My First Impressions of Cairo, Egypt

My First Impressions of Cairo, Egypt

I’ve been in Cairo for one week thus far and my first impressions are not good. Not at all. In fact, Cairo is pretty awful. It’s like one vast ugly ghetto filled with badly polluted air; dirty, litter-strewn streets; a mass of never-ending, horn-honking chaotic traffic congestion; unbelievable crowds; very persistent touts & scammers and a limited selection of foods, produce & goods.

At least most of the people are friendly & welcoming, some Egyptian food is tasty, and the city holds several world-class museums and a plethora of amazing historic architecture dating back as far as 1200 BC.

Despite the good points, Cairo is overwhelming quite awful and difficult. Here are my observations in more detail:

Bad air pollution

The very first thing I noticed about Cairo when I stepped outside the airport terminal was the stinky polluted air.

Once I got inside the city full time, I stopped noticing the stench. However, I became quickly exhausted each day, simply from walking around the city for a couple hours. And it only took five days in Cairo before I wound up with a respiratory infection from the bad air.

When that happened, I finally realized why I’d been getting exhausted so easily. I remembered the same experience in Shanghai, China back in 2009.

That makes Cairo’s air literally dangerous to the health. This is not a good city for anyone prone to any respiratory illnesses.

Cairo looks & feels like a mega-city

The second thing I noticed about Cairo is that it looks and feels like the massive mega-city that it is. As soon as my airport pick-up driver exited the airport grounds, we were already in the midst of the massive city. And we continued driving through big city all the way to downtown, more than 20 km / 13 miles away.

It reminded me of other megacities I’ve visited like Bangkok, Thailand and Tokyo, Japan.

A mega-city is defined as a city with a population over 10 million. Cairo metropolitan area has over 21 million residents as of 2021and is the sixth largest city in the world. It feels like it, too.

Cairo is dirty

Cairo is dirty in the literal sense of being coated in dirt and dust. The roads & sidewalks are dirty. The buildings are dusty.

But the city is also full of trash & litter. It’s all over the place – on the streets, sidewalks, parks, inside the buildings. It’s a real mess.

Cairo is extremely noisy

Cairo’s high-level noise pollution comes mainly from the crazy-busy, congested traffic. It is heavy, chaotic, full of horn-honkers and practically never-ending. The only time it lets up is during the middle of the night for a few hours.

True, traffic is lighter and not quite as loud in early mornings, but still more or less roaring.

Cairo is one place where I am literally wearing my earplugs 24/7. The only times I’ve taken them out during one week in Cairo is when I’ve been inside a 5-star hotel for an appointment or when I otherwise had to speak to someone at my hotel, a museum or elsewhere.

Cairo is difficult

Just about everything in Cairo is difficult.

Most sidewalks are like obstacle courses. There are holes, broken-up surfaces, piles of rubble and trash, dog & cat & horse shit, scaffolding towers, shop merchandise jutting far into the lanes, poles, people and more.

Crossing the roads puts your life in danger to some degree or other. The traffic is so heavy, chaotic and unending that you basically have to just plunge yourself into it, dodging around the cars & motorcylces as they come along, some at high speeds.

Navigating the city is very difficult unless you can read Arabic, have an excellent & very detailed map and a good sense of direction. A compass comes in handy too.

Street signs are only in Arabic, so unless you read Arabic, forget about finding your way by street names. As far as that goes, nearly all shops and restaurants are written only in Arabic too, making it rather difficult to locate anything.

Big round-abouts often have 6-7 roads spreading out from their centers, making it difficult to discern which of the 2-3 western roads you’re supposed to follow. Was it the slightly northern one or the slightly southern one or the dead-western one? You really have to look very carefully at your detailed map to decide. But if you happen to take the wrong road, then you won’t be walking parallel to the correct street. You’ll be walking farther and farther away from it, like a pie slice. So the potential for getting lost increases dramatically.

Most locals don’t speak English, nor read English either. And that might include basic numbers like 1, 2 and 3. In Arabic they’re written completely differently. On the other hand, a few people do speak a little English and so you can generally find someone to communicate with.

On the opposite end, Cairo is infamous for its persistent, conniving touts & scammers. These locals speak English quite well and try luring un-informed, naive foreigners into their scams. Yet another thing to be wary of while out n about in Cairo.

