Monumental currency and the joys of supply & demand taxi pricing

A history student's dream - money and monuments

So day two involved grocery shopping.  Given that none of us are fully ready for the undefined pricing offered at the local stores (and associated haggling), we headed up to the Carrefour City Centre to do our shopping (think Walmart with staff speaking some combination of the following languages:  Arabic, English, French, German).  The first thing I noticed was the variations in taxi prices.  To get to the City Centre, it costs about 20LE (about $3.50).  Once my shopping was done, it cost 35LE ($6.00) to get back home.  Given my lack of alternate means of getting home (with 1000LE worth of groceries and supplies).  I've heard of prices as high as 50LE for the same trip so I figured if the taxi driver was ok with helping me get the groceries into my elevator, I'd be ok with the price.  I should mention now that the money is bilingual.  The English side has images from Egyptian History and the Arabic side has pictures of Islamic buildings (I'm guessing Mosques).

And riding in a car in Egypt is a magical experience.  You're never quite sure how you get to your destination in one piece given the speed of driving and the lack of discernible rules.  There are no stoplights and the dotted lines signifying different lanes tend to be optional.  At night, headlights aren't often used and it can be tough to spot the vehicles coming your way.  Overall, the conventions seem to be:

The Arabic side of the same bills

1. 3 to 4 beeps of the horn seems to advise other drivers that you're doing something that they might not expect (passing close by and in their blind spot or preparing to cut them off).  (during the night, flickering of the lights is used in conjunction with the horn).
2. 1 to 2 beeps of the horn seems to be a general sign of I'm not sure that I like what the other car is doing (drifting into your lane, slowing down)
3. 1 long beep of the horn tends to signify frustration with someone stopping quickly or doing something that completely impedes the progress of the car behind.
4. And the last resort is always yelling "yalla" or some other request to hurry up.

Despite the multiple travel warnings of the dangers crossing the street, it hasn't been too bad so far.  I tend to be a bit more patient than the Cairenes, who tend to just walk out when they see a break in traffic with the expectations that people will avoid hitting them, which may contribute to my lack of difficulties.  The key seems to be walk when you have a decent space, maintain the same speed (so the drivers can anticipate your location) and don't stop or back up under any circumstances.  Given the difficulties that I've seen from others in our group of new recruits, I'm guessing that my Toronto childhood taught me a valuable (and previously latent) skill.

Food shop #1 - getting some of the staples ready

In case you're wondering what 1080 LE ($185) gets you at a slightly higher priced store, my shopping cart was overflowing with essentials and house set-up items.  Off the top of my head, some of the prices were (divide by 6 to approximate dollars):

• Battery charger:  200 LE
• Clothes drying rack:  90 LE
• 12 x 1.5 litre Evian bottles:  170LE (supposedly a scandalous price due to recent shortages - I'll take $2.50 a bottle given the recent heat)
• Towel:  35 LE
• Sheets:  56 LE
• 24 cans Fanta Apple pop:  51LE
• 1.5 litre bottle of Pepsi:  3.85 LE

With the other 400 LE I got almost all of the initial necessities (laundry detergent, assorted cleaning products, dish soap, plug converter, food staples, spices & oil/vinegar).

Well, I'm hearing the mid-afternoon call to prayer (look to the top right with all the speakers).  This tells me that it's almost 3:55 (ie almost the time when the length of an item's shadow is equal to the length of the shadow at noon plus the height of the item).  I'm still playing a bit of blog catch-up as I have both photos from indoors (along with the challenges of figuring out what's necessary) and photos of the outdoors (10 steps from beauty to squalor).