Cairo: taxi!

First: I forgot to mention one of my favorite things about the crazy traffic here. In the midst of everything, all of the cars and honking, you can find donkeys. They're hooked up to carts, either chilling on the side of the road or trotting along with a few people on the cart. It's incredible that they don't freak out in this circus.

On to the taxis. I [and most of the students at the language school] take the taxis pretty much everywhere, since the microbuses are kind of overwhelming for non-natives and I don't have a clue where the closest metro station is - although it's very cheap [one Egyptian pound, which is about 17 cents], so maybe I'll take a look eventually. But the taxis are, of course, also not very expensive - for the places I usually go, I rarely pay more than five or ten pounds, and even a 30 or 40-minute ride to City Stars came out to about 40 pounds [$7].

There are two basic kinds of cabs here - black and white. The black ones are older and don't have meters, so most people either settle the price before they even get in or know how much it should be and just give the driver that amount and walk away before he can argue too much - but tourists are easily ripped off. A lot of the black cabs have flashing neon lights and stuffed animals all over. The other day we saw one that had a baby doll head - just the head - attached to its sign. The white cabs are newer and cleaner and have meters and are therefore more trustworthy. You still have to pay attention, though, because sometimes they "forget" to turn on the meters and then try to negotiate when you get to the destination.

Most of the cars on the road are carrying at least two more people than they were designed for [the other day, I saw a pickup bed just full of children], but the black cabs in particular can often be seen filled to the brim with one person in the passenger seat, four adults in the backseat, and a few children on various laps.

In New York City, drivers know the city pretty well, especially since the streets and avenues are mostly numbered and in a grid. In London, every cab has a GPS system. In Cairo...you tell the driver the neighborhood and the street, and once they get to the neighborhood they stick their head out the window and ask every person they pass where that street is.