Everything is very cheap in Egypt.  I had two rooms, with four beds, and a private bath, with a hot-water shower, for $60 a month.  I recall that each day I would go out and get a plate of macaroni with meat, two mini-hamburgers on French-style bread, four small candy bars, a cola and a newspaper, all for $1.14.    Seven pounds of Egyptian flat bread, like thick tortillas, or 20 small loaves, cost 45¢. A barbecued chicken was about $1.75.  Egyptian teabags were 30¢ a hundred.  Grapes and dates were 14¢ a pound.  Buses and the surface-level trains charged 3¢ a ride.  You could get a flat bicycle tire patched for 15¢. 

This was in 1990 and 1991, at a time when the Egyptian pound was fluctuating between 30¢ and 35¢.  Today, with the pound (junaih in Arabic) going for about 18¢, the figures would look even better, unless inflation has outrun the depreciation of the pound, which I doubt seriously, given the government controls in Egypt.

The best bargain I encountered was like this:

Since I had been living in Alexandria, I had seen no Egyptian antiquities, so about a week before I left Egypt, I decided to spend a few days in Cairo.  The Sphinx and pyramids are in al-Jizah, adjacent to Cairo.  The Egyptian Museum, with the regalia of King Tut and other exhibits, is in downtown Cairo.

I was contemplating cycling the entire 113 miles, which would have taken me 2 days, but I was afraid that I wouldn’t find enough places to get water in the scorching semi-desert of the Nile Delta.  So, instead, I cycled down to Sidi Jabar Station, about 2 miles from my apartment, assuming that I would be able to take my bike with me on the train to Cairo, even at an added cost.  But, no, they would carry no bikes.  Disappointedly, I was walking out of the station, ready to take the bike home and come back another day without it.

A man with an old station wagon with a roof carrier called out to me, saying that he was taking passengers to Cairo.  I agreed to go, and we put the bike on the carrier, using some bungie cords I had with me.  I got in the cab, where there were 6 other passengers just waiting for the 7th to appear, whereupon the driver would roll.  The driver explained to everybody apologetically that he had had to raise the fare from 6 to 7 pounds ($1.80 to $2.10 at the time).  Even at 7 pounds, the fare would amount to less than 2¢ a mile for each of the other six passengers.  In my case, since I had a bicycle, he would charge me 10 pounds ($3).  Thinking of how far I would get in the US on $3, I felt almost guilty.

Soon we were whizzing along in south suburban Alexandria, where there are cotton plantations, flocks of sheep and goats, and scattered small stucco houses.  A very warm, mellow feeling about Egypt had encompassed me by that time.  I knew that if I should get out and approach one of those houses, several little children would come running out to greet me with a cheer, and I’d meet the whole family within a few minutes.

In some of the plantations, girls and women were picking cotton in the ancient way, with very little mechanical intervention, while men were baling cotton here and there.

We passed also through sandy desert, hot and barren, and I was gratified that I’d been right about the fatuity of trying to cycle the distance.  We passed a number of villages, with cars here and there, mostly jalopies, but there were even more donkeys, stoically trotting along with their big bundles of produce.

We made Tanta in an hour or so.  This large city, at least the part of it where the road lies, was dreadfully impoverished, almost beyond the comprehension of someone who has never seen it.

Finally, I could feel that a great city was looming in the distance, but the outskirts of Cairo are utterly different from those of Los Angeles or New York.  Adobe and red-brick houses, tiny and half fallen in ruins, dotted the countryside.  There were more flocks and cotton fields.  Tragic poverty was everywhere.  Then we arrived in Cairo.

The driver let me out right downtown, and I paid him the fare of 10 pounds plus a tip of another 10 pounds, for a total of $6. 

Then, asking around, I found my way to the pyramids, about 15 miles from downtown, but, feeling ill, I didn’t visit them till the next morning.  That night I went to a grocery store near the hotel where I took a room and I bought pickled tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots and olives, and some bread.  On my way back, a group of 6 or 7 merry children accosted me on the street, and we had a very pleasant little chat.

Not counting my tip, the driver had grossed $15.60, or 14¢ a mile.  From that he had to buy gas, deduct depreciation of the car, and pay his own wages.  How was it possible?  I still don’t know.

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