The Man with the Key is Sleeping

"I wanted to do this from the beginning—wake up the doorman," muttered the real estate agent, pointing at the young man beside the snoring doorman. "But he would not let me."

We were hunting for keys to an apartment. They were, predictably, in the doorman's pocket. But arriving at this seemingly obvious truth had taken some time.

First, we'd trekked up and down the elevators knocking on doors, hoping for cleaners to be in the flats. When this had produced no results, we'd gone back downstairs. The real estate agent argued with the young man for a while, and finally the young man told the agent to call the owner. The agent called the owner, who told him to wake the doorman and get the keys from the doorman's pocket.

"I lived in Kuwait for six years," said the real estate agent, an older Egyptian man, perhaps in his sixties. "I do things the Kuwait way. I wake the man who is sleeping on the job."

I had to agree with him that his approach seemed sensible. But was my agent honest? How would I know? When you walk into an real estate office off the street, you have no way of knowing if you are dealing with someone good or bad at their job. What I knew was that he SEEMED honest and seemed to have the same approach any agent would have. We walked around to all the major (dilapidated) tower blocks in Zamalek, and he would have extended conversations with doormen, who invariably produced a set of keys. We'd then board elevators (in varying states of disrepair), go high up in the sky, and look at apartments.

At first, I said I was looking for somewhere small and cheap, safe and clean.

This produced $700-$800 charmers that look like this:


We moved up in price rapidly once I declared that I didn't want to see any more ugly places. We then started looking at "really nice places." But apparently "really nice" to my agent meant faux tiger-skin rugs, huge glass chandeliers, blue-and-gold bulbous vases the size of three heads, gold-painted ornate picture frames, and velvet Elvises. Okay, not velvet Elvis, but you get the point. "Nice" meant seriously gaudy. Which would have been funny if the kitchens weren't completely revolting, or if the gaudy furniture had been relatively new. But it was all old and sad. (I did go home and look at Ikea.com to see if there was an Ikea here--maybe I could go unfurnished? No such luck.)

The problem, explained the agent, was that we were looking 1) in Zamalek, which is in high-demand and quite expensive and 2) for a short-term lease of only two months, which means paying more and having fewer places to choose from.

After the first few places, I started backpedaling. He got less chatty. "I am thinking," I explained, "that maybe I am wasting your time. Maybe I do NOT want to rent a flat. Maybe I can just stay in a hotel." A hotel would be clean. A hotel would have wi-fi. A hotel would have free breakfast, and people to talk to. And a desk clerk to ask questions of, such as "How much is a taxi to Dokki" or "Where do I buy an electric kettle so I can have coffee in my room?"

The last place we looked at was $1200 a month. Yow. I'd pay that in New York. This is Cairo. But then, this is Zamalek too.

It was much nicer than the others. Had a nice terrace, a washing machine, ADSL, three (no, I only need one) bedrooms, and a great view of the Nile. But I was tired. I looked around quickly and thought "$1200 is too much." We left. I took my leave of my agent and instead made a circuit of hotels in Zamalek, finding out prices in all of them.

The best one was clean and tiny, with wi-fi on the balcony but no desk in the room. It was the Mayfair, about $550 a month. The others were much pricier. But then, I kept going back to that Nile view.

I couldn't say "Nile view: Priceless." After all, the Nile had been in my backyard in Uganda. And that Nile had hippos. But damn, that Cairo Nile was a nice view. But was it $1300 plus $120 fee over two months worth of nicer? And why hadn't I thought to see how many electrical outlets there were, or if the water pressure was all right? I hadn't even checked to see if there were kitchen appliances, or forks. Did the washing machine work? Was the place clean?

Still, $1200 a month. That's a lot for almost anywhere.

But that view of the Nile. Priceless?