Walk Like an Egyptian

11 Jan

Written By beerfloat.calm

Or run before that honking car hits you!

Floater’s Blog: On an island in the Nile (so that’s sorta like floating) Date, January 11th, 2026

I finally understand the meaning of the term, “Walk like an Egyptian”.

I’m in Cairo, Egypt witnessing it and I also saw it to a lesser extent in Sharm El Sheikh a couple of days ago.

You might think it is some dance move which has your arms out in some hieroglyphic pose, but this is completely wrong. It truly is a walk, and it is a ‘cool as a cucumber’ walk. It is also a walk on a busy road or highway where there is no sidewalk and lots of traffic – with your back to the traffic!

Just pick a lane and walk. You can do it solo but groups of three or four cover a much wider swath of road. Don’t worry about the traffic, they will just weave around you. The drivers are used to it. They train for it when nobody is walking in a lane. It is just a simple straddle of the dotted line so anyone walking can have the other half of the lane. No problem.

In fact, if you straddle this line and that driver straddles that line then this three-lane highway can hold four vehicles side by side. Brilliant!

Imagine how bad the traffic jams would be if these smart drivers didn’t figure out how to add any extra lane of traffic.

I won’t even get into the time saved making a right hand turn from two rows of cars over to the left. What a waste it would have been to have eased over a couple of lanes in stages when you can just carve across from where you are. Duh.

Getting back to walking like an Egyptian. There is an alternative version which has the ‘walker’ in a perpendicular movement to the flow of vehicular traffic.

This is the really exciting one!

For this walk, you may want to add an element of fun such as texting. More time saved too!

At a normal saunter it takes about fifteen seconds to cross three lanes of highway blacktop – sorry that’s four lanes of Egyptian traffic. Now even my less than nimble thumbs can pound out a love note and naughty photo in that time. Plus, now you are on the other side of the road. Two tasks complete. Isn’t life grand.

I’m still a beginner so I’m having trouble blocking all the honking out but I’m catching on quick. I started training with one way traffic on a single lane street. It took a few tries but by watching the eyes of the drivers who are not texting you can see that they are waiting for your first step to start their weave – whether that is rushing past in front of you or tucking just behind your heels if your pace is fast enough. If you hesitate to make that first step, they make it for you with a push of their accelerator. If you are aggressive and just throw yourself in front of them, they will honk, weave and smile, “nice job pedestrian!”

Hope I get to put out some more blogs after I start training on a three laner tomorrow!