View allAll Photos Tagged cairo
Three camels, just purchased, heading to their new home, 2007
My wife, Carol the blonde, is behind the truck.
Just out of Cairo Airport, here's a surprising shot of a suburb on the ground. A lot of large apartment blocks with few signs of street life. Egypt has toyed with the idea of building new desert cities to take residents away from the Nile - and this could be New Cairo, an area that was meant to attract several million but only hosts a few hundred thousand residents. The problem is that one needs a car to live there, and most Egyptians can't afford them.
Alternatively, is this part of the purpose-built new capital city announced at Sharm al-Sheikh in 2015? Egypt's president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi unveiled a mosque there in January 2019, although no one lives in the city yet. It's being built 45 kilometres east of Cairo in an area halfway to Suez, a 700 square km zone bigger than Singapore, able to house 6.5 million people - the 'new New Cairo'!
Wherever it is, it's just seconds after liftoff from Cairo Airport. The map location is my best guess...
We had all flown back from Aswan that morning, except Shaban, our guide. We had said our goodbyes to him at the airport as he was flying home for a few days before his next job. Upon arriving back in Cairo another rep had met us and Vicky and I said goodbye to the rest of the group. Rather than spend the next 7 hours in an airport hotel bar and departure lounge as they were about to do, we had already decided and booked to stay an extra day and night back at the Crowne Plaza in West Cairo. This would give us an afternoon around the rooftop pool, a nice evening meal together and a chance for Vicky to visit two more Pyramids the next morning. These were out at Dharshur on the edge of the Western Desert, not far from Saqqara and hadn't been on the Jules Verne Itinerary. After a very intense 8 days this would be a nice way to unwind.
So this is the view of West Cairo from the rooftop pool. The concrete line across the middle of the photo is the new Monorail. Opening October 6th 2025, it wasn't yet half finished and it currently has no opening date. (HS2 Anyone?) Next to the GEM, it was the 'other' grand engineering project going on in Cairo at the time. 2 lines, The East and West Nile lines, 33 stations and 60 miles of track. When it is finished the views from it should be amazing and will be a fantastic way to see and get around the city.
Cairo, Illinois is the southernmost town in the state. Cairo is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The town population peaked at 15,000 in the 1920s but repeated flooding and racial incidents drove inhabitants away. Today Cairo has a population of less than 2,500 ans is still declining. Most of the downtown area has been demolished leaving virtually no commence.