Money, Money, Money

So much happened in Egypt. We saw temples at Karnak, Luxor, Edfu, Kom-Ombo and Philae. in addition, we've also seen the Pyramids and the Sphinx, as well as the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Some funny things have happened along the way- many of them concerning money. One theme is the persistence of the vendors. On our ship, the Serenade, there is a group of men that sell cartouches (basically, cartouches are ovals in which names are written.) Their shop is right next to the ship's restaurant, so every time we went to a meal, we were asked to buy cartouches. One day, the man said "Silver cartouche for 25 pounds...or 20...I don't mind." Caroline and I found this one-sided bargaining hilarious. Later, we went to the market in Aswan and encountered the same kind of thing. One man simply stood in the door of his shop yelling "FREE! Everything is free!!" How true that is is up for debate.

Our guide Hesham has been a great help in telling us about common tourist traps. His main piece of advice was "never trust a smiling camelman or horse carriage man." Apparently, these people have been known to tell tourists a low price and then take them out the middle of nowhere and demand large sums of money. Thankfully, a bunch of us rode camels at our first hotel, so we don't have to worry.

Some other funny experiences have come from the language barrier. The only person in our group who speaks Arabic is Hesham; however, he wasn't with us on our first day in Cairo. Dr. Krentz, Caroline and I went out in search of food and encountered a small "hole in the wall" restaurant." The cook spoke some English and by means of pointing and gesturing we were able to order some sandwiches filled with beef, onions and peppers. When we went to pay, the man told Dr. Krentz he owed 29 pounds. Caroline and I began pulling out our money, but Dr. Krentz told us to stop. The entire bill for the three of us was 29 pounds (less than 6 dollars.) We had guessed that we would have to pay four or five pounds each, so this was a pleasant surprise. At every restaurant that we've been to, we've tried to guess what the bill will be (since we clearly can't read the Arabic menus.) Later that night, we went to a different restaurant and estimated way too low- the bill was 21 pounds for half a chicken and 27 for a beef kebab.

Hesham also gave us some words of wisdom about modern Egypt. One thing I thought was really interesting was the luxury tax. There is a huge luxury tax on cars on top of the 10% Egyptian sales tax and import taxes. Thus, a Jeep Grand Cherokee costs about 70,000 USD. A BMW or Mercedes costs about 140,000 USD. How crazy is that?! Even a Toyota Corolla or the like is still avout 30,000 USD. So, the moral of the story is, buy food, pashminas or stuffed camels- but never cars- in Egypt.