Cairo: Impressions, people, and negotiating in the markets

Egypt is fascinating. The people in Cairo for the most part are warm and friendly. There is a strong culture of hospitality in Islam; they also realize that their livelihood relies on tourism. I had one shopkeeper tell me “other Arab countries have oil, we have tourism”. On multiple occasions after a long negotiation I had Egyptians ask “are you happy?” They would work hard to get as much money out of you as possible, but in the end they did not want you to feel cheated. After a camel ride to the pyramids, the shopkeeper made sure we were happy with the experience and then asked us to come back to Egypt with family and friends.


Negotiating in the markets is quite an experience. Egyptians love to negotiate. They start high and expect you to work them as hard as they work you. When walking by the shops / stands they try everything to start a conversation and get you to come in and shop. Typically there is not a hard sell to buy something once inside; they just want you to look around. They show you things to buy and if you have no interest, they simply show you something else. This goes on until you basically walk out the door. I think they realize that it is all about numbers, the more that look, the more that will buy. I was in the markets with a Brit named Nick who wanted one of the chessboards that have mother of pearl inlay and are hand crafted. The salesman started high and the negotiation goes back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Finally Nick says this is my last offer, if you can’t sell for this price then I will go elsewhere. Of course there are a few more counter offers, but when the salesman realizes he is serious they agree on a price. After all that work he looks at Nick with a big smile and says “how about a 15 Egyptian pound tip for me?” A guy sitting on a table watching chirps in and says “yea, how about a 10 for me because I like your sunglasses”. We started to laugh and left quickly before they talked us out of more money. All in all, we found you could talk them down about 50%. One of their favorite questions to ask is “how many wives do you have”? I typically would answer with 7 or so, and then complain about how they spend all my money making me poor. How could I afford such an expensive price?