"... Would you like a taxi?"
You have to be careful when catching a taxi at places like train stops or airports because the taxi fare varies greatly depending on who's taxi you enter. At CAI, there are three rounds of taxi cab drivers. The first are the "official" guys, their target is foreigners who didn't plan for limos or tour buses beforehand. These guys work in a kiosk, speak fluent English, and they even have a clipboard full of "official" prices to different destinations within Cairo. His taxi is the most expensive because he seems legitimate, and truth be told, he is a little more legitimate that the others because at least he knows how to work the system. The second line of defenses comes right after I exit the airport. These prices are generally too high, but I just wanted to get to my destination, so we agreed on a price and he took me to the car, but then asked me to wait. He told his buddy to watch me while he looked for another customer. I told him I wasn't going to wait, so I went to the third line of taxis: the guys that just wait in their cars and don't try to play games to entice you into their taxis. These drivers wanted to agree on a price up front, so we agreed on a fair price.
Here's where we get into the bartering. After I put all my stuff in the taxi, the cabbie told me that I had to pay 5 more pounds (equivalent $1) for the parking ticket.
I call this request the "Just a Dollar Game." It's a game between Egyptians and foreigners, and it always begins once a sale is made. If you can score an extra dollar for every transaction that you make you are going to be considerably more successful, especially since this is always a bottom line profit. So, this is an important economic game. Usually this game is played in a souk (Arabic marketplace), where you might be bartering over a sweatshirt, soccer jersey, or scarves. There's an initial bartering process that usually begins with two vastly different prices between the customer and merchant. After a couple rounds of converging prices, the merchant will try to close the deal. If he can't simply get the foreigner to pay for his overpriced good/service, then he'll concede to the foreigner's offer. To him, the sale has been made, but instead of just giving up he offers one dollar more than the foreigner's offer. The idea is that the foreigner (untrained in the art of bartering) is happy that they are so close to an agreement that the foreigner might as well just pay the extra one dollar to finalize the transaction. But, if the foreigner is smart, he will know that like him a dollar is just a dollar to the merchant. The merchant would far rather make the transaction than lose a sale because he was stubborn over a dollar. So that's where the "Just a Dollar Game" starts.
"We already agreed on 60 (a really generous price in the first place), so I'm not going to pay an extra dollar" (My lines translated from Arabic)
"You speak Arabic good. Don't worry, one dollar is no big deal"
"Great, then we don't have a problem. The price is 60"
"60 plus 5 is 65"
"55 plus 5 is 60"
"The price of the taxi is 60 plus 5 for the ticket"
"I play basketball and soccer. I don't play the dollar game"
"Ok, no problem..." goes on to talk about how his son teaches Arabic and tells me about his service in the military. You have to have two faces here, the bartering face and the human face; once you get the bartering out of the way, you can just be yourself and meet someone new.
