Driving
The only thing scarier than driving in Cairo is cycling, which is tantamount to suicide. Dashes, crawls and finely judged evasions are the order of the day; donkey carts and jaywalkers trust in motorists' swift reactions. Any collision draws a crowd. Minor dents are often settled by on-the-spot payoffs, but should injury occur, it's wise to involve a cop right away. Multistorey car parks, such as the one on Midan Ataba, are ignored as motorists park bumper-to-bumper along every kerb, leaving their handbrakes off so vehicles can be shifted by the local minairdy (whom they tip 25pt-GBPE1). Given all this, it's no surprise that few foreigners drive in Cairo. To rent a car you must be at least 25 years old and have an International Driving Licence, held for at least a year. At last count, the cheapest of the big agencies was Budget (head office: 5 Sharia el-Makrizi, Zamalek, tel 340-0070; Cairo Airport tel 265-2395), which has Suzuki Swifts at US$50 per day, plus US$7 daily collision waiver, 12 percent tax and US20c per kilometre up to a maximum of 100km. A less expensive Egyptian company, Thrifty Egypt Limousine (central reservations tel 012/216-0531, with branches at the new airport and big hotels), offers the same car at about 20 percent less. Hertz, Avis and Europcar (all with offices at the airport and also found in most of the big hotels) are worth trying too. Many of these agencies offer the preferable and reasonably priced option of rented cars with drivers . Average rates for a driver are around US$15 for a ten-hour day, plus US$2 for each extra hour of driving time. For overnight trips, you'll also be expected to pay about US$15 per night for his expenses and trouble. For shorter jaunts, consider renting a chauffeur-driven Mercedes from Misr Limousine (tel 285-6124; desks at major hotels), or Europcar (tel 347-4712), both of which charge by the hour.
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