The Haunted Hilton

The Ramses Hilton was built in the seventies, a result of the late genius Dr. William Hanna's efforts. It has now become a constant feature in Cairo's landscape, featuring in photos of the city as a landmark in it's own right. Standing at 110 meters talls, with 36 floors, it is one of the tallest buildings in Cairo.

The Ramses Hilton in the mid seventies

Even though many rival hotels have since appeared, many guests, especially from the Arabian Gulf , are attracted to the distinguished service they provide. I had the chance to experience this service myself when I was invited out to dinner at one of it's classic restaurants. The waiter was chatty and candid, joking and laughing with us, telling us stories of the past and present. Even when I requested a more traditional cup of tea, with the leaves at the bottom, I was promptly served, with no delay, despite it not being available on the menu. He called it Staff's tea with a wide grin on his face. It was an enjoyable night.

There was something about it though. The hotel in general. An arcane feel. My friend only heightened that feeling, with her new found fascination with it. I felt that countless skeletons were hidden in the closets of the countless rooms of this impressive place. The veils of mystery were craving for someone to transverse them...

I believe I know why.

A few years back I read a story in the news that I associated with this hotel whenever I saw it. It was the story of Princess Hind.

Princess Hind Al-Fasi was the wife of the Saudi Prince Turki Bin Abdul Aziz. According to the waiter, the prince himself was a timid and peaceful man, who liked to keep to himself. The princess however had a completely different pesona. She was wild and stormy, who enjoyed the extravagant lifestyle she led. They lived in self-imposed exile in Egypt for more than 30 years, occuping the top floors of the Ramses Hilton. They had a multinational security task-force, keeping them shielded from the rest of the world in this hotel. The security teams moved ahead of them, behind them and alongside them, with security dogs even accompanying them to the classy restaurants they ate in.

Princess Hind was not a new face in the news. She was constantly summoned to court for law violations, including walking out of a store with more than one million dollars worth of jewelry. Another incident involved three servants trying to escape from the top floors of the hotel by tying bedsheets together when they couldn't take the torture anymore. Her servants were kept in two hotel rooms, with six in each room. The princess merely ignored the court summons, and went about her lavish life without paying any attention to these issues.

Gary Ogaick,  a former employee of the Canadian Embassy in Riyadh, decided to investigate the princess himself. He bribed some of the guards to keep tabs on her, and the people who visited her. He seemed more interested in knowing whether she was involved in extramarital affairs, of which the guards provided him with information about. He also managed to find out that the princess kept tabs on her own husband, with hidden cameras placed by her guards whereever prince Turki frequented.

Other information he managed to aquire from the guards included beatings performed on both her servants and guards, usually involving handcuffs and metal wires.

Before I went to dine at the Ramses Hilton, I told my friend about her story. She looked her up online and to my surprise, found out that she had passed away recently - at the age of 52. The death itself was surrounded by controversy, and that had our minds running wild. I admit I never gave the hotel and it's princess that much thought before. But when my friend looked up at the hotel and took notice at how the last few floors were dark, I saw how the stories have captivated her. Her eyes were transfixed on Princess Hind's palace of secrets.

Gary Ogaick never talked about his discoveries again. The pressure reporters placed on him was not enough for him to give way. His last words to one of the reporters were "I'm not going to tell you anything about anything."

The Cairo Eruption

I don't know what it is about Cairo that keep people interested in visiting it or living in it. One of my close friends abroad has once coined an interesting term for the tourists that come here - 'sh**-in-a-hole tourists'. He was particularly referring to those who live in comfortable conditions but like to visit relatively underdeveloped areas to taste a bit of life on the other side.

You don't have to be a backpacker to come here though. Just the other night I was invited out to a restaurant where most Egyptians would have to sacrifice a month's salary to have a meal at - that's if they ever thought of actually doing it. It was located in a five star hotel, and had impeccable service and cuisine - the atmosphere was so different to what most people are used to around here. Nevertheless, the hotel was teaming with tourists. Obviously, creature comforts to some tourists involve marble walls and Egyptian cotton, while to others could just be a hole in the ground.

