Upon arrival in Egypt, I was told that Egyptians are known for their hospitality. Everyone is willing to help you out, and is willing to make your experience as enjoyable as possible. I find that this is true, but the assistance you get comes with a price.
One day, we decided to venture into Downtown Cairo for sheeshah. We take a taxi into downtown, and both the cab driver us passengers get lost. As usual, the curvy and windy streets of Cairo baffle us all. We passengers decide to get out and find it ourselves.
We encounter a man upon crossing the streets who decides to help us find our way because his brother lives in New Jersey and one of the people in the group lives in New Jersey. He takes us through twists and turns, and tells us that the hookah shop is right down that corner, but first we must enter his fine perfume shop. Half of the group enters, and the other half waits on the street corner. The man comes up to us waiting on the street and asks us to come into his shop.
The first thing I hear when I enter the perfume shop is, "Look, at this picture. This is my father with Muhammad Ali." What? Is this for real? I examine the picture and I find that yes, in fact it is Muhammad Ali. The man then offers us all tea, and shouts to a random person on the street to get us all tea. We sit and chat with the man for a while, and he tells us that his son also attends AUC for medicine. Very cool.
Would we like a sample of his perfume? It's made out of oils from flowers and those oils are taken to major companies, like Chanel, and combined with alcohol to make expensive perfumes.
"My perfumes are better than anything you can buy at store because it is made from the real essence of a flower. Here try the sweet pea."
He then puts sweet pea perfume on all the girls and boys. We are already hot, and the oil feels slick and messy on my skin. He keeps getting us to try his perfumes and refuses to let us leave without smelling half of the items on his list.
"So, what you buy?"
Uhh, nothing? We were pulled into this shop and are stuck here. He tells us for one pound he will give a gram of perfume and then give us a free bottle to put it in. We don't mind spending a pound to leave, but one pound turns into 100 pounds. No thanks, sir.
"Well, I also have this 250 gram bottle, would you like that?"
If we don't want to spend 100 pounds, what makes you think we want to spend 250?
We finally purchase a five dollar bottle of perfume so we could leave the store, and we were still given a guilt trip. It turns out that hospitality comes with a price, and isn't always genuine.
We never got our tea that night. And I find out later, that three other people have been to three different perfume shops and have all seen the same picture of Muhammad Ali. Egyptians seem to love taking advantage of American tourists. So beware that the "hospitality" you encounter may simply be a ploy for your money. Or a chance for small business owners to amuse themselves by confusing lost tourists.
