Taxi Modernization Update

We went out to dinner on Pyramids Road tonight with our visiting friends.  After a nice dinner at the Abou Shakra restaurant we headed over to the Radio Shack store looking for a new battery charger for our friends' video camera.  After a mad dash across Pyramids, we were soon headed downtown to Mohandeseen, destination Sony Store.

This would prove to be a fruitless search but interesting, nonetheless.  The four of us piled into one of the new checkered Cairo taxis (see previous post here for the story of the new taxis).  This one was a Speranza.  But what's this?  Not only  a working meter atop the carefully fur-lined dashboard but a working DVD player on the passenger side visor.

Now as you hurtle through the streets of Cairo, you won't just have loud middle eastern music playing.  You will be treated to a DVD performance too!

We spent about an hour and a half getting to the right area and asking a couple of dozen passersby for directions in the fashion that only someone who has ridden in a Cairo taxi would understand.  We eventually found the Sony store around 11:30 and it turned out to be one of the few stores in Mohandeseen that was closed.  We'll have to come back another day, with a different driver.

One of our friends observed that a thrill ride at the amusement park only lasts two or thrree minutes.  Our ticket tonight was good for a couple of hours!