A hotel surrounded by the hustle and bustle of Cairo, on the 26th of July Street

Some hotels in Cairo are severely lacking in service and facilities, but make up in terms of prices and general realism. You could find yourself in the heart of Cairo, amidst the crowds and noises, marvelling at how people live here, and at the same time cursing the fact you can't get a proper night's sleep. For Cairenes, bedtime is often associated with sunrise.

Cairo is swelling by the minute. I have the constant fear (or hope) that at some point I will have to abandon my car in traffic because it had nowhere to go. Immigration from rural areas is a contributing factor, but I have a feeling it's mostly due to the young generation. Probably with myself included. The population boom is obvious, with more young people out on the streets than ever before, with older generations starting to dissolve in the crowds. Walk into any office in Cairo, and it's highly likely that even the bosses and managers are barely over 30, with most of the fresh-faced workforce looking like they've barely left university.

Perhaps this would be the kind of scene you would see when traffic comes to an eternal halt in Cairo

Until the day comes when Cairo erupts, rupturing with traffic and people spewing out onto surrounding provinces, I will just have to wait, alternating between pedals every few seconds, crawling along, hoping to spot an empty stretch of asphalt to take me home.

Cairo's Drug Culture: Part 1 - Hospital High

As much as a lot of people here would hate to admit it, Cairo has a thriving drug scene. From bungo (shwag) and hashish to heroin and cocaine, all are available. Some are so commonplace, such as the softer drugs, that it would actually be difficult not to come across it, whether it be through friends and family, or even over-friendly strangers in taxi cabs and hostels across Cairo.

As the scope on the subject of matter is vast, I've decided to separate it into different parts. In this part, I've decided to give a peek into the drug culture that stems from Cairo's hospitals. Many doctors and patients have had their first exposure to certain drugs in hospitals, especially sedatives. Many cases of drug overdoses, especially by Anesthesiologists have led to deaths in hospitals across Cairo, but often news of this is suppressed in the media. The stress from the working conditions and long hours in Cairo's government hospitals, as well as the shockingly low wages that young doctors earn in all hospitals in Cairo and the ease of access to drugs in the hospitals are all contributing factors to this problem.

Patients also have a certain amount of exposure to these drugs, especially in private hospitals, where everything you pretty much demand would be given to you, considering you will be paying for it. After being admitted following an accident, a good Cairene friend of mine describes below her experience with Morphine in one of the private hospitals in Cairo, which she believes has changed her life forever.

Every time I moved, a sharp pain would scream out like an orgasm from hell. Never have I dreamed such pain existed.

After screaming on the x-ray table, the doctors injected me with what I felt was the death sedative.It drained my head and aggressively pulled my brain from the sides. Not knowing or caring what I was given, I was happy to be quickly knocked out.

Due to my condition, a hidden whining ability and the fact that I was in Egypt, I managed to get myself injected everyday for the remainder of my one week hospital stay.It always took care of me, putting me into my place instantly with every injection.

It was either the 3rd or 4th day when I started experiencing abnormal things. One evening, during a routine visit from my doctor, the first sign of hallucination began. The doctor was standing in front of my bed, talking to me, I closed my eyes and opened them up again straight away. In that brief second I closed them I had a dream. A long dream, it felt like hours had passed, when only a second passed and the doctor was still talking away at the end of my bed.

The few following nights after were sheer insanity. A mixture of strong pain, long, dreadful waits between injections, no sleep, constipation, constant dehydration and vivid hallucinations passed my time.

From unrecalled conversations to seeing strange figures in the room to flying on a magic carpet of green neon lights with raindrop people, my powerful death sedative ensured me non-stop entertainment.

