Streets and Subways in Cairo

We slept until 9 AM, then went down for breakfast. The Ramses Hilton Hotel si situated on the bank of the Nile, and we got a window seat for breakfast, watching the boats on the river as we ate our breakfast. We also looked through our Egypt guide book to decide what to do during our final day in Egypt. Our scheduled tour is over, so today we are on our own.

We decided to take the subway to Old Cairo. To get to the nearest subway stop we had to walk a few blocks. The most interesting part of this was crossing the street, which is a little different in Cairo, compared to what we are used to. Although there are 18 million people in this city, there are very few traffic lights. And many of those traffic lights that do exist are rarely obeyed by drivers. And traffic is busy and crazy all the time, with constant honking of cars. And forget about lane lines too. To cross the street, you have to just walk out in front of the cars, hoping to find a small gap before the cars (and hoping that the oncoming cars will slow down, if necessary). With 2 to 6.5 lane roads, it is not uncommon to be stuck halfway, with cars moving fast closely by you. Egyptians are used to this, of course, and seem to beavely walk in front of moving cars and cross the street with ease. It took us a little longer, as we waited for longer gaps in the traffic before stepping out into the street.

When we arrived at the subway stop, the large subway map was extremely faded with age and seemed incomplete. So we asked the ticket sellers which direction we needed to go and paid the 1.5 LE fare. The subway train seemed a little older, but not that much different from subway systems in other countries.