Date received: Thu Feb 22 2001, 03:12 PM PST
Another day, another continent.
I finally made it out of Europe, and it feels totally different. Cairo, like many places in Morocco, is a sensory overload. It is vibrant, exotic, frantic, crowded, and dirty.
My experience here has been amazing. My plan in coming was to do a little research for my Asian motorcycling leg by seeing what was involved in buying a motorbike here. Things started out bad; I got held up in customs, for no good reason (probably because I used by US passport,) for an hour. Planeload after planeload of people passed me by, while I just had to sit and wait until they decided to let me in. They were probably searching my passport for any offensive stamps.
Once I left the airport, my experience totally changed. People here are incredibly nice. Someone I met on the bus walked me to the metro station to show me where to go, and within ten seconds of getting off the metro, I met someone else who knew of a good hotel. He walked for about an hour with me, until we ended up at an amazing hostel; it is one which caters to Japanese students, but has a great mix of people. The person who showed me the hostel and the guy running the hostel both said they would make some calls to investigate details of buying a bike. At this rate, I'll have all of my errands done in a day!
I leave Sunday for Nairobi.
peter