You have to be really careful how you eat & drink in Cairo as well. You can’t eat any fresh vegetables or un-peeled fruits, nor icecream, nor ice or tap water. You should stick to bottled water and well-cooked foods. This isn’t really all that difficult, but it’s certainly not as easy as eating in Turkey, SE Asia or European countries.

In addition, it’s not so easy to find places to eat or fruit & vegetable shops nor supermarkets. Doors and faucets don’t open and close easily. Wifi is tempermental, cutting in and out of service, even in big -star international hotels (!).

In short, just about everything is Cairo is more difficult than it should be.

Cairo is exhausting

The result of all these difficulties is that doing almost anything in Cairo takes a lot of concentration, effort and physical & emotional energy. And everything takes longer than it should.

Normal things that should take little effort or thought – like walking down the sidewalk, crossing the street, getting to a specific destination that’s just 20-30 minutes away, following a map, eating, using the internet – they all require some serious concentration and care.

The emotional / psychological strain can be heavy too, when you consider the potential danger every time you cross a road or the possibility of quickly getting lost. It’s stressful and perhaps even scary.

Add Cairo’s bad air pollution to all these issues, and it’s not surprising that Cairo quickly becomes exhausting.

Cairo is ugly

Cairo does have many gorgeous, amazing historic buildings from many different centuries and architectural styles. However, they are all scattered around the massive megacity, rather than in one particular area.

Most of the city consists of a massive concentration of ugly, boxy cement buildings stretching to horizon as far as you can see in any direction. It’s dusty and grimy, not gleaming or new.

Even most of the modern international 5-star hotels lining the Nile River are very unattractive, a collection of dated towers & building masses built in the 1960s-1980s.

So the overall impression of the city is visually ugly and drab.

Cairo’s food lacks variety

Let me first clarify that luxury tourists have a vast selection of world cuisines in fine dining restaurants. You can find a specialty restaurant for nearly every major cuisine in the world in Cairo.

But if you’re a budget traveler, like me, the selection is pretty grim. Nearly all the local restaurants serve basic Egyptian cuisine and fast food like burgers, sandwiches and pizza. The Egyptian food is good, but there’s really little variety.

I’ll put it this way- I’ve been in Cairo one full week and I’ve only found one local reastaurant to eat at. I’ve been eating from their menu for all my meals, every day. That gets old pretty fast.

It’s not so easy to find fresh fruit or vegetable shops. And those that do exist have only a few different fruits & veggies for sale. When you cut out the non-peeling fruits (like apples, strawberries, grapes) or veggies that you’d eat raw (like lettuce, carrots, cucumbers) then the options become even more limited.

Supermarkets totally suck in Cairo. I visited supposedly the ‘biggest’ supermarket in downtown Cairo and it was nearly useless. Forget fresh produce, any specialty items, or much cheese selection. The only things I could find to eat there were crackers, instant noodles, coke and yogurt.

So eating in Cairo as a budget traveler is one of the worst for world travel destinations.

Many locals are friendly & welcoming

Completely aside from the tourist-trapping scammers, local Cairo people are often very friendly and welcoming to foreigners.

Any time I walk in the city, I have many people call out ‘hello!’ or ‘welcome’. These are not touts, trying to scam me. They are local workers at shops, cafes, restaurants, even uniformed police, guards & military. They don’t really speak English besides these few greetings.

They seem genuinely happy to see a foreigner visiting their city and proud to say ‘Welcome to Cairo’.

Occassionally someone asks where I’m from. If I reply ‘America’, they immediately say, ‘United States number 1 !’ One man yelled out, “Yankee Doodle”. A few young people got glittering eyes and told me it was their biggest dream to visit America.

Summary

To sum it up then, Cairo is pretty much awful. It’s filled with dangerously-bad air pollution, heavy chaotic traffic and perpetual high level noise. It’s dirty, ugly, difficult and exhausting.

Although locals can be friendly and welcoming, and the city has some amazing museums & historic districts, Cairo is a place most people would probably prefer visting for as short a time as possible.

I know that I’d like to leave as quickly as I can. I also know that I’ll feel a huge relief when I manage to escape this exhausting megacity.

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