The Egyptian Taxi Hustle Explained

After flying in late to Cairo airport and taking a late train into the city, we opt to spend a night in a dingy overpriced hotel next to the train station. The following morning is spent organising a trip to the Pyramids at Giza.

We opt for a taxi to and from the hotel. We meet our driver, a humble guy by the name of Farouk who seems almost shy and just eager to please. Farouk tells us throughout the day just how much he loves travellers, especially Australians and shows us some of the gifts other Australian tourists have given him.

We’re driving along the highway, it’s two lanes wide but there are four (and at times five) lanes of traffic. Rules are more of a guideline and we stop on a bridge so we can get out and take photos against the backdrop The River Nile.

Dad, myself and sister (and fellow travel blogger) Dasha with the Nile in the background, cheap apartments with great views while illegally stopped on a bridge in Cairo. Tourists get away with anything in Egypt!

As we’re getting close to the pyramids, Farouk asks us if we’d like a free coffee. The saving of 40 cents is too tempting, we take him up on the offer.

We get our free coffees, but they lead us to a shop where the sales people try and sell us Papyrus artwork. The demonstration of how they do they go from Papyrus plant to finished product is interesting to watch. Farouk was sneaky in getting us into a shop where he makes commissions on the sale. We let it slide.

We get to the site of the pyramids and Farouk takes us to a tour agency that can organise horse and camel tours to the pyramids. We hear the selling points:

1. It’s very hot outside.
2. It’s a long way to walk (twelve kilometres).
3. You’re only at the pyramids once, may as well splurge.

We haggle for fifteen minutes, on several occasions pretending to walk away, and are offered a semi reasonable price. We take a quick bathroom break, and while looking for the bathroom, we end up on the roof of the building and see the pyramids barely 500m from the office. We laugh at the ridiculousness. We return to the group, tell them our discovery and renegotiate a lower price.

Camel and horse tour of the Egyptian Pyramids at Giza. For those that have never ridden a camel before, I assure you, it will be a once in a lifetime experience. It is incredibly uncomfortable, feels unstable and yet the strange authentic-ness we associate between camels, desserts and the Pyramids means that it won’t ever put the camels out of business.

 

Yes, that is the Sphinx. No, you can’t see the huge crowd that you have to battle through  to get the photo. Yes, it seems that most of the tourists at the pyramids are Russian.

After seeing the Pyramids, Farouk offers us to visit a museum, for free (warning bells go off, but we ignore them). The museum is really a perfume shop, and although the Egyptian perfumes really do smell amazing, we don’t make any purchases on the grounds of being tricked into visiting.

On the way back to our hotel, Farouk asks us if we had a good day. We can’t really complain, we had fun and we tell him this. Farouk tells us that we can tip him if we want, but it’s not an obligation. We thank him for his suggestion, we have no intention of tipping him for taking us to shops where he was hoping to make a commission on sales.

We arrive at our hotel, once again,

Farouk asks “You have a good time?”

Our reply “Yes Farouk we have a good time!”

Farouk asks “I do a good job yes?”

Our reply “No major complaints, though we’re not fans of surprise shopping.”

Farouk mentions “If you like today, you can give me a tip. It’s optional but appreciated.”

Our reply “Thanks for the suggestion.”

All in all, a fun day as we headed to the Pyramids and had a taxi driver try and take us into his friends shops and buy things. If you want to avoid taxi drivers wasting your time in Cairo, tell them up front, you just want to go to the Pyramids and not make any stops along the way. Also, you can skip the horse and camel tour, though it is fun to do.

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