How Karen Garcia Became the Go-To Guide for Mexicans in Egypt

CairoScene

a day ago

How Karen Garcia Became the Go-To Guide for Mexicans in Egypt
When Karen first moved to Egypt from Mexico, she didn't plan on staying. Now, nine years later, she travels around the country, documenting it for Spanish-speaking travellers.
When Karen Garcia first stepped onto Egyptian soil on a cool January night in 2016, the plan was simple: teach Spanish for a short while, then move on. But plans, as she quickly learned, have a way of shifting when you're in Egypt. The first week was a blur of uncertainty—loud voices, honking cars, the sheer density of life. For seven days, she barely left the compound where she was staying, wondering if she had made a mistake. But then she allowed herself to step outside.
Cairo wrapped itself around her like a chaotic embrace—warm, unfiltered, and full of contradictions. Shopkeepers called out greetings, the scent of freshly baked baladi bread wafted through the air, and— despite the apparent disorder—she found an unexpected rhythm to it all.
Her world expanded in ways she hadn't foreseen. A chance encounter led her to begin helping Spanish-speaking travellers navigate Egypt. At first, it was just a favour—friends of friends staying in her spare room, people asking for advice on where to go. Before she knew it, she was collaborating with tour agencies, ensuring Spanish-speaking visitors experienced more than just pyramids and papyrus shops. She wasn't a licensed guide, but she was something else—a bridge between Egypt and people who, like her, were about to discover a whole new world.
'I wish I had someone like me when I first arrived,' Karen tells SceneTraveller. 'It would have made everything easier.' Now, she does for others what she once needed herself. She helps them settle in, find the right places, and get comfortable with the chaos of Cairo. Some stay in her home, renting out a room for a few nights or weeks, and through them, she gets to see Egypt for the first time again and again. 'Sometimes, people arrive feeling overwhelmed, so, if there's one special thing I do, it's to make them feel at home.'
Karen's approach is refreshingly unpretentious, which is perhaps the key to her success. She doesn't call herself a guide, nor does she see what she does as a business. 'If I have an extra bed, why not let someone stay? If I'm going to Luxor and someone else wants to come, why not go together?'
Yet, despite Karen's nine-year run in the country of pharaohs, she still wavers. Every year, she tells herself she might leave, that this will be the year she moves on. Yet, every year, she stays. The idea of Kuwait or Saudi Arabia hovers on the horizon, but so does something deeper—the realisation that Egypt has shaped her in ways she never anticipated.
She no longer fights the system. Where once she bristled at inefficiencies, she now watches a sunset from a stalled taxi and sees beauty instead of delay. 'Every time you go out of your house in Egypt you will have an experience—either good or bad—but you will have something to tell after. That's the magic of this country.'
Egypt, she has come to understand, isn't a place you control—it's a place you surrender to. And in that surrender, she has found something close to home.