There Are No Car Accidents In Cairo
There Are No Car Accidents In Cairo
Well—except these ones.
I'm going to start including relevant travel tips at the tops of posts now because—if you haven't noticed—I'm taking this newsletter in a travelly direction. So…
Travel Tip # 39: Accept That You Might Die In a Vehicle
Whether you’re in a bus driving along cliffs, on an open-air Tuk-Tuk weaving through traffic, or clinging to some asshole on a moped, you're taking a risk whenever you get in/on a vehicle abroad (as the driver or otherwise). I've had friends who have gotten in bus accidents in Botswana, car accidents in Korea, tuk-tuk accidents in Thailand, and driven a moped off a cliff in Vietnam (they lived). This varies by country—as all things do—but it's best to be prepared. Some things that help:
—Remind yourself: the person driving probably doesn't want to die, either.
—Don't rent a moped if you don't know how to drive a fucking moped. Seriously. 75% of accidents I've heard about are because tourists rented mopeds on roads they didn't understand.
—Get catastrophe insurance (not expensive [like $80 a month], pays off in the long run). My acquaintance, who went over a cliff in Vietnam, did not have it and had to create a Kickstarter to cover their $30,000 medical expenses. (ahem—full disclosure, I don’t do this).
—Idk, walk?
On to the essay…
I dance like a wounded deer—if you see me on the floor, it's best to shake your head and walk away. Without music, you might think I was avoiding a bee—or had just been hit by a car.
This is what driving in Cairo is like—like ten thousand bad dancers all trying to avoid each other; a stampede of wounded deer made of metal, glass, and rubber, flailing to their own beat.
People say the pyramids are impressive, but there is nothing quite like that first minute you get out onto a highway in Cairo.
Your first thought is: Oh, I am going to die.
Your second thought is: Oh, no, that person is going to die.
Because you just watched a woman jaunt out into the mess and walk across the road. Was that a child on her back? Yes, yes, it was.
Cars pass inches from ours as we weave across three lanes and back. The lines on the road aren't even suggestions—they’re decorations.
"First time in Cairo, yes?" The driver asked.
I said, "Where are the seatbelts?"
He didn't respond.
I turned to my girlfriend. "Do you see a seatbelt?"
She shook her head.
The driver said instead, "Nobody drives like in Cairo!"
I wanted to tell him that was wrong. Some people do drive like in Cairo.
They're just in prison now.
And this is when he told us, "It is no problem. Everyone drives like this—so it is safe, no accidents."
Then he railed on the horn as a van cut him off.
But we made it all the way to our hotel without an accident. It got me thinking—maybe he was right. Maybe all of the rules on American roads cause more problems than they solve. Maybe if we just felt the rhythm of the road, we'd all be fine.
Then we got in an accident on a horse and buggy on the way to the pharmacy.
Why were we in a horse and buggy?
Alright, rewind.
When we arrived at the hotel, we were bombarded with offers to go see the pyramids. Within the hour, we were sat with a small man in a neck-to-toe purple jumpsuit negotiating the price of camels. I'd thrown my back out on the plane, so I asked if we could go to the pharmacy first.
"Of course," the man said. Then led us outside and loaded us into a horse and buggy. One minute later, our man was yelling at a van driver he rear-ended in the alley because the horse hadn't stopped in time. (This did wonders for my back).
There was a massive dent in the van with a black streak from where the buggy-pole hit it. And then…we just rode away while the man screamed—what I can only imagine were vicious insults—after us.
So, addendum: No accidents happen in Cairo unless you're in a horse and buggy, I guess.
The next day, after—I shit you not—a group of twenty men in pilot's uniforms, presumably on their way to a bachelorette party, walked right across the highway, one of us asked our guide, "How do more people not die on the roads here?"
And she said, "Oh, there are no accidents in Cairo. Egyptians, we have a sixth sense for driving. We never have car accidents."
Which made us all the more surprised when, later that night, we watched one car pile-drive another on a side street on our way back from the Mariott.
Maybe it wasn't an accident. Maybe the cars were just old friends.
I started looking around at all the cars—specifically at all the dents, smashed tail lights, and cracks in windshields like the one in the windshield of the car we got into to take us to dinner.
This time, the driver was not so coy. He blasted Egyptian hip-hop and swerved from one side of the road to the other, laughing like his worst enemy was on fire.
"YOU LIKE DRIVING IN CAIRO!" he yelled over the music.
"IT'S INTERESTING!" my friend Dan told him.
"WEEEEEEE!" was all he had to say before yelling at Dan for trying to put his seatbelt on.
He turned down the music and got real serious, "You do not need a seatbelt. I am driving."
And sometimes I think about the multiverse—about all of the times in my life when I've done something dumb enough to wind up a corpse in an alternate dimension. And so, in the backseat, bracing against the swerves, the noise, the chaos, I mourned for each and every corpse-of-me that became scattered across the dimensions over that one twenty-minute drive.
But this-me lived. Oh, boy.
And I started to think that maybe they just had a lot of baby accidents in Cairo. Sure, accidents happen, but all that we'd seen had been small incidences—scrapes and dents. Well—until our last night when we saw a man bleeding on the side of the road.
It must have happened five-or-so minutes before we passed. A van carrying a load of people smashed into another car. There were bits of car-flesh scattered over the road, the van was caved in the front, and a man sat on the ground holding his bleeding head. I don't know where the other driver was.
Cars had pulled over—at least a half dozen men were there shoving the van in a series of heave-hos until it was enough to the side of the road as cars honked and spilled around it. No police. No EMTs. When I asked if any services would come to help, our driver laughed and said, "No. Of course not."
But we made it home—and to the airport the next morning.
People worry about many things when traveling to different places that are total horse shit. Worrying about being in a car in Cairo isn't one of them. It's a cluster fuck with no end in sight. Some ways to ease this:
Hire a car. Hiring a car is very inexpensive in Cairo ($50 a day [often with tours]), and the drivers are often much more careful, have seatbelts, and use vans that are a bit more death-proof.
Don't stay in an area—like we did—where your options for drivers are limited to "hey, you over there."
If you find yourself headed to Cairo, let me know. I've got a guy who works on recommendations who hires excellent drivers and has solid, more cost-effective tours. I don't have any connection to his company other than that he genuinely runs a tight ship where you won't (probably) get into a car accident.