it sneaks up on you

Some people have been saying this for the past few years, especially my Egyptian colleagues… I didn’t believe them at all, and in fact I almost laughed a few times, but just in the past few days I came to realize that they were right– Cairo is not that cheap a city anymore.

Granted, you can still live an extremely inexpensive lifestyle here if you want; there are plenty of very poor people here, and they manage to scrape by. If you eat street food every day, buy your pita bread from government bakeries or the guys on bicycles, and wear traditional rural clothing, you can live plenty cheaply. But none of us have time to stand in line for that bread, and we can’t wear that clothing without looking like we are mocking poor Egyptians by wearing it.

Electronics have always been way overpriced here for reasons of tariffs. (Not that there is a local electronics industry that is being protected, but just because electronics can easily be treated as luxury goods and taxed accordingly.) Things like stereos and laptops can easily be twice as expensive here as in the West, which is why I never buy them here. Good restaurants, good shirts, and good shoes are all just as pricey here as in the USA. Books are just as expensive, and sometimes more so. Music and DVD’s, just as expensive, if not more so.

What is still cheap, then? Taxis, though less so than before. You can still take taxis everywhere all the time and not feel much of a pinch. The Metro is very cheap (about 15 Euro Cents per ride) but doesn’t go most of the places one needs to go; there are still just two lines in operation, though the third line (the one to Zamalek) is slowly under construction. Flights out of Cairo aren’t such a bad deal either.

Food-wise, koshury is still a great bargain, but Zamalek has never been a good neighborhood for koshury: too upscale here.

As for hotels, it’s just as with food… The good Egyptian hotels are no bargain at all, but you can always find reasonable accommodation very cheaply as long as you’re willing to put up with a few warts on the room.

Rent isn’t so bad, either. My flat is a palace, easily the nicest place I’ve ever lived in, and in a fine building. And I was just told the market rent value for it recently: just over $600/month (the University covers rent for us, and we never see a bill, so I didn’t have any idea what the price on this place was). By contrast, my last place in Chicago was a studio in Bucktown before Bucktown was really gentrified, and that was around $900/month.

This is a definite change from when I arrived in Cairo in 2000. At that time, it was definitely a very cheap city all the way around, with the permanent exception of electronics.