Two Weeks at The Lotus Hotel

The dominant color schemes of the Cairo Airport's Terminal 2 are alternating shades of grey and smudge. Though adequate in design, it is apparently a far cry from its glamorous, well-lit older sister, Terminal 1. The day I arrived in Cairo, customs was apparently a voluntary process for foreigners and I quickly emerged from the baggage claim area with all my bags intact to find Ahmed, a Lotus Hotel driver, in a small sea of drivers and Egyptian families and friends. He was holding a sign with my name on it. How wonderful to know that this was written in English and all had gone according to plan. Lufthansa, the Cairo Airport, and Ahmed were a wonderful combination.

The cab ride to the hotel was very exciting since, as a foreigner, I was not accustomed to the radical driving and pedestrianship which make Cairo streets so festive. Once at 12 Talaat Harb, I paid Ahmed and proceeded to take the ascinsir to the reception desk on the seventh floor. And thus began my strange romance with the Lotus Hotel.

The visual culture of the place spoke volumes about the hotel's history in an arcane dialect. 1956 was the year of the revolution and the hotel was founded well before then. Yet much of the Hotel - from its strange and unkempt "Solarium" on the rooftop, to the Polo Bar and Lounge with its satellited classic Arab films and gaudy comedies, to the worn wallpaper and tile of the rooms, the whole package seemed to achieve a 1970s aesthetic that was looking back to the 1940s. It was like going to the living room of grandparents, or an old Elks Lodge, or into a Ben Katchor comic strip.

And it was comfortable. Near the university and sort of in the center of Wust-Al-Balad, the downtown area, this is a good section of the city to get one's bearings in. And once the AC is on this time of year, the Lotus Hotel is a good place to sleep and recover from those first exhausting excursions. Its also a good place to get something to eat and to chill with staff when they are on break. Both of these became real pleasures for me.

I would look into apartment listings, poke around in the Wust-Al-Balad and Garden City areas, and then return to the Lotus to chat with staff in my very limited Arabic and some English, and to eat dinner. This usually involved soup, a delicious buttery plate of rice, a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers and then the main entree, usually chicken and french fries. I tended to top this off with a large bottle of water. From my conversations with Ibrahim and Samiira the cleaners, Ayman and Achmed the bellhops, and the two Muhammads in the dining room, I had some wonderful exchanges and got some good help with Arabic. I learned that tourism in Egypt is in decline and that during this recession, money is scarce. Many people had taken multiple shifts or were working six days a week to make up for a decline in tips, which is really where the money is if you work in a hotel here, or anywhere, I would guess.

When I finally left for my apartment, I was beset upon by some of the staff asking for additional baksheesh (tips). This left a strange feeling in my stomach; a combination of a sense that I'd been duped, and maybe that I just hadn't been tipping enough throughout my time there. Even my taxi driver caught the whiff of a wayward Amrikki and demanded far more than I would have expected, just because I was leaving a hotel. But I was just leaving the Lotus Hotel, I had thought to myself, as if it was my house or something. Ah, well. I still plan to go back and visit.