{"id":17055,"date":"2022-08-11T10:00:22","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T14:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=17055"},"modified":"2024-11-19T13:27:47","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T18:27:47","slug":"but-whos-counting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=17055","title":{"rendered":"But Who\u2019s Counting?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published August 7, 2020 by Linda Lou Burton posting about Cairo, Egypt from Little Rock, Arkansas \u2013 <\/em>There are 81 cities in the world with a population over 5 million. Only 9 of those are in the US. I\u2019ve been to them, and I\u2019ve been to 6 of the ones outside the US. But I\u2019ve never been to a city as large as Cairo. About 20,790,000 people live in the metro area, give or take a few. And over 9 million of those live downtown. Am I daunted by that? A little.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The negatives were considered when I plotted out my time here. Air pollution is serious. There are 4.5 million cars on Cairo streets, most of them old. And there are many unregistered lead and copper smelters in Cairo, major polluters. Because of the lack of rain, plus the city\u2019s layout of tall buildings and narrow streets, which create a bowl effect, the dispersion factor is poor. A permanent haze over the city with particulate matter three times normal causes serious respiratory diseases and eye irritations; it is estimated that between 10 to 25 thousand deaths related to air pollution occur in a year; tourists need to take extra care. Another caution: Cairo is considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world for women; 99% of women living here report they have been sexually harassed, though new national laws define and criminalize those behaviors.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Still, I am here, and I always focus on the positives. On the plus side of things, this city is bubbling over with history. Founded in 969, it\u2019s pretty young when you consider that just 9 miles to the west sits the Sphinx, which some Egyptologists believe is at least 4,500 years old. And then there\u2019s all that King Tut stuff here in Cairo museums, remnants of ancient civilizations. But I didn\u2019t come for that. I came for two specific reasons: to see the Great Pyramid of Giza<\/em>, one of the constructed Wonders of the World<\/em>. And I came because of the River Nile<\/em>. Of course, Cairo does happen to be a capital city as well! And I am counting.<\/p>\n

Cairo sits mostly on the east bank of the Nile, and almost at the end of the river\u2019s 4,160-mile journey from south of the equator to the Mediterranean Sea. Yes, it flows northward, and its \"\"<\/a>basin includes parts of Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, and the cultivated part of Egypt. I\u2019ll go with what most geographers say about its beginnings; the Blue Nile comes from Lake Tana in Ethiopia and the White Nile from Lake Victoria in Tanzania; they converge at Khartoum in the Sudan \"\"<\/a>where the waterway becomes the \u201cNile,\u201d which in ancient Egyptian means “great river.\u201d It winds and twists its way into Egypt where it meets the Aswan Dam, built in the 1960s; an embankment dam that has produced both positive and negative benefits, as any effort to control nature generally does. Massive amounts of electricity, increasing water resources, and flood control \u2013 good; decrease in the fertility of agricultural lands in the delta \u2013 bad. Those floods deposited millions of tons of silt each year, nature\u2019s way of fertilizing without chemicals. The building of the dam also impacted the ancient cities and temples along the river; controversy there.<\/p>\n

So how could I get myself on this river? There are many cruises available; most are south of Cairo, on luxury boats with stops allowing \u201cvisits to ancient civilizations\u201d while carefully \"\"<\/a>avoiding the Nile crocodile. A 12-day Viking cruise beginning and ending in Cairo sounded enticing. Let your imagination soar as your ship meanders through panoramic desertscapes, fertile farmlands, colorful villages and UNESCO World Heritage Sites that preserve the ancient glory of Egypt\u2019s greatest temples, palaces and tombs. Included excursions in every port reveal highlights like these:<\/em><\/p>\n