Return to Cairo

The second coming in Cairo was short-lived but just as memorable as the first. We had lined up a meeting with Mustafa, the third couch surfer we were supposed to stay with. We wanted to get out of Cairo ASAP so we told him that we would just hag out for the day and then board the train to Luxor that night. We went back to our beloved Nubian hostel and managed to talk the guys into letting us nap for a while and hold our bags until we had to get to the train station that night. We had to pay them 60EP but it was well worth it.

We met Mustafa at the hostel and went for a ride with him to an electronic store. Ramsey finally had enough of not having a camera and thought now was the time to buy a new one. Mustafa warned him that it was most likely a refurbished model but it fired up for him just fine so he went with it.

We went to see the Citadel which was closing, unfortunately. We had showed up right as they were closing the gates. We snapped a quick photo and moved on down the road to a nice park Mustafa knew of. We sat around a pond and chitchatted for while. I found out that Mustafa was a professional hand ball player. He said he was the worst pro in the entire league and didn’t see much playing time but I think he was being modest. We also told him that we were on the fasting kick for Ramadan and he couldn’t believe it. He was impressed that we were staying true to the fast because even he cheated once in a while.

There were men in the street handing out dates and juice just before sundown. We grabbed a couple bags and kept on driving back to the city. Mustafa brought us to Hardees where we were able to meet some of his friends. We had some big greasy burgers and cokes which was a nice treat as well. The guys didn’t speak English all that well but it was still nice of Mustafa to introduce us. We didn’t linger too long. It was getting late. Mustafa brought us to a nearby oriental sweet store where he bought a few dozen little oriental delights and had us try them all. They were all very good. He made us take the rest with us to the train station where he dropped us off.

It was short-lived but I am happy we got to meet Mustafa. It as unfortunate that we had the worst of our couchsurfing experiences right away because the others we had met were great people. We thanked our new fried for toting us around all day and then headed straight to the ticket counter to get our train seats to Luxor. We had a hour to kill before we boarded so we sat out behind he trail station to escape the hoards of people. Boarding the train was a nightmare because there were no numbers on the seats and nobody to really direct us to the correct end of the car. It was a cluster of bodies for about a half hour but we managed to get in a cabin and in our own chairs. It was lights out after that and goodbye to Cairo again. Good riddance.