The lion-headed woman is from the courtyard of the Egyptian Museum.

The guidebook said to beware of the touts greeting you as you leave the Egyptian international airport, and that is why I was gruff with the young man who asked me as I headed toward the exit, just as the guidebook said would happen.

"You need a taxi? You need a hotel."

"No, thanks," I said and walked by him toward the forming queue.

But he was at my elbow. "You have a taxi?"

"No," I said.

"No, no, no," I said. "La, la, la." ("La" is Arabic for "no.")

He looked at me incredulously. What I said made no sense. Lugging two bags and a knap sack, apparently not a member of an organized tour for which these things are prearrange, and also looking too old, and dare I say...debonair, to be a backpacking student who needs to pinch every penny, looking, in fact, like an affluent American, a stranger in a strange land, clearly I was a man in need of a taxi.

"Why not you don't need? You need a taxi." He was a young man, probably in his early thirties, wearing slacks, a tie, a jacket, his skin hue a little redder, a little lighter than many of the Arabs I had seen in Jordan. And his features, maybe with a hint of Sudanese or Ethiopian blood--I just mean that there was a mix, and in days in Egypt so far, I have seen that mix with varying formulations, some more predominately African, some more Arab, some more Caucasian but the other quality I think I was perceiving was the Egyptian itself. Not the others, Egyptian itself.

And, he looked OK to me.

But I said, "No, thank you. Shukhran, la. I'm fine." Which wasn't altogether true because I had no idea how I'd get to my hotel or whether the hotel even had room for me. But the book said to brush off the touts.

"It's not expensive."

"No."

"Where are you going?"

"Saunamek." I was trying to pronounce the name of the island neighborhood on the west side Cairo that briefly splits the Nile's flow. The airport is in the northeast suburbs. And, by the way, when people ask me questions like this, I don't know why I tell them the truth.

"Sau...what?"

By this point, I had shuffled to the end of the exiting queue. I tried to pronounce the word again: "k."

"Za...Za...Ah. ZAMelek!"

Yes. Zamelek."

"Zamelek is far. A taxi will be expensive, maybe forty dollars."

"No. I'm fine."

"Why..."

"No."

"Come take a look."

"No."

"A limousine."

"No."

"Fair price."

I ignored him.

"Just look."

I looked straight through him.

He sighed.

But how would I get to Zamalek? I couldn't even pronounce the name properly. On the map it was just a few inches away. And the Cairo airport was filled with hundreds of people, and somehow all the others looked like they knew where they were going. Some had drivers waiting form them with their names written on little signs. Others were part of tour groups and huddled happily and excitedly together in anticipation of their first night by the Nile. And, by the way, it was night, close to 8, and by the time I got to the hotel than my guidebook recommended, it would probably already be filled, and then I'd be lost in Zamalek trying to find a hotel in the middle of the night. Alone. Middle-aged. With two bags. And with a knapsack filled with camera gear heavier than anyone know. Debonair...but alone!

"Why you won't look?" He was back. "Twenty dollars. A taxi is expensive." And from the tone in his voice and the look on his face, he was authentically confused, and hurt. Ah, no, I had hurt his feelings. And then I began to empathize. Crap. A hurt tout.

"Twenty dollars?" I said suspiciously.

"Twenty dollars. You won't find better," he said in tones impaled by my suspicion.

He led me upstairs, I following still suspiciously, to an upstairs office where a confident woman settled with me on a fare of $18, and the tout led me down again, and then out to the loading zone, wanting to know why I had not trusted him.