You want taxi?

Being a foreigner is a rough gig. Everywhere you go you're followed by taxi drivers and touts, sometimes grabbing your arm, usually just stopping right in your path, but always yelling craziness at you. Luxor was probably the worst. Here are few things we've heard on the street:

• "Wow! You lucky man!" -to Jeremy, usually after I yell no at some tout.
• "Hi skin head!" -to Jeremy from annoying little street kids and sometimes from touts too.
• "Good butt!" -to me by a tout I refused to pay heed to. Jeremy came to my defense and told the guy where to go and how to get there. :)
• "How can I spend your money?" -to both of us in a night market.

And then there are other funny stories about not so much what the touts said but more like what they did.

In Georgia, we got really tired of fighting of the "vultures" (touts) and started cawing at them when ever they bothered us (you've got to somehow make it fun). Well, the plan backfired in Alexandria when a carriage driver started cawing back! We exploded laughing.

In Luxor, while walking down the night market, several touts were fascinated by Jeremy's shaved head and felt compelled to reach out and rub his head as we walked by. It's so funny how people all over the world can't understand why someone would want no hair... People often tell him he looks like Bruce Willis. :)

But of all the touts, I think the carriage drivers are the worst. Their horses are so depressing. Most of the time you can see their ribs and hip bones protruding from under their fur and often there are open wounds on their knees. Once we saw a horse fall in the street and his whole underside was covered with open wounds and tons of flies. It really makes you sad. And then the drivers run them like crazy across the pavement with metal shoes, driving them with whips. At night you can see oblivious foreigners riding on the back laughing and cheering on their driver as he races other carriages down the street at dangerous speeds. Of all the touts in Egypt, I hate the carriage drivers the most. One time, after being followed by one for several blocks, Jeremy and I felt compelled to lecture him on his substandard--if that!--care of his horse. Of course the man heard nothing of what we said between his intermittent pleas for us to take a ride but we felt better for finally saying something to someone. If you ever come to Egypt, don't ride in a horse carriage. Don't support this unethical treatment of animals. But if you absolutely must take one, make sure you inspect the horse and NEVER get on one that looks sick. Don't be a accomplice in this act of cruelty.