Cairo

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Cairo is maddest place we have ever been to. The traffic is absolutely unbelievable. The population is somewhere between 18 and 22 million people (everyone you ask gives a different number and I don’t think anyone really knows anyhow) and they’re all trying to drive somewhere at any given time. It seems to be anarchy rules, with everyone honking horns, cutting in and out and basically just driving where and how they want.
The city is choked in the thickest smog layer with a permanent haze gracing the skyline at all times.
Anyhow we saw the Pyramids and the Sphinx, rode a camel through the desert and got hassled by nearly half the population to buy something, look at something or go somewhere, for a price. There is military and police everywhere with machine guns hanging off their shoulders, although even they want to rip you off by taking a photo for you and then want payment for it. Corruption at its finest. All good fun though.
One major disappointment however was the amount of rubbish and litter everywhere. The place is filthy and an absolute disgrace. The Nile, which the Egyptians are so rightly proud off, and the canals feeding off it are covered and layered in rubbish. So are the Pyramids. Their excuse is that they don’t have rubbish bins.
The Pyramids are huge and the Sphinx impressive, but for the amount of money that they are generating more should and could be spent on fixing and maintaining them. The way they look at the moment they won’t last another 40 years let alone another 4000 years. Mind you the whole city looks run down, even new buildings are shabbily built. It isn’t cheap either, everything is very expensive. Anyhow it is almost the end of our trip and this has been the most disappointing place yet, but we only wanted to see the Pyramids and we have achieved that so no use whinging.

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