Egypt 17: Security Insecurity

When we told people about the trip we were planning several asked: Is Egypt... dangerous?  

Well. It is a developing country.  Things are different there than any country I have been in before.  We never felt in any danger (except when our taxi driver decided to save time by going the wrong way up on a one-way street...  straight toward a car.  Yeesh.)

On the other hand, on several days we were accompanied on the bus by an armed man in plainclothes.  And every hotel and several museums had a metal detector..

The street sellers and beggars did make us feel harassed.  They were more aggressive than I am used to.  When my wife and I went for a walk in Luxor (against our guide's advice) we must have been met by half a dozen such folk, including a driver of a horse and wagon who followed us for blocks trying to convince us to take a ride.

And then there was our arrival at the Cairo Airport.  Our checked bag had not made it through the transfer at Frankfurt Airport (in spite of the plane being delayed for an hour there, sigh.) We were having trouble figuring out where to talk to someone about that.  I found an Information Desk and there was a woman standing in front of it.  We chatted for a couple of minutes and finally found our way to the right office.  While I was  waiting to fill out forms I said I needed to figure out where to get local money.

"Oh," said the woman, "I will take any currency."

And that's when the penny (or Egyptian pound) dropped.  She hadn't been behind the Information Desk.  She wasn't any kind of official helper.  She was another person looking to get money from tourists.  After that I didn't believe her advice, good or bad as it may have been.

None of this is a crime, of course.  But the ten men I saw fist-fighting each other in the street were definitely breaking some law.  We were on a bus, so no danger.  

 One more thing: When we come back from a trip and have foreign currency I save it in tin containers. This time I had packed up the tin labelled Euros for the next part of our journey.  When I opened it in the hotel there were only coins.  I knew that I had had about forty Euros in paper so I must have moved them into the wrong container when I was organizing them at home.  I kicked myself for my stupidity.  

When we got home I went looking for them in the drawer with the other containers.  They weren't there.  Somewhere between the USA and the hotel the bills had vanished.

The weird thing is, I felt better. I hadn't screwed up! I had been robbed.  Such a comfort.

And then we left Egypt for Greece.