Cairo Travel Woes and Haircut Adventures
While we have loved our time in Egypt, we are ready to move on to our next country. We’re looking forward to a respite from the dust, and the days here have been getting hotter than we’d prefer. Our next destination is Paphos, Cyprus. To get out of Egypt, we need to leave from Cairo airport. My Hotels.com points earn us a free night at Le Meridien Cairo Hotel, which has a skybridge connecting it to the airport. We’ll be able to roll our suitcases from the hotel straight to Terminal 3 easy as pie. Our flight will leave at 4:30am the next morning, so this is super convenient for us. We already know they have a tasty buffet since we sampled it earlier in the month while waiting to catch a flight.
Travel is always easy and fun when it's hassle free, but it can be another story when there are glitches. Before we leave Luxor, we get word that Aegean Airlines canceled our flight in Athens. All the major unions in Greece, including the airline industry, are on a 24-hour strike. Workers want to force an investigation into the recent accident between a passenger train and a freight train that killed 57 people. The soonest flight they offer doesn't leave for several days. We shouldn't be on the hook for the costs we are going to occur from these delays. It's impossible to get through to the airline to sort out our compensation options. We booked through a third party, eDreams, that is trying to sort it out for us, but they aren't giving us options for a new flight, either.
We hop on the plane to Cairo with our flight to Pathos still unresolved. eDreams said they would be reaching out to Aegean Airlines on our behalf, but it’s been a full day without any word. The queue to speak to someone from the airline is over three hours, so we look at other options. Kevin finds a direct flight tomorrow on Egypt Air that bypasses Greece. We will arrive at an airport in Cyprus that’s an hour and a half away from Paphos, but it will get us there days before our other options. We look into a private shuttle service, but it will cost €110. The public services will be under €50. I'm not always a fan of navigating buses, but we're assured that Cyprus's buses are a reliable transportation method.
Now that we sorted out a flight, we need to tackle booking another night in Cairo. Last night I called the front desk to check on availability, but they never called back. Am I seeing a trend? We opt to go to the front desk in person to see if they can squeeze us in. Unfortunately, they can't accommodate us, nor can many hotels in the area. We branch out and choose another airport hotel that only requires a shuttle. Le Passage Hotel and Casino doesn’t have a casino anymore, but it is close and has availability. It seems like it will be a lesser hotel, so we decide after checkout that we'll stay as long as possible in Le Meridien's public spaces before moving hotels.
Although I've been getting my hair colored in every country we've visited, I don't have confidence in making an appointment in Egypt. We have a free afternoon now, and since I am desperate to “wash away my gray,” I search online for a nearby hair salon for a cut and color. Italy taught me that WhatsApp is my friend because it auto translates messages and can bypass language barriers. We initially had used it for finding a pastacceria that had cappuccino, but it also works to book hair appointments! I make a tentative plan with someone, but before I hail an Uber, I stop by the restroom. To my surprise I pass Crewcut Unisex Salon. I researched whether they had a salon on the property, but I came up empty. The price is more expensive than the salon on WhatsApp, but I don’t have to commute or worry about an in-person language barrier. The receptionist at the front desk here speaks enough English for me to get what I need, so I book here instead.
The receptionist makes a quick call, and a colorist/stylist shows up ten minutes later. Unfortunately, he doesn’t speak any English, so the receptionist interprets for us. He combines his limited knowledge of English with Google translate. I speak into his phone and it comes out in Arabic, he gets the gist of what I'm saying, and then passes it on to the colorist. Before leaving San Francisco, my colorist gave me the formula she uses to color my hair. She suggested that I only use Aveda salons, but our locations often don't support doing that. I've learned to be creative, trusting, and flexible when there are language challenges. So far there haven't been big issues, but I hope that if there are, I'll be able to laugh and not cry about them.
The colorist reminds me of Prince, but when I play a song for him from iTunes, he doesn’t recognize the legendary musician. I don’t know if it’s a cultural barrier or an age gap, but I’m sad that this person has lived his life without hearing Little Red Corvette, When Doves Cry, Purple Rain, and more.
I add on an extra service and realize I’m going to need more cash than I have, so I text Kevin to pay a visit to the cash machine. His hair is a bit shaggy, too, so he decides to get his hair cut as well. The cut includes a blow dry and fancy swoop. It’s one less thing we’ll have to do in Cyprus when we finally arrive.
We're finally ready to move hotels. Le Meridien shuttles us to the other side of the airport—only 1.5 miles away—at the ridiculous price of £400 Egyptian plus tip. The taxi from Luxor to the train station cost the same, but it was a 45-minute ride, not 5 minutes. As I write this, I see that an Uber could have done the same for only £69, which reaffirms that hotels overcharge for everything.
Le Passage is an older hotel, and we can already tell that it won’t give us the same experience as Le Meridien. Our Hotels.com perks get us upgraded to a suite, so that’s a small win. The woman at the front desk offers a bellman to grab our bags, but we travel light and decline the offer. Our key card sleeve shows Room 381, but when we enter there’s a bathroom, a sitting room with couch, chairs, television, and a massive shelving unit. What's missing is a bed. There’s an adjoining room, but it’s locked. Like sleuths out of a spy novel, we check the walls trying to see if there’s a pull-out bed hidden somewhere. We are kicking ourselves that we turned down the offer of a bellman. As a last resort, we leave the room to try to see if either of the rooms near us share the same room number, but they don’t. On a whim, we try our key card on room 380. It unlocks and lo and behold here’s another bathroom, bedroom, and a way to unlock the door separating the rooms. Mystery solved. We scratch our heads and wonder why the front desk did not tell us that the room had separate entrances with different room numbers. Welcome to Cairo!
Dinner that evening is… interesting. Le Passage has an extensive buffet, but servers plate your food for sanitary purposes. The bread and dessert station have plastic wrap on everything to keep things fresh. It also deters us from getting those items. The salad bar feels equally inhospitable. It's a night-and-day difference from our experience at the Le Meridien. We're given the option to pay by card, and we choose that option. We don't want to get extra cash on our way out of Egypt. Like most places here, the card reader is finicky. The cashier wants a different card, but the card isn't the problem. He gets exasperated and asks for cash. We're £80 short and he tells us he needs more money. We tell him we need his card reader to work. He moves positions and steps outside and voila! Success. We're frustrated, but we give him a tip and head back upstairs. Waiting for us in our room is an amenity of fruits and a variety of desserts, and we sample a few before calling it a night.
