearing down on them at high speeds and intent on stopping for no one. I spent all my travel time looking out the side window at the sights. Looking out the front window was too terrifying, and I'm not afraid of much.

The city was filthy, not just with the layers of brown dust that blanketed everything, including what little there was in the way of plants and trees, and the layers of black grime spewed by cars not governed by exhaust laws, but with the trash that was strewn everywhere--along all the streets, in the parks and rotting in the buildings that were brown concrete boxes colored only by laundry flapping in the dirty wind.

Generally speaking, the people looked and acted as sour as their surroundings. Despite tourism being important to the economy, this was not a service oriented locale. Even if there is the promise of additional payment, I felt I was an imposition rather than a prospective customer, and at every turn we had to be concerned about being taken advantage of.

But in a way, I couldn't blame them. Many were poor, some so poor, in fact, that they have moved into the crypts in a cemetary that was thousands of years old. Can you imagine having a grave in your bedroom?

Poverty doesn't necessarily equate with unhappiness, but struggle at every turn to live life in a hard environment takes its toll, espcially when there is no promise of change.

I have been asked if I would have chosen to go again, and my answer is a resounding yes. Visiting massive monuments that date back thouands of years and speak to the sacrifice of the human beings who constructed them, sailing on the Nile River where the basket holding Moses was found, and walking among camels on a desert so stark and awesome that other experiences pale by comparison were just a few of the reasons for doing so.

Would I go again in the future? Well...I always wanted to visit Egypt and now I have, and, as I feel about all my opportunities to travel the world, I am grateful to have seen it and to have been with family members living there now, but it is checked off my bucket list.

If you're contemplating going, I would suggest going in November through March, taking one of those hand-held fans, and choosing accommodations with air-conditioning.