Urban Off-Roading

a tale about Cairo knocking me down a peg

I am getting back to my roots with an essay this week. Enjoy!

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I am an impatient person by nature. When I first moved to Cairo—ancient labyrinth that it is—I was irked by the loose interpretation of time that prevails here, and by the unexpected detours that are both common and unavoidable. I like to believe that, in adapting to the city, I’ve become more relaxed and accepting. I like to talk about this newfound enlightenment even more, and an opportunity presented itself recently. 

“I used to get so frustrated when people here would show up late and not even care to apologize. But now I get it,” I told my friend, David, with an urbane smugness that belongs solely to white girls who have learned to navigate third-world megacities. “There’s just no good way of knowing when you’ll arrive at your destination.” If I’d been so wise earlier that morning, I might have spared us what was about to happen.

David was visiting my husband, Nick, and me. We were about to tour the Christian quarter and were speeding up the Nile Corniche in an Uber, fanning ourselves against the heat and exhaust of an Egyptian summer.

We had left at 8:30 a.m. to meet our guide at 9:00. Theoretically, the ride would take 15 or 20 minutes. But Cairo journeys are rarely linear. Instead of going from point A to point B, you might go from point A to point W to point K to point F, and finally to point B from there. “Twenty minutes is a half hour on Egyptian streets, so we should be ok,” I had said as we rushed out the door. Though we had no margin for error, traffic was moving at a decent clip, and it appeared we would arrive on time. 

Then, about two-thirds of the way to the drop-off point, we turned sharply right. Our driver had missed our turnoff. The Nile Corniche offers few chances for U-turns, so he had veered onto a surface road against the advice of Google Maps. 

We landed in the sort of place police steer tourists away from and cryptically refer to as a “public area”: a blue-collar shantytown. It was a maze of lean-tos that looked like a first attempt to rebuild after a nuclear holocaust. Chickens roamed the neighborhood. Working-aged men stood around drinking tea in the street. We kept the windows rolled up, as there would no doubt be a rotting smell from the piles of trash and food waste accumulating in empty lots. 

I glanced at the clock: 9:01 a.m. If we were no more than ten minutes away, we’d still be on time by Egyptian standards. I silently congratulated myself on the conniption I wasn’t having and prayed we’d get through the maze without incident. Hope dissipated quickly, though, as we crawled along at 10 miles per hour.

Going faster was impossible. The streets were clogged with children in dirty clothes, and were so narrow I could have rolled down my window and grabbed a fistful of onions from one of the vegetable carts on the sidewalk. Every couple dozen feet, we’d have to pull over so donkey carts and trucks hauling live goats could pass.

“Do you think Egyptians enjoy Tetris?” David wondered aloud. “Maybe that’s how they learn to drive.” (There is no driving license test in Egypt, so David’s guess was as good as any.)

We were just one block away from our tour’s starting point when our driver stopped in the middle of the road. Dead ahead was an unmarked building. We were supposed to meet our guide on the other side of it, and there was no way around. I checked the clock again: 9:12 a.m. We were nearing the end of the Egyptian grace period. My blood pressure rose with every second we idled.

“Did you let our guide know we’d be late?” I asked Nick.

“Yeah,” Nick said. “I feel bad, because she had asked if we wanted to do 9:00 or 9:30. I told her 9:00, and here we are. She even got there a few minutes early.” My cheeks went red at the thought of spending the day with an irritated guide whose time we had wasted. We’d been cavalier not to leave sooner. 

Our driver rolled down his window to ask for directions. “Habibi,” he called out, and one of the tea drinkers, a man in a ratty t-shirt and skinny jeans, came over. Skinny jeans motioned for us to back up and said to take a right, then a left past the mosque. Simple enough, I thought. But after carefully reversing and turning down the next alleyway, our driver hit the brakes. It was another dead end.

This time, at least, our obstacles seemed movable. An unoccupied sedan was parked on the left side of the alley, and an elderly man in a traditional galabeya sat in a plastic lawn chair on the right. If the man in the lawn chair would only get up for a moment, we might have been able to negotiate around the sedan. I realized that wasn’t likely; he sat perfectly still and looked blankly ahead, refusing to acknowledge us. It was a stand-off. We all stared at the man, willing him to rise. He stared back at us without so much as blinking.

Our driver sighed. “Sorry,” he said. He honked helplessly. We sat in tense silence for a minute or two, looking back and forth for any signs of life. My eyes flicked back to the clock: 9:20. Our driver blew the horn again, louder and longer this time. Soon two young men in stained sweatpants emerged, holding their hands up in apology as they shuffled to the car. I was relieved, if only briefly.

One of the men plopped into the driver seat while the other went around to the passenger side, but instead of getting in, he opened the door, turned his back to us, and gripped the door frame. He heaved with all his might, head down, sandaled feet pushing hard against the gravel as the man in the driver seat steered. The car wasn’t parked—it was dead, and the men had blocked the road with it. It would take an eternity to get it out of our way. 

My jaw dropped. I looked around our car to find David, Nick, and the driver all wearing the same slack-mouthed expression. We could have screamed in shock and rage. Instead, we burst into hysterics. It was too ridiculous not to laugh. Our driver regained his composure and inched forward behind the slow-rolling sedan, carefully bearing left so as not to disturb the man in the lawn chair, who hadn’t flinched during the entire episode.

When we reached the mouth of the alley, the street opened up into several paved lanes. I was glad to be out of that absurd place, but then I noticed my surroundings were familiar. Wasn’t that the same street sweeper we’d seen before turning into the neighborhood? And hadn’t we passed that café already?

“We’re back on the Corniche,” Nick groaned. “We’re half a mile south of where we made the wrong turn.” One hour into what should have been a 15-minute ride, we’d somehow managed to end up further away from our destination.

I felt a roar of frustration flood the back of my throat. Then, just as quickly, it turned to a chuckle. Because what’s 45 minutes, anyway, in a city that has stood for millennia? 

We finally arrived at 9:35, humbled by the Cairo streets. As we got out of the car, Nick smiled at David. “There are no shortcuts here,” he said.

“At least you got to see what the tourist police try to hide,” I added.

“Oh, yes,” David said. “I’m kind of glad we did it.” 

We found our guide a few moments later and apologized profusely.

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If you liked this essay, try Learning to Live with Chaos and Egyptians’ Refreshing Kindness. See you next week!