Cairo – Real on the Road

Guides and Guidebooks: Reasons Why I Rarely Use Them

June 8, 2022 by David Hunter Bishop

The massive interior of the cave church of St. Simon the Tanner in the Garbage City neighborhood of Cairo, worth seeing, unlike the mural that *Lonely Planet* recommended.

I’d been to Garbage City a couple of times already but agreed to return with a new friend from Sydney who just moved into the Holy Sheet Hostel where I was staying in Cairo.

“Justin” was traveling solo on holiday from his job managing a bar, restaurant and gaming facilities in Australia’s largest city.

He had a four-year old Lonely Planet guide book with a paragraph about Garbage City which mentioned a French-Tunisian graffiti artist who had created what Lonely Planet described as “one of the most astonishing pieces of street art in the Middle East” in Garbage City in the 1970s. But it could only be seen in its entirety from an upper floor of a particular building near the massive cave church of St. Simon the Tanner.

Life On The Backstreets of Cairo: Take A Walking Tour of ‘Garbage City’

June 8, 2022June 5, 2022 by David Hunter Bishop

Entire families are involved in the collection and processing of Cairo’s rubbish in the area know as the City of Garbage, a neighborhood where they live and work.

I read about this part of Cairo before even planning my trip and was intrigued with the idea that an urban neighborhood would be almost entirely committed to the business of collecting and recycling municipal solid waste for its economic well-being.

Camels and Chaos: My First Week In Crazy Cairo

March 8, 2022March 8, 2022 by David Hunter Bishop

Camel drivers lead their livelihood home after a day carrying visitors at the Giza Plateau outside of Cairo.

On arrival in the early evening at Cairo’s international airport I beefed with the taxi drivers who told me that the metro doesn’t go to the airport.

All the info I had was that they do. I wanted to take the metro. But I saw no signs for the metro at the airport terminal.

Farewell Crete, Hello Athens! With Cairo On The Horizon

February 14, 2022February 12, 2022 by David Hunter Bishop

The Boutakas River begins in the White Mountains of western Crete, flows through the village of Vrisses, and empties into the Mediterranean off the coast of Crete. This scene is a few steps from the door of where I stayed for the past nine days in the lovely village of Vrisses.

Sunday I leave Crete for an 11-day stay in Athens.

Although it was my second time on the island of Crete, I previously had not given myself the opportunity to spend any time in Athens outside of a few layovers in airports.