cairo at 3 am: vintage clothes, desert vibes, and one very judgmental donkey

started this post at 2 am because i couldn’t sleep and realized i’d forgotten to pack a decent scarf. possible factors: too much coffee before bed, or that eerie calm of 16.71 degrees when the city feels like it’s holding its breath. i just checked and it’s 16.71, which is…there right now, hope you like that kind of thing. the air smells like distant fried dough and ancient regret, which is conveniently perfect for snooping around

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i’m in cairo, obviously. or at least the part where the ancient ruins meet the chaotic chaos. wandering near khaled ibrahim street, i stumbled into a tucked-away thrift store that looked like it belonged in a 1970s batch of lost films. the owner, a woman in a floral dress that screamed ‘vintage chic,’ let me rummage through a bin of mismatched hats. found a fedora with a tiny embroidered spider on it. called it ‘monkey bucks’ and bought it for 20 egyptian pounds. which is like finding a golden ticket in a sewer.

then i heard it-the noise of a donkey braying outside. turned out it was parked outside a kebab shop that was 80% mystery meat and 20% regret. locals kept talking about this donkey. one guy said it belonged to a disillusioned consultant who quit his job to ‘live the dream’ but now it’s just…hanging out. another whispered that if you hit it with a flip-flop, it’ll sing. i didn’t. i just took a photo of it sniffing a bag of stale bread. included it somewhere. i don’t remember where.

"i heard the spider hat is cursed," one drunk tourist told me while pointing at the alley. he swore it used to belong to a guy who vanished during a sandstorm. probably a stretch, but cairo isn’t known for its transparency.

the weather? consistent. 16.71 all day, feels_like dropped to 15.01 when no one was looking. doesn’t matter. i’m here. grabbed a local zucchini from a market stall and threw it at a street artist who was painting a mural of a blurry dude in a trench coat. he didn’t flinch. maybe he was dead inside. or maybe he just didn’t care. who knows? his neighbors were dancing to boom bap music that sounded like it was looped from a 1999 remix.

"if you get bored, laguna is just a short drive away," someone told me at the hostel. laguna? i asked. they shrugged. it’s a cult town with a lake and people who think they’re royalty. weird, but hey-free internet access.

i checked yelp reviews before heading to the olかな coffee shop. one said it was ‘overpriced but the Dalgona coffee is magical.’ another claimed the barista once tried to stage a coup using sugar packets. all i got was a pancake with a side of existential dread. but the WiFi was strong, so i spent an hour uploading this post to unsplash.com. which, by the way, here are some random photos of cairo:

forgot to mention the neighbors. or maybe i did. if you’re skipping around and suddenly see a guy in a kipah yelling at a taxi, that’s probably just aaron, the cab driver who once claimed he saw napoleon in a restaurant. he’s a legend. or a liar. probably both.

the reviews are all over the place. tripadvisor says the souk is ‘a maze of human desperation and spicy kebabs.’ yelp disagrees, calling it ‘a hidden gem for people who enjoy bargaining and moldy souvenirs.’ local boards swear the metro station at 3am is haunted by a siren. i didn’t believe it until i heard it 17 times. then again, maybe it’s just the city’s way of saying ‘welcome.’

no idea if i’ll stay here tomorrow. maybe. the spider hat feels important. or maybe i’ll just nap until 7 and head to laguna. either way, 16.71 degrees is my new favorite temperature. keep it local, keep it weird.

ps: someone warned me that if you ask for directions at 3am, you’ll get sent to a mosque. i asked. they nodded. i’m fine. probably.