My family has been planning a trip to Egypt for the end of the year
(to Cairo, Luxor, Aswan, etc.). There have been a number of very
negative articles about Cairo's garbage situation recently (see
below!), and we're wondering how this matches the reality on the
ground. Has anyone here been to Cairo recently and have insight into
how sensationalist or accurate these articles are? This probably
won't stop our trip, but it might affect how much time we spend
directly in Cairo itself.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aMODvyHlOBAE

http://www.slate.com/id/2229830/

http://www.publicradio.org/columns/m...decisions.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/wo...20cairo&st=cse

Cairo has never been what I would call a "clean" city, but this oversight by the government didn't help.

I think Casual_Cairo is the best one to answer this - but my "gut" feel is that this is primarily impacting the more residential areas, especially the poor, peasant areas. I doubt that the major tourist areas are severely impacted.

Traditionally, it has been the minority Coptic (Orthodox Christian) population who has taken on the role of trash collector - taking trash, bringing it to their communities, sorting the salvageable stuff, creating marketable items from the garbage for resale, giving the organic stuff to the pigs, then slaughtering the pigs for personal use or resale.

There is an area of Cairo called "Garbage City" which is in the Mohandasein area. There are some interesting Coptic churches in the area, but to get to them - you must travel on very narrow streets and the stench can overpowering - especially in the heat of summer...(trust me on this!).

However, these people are pros at taking garbage (literally!) and making it into re-sell-able items. To this day - I still have many gift bags made from recycled garbage. There were also lovely rugs, purses, glasses, candle holders and other useful items.

Unfortunately, the slaughter of the pigs last spring has done nothing to hold off swine flu and has had results never imagined (or even thought about) by the government officials who gave the original order.

vagabond - please don't let this situation keep you from going to Cairo. It's a wonderful city and has so much to offer. But...in case you do come across some less-than-sweet-smelling area...take this advice - let each person have their own lovely smelling hand sanitizer bottle to hold under their noses! It works quite well...........(taken from someone who HAD such a bottle!)

Oh - just for the record - I often came across areas with less-than-sweet-smelling aromas.....and I learned NOT to ask too many questions. As I told my mother-in-law.....don't ask what the smell is unless you are truly curious. Sometimes - it's just best NOT to know!

I do recall seeing a lot of garbage in poor residential areas but it wasn't bad at tourist sites. I hope this won't affect your travel decision or your anticipation of this trip.

My apologies.....the area I was referring to is called Mokhattam and is not too far from the Citadel. Brain was not functioning well last night!

Cairo is not a clean city, but I didn't see a garbage problem at all. The tourist areas were better than the rest. I will not consider it a problem. I'll rather care about traffic!!

yup -traffic is definitely more of a concern!!

The garbage problem is because they eliminated the feral pigs that ate everything because of fear of swine flu. They thought the domesticated goats would handle it, but they don't eat like the pigs did. I hope they are starting to pick up the garbage and/or bringing back the pigs. This was not the situation in the tourist areas, but where the people live.

"yup -traffic is definitely more of a concern!!"

Be sure to cross the street with an elderly person. They must be very talented at dodging cars, otherwise they would not have lived to a ripe old age in Cairo.

Are you old enough to remember the Frogger game? It's not good to be the frog. :-s

Thanks everybody! Your advice is very reassuring. We're still planning our trip and really looking forward to it.

<<<Be sure to cross the street with an elderly person. They must be very talented at dodging cars, otherwise they would not have lived to a ripe old age in Cairo.>>>

As I think the poster "sunshine" told me before we went "It's not because drivers are more deferential to old people, it's that they didn't get old by being stupid!"

LOL sf7307!! I remember hearing that somewhere, it probably was from sunshine.

Absolutely, go with the old folks when it comes to crossing the street!

As others, I'd worry more about the traffic than the smell of garbage, which though Cairo is not a "clean" city, the tourist areas are fine.

I'm back finally after a much too long move and much too long time without DSL. Took a week to catch up on emails, but now I can dedicate some time to Frommers and Fodors again.

The garbage problem hasn't become so bad in my estimation. I suspect a tourist, once they get used to the idea that they aren't in "Kansas" anymore, won't notice anything too awful either.
For those that used to live here too, the Zabaleen are not coming to my neighborhood any more. These days we put our garbage out by the door, like before, and the bowab collects it and takes it out to the main street to be picked up by the city collection service. I have a tour coming up next week into the churches in the Zabaleen area. This will be my first trip in since the pigs were all slaughtered. I'll let you know if I see any remarkable difference.