Taxi flight or fight!

An experience in Cairo is not complete if you haven’t been ripped off by a taxi driver! I took a taxi to the airport from Natasha’s apartment. Natasha had said to me it shouldn’t cost much more than 40le. There are two types of taxis in Cairo - the black and white ones that you need to bargain with as they don’t use a meter, and the new all white cabs that have meters in them. I caught an all white cab, thinking that what was on the meter would be what I paid. I jumped in the first one that came past, saying ‘Airport’ to the cabbie. He looked at me blankly, obviously not understanding English, however, drove off with me anyway. I tried
to make things clearer, by flapping my arms around in the back seat - in my mind replicating the exact picture of an airplane flying in the clouds…I think to him, I looked like an over-excited chicken, as he shook his head at me! He pulled over to someone standing on the street, asking if they spoke English, and with luck they did and we were on our way to the airport. I was satisfied when I began to see ‘airport’ signs along the way. We were driving along, when suddenly the driver pulled over and put his hazard lights on. I looked at him, confused. He turned around and signaled for me to wait, then got out of the car and ran off. It took me a little while before it dawned on me that he was probably relieving himself, as I watched the meter tick over! 5 minutes later, he was back in the car and I sighed in relief. As we pulled up to the airport, there was a parking ticket booth, and the driver turned around to me indicating he wanted me to pay. I looked at him in confused, trying to ask why I had to pay since he wasn’t parking. We pulled up to the booth, and the booth guy lent in and explained it was 5le, but didn’t answer my question. The driver picked up the ticket, drove off and kept asking for money. I gave him 5le, and he shook his said, and wanted more, indicating that this was only for one way. It was then I was sure something was really wrong, but couldn’t reason with him. I gave him 20le. We arrived at the airport, sure enough, the meter at 40le. I handed 20le over, with 5le for the ticket. He wasn’t happy. He took the 20le, then before I knew what he was doing, he took 50le out of my wallet. I expected change, he wouldn’t give it, I said no, too much, he merely grinned at me and blew me an infuriating kiss! So in a dramatic display of displeasure, I grabbed all my stuff, gave him a screwed up angry look, got out of the cab and slammed the door. He blew more kisses at me. Cairo had got me, and I learnt a lesson.