Cairo, City Victorious

There are some days when I am completely and utterly in love with this city.

Cairo, al-Qahira, whose name means Victorious.

With its dusty streets, people spilling into every direction, Oum Kalthoum playing from a hidden radio, men weaving in and out of traffic, delicately balancing trays laden with cups of sweet dark tea filled to the brim. With the name of God scribbled on walls, next to graffiti advertising apartments for rent. With its women walking down the street, covered head to toe, faces veiled with heavy black cloths, but when you smile at them, you can see the smile given back in their eyes.

With everything that comes together to create this mass of infuriating and frustrating confusion, that you can't help but throw yourself into head first.

And then you turn down a street and it is quiet and cool, with a breeze filled with the smell of Apple flavoured tobacco, mixed in with bread and dust, and two men sit by the side of the street, quiet, barely moving, breathing it all in.

This is one of those days.

Others:
black and white version
by himself