The raindrop people visited me every night. They'd wait until my mother was in deep sleep, then they'd dance into the room in an enormous whirlpool of orange, yellow and red neon lights. They never talked or looked at me, but they always stole all ideas of sleep and kept me company.

The last time I was injected was the morning before I checked out of the hospital. I was most terrified of the strong pain returning when I got home and not having any powerful death sedative to inject. The doctors were sure it wouldn't happen.

And it didn't, the pain ended there. It was like I went through the whole experience just to meet the powerful death sedative. I felt blessed. It was fate.

I had later discovered the true nature of the powerful death sedative I had been on for the entire previous week. I learned it was Morphine, one of the most dangerous and deadly drugs out there. Shortly after my discovery, I was introduced to Morphine withdrawal.

The three weeks after my last injection took me on a trip to hell and back. There were rarely nights I slept, the raindrop people would regularly visit & the nights they didn't, I was ensured others would.They would talk loudly and walk around all night, ignoring me, but showing clearly that the purpose of their presence was to irritate me. I would cry and scream for no reason during the day and spend the nights terrified of what was going to visit me that night.

I thought I was going insane.

Eventually the raindrop people & all the other night time visitors stopped coming. I guess they just got bored. And besides being immobile for the following three months, things had finally started getting back to normal.

Since then I have read a lot about this magic medicine I was given in the hospital. The fact that I was to stay in bed for three months didn't matter, it was Morphine I wanted. Never in my life has anything fascinated me to this extent. The power & effect of Morphine are extraordinary. Nothing consumes you the way Morphine does.

Recalling the experience in details now reminds me that it wasn't all like the glowing impression of neon lights I had chosen to remember it by.

Morphine is like a Taking Back Sunday song. Bittersweet. Orgasmic pulling in the head sending you complete euphoria and a nightmare withdraw. There is also the space in between. A sense of feeling like your wandering in space, not aware of the happenings which surround you. That's when the figures start to appear. No control.

Since then, I lost my fear of needles and being injected. I had discovered something magical, which is stronger, better and more fascinating than fast car rides, good concerts & other drugs. The rush of Morphine cannot be measured on a scale.

Regardless of the nightmare withdrawal, Morphine has taken my inspiration elsewhere. I'm now afraid nothing will ever top it.

Morphine is an opiate drug with potent effects and addictive properties, and a severe withdrawal reaction. All of these were demonstrated in the previous account, with details that immerse you into the situation. It would be hard for anyone who has not experienced it to describe it so vividly.

Cairo's Communities

Cairo is filled with people. With a constantly rising influx of people from rural areas, the significant birth rate that has government hospitals stretched to the limits as well as the relatively young population, Cairo is literally brimming with life. However, Cairo is home not only to native Egyptians, but small communities of foreigners have also established themselves in different parts of Cairo. I'm not talking about the western expats that have set a foothold in the affluent areas of Cairo manning skyward positions in the petroleum industry or the small and dwindling Greek community which have had a noticeable impact on how Cairo has evolved through times. I'm talking about the relatively young communities.

One of these communities for example is the Chinese door-to-door traders that have set up shop in Nasr City. Usually in couples, it would not be strange to see them move from building to building marketing their wares to housewives in the evening, or even to coffee shop patrons on the sidewalks of the Sixth District. Some have even managed to set up stalls in small markets, such as those found in sporting clubs. The Indonesian and Malaysian community have also taken up Nasr City as their home, ranging from students studying in Al-Azhar University to full-fledged families running small restaurants catering to their community's social and nutritional needs. The Sudanese community in Kilo Arba' We Nos are also another example, but with a far sadder story, having come here to escape persecution in Sudan only to find an unwelcoming environment in the poorest districts of Cairo. Wherever you look, you are bound to find people from different parts of the world living in Cairo, some managing well, others not so much so.

