nomadlife HOWTO

The weakness of the Egyptian Pound (LE) and the abundance of lifestyle choices for the economically challenged means that life in Egypt, in foreign money, can be very, very cheap. 1 US Dollar gets you about 6LE (down from 7.5LE when I arrived in June), and as any hardened Cairo dweller knows, 6LE gets you lots of things in this town.

Transport
Stick to the underground Metro system, its clean, on time, fast and most importantly, cheap. A ride costs you .75 LE, or 12 of those precious American cents. The metro is extensive and goes pretty much all over Cairo, so you should be able to get anywhere with this ticket, combined with a bit of walking. Of course, it is permanently stuffed with people, none of whom place politeness or odour control as a priority in life. And, it has a habit of sort of....stopping, mid journey, for a ten minute rest. And, in 42 degree heat, it is like a vision of Dante's Inferno. But apart from all this, its the cheapest, most reliable way to travel across the city.

If you need to go out of the path of the Metro, then a microbus is your best, cheapest bet. These are 8 seat minivans which go back and forward along a major route, with one guy driving and one guy hanging off the side shouting out where they are going to. "Giiizaaaa.....Giiiizaaaaaa". They load these vans up with as many people as possible, 15 is commonplace, and I have been in ones with up to 20 people. They drive like psychopaths, pollute like crazy and smell like ass. But they are damn cheap, and go anywhere. They used to cost .75LE (15 cents US) but since the Egyptian government recently reduced the subsidies on diesel fuel (the subsidised diesel is the only way these microbuses can work) the price increased to an outrageous 1LE (16 cents).

Food
Operate on a two major meals with occasional snacks eating plan. Forget about eating meat, as the majority of the Egyptian population live without it except for special occasions. For breakfast, buy 2 Felafel sandwiches on the street, which at .5LE (8 cents) each, arent exactly going to break the bank. If you want some variety, or a complement to the sandwiches, grab a bowl of fuul, stewed, spiced beans, served with flat bread and lemon juice. Sounds terrible, tastes OK, costs nothing. A big bowl-o-beans will set you back another .5LE, and you won't need to eat for hours.

Throughout the day, enjoy a snack from the street vendors who are all over the place. A cob of sweetcorn, freshly grilled on the street, tastes awesome and costs .75LE (12 cents). A freshly baked sweet potato, cooked on an open fire being pulled around on a carriage by a donkey, will address your carbohydrate needs for .5LE. A few pieces of fruit, say an orange, a banana and a grapefruit, will ring in at another .75, and should keep away the hunger until dinner time.

Its dinner time, and you can really explore the full variety of Cairo eating. However, on your limited budget, a plate of Koshari is your best bet. This is where things get really creative. Imagine all the carbohydrates in the world, lumped together in a ball. This is what you would use to make Koshari taste LESS heavy and carb-driven. Koshari features, in no particular order, spaghetti noodles, rice, bread, lentils, beans and fried onion, all mixed into a horrible creation from hell. It is toipped with a chilli and tomato sauce, which is the only thing that makes this revolting dish edible. But at 1LE (16 cents), it will be the most carb-for-cent meal of your life.

Accomodation
Find yourself an apartment in Islamic Cairo, the "old city" of Cairo. A place with 2 rooms, bathroom and sitting room, will set you back a monstrous 30LE ($5) per month. Sometimes two families will share one of these places, so if you are smart you can halve the costs. Of course luxuries like hot water, electricity, walls, plumbing and structurally sound building architecture may be missing. But if you can put aside 1LE per day out of your 6LE daily budget, a sweet bachelor pad with mosque views and the best street entertainment in town is yours.

Little indulgences
Go without snacks for a couple of days, walk to work or cut down on expenses for a few days and you should be able to scrape together a spare 3LE (50 cents) for your Friday night on the town. Get yourself to a local ahwa, a traditional Egyptian mens coffee house, and sit down for a night of Shisha smoking and tea drinking. The Shisha is .5LE, with refills coming in at .25LE per bowl. A bowl of shisha tobacco should last about 30 minutes, so a couple of hours of good smoking can be had for one measly Egyptian pound. Cups of tea will set you back .25LE (4 cents), so you can knowck them back with relative abandon. For your late night treat, get yourself a Ros ba Laban (Rice with Milk), a sweet rice custard/pudding, which tastes great, and will only add another 1LE to the bill. Entertainment comes for free - the conversations in Ahwas are the centre of Egyptian grassroots political and cultural expression, and if they get boring, there is always a game of dominoes, chess or cards to be joined.

Freebies
For dollar-a-day life in Cairo, sometimes the best things in life can indeed be free. No-one cvan ever charge you for a walk along the Nile, one of the world great views. And during the religious holidays, the generosity of strangers will ensure your standard of living increases immensely. Every night in Ramadan you will enjoy a free dinner from one of the "tables of God", set up by the local Mosque, where anyone can enjoy fresh grilled meat, rice, drinks and vegetables, for absolutely nothing. And after the second Eid, all those slaughtered sheep don't just dissapear - they are given to the needy, such as yourself, to become a good weeks work of eating, plus theres surely something useful to be done with all that wool and sheepskin.