On a two-week Egypt trip with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT; see our feature in the April issue of Boca magazine), you’ll have plenty of opportunities to peruse Cairo and Luxor for souvenirs. But caution is required. Shopping in Egypt is tricky, and it’s rife with paradoxes. It’s just as easy to be scammed out of hundreds of dollars as it is to find the deal of the lifetime. Approach every transaction with skepticism, and by all means haggle: The first price a vendor offers you is never the final price.
Vendors will find you almost literally everywhere, whether you’re shopping or not. The moment you arrive at one of the high-tourist destinations—or sometimes the moment you step outside your hotel—they will swarm around you with tchotchkes or T-shirts or shawls in hand, and it’s often difficult to shake them.
One of the most surreal spectacles during our seven-night journey on the Nefertiti riverboat was the slow passage through a lock, during which time a cluster of vendors in kayaks roped themselves to the side of the boat and displayed their wares to us. Some even threw items from their tiny vessels onto the top deck of the Nefertiti, unsolicited, for our consideration. To my surprise, this up-front sales pitch worked on one of my fellow-passengers: She threw down $5 for a matching, camel-themed tablecloth and napkin set, the vendor lunging for the money before it landed in the Nile.
We experienced the negative side of the Egyptian retail experience our first night in Cairo, when we wandered outside our hotel, looking like the lost, naïve and hopelessly Caucasian tourists we were. A local quickly noticed our gullibility and took us aside, promising a shortcut to Tahrir Square—just follow him! All the while, he spun us a fanciful tale: He was a visitor himself, in town for his sister’s wedding, and he’s a professional artist. Within moments, we had turned a corner into a less hospitable street and were spirited into his shop, where he sold papyrus art depicting familiar Egyptian icons. He told us he made each piece by hand, when it became pretty clear that these were mass-manufactured pieces that were more than likely imported. By the time he had us sit down, over hot tea, to discuss payment for the “free gifts” he “made” for us, we realized it was time to get out of there.
OAT trips include stops at two legitimate bazaars, which are the best markets for snagging reasonably priced items.
“Big Mo” Khalil, our Trip Experience Leader, refers to Khan El Khalidi as the “Chinese market,” because of the influx of imported goods. It’s a place of relentless bustle—a hive of activity where shopping can be a contact sport. Mass-produced trinkets shared space with occasional antique dealers. Elaborate hookahs, inlaid Backgammon sets, flow-y dresses, rotary phones and typewriters were on display, as shop owners waited outside their stores amid the aroma of incense, beckoning shoppers inside. Stray cats, as in much of Egypt, scurried from every nook and cranny.
The Luxor Market is even better, because it boasts some of the most authentic spice vendors in Egypt. We sat with Moses, one such vendor, whose store was a cornucopia of aromatic delights in jars, bins and tins. He passed samples of peppermint, vanilla, “meat spice” and other herbs around our group, from one nose to the next, and he earned a small fortune from us that day.
And I left with a cute shirt depicting a camel holding a camera, supplemented with the text “Smile! You’re in Egypt.” I dutifully haggled, with the store owner feigning what a burden it was to sell me the shirt for $12, but we ultimately settled. I soon found out the shirt, a Chinese import, should have been $5. You live, you learn!
This Web Extra is from the April 2023 issue of Boca magazine. For more like this, click here to subscribe to the magazine.