Maadi is notorious for its western expat community, with Americans, and Europeans littering the narrow streets, shops and restaurants of this old district. This has also managed to step up security in the area, but I am not sure whether the methods they employ is really that effective or not. With barricades forcing one to take turns they really didn't want to take, or menacing looks from officers if you fit a certain profile, it has certainly made Maadi a not-so-comfortable area to be in if you're not from around there, or at least familiar with it. However, one of the reasons I frequent Maadi a lot, is because of the wonderful dining that could be obtained there, and the different communities they represent. One of my favorite places to dine is Seoul BBQ on Street 263. With simple decor, this family-run restaurant could give you a small window to peek through at the Korean community in Maadi. With mainly Korean patrons frequenting the place, it is quite a sight. With their children running around the place, along with noisy chatter and laughter filling the restaurant, you'd be in for quite an experience, especially when the food arrives. A charcoal grill in the middle of the table is where the meat is grilled; thus allowing you to enjoy the aroma before you even set your chopsticks into it.

A large range of well-seasoned side dishes (banchan)  are always served with the meal at Seoul BBQ (shown here), often with a few surprises if you are not already familiar with Korean cuisine.

Cairo has never really had a native community per se. Situated at the crossroads of the Old World, it has been home to numerous communities, all throughout history. From the Greeks during the Ptolemaic dynasty to the Arabs of the Fatimid Caliphate, as well as the numerous occupations of more recent history such as that of the French and British; all of which have shaped Cairo and it's communities though the ages. Cairo's communities today are not necessarily as a result of its history; but rather a result of its nature.

River Fish

If there is one part of Cairo I am not familiar with as much as the others, it would have to be West-El-Balad, or Downtown. Perhaps Garden City as well. To me, they are both included in that same blob of Cairo stuffed with government buildings, nations' embassies, hotels, hostels, tourism offices, airline offices, countless restaurants, lots of bars, cinemas, cafes, mirror to mirror traffic, and, of course, tourists. As busy, exciting and important as it sounds, it's actually not that big a part of Cairo, but definitely one of the most crowded parts. In order for me to drive through the limitless traffic lights and one way twisted roads, and find legal parking spaces, I usually enlist a friend to guide me through it all. Last night, it was a surprising choice, as it was an Austrian friend, who, I am afraid to admit, knows more about Downtown than the three Egyptians that accompanied her that evening. As she barked out instant directions in the chaotic traffic, I complied with embarrassment, twisting and turning the steering wheel, heading for a boat ride which I never bothered to try before, believing it to be more of a trivial tourist attraction than a worthy outing, and that is the Felluca.

We parked in a side street near the Indonesian embassy, and walked our way to a small dock teaming with tourists and locals alike. On the waters, small wooden boats came and went, with sails made out of rags, dropping off and picking up people. We booked a boat to use, and waited for a small while. Soon we were swaying with the felluca, seated on cushions, chatting away and laughing in the Cairo evening. A friend remarked how peaceful it was to be so far away from Cairo, yet right in the middle of it. With the massive width of the Nile River sheltering us from the hustle and bustle of the city streets, we savored the summer breeze which is so hard to catch amidst the high buildings of Cairo. We pulled out drinks and snacks that we had brought along, and enjoyed a small meal on the boat.

After the pleasantly peaceful felluca ride, we decided to head out for sushi, and feeling adventurous, we agreed to have some at a place we haven't eaten at, or even heard of before, in Zamalek's Om Kalthoum Hotel, based on a cryptic recommendation. We parked close to the hotel, and asked about their sushi restaurant. After a few confused looks from the security man, the receptionist aided us in locating the place, which happened to be on the roof of the hotel. We headed up in the elevator to the 17th floor. As we exited the elevator, we were met by a surprising scene. One of my friend's claimed it reminded her of The Shining, with the blood red patterned wallpaper covering the walls, emitting a time-honored and vintage feel under the eerie glow of the old lamps. The atmosphere of the hotel definitely sparked my interest.

