Trip to Cairo

Two years ago I spent a holiday in Egypt. The general neighborhood was in Hurghada. From that location, in one of the days, we went in an extra trip to Cairo – the main goal was visiting the famous Egyptology Museum. As it is costumed in Egypt we went in a caravan of buses, 20 from what I remember. This is the only way you could travel in Egypt. Is a form of giving a sense of trust to the tourists after a few years ago was a terrorist attack. From what I know if it was to happen again there will be no effect, but however as a tourist it gives you an extraordinary safety feeling. For how many times in life did ever happen to you to be escorted by several army cars and police and everybody and everyone to stop whenever you want to pass?

Coming back to my trip … I left in the morning from the hotel, when it was nearly light, with the breakfast at package (2 oranges, 2 small bananas and 2 boiled eggs and some croissants with nuts and cream and a box of juice) and after we gathered other tourists from their hotels we entered on the highway which goes to Cairo. They call it a highway but actually is a wide road with only two lanes, but it was very good. On the right side of the road there was the Red Sea (we had the luck to see the dolphins a few times) and on the left side there were hotel near another hotel and so on. At that time the area was in touristic development and it was building without stop. Let me say again, they were building during night, when it was cool… During day there was no worker on the streets or somewhere else. I was looking surprised at the countless hotels, one bigger than the other one, and I was asking myself from where would they get all the tourists to populate them? The guide told me not to worry… demand and supply.

As we went further on, getting closer to Cairo, the guide started telling us all kind of histories and she started presenting us the life Egypt behind the hotels… actually something that a tourist never gets to see. Cairo is the largest capital from the Arab world, the biggest city in Africa and nobody knows how large the population is. Some say there is around 16 million people, others say 20 million. However it would be the number, add another 3-4 million of tourists annually and the result just terrifies you. In the city the buses cannot stay together so they plan to meet at a point at the edge of the city for the road to Hurghada.

For more read the next post: Life in Egypt

Discover Cairo – Life in Egypt behind the hotels

The city doesn’t have a general sewerage (sewer and water). The buildings of the wealthy people have their own systems; the same for the businesses and hotels. These represent less than 30% from the total of the constructions. The rest … to the potty with them. What happens with the potty? It empties in the back of the house. Many houses have a small shop to the ground floor and at the upper floors people live there. The potty is tossed from the window.

The city doesn’t have a sanitation service. One from the city hall. And there is no garbage hole, somewhere at the edge of the city. There is only for the wealthy man, small businesses, or the ones which pick the garbage and toss it on wastelands. So what are poor people doing with the garbage? The same thing they do with the potty. They toss them behind their houses. When the situation gets insupportable someone tosses a cigarette or a match and in a few hours the garbage space is “cleaned”. In this way we found out why there was smoke between two houses and people were staying calmly only two steps away from the burning garbage.

The poor people’s houses are made from bricks of clay dried in the sun. Almost 10 years ago it rained in Cairo and it rained for a couple of hours. The city was drowned by the waters for two weeks until the water evaporated, because there are no channels. The shops and the houses were flooded, every one of them being built at the same level as the ground and without a base. Bricks were just placed on the ground.

But all this is not something a tourist will see. The route a bus has in the city has no connection with these areas. We gave to the driver 1 Euro from each one of us so that he could take us there after the guide told us all that. It was his salary for one month. The car was going slowly and we were shockingly looking on the window – we weren’t able to photograph anything because it was devastating what we were seeing. We were looking at them as calves but the poor ones were looking at us as they were looking at some aliens. They rarely had the opportunity to see a car on the narrow streets, on which not once we were close to kick some exposed “merchandise” in front of the houses. We didn’t went off the bus and we also didn’t open the windows … or else we would’ve died gazed.

The guide was saying that she had the opportunity to see a dead camel in the Nile … after a week when she came back in the city with another group, the camel was still there.

For more read the next post: “City of the Dead”

“City of the dead”

Now a very  macabre information: from the many millions of the population, a couple of thousand of them  – some say there are like 100.000, other say triple that number – live in two of the graveyards of the city, at the east side of the city.

These two graveyards are known under the name of “City of The Dead”. In the old cemeteries, where noble families buried their dead 100 years ago, people live. Big families live their life there. They fight for survival in those conditions which are worse than fights in the in jungle. Nobody knows how many kids are born there or how many people are dying of starvation, diseases or criminal acts from their brothers of suffering.

They don’t have id papers or properties. The first ones which hidden there were the criminals and the robbers. Then poor people came from the country side hoping they will get a better life in the capital, abandoning their dirty huts in the desert. At the beginning, the authorities didn’t know, then they ignored them and today they allow tourists to enter in the City of the Dead on their own responsibility. They just pretend they don’t know and they don’t see anything. We refused to visit that place knowing that the main activity is robbery, in the day light.

From those people paid criminals are picked, though however fascinated of Egypt we were we didn’t desire the supreme sacrifice. In the graveyard there was neither water nor electricity. Anyway they wouldn’t have had money to pay for it. However many of them don’t have that even at that houses at the surface. Everybody dresses all in black, both women and men cover their faces, but not because of the religion… It’s said that when they learn how to walk children learn how to hold the knife in their hand, not to eat, but to fight.

I don’t even what to know how life is there.

Cairo Holiday

Bigest city on the african continent | Cairo Holiday

Here you can feel the way beats the heart of  The Wild East-Egypts capital-Cairo. Is the bigest city on the african continent,the city “of the 1000 minarets”, The East Gate”. The city is separated by the Nil and surrounded by sands, Cairo combines ancient history with the modern one.

Attractions | Cairo Holiday

Here are so many atractions that if you visit every day at least one,you will spend many years doing that. No doubt, the most interesting thnigs are the Piramids and the Sphinx. Beyond history, Cairo is a modern metropolis where you wount miss a thing. From elegant and luxurios hotels -to restaurants(traditional ones to italian or french with specific foods),coffe shops, premises, shops and crowded marketplaces

For more very interesting article about review hotels, optional trips, attractions, cairo holiday click here