The Tree of Every Season

The Muffler Tree of Cairo is a tree for every season, displaying new mufflers for needy car owners to check out. So much more interesting than a shop window.

The Walker

Like someone from an enigmatic movie, an elderly man in a galabeya walks across the desert sand. Probably a rather routine explanation for his travels is that he is working as a watchman at the antiquities site on the hill behind and to his left, where the archaeologists have identified the ruins as being the tomb of a pharoanic queen.

Sandy Picnic

Three village girls share snacks on a sunny hillside near the Step Pyramid. The edge of the desert is a favourite play area for the children.

Reflections On A Winter Day

Cairenes often think of the canals of the countryside with disdain. They are, indeed, the repositories of much debris, although most of it is vegetation that will decompose and simply make the canal water liquid fertiliser to help produce our marvelous vegetables. With prices soaring, farmers are even more reliant on the natural sources of fertilisers. I think of the canals as the Nile Valley's circulatory system on a mechanical end and as the windows of its soul on a day such as this.

Stairs in a Courtyard

In traditional architecture handrails (if they are found) are put against the wall leaving the outside of a staircase open to the air and everything else. While this would probably put the insurance companies in the US right over the edge, visually it is very pleasing.

Truly Air Cooled

Cars in Cairo are an endless source of entertainment if you can avoid being totally terrified by the traffic. This ancient VW bus runs around Giza with it's engine open to the air, apparently to improve the cooling.

Autumn Canal

There is something about water that I can't resist. The canals in the Nile Valley are, in my opinion, totally under-appreciated. True, they end up with entirely too much plastic and trash in them, but perhaps if people had a better appreciation for their possible beauty they would care more for them. As it is, they are the circulatory system of Egypt, for better or worse.

The New Face

Not everything is old in Cairo. The Orascom buildings on the Corniche in northern Cairo gleam in the afternoon sun.

Cruisin' Through Traffic

Cairo is probably one of the few major cities in the world where horse traffic can be found in the downtown core. This was taken on the Corniche in Cairo near the Conrad Hotel, one of our many horse carts moving bags of something heavy among taxis, buses and cars. Most of these horses are Arab crosses, sometimes with a little draft or thoroughbred to increase the size. And horse people think that Arabs are spooky? Not here.

Time To Dye

Driving into the Wissa Wassef center the other day I found lovely red wool hanging off the palm trees. It must be the season to be spinning and dyeing the wools for their tapestries. They do their own dyeing from herbs and plants grown on the property.