The Garbage City owes its name to the fact that this is where a great part of city's waste ends up. That is because Cairo does not have a proper waste management system.ISO 100, 36mm, f/4.5, 1/125s.
To most of us, the place is a slum, but I found the inhabitants to be perhaps proud of what they were achieving, and they were welcