I withdraw my hand from the Nile and go back up the stairs to the street. Cars stream by, crowding together, constantly honking. In Cairo the drivers accelerate madly into any opening they find. They brake suddenly, inches apart. The roads are potted, and the dotted traffic lines are faded and ignored.
Pedestrians take their chances.
The city's few traffic lights are indistinguishable dots on the edges of a sea of fuming, blaring vehicles. Many Cairenes live by selling services to tourists, and focus on anyone who looks like a tourist. Street peddlers and bazaar proprietors lunge at you if you show the slightest interest in their wares. A peddler near the Egyptian Museum follows me for a block, imploring me in broken English to buy a sheath of painted papyrus sheets. Five of these for just ten pounds, then I go home, I'm done for the day.