Tourist Traps

Some of the tours I have been on in the past have stopped at “tourist traps”, where the tours claim to be teaching you about some local craft of custom but really you just learn about it for 5 minutes then they take you to the showroom and try to get you to spend lots of money. We visited three of these on our tour, some better than others.

The first was an Egyptian carpet school, where people make hand-woven carpets. There are numerous carpet schools lining the countryside near Saqqara, and our guide told us that parents send their children there in the hopes that they won’t leave the countryside and move to the city. Making carpets gives them another trade in case they decided they don’t want to be farmers for the rest of their lives. The government runs the schools, and the kids work for about three hours per day for three days per week. We entered the ground floor of the cement building, where it was relatively cool and clean. There were 20 or so giant looms set up, and 2-3 kids were working on carpets on about 5 of the looms. The guide explained what they were doing as they worked, and after about 5 minutes took us upstairs to the showroom where he offered us tea and told us there was no pressure to buy, we could just look around (this is another common thing in places like this). We didn’t even look around (none of us have houses to put a carpet in!) but headed straight back downstairs to see the kids work some more (it was pretty interesting to watch). As soon as we entered the room all the kids scampered back to their looms to begin weaving (they must only work when tourists come) and tried to get us to sit next to them and take pictures so they could get tips. I wonder how much the kids actually learn and if the story about parents sending them there to stay in the countryside is true.

Our second tourist trap was actually not that bad – we went to a papyrus store where they show tourists how papyrus paper was made by the ancient Egyptians. You could buy pictures on papyrus and have things written in hieroglyphics on them. The third we passed up because it was at the end of the first day and no one wanted to go – it was a perfume factory where you could mix your own perfumes (the ancient Egyptians sure did love their oils and scents!) And the last one we went to was in Luxor – it was an alabaster marble factory where they hand-make jars and other little things. The only time any of us bought anything was at the papyrus shop.