Then around 5pm, our taxi driver, who had hung out with us the whole time, announced he was ready to take us back into town. Get a load of this fucking guy! Egypt's most famous "land pilot."
We all piled into a pickup truck taxi driven by a man everyone was (sort of?) friends with who claimed he was famous all over Egypt for his spectacular driving. (And by "spectacular" he meant "so fast and recklessly that you almost poop in your pants).
One more flexdown for the road! I love how he's basically putting his muscle-bound elbow right into his friend's earhole. (PS - how much does Mohamed's friend in the middle look like a young Gregory Hines? Crazytown!).
...other friends! Hahaha. I forget this guy's name, but he was hilarious. He was like one of the few guys in the town who was super into bodybuilding and was excited to have someone puny like me to flex-down next to. This photo makes me laugh every time I look at it.
I ended up drinking and shooting the shit with these three until well past 3am. And on the off chance that anyone in Swedish Immigration ever reads this, I'm more than happy to testify on behalf of Mohamed and Maria's love! It's very real and they seem very happy together! ;)
I found a small table by myself, ordered a pizza and a big frosty mug of beer and was reading a book when these three characters came over and asked me if I wanted to join them! Who could say no to that? From L to R: My new friends Thomas, Maria and Mohamed!
Maria was from Sweden and approached me because she pegged me for a fellow Swede. She was a self-proclaimed "cougar" who came to Egypt on vacation after a terrible divorce, met Mohamed and fell in love and they'd been together for a couple years. They explained to me that they were working on getting Mohamed a visa so he could live in Sweden, but that everyone was skeptical about their love and thought it was some kind of scam to get a visa!
