Travel: Blending with the locals in Cairo
Guardian Unlimited (Will Hobson)
"Are you an Egyptologist?" Fady, the young Copt sitting at the nextdoor table in El Bostan café in Cairo's downtown, wondered. He had seen the introductory paperback I was reading, and immediately wanted to chat. We ended up spending the next day riding round the Pyramids together - which is entirely characteristic of the easygoing sociability of Cairo's cafes.
In a city of 18 million, where the density in the poorer areas can reach 700,000 per square mile, privacy is not exactly an option - but nor is it necessarily the priority it is in the west. People would do anything to have more space, more work, to spend less time stuck in deafening traffic jams or struggling to afford the basics – but it seems as if it wouldn't make much sense to Cairenes (nor would Cairo be the amazingly safe place it is) if the city lost its personal dimension. At first the "Welcome to Egypt" you're greeted with at every turn is so unassuming it's hard to distinguish from the hustlers' pitches in tourist areas – but the genuine friendliness becomes obvious the minute you spend time in a café.
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