The 17th floor of the Om Kalthoum Hotel

The restaurant was directly on the roof, with small chairs and tables that looked quite worn. We were surprised to find it completely empty with not a single customer in sight, and only two waiters watching a small TV on the wall. We asked if this is where the restaurant is, and they confirmed it. We took a seat, and were given small menus with a small selection of rolls, nigri sushi, and other Japanese cuisine elements printed on it. I was surprised at how moderate the prices were compared to other sushi places in Cairo. The chef came to us to take our order personally. He was a young man, probably in his mid to late 20s with a relaxed demeanor about him. He was dressed in a white t-shirt, dark long shorts and sandals. I think he would pass more as a tourist than a chef at the hotel.

The order took a little while to arrive, but was definitely worth the wait. The selection was fabulous, and definitely felt fresh, with sparks of unexpected flavors, probably due to the chef's creativity in preparing the rolls and sushi. I personally felt like we have discovered a gold mine. There was no one else there yet the place was fabulous!


It all ended in a classic Cairo traffic jam on the way home. Such a bipolar city.

The Lady's Admirers

Cairo's nights are long, especially in the summer. Even though the street lampposts hardly emit much light, if at all, the shops and restaurants brighten the streets with their own lights, bustle, and smells. This is quite evident in Sayeda Zeinab and its surrounding areas. An old part of Cairo, where many generations have lived, it contains the Sayeda Zeinab Mosque, named after the Prophet Mohammed's daughter. She came to Egypt seeking refuge after her brother Hussein was killed. Her body is entombed inside the mosque, and many Egyptians visit it seeking her blessings. As breathtaking as that experience can be, it is not why my friends and I decided to pop down to Sayeda Zeinab for a night out.

 A young restaurant cook prepares traditional Egyptian Hawawshi and Tajen as takeaway.

We shimmied through Sayeda Zeinab's back streets in my friend's small white Fiat 128. Although the car is of Italian make, most residents would agree, it is one of the most prominent Egyptian symbols of our era. With a rattle or a squeak punctuating the guided tour of Sayeda Zeinab my friend was giving, I marveled at the old stone buildings, with many abandoned and neglected relics of Cairo's past in full but sorry display, such as the old Sufi building Sabeel Um Abbass where the Sufi order provided shelter and food to those who needed it in the past, and the former main Cairo gaol call Kism Al-Khalifa, where prisoners from all over Egypt were sent to be processed before moving them to their respective sites. All that remains of it now is a partially operational monster of a stone building with rusted metal bars still holding firm over many of its windows.

Customers line up waiting for their Mombar orders.

We parked next to the restaurant we would be dining at, Habayeb El-Set, one of the many in the area that provide a cuisine uniquely Egyptian, such as Mombar, which are basically rice and herbs stuffed into intestines, as well as Fatet Kaware', which are a rice dish and sheep knuckles. Other famous restaurants in the area include Al-Rakeeb, which provides a similar menu to Habayeb El-Set, Al-Gahsh, a famous foul and ta'miya cart, Al-Refa'i, a kofta and kebab restaurant frequented by famous people, and Booha, a restaurant famous for its Sogo' Balady, an Egyptian sausage containing a mix of herbs, meat and wheat kernels.


After finishing our meals, we headed to Al-Rahmany, a shop on the road leading to Al-Nasriya, serving a special kind of thick drink brewed from rice. They come in two forms called El-Helw (Sweet) and El-Mizez (Sour). I personally prefer the latter which has a tangy flavor accentuated by the cinnamon sprinkled on top. It comes in a small cup, but is definitely filling, as its consistency is similar to that of syrup.

Men of all ages congregate and socialise on roadside coffee shops such as this one.

The night came to a close amidst the chatter and laughter of customers in a coffee shop directly in the middle of Sayeda Zeinab, with wooden chairs arranged on the pavement of the main street next to the area's police station. As the lights went off shop by shop in anticipation of sunrise, I realized that Sayeda Zeinab is a spiritual, historical, and gastronomical experience that can't be missed by anyone visiting or residing in Cairo.

