I had to go to Cairo for them. Finding a laptop to buy was impossible. It took me 18 months and 6 trips to Cairo to find a laptop. At the time there was ONE computer arcade housing about 10 shops in Cairo so it was not that odd that nobody could point me in the right direction.
Trouble was nobody knew where to get a copy. I was inspired on one trip to Cairo to go into the Ramses Hilton β just happened to be passing it β because it occurred to me they might have them for their guests. And so they did β the receptionist directed me to the Business Centre upstairs. Well, yes β I could look at one but could not buy it.
By now I was tired, frustrated and at my wits end. I let go at the hotel employee a tirade in English, about how useless it was for President Mubarak to be inviting the world to come and invest in Egypt, when one could not even buy a bloody phone directory, so one could actually go and find shops to spend money in or a place where a woman could get a haircut!
Remember those were days when the internet did not offer what it offers today. In those days one did not find furniture in a furniture shop in Luxor. You got your furniture by choosing a photo from a French catalogue and ordered a similar piece if you were lucky from a carpenter. Even at that it would have been faster, not to mention more likely to look like the photo, if imported from abroad! While it only took me 18 months to build Mara House finished in , it took me another 3 β 4 years, until the end of to finally find my way around Cairo and understand how to source the type of materials and furnishings that made Mara House what it is today.
I tell you all the above by way of explaining that, even today, guaranteed r elaxation for a tourist in Egypt requires pre-planning and organisation. When visiting a European or US city we mostly know what to expect.
