Road Rage: Cairo edition

I thought I would expand on my assertion that the commute to AUC is near-deadly. Our cab driver ran over a speed bump going 100km/hr and we almost died. He also almost crashed into another car and started swearing in Arabic (and we almost died). The drive did give us a sense of the real Cairo, one that most westerners do not get to (or want to) see. Skeletal, gutted buildings lined the highways, and all of the buildings were covered in a layer of pollution. I could see people living on the rooftops in these unfinished construction projects, and thought how dismal a life that could be.
We passed people sitting and walking on the highway (or even crossing it!). Other strange sights included an entire family (including a mother holding a baby) squished onto a motorcycle, and a table of about 100 people breaking the Ramadan fast, sitting right next to the highway.
At iftar (sunset/breaking of fast) there were men standing at the side of the road to offer glasses of some sort of brown juice to passing cars. Our driver, who was famished after a day of no water in 100 degree heat stopped to retrieve some, and offered some to us. We tried to refuse, because we had no idea what was in it and were afraid of getting ill, but we were handed plastic cups of these drinks. He urged us to drink, but since he didn't speak English we couldn't explain that Westerners could get sick from the water. Finally, he understood and took the cups and threw them out the window, much to our dismay.