I'll take one wedding, an apartment and two rings to go, please.

Six o'clock on a Tuesday morning, I rushed to the bathroom to perform my daily morning ritual of preparing for work hoping to break my usual bedsheets to car seat record (which I usually fail miserably at). Halfway through my toothbrush/shower scrub combo, I realized it was my day off from work. Returning to my bedroom half-groomed, I decided I should accompany one of my friends to work, and perhaps learn a thing or two from him.

As a freelance interior designer, he doesn't really have office working hours or grumpy bosses to deal with, so I called him up, and he agreed to pick me up on his way. We weaved through the narrow and notorious Cairo streets, stopping at outlets providing everything from floor tiles to bathroom fixtures. Although the products were well known brands, everything seemed a lot cheaper than I expected. This was especially evident at the tile market in Al-Muhajereen, a run down block situated in the bowels of Ain Shams. The shops were a lot more beat-up though than their pricey counterparts.

 A newly-wed couple hold hands at a post-traditional wedding in Cairo.

Most of my friend's customers seemed to fit the profile of the aspiring young graduate, trying to spend as little as possible of his parent's hard-earned money in renovating and furnishing the apartment his parents also bought a while back. All of this was, of course, to satisfy the conditions and terms his future in-laws have placed in order for him to marry their prized daughter.

It is already well known that in Egypt's middle class and upper middle-class that an apartment is the key to winning a girl's hand in marriage. This obviously doesn't make things easy, considering Cairo's horrendously expensive real estate prices which rarely ever seem to drop, even as the rest of world's real estate markets plunge around it. Apartment prices range between 100,000 Egyptian pounds in places like El-Marg, up to millions of pounds in more affluent districts such as Maadi. This makes the average price of an apartment in Cairo much more expensive than the current average price of one in Dubai!

Custom ceiling and lighting designs being implemented by workers in an apartment in El-Tagamo' Al-Khames, on the outskirts of Cairo.

I drifted back out of my daydream as my friend switched off the car's air-conditioning and turned off the car's engine. The blazing heat of the summer sun hit me hard as we stepped out onto a Nasr City pavement in front of a fairly new apartment building. He told me that we would go in to observe how the work was going on in an apartment he was preparing for a young man who previously insisted that it shouldn't cost more than 50,000 pounds to have the apartment ready. We stepped into the apartment which was fairly average in size, with two bedrooms,  a living room, a kitchen and a bathroom. The floor was covered in rubble, sand, and piles of wet cement. It looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic thriller, with men in torn and dusty clothes scattering about doing various jobs. I asked how much has been spent so far , and he told me 'believe it or not, 20,000 pounds'.

My eyes were wide as he explained how much the electricity cables and sockets, plumbing and general building materials cost along with the wages paid to the workers. I thought all that stuff came with the apartment in the first place. He told me I was old-fashioned, because that's not how it is anymore.

 A panoramic shot of the 7th District at the south end of Nasr City.

Returning home just before sunset, I looked back at the day and wondered whether there could possibly be a compromise between tradition and basic practicality. Considering how some newly-married men and women end up living with their in-laws (siblings and grandparents possibly included), I concluded that often with the measure of compromise, there is a measure of sacrifice.

The Cairo Condition

Sitting amidst a small group of men under a street light at three in the morning, fiddling with a small cup of excessively sweetened tea, I held the hot drink with both my hands to shift as much of the warmth as possible into my fingers. The cold march night was windy and unforgiving as we chatted away idly in an alley way coffee shop in a run down part of Cairo.

A typical Cairo coffee shop, with traditional handmade wooden chairs and various decorations of little value hung up on straw covered walls in the Al-Abassia area.

