Cairo – Information
Accommodation
Good hotels are in the center, and on the periphery, but even cheaper facilities fill up at the peak of the tourist season. Polish tourists usually live in places previously booked by a travel agency. Accommodation in a youth hostel or camping is not much cheaper than the prices of downtown hotels, and access to the city center is cumbersome. There is a youth hostel on the island of Roda (near the al-Gamaa bridge, tel.02/3640729, fax 02/3684107). Kemping Salma (Harranija; tel.02/3849152) accepts tourists with trailers and bicycles.
Gastronomy
Cairo boasts the best restaurant chain in Africa, bars and cafes and the most diverse culinary offer. Many venues are geared towards foreign and wealthy tourists – especially the night sanctuaries, offering, among others. belly dances. In more expensive hotels there are so-called. weeks of eating, during which really sophisticated and extravagant dishes are served. Most Egyptians don't have time, and most of all money for hanging out in restaurants, but for many western tourists, the prices here aren't high at all.
Drinking coffee and tea was part of the Oriental tradition, but in cafes (ahwa) or only men used to sit in teahouses. Usually they smoked hookah while drinking (hiss) and they played party games (pressure gauge, domino).
To this day, such places exist in many cities in the East, where women are not allowed: they are usually small premises with chairs on the street. However, there are places modeled on European cafes, like Fishawi, Ai-Shataranj or Ali Baba at Midan Tahrir, where the Egyptian writer and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz drank coffee.
Confectioneries are cheaper counterparts of European type cafes, where you can buy a modest meal on the spot or take away. Higoletto is renowned for the best ice cream parlors in the city (Zamalik) and Café Paris at Sharia al-Bustan.
Official matters
Extension of a visa. Extending the visa validity period is a unique experience: the Mugamma building itself is stressful enough, because it brings together all hell of eastern bureaucracy. Best to come here or very early in the morning, or in the afternoon and go straight to the information desk, because the order of the visited windows changes. You need to take a photocopy of your passport with photo and the visa page; after paying the appropriate fee, tax stamps should be bought, then go back to the window, which you have already been to, to obtain a visa. Tourist visas are issued at other counters, and in others, they allow multiple entries into the country.
Travel authorizations. Recently, traveling in Egypt is strictly controlled by the tourist police. There are check points in front of every important facility and in cities, where the numbers of the passing car are checked, driver's name, the name of the travel agency and the name of the guide. Everything has to be in line with the list for the day. If anything didn't fit, there may be escorted tourists to a more important check point and handing them over to a more important officer. Naturally, the penalty is then imposed on the driver, guide and travel agency. Changes to the agreed timetable may be reported at the latest on 10 days before the event. Within a given city, the guide and tourist can move freely and change the established program, as long as not to go beyond the existing check points, but it is not possible to deviate from the route even on 3 km, if it involves recording presence at the site, where it shouldn't be. Areas under special protection (desert routes, smaller roads in the Nile Delta and Sinai, south of the country to the border with Sudan, Central Egypt) can only be visited with a special authorization issued by the Military Internal Security Agency (Shari Mawshija al-Bakri in Heliopolis). Applications are submitted to the headquarters of the tourist police (szari Adli 5), by attaching two photos to the application, a photocopy of your passport with photo and visa and an explanation of the reason, for whom you want to be in this very place. You have to wait for the decision 4 do 14 days.
Passport theft. It's a very nasty accident, which should be immediately reported to the police, to receive a certificate of the event. Having them and two photos and any ID (have important pages of your passport photocopied), you should go to the consulate and apply for a new passport. Having the so-called. blank passport, one must go to Mugamma, to verify the date of entry into Egypt, and then obtain a visa. Polish Embassy: szari El Aziz Osman 5, Zamalik, tel.02/7367456, 02/23417456, 02/3409583, 02/3405416.
Health
Not infrequent stomach ailments, commonly known as the "curse of the pharaoh", it is best to nip it in the bud. For this, it is best to go to the pharmacy and buy medicines there, which will definitely help. 24/7 pharmacies: Talaat Harb Pharmacy (szari Talaat Harb 33; tel.02/3925341), Al-Esaaf (shit 26 July 27; tel.02/5743369), Al-Ataba (Midan Ataba; *02/5910831), Al-Zamalik (Shagar ad-Durr 3, Zamalik; tel.02/73613338).
Many English-speaking doctors work in the capital, and consultations cost within limits 50-80 EGP.
Internet
Internet cafes pop up like mushrooms, and an hour's surfing costs approx. 10 EGP. A pleasant place is the 24-hour shop in Zamalik (szari1 Ismail Muhammad 25).