Warning: this is my first attempt at blogging on my phone. Beare wif mi.

This is Tamir. You know how in the movies there are men in suits holding signs at the airport for fancy people? I am now a fancy person!

Tamir met me at the foot of the escalator in the Cairo airport. I thought he was just there to drove me to the hotel, but this man took my passport, my visa, my luggage then hurried us through every checkpoint with a few words of rapid Arabic and an imperious tone. I felt like a very tired princess. I may have heard the customs agent mumble CIA.

Like I said, I’m fancy now.

Then Tamir handed my parched self a bottle of water and I now need to put him in my will. The driver, whose name is not My Collegio but that’s all I heard, whipped into 5pm Cairo traffic.

After a quick conference, Tamir said, “ok we take the Ring Road, you know faster, traffic?”

Of course! Whether it’s called ring road or beltway or perimeter or loop, we take the Ring Road.

As Pop would have said, “Gussie, hold on to ya hat!”

Driving in Cairo is not for the faint. It’s like a demolition derby in the desert. I had just begun to marvel at the desert flying by when sunset fell like a curtain.

We sailed past malls and apartment buildings and exit signs I couldn’t read and billboards mostly in English. Billboards for fancier apartments coming soon and beautiful actors on channel 10 and Skechers outlet now open. I saw a fellow southerner by the name of Sanders.

The we stopped, because traffic. And that’s when things got scary.

When traffic gets congested, horns rule. One beep means “I’m coming over” and five beeps mean “No no no you’re not.” I didn’t see any lane markings painted on the pavement. They may have been there somewhere but nine lanes of traffic wove itself over about 6 lanes of space. Toot toot beep beep screech vroom.

But here’s something cool. I didn’t see any road rage or middle fingers. Just people livingin a crowded place, together.

I saw motorcycles pulling trailers of Windows, tiny Toyota trucks teetering under an entire apartment of stuff moving to a fancier place, tags in numbers that I can’t read, taxi vans jammed with 15 young men going home from work. No buses or cops. No chaos either, except to my foreign eyes. This young man, like many others, stands in the road and sells snacks. Imagine standing in a traffic jam on 285 and selling crackers. Yipes.

I worried for his mother. On the side of the road in this not fancy part of town, people wait for a ride, or hop out anywhere on the street when their ride is done. There are narrow entries from highway to apartment rows.

IN the apartments, from the Ring Road, I could see the blue glow of televisions and clean laundry hanging from balconies, flapping in the wind from the cars flying or creeping by, because traffic.

I saw a football team stretching on a bright green patch of fake grass. Horses pulling carts. Popcorn stands. Minarets of mosques outlined in green neon.

But I was so immensely tired from all the flying and the lack of sleep because my plane seat was by the toilet and now I’d been trapped in this traffic for an hour and and and…

I had that ugly thought. “This is supposed to be vacation and I’m stuck here with these throngs of people and their traffic and their laundry and these incessant horns.” I got a little too fancy for my own good.

I had no idea where we were or how much longer it would take. Because traffic. I was about ready to cry.

Then Tamir said, “Have you seen our pyramids?” I thought he was making polite conversation. But he was pointing out the windshield.

Wait…what??

Yes, Tamir, now I have. Thank you. I have wanted to see them my whole life and now I have, in traffic. All three of us laughed at my pure delight.

We pulled into the hotel drive and I saw a sweet golden retriever there to greet. Nope. He walked all around the van, sniffing for bombs.

Tamir escorted me inside, through a metal detector where my bag was scanned. They have to live with this, the fear of bombs, because they also live with us, the tourists who bring the money in, all to see that, the pyramids. Sleepy towns without a Ring Road don’t get targeted by nuts with bombs.

I’m glad we took the Ring Road first. I’m grateful that I saw that part of Egypt, the part where a crowd is living together, before I went straight to the pools and the parties and the pyramids.

Thank you, Tamir and MiCollegio, for a safe and enlightening journey. Thank you for helping me make my way.