The area is Deer Al-Malak, which is famous for it's Masr We El-Sudan Street, where a collection of shabby shops and restaurants entertain many people from the surrounding areas in the evenings, but that is not where we were. We were somewhere between Al-Mahroosa Street and Tereat Al-Gabal Street, in an alley way coffee shop which had its creaky wooden chairs strewn across a craggy and cracked pavement under a lonely street light in an otherwise pitch-black alley. The occasional car squeezed past our group and the opposite wall in an unsettling manner.

I sat amidst three physicians, an engineer, a social worker, a hostel owner, a self-employed worker, and a pasterma businessman, all in their mid twenties. As promising as the titles seem, only one of the physicians had a steady low-paying job along with the engineer, and the hostel owner and pasterma businessman seem to be breaking even for now. All the others had more free time in their hands than they had hoped for.

Although the official figure for unemployment usually varies between 8% and 14% each year according to government issued statistics, the figure can't be any farther from the truth. As university graduates are starting to be available in droves, the number of jobs attainable are few in comparison, and the competition is high, even for jobs with low pay and no progression.

'That man over there was supposed to find me a job in the petroleum industry about a year and a half ago' quipped the self-employed worker. He pointed behind me. Half of us turned around and burst out in laughter as a tall, bald middle-aged man with a paunch urinated in the middle of the alley with his pajama bottoms dropped around his ankles. The laughter soon died off as he described how the man used to be a figurehead in a government run Petroleum company before he lost his job and subsequently became mentally unstable. The sad story came to an end when the man who had been relieving himself earlier came towards us and stared at us for a few moments before moving back into the shadows of the alley.

As the sun was about to rise, we stood up and the social worker insisted that the bill was on him. As much as we tried to resist this, he wouldn't let us pay a single pound. We all shook each other's hands before parting in different directions, some into the sunrise, and some away.

Green Dream

A group of boys dance around a pile of shoes which they have pulled off earlier to feel the grass blades tickle their toes. The smog covered scene that serves as a backdrop for this rare green space is none other than Medieval Cairo, the heart of the city.

Al-Azhar park is one of the few green spaces in Cairo. Having been built on what has previously been a garbage dump, it is considered a miracle by those who know its history well. When the landscape artists Maher Stino and Laila El-Masry first visited the area which was being considered for the park, they were shocked and stated it would be a challenge. This is not surprising, as the place they were visiting had 5 centuries of waste piled on to it. The dump was bordered on one side by the 12th century Ayyubid wall, which itself was sinking in garbage. The author Maria Golia described it as a source of dust and flying fecal matter, and that the project was a massive, massive endeavor.

This was not enough to deter the Aga Khan IV and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. The funds he provided for the development of the park exceeded $30 million. This was not only placed into the park itself, but the park was at the centre of it all. When the 12th century Ayyubid wall was exposed further on the western frontier, it was clear that it was in a devastating state. It was decided that the wall was to be restored as well, considering its historical value.

The people of Al-Darb Al-Ahmar, who lived in the poverty-stricken shadows of the Ayyubid wall were brought into the project as well. Not only did the project provide them with jobs, but the trust went further by trying to restore some of the buildings in Al-Darb Al-Ahmar in which the residents lived, which have fallen into a state of disrepair. This had a profound effect on the area and it’s residents, whom were previously suspicious of the Trust’s activities and intentions. The suspicion was garnered from previous attempts as demolishing their homes; but with time, it was clear they were benefiting from the trust’s contributions.

Having visited Al-Azhar park myself, I find it to be an oasis of greenery amidst the dreary brown and gray that swathes the rest of the city. The park has an entrance fee, in order to cover the costs of management and maintenance. This fee is minimal as to allow people from all strata to mingle in the park. However, I feel this has recently been overshadowed by the introduction of pricey cafes and restaurants in the park, such as Alain Le Notre and Studio Misr, which only a select few can afford.

All in all, it is worth a visit, for its breath-taking views, greenery and history.