A typical traffic accident in Cairo

On our way home from Ain Sukhna yesterday we saw what probably is a very common accident here in Cairo. For unknown reasons that irritated everybody on the bus, our driver decided not to take the Maadi exit off the ring road, but to drive all around the area so that we would enter Maadi from the cornishe. The traffic was very dense and the noise deafening; cars were honking, people yelling, loud truck engines running… On the off ramp, one of those micro buses with people hanging out of it was trying to cut through traffic and pass a small car when suddenly the car turned slightly, and the microbus rammed right into its rear side with tires shrieking and a big crashing sound. People on the microbus got hurt, children were crying, and we were stuck between the car, the truck in front of it that also had got hit, and a melon cart. After a few minutes the owner of the melons could be located and the cart wheeled off to the side. We got finally through and poured with the rest of the traffic onto the cornishe towards our home, where we arrived safely a good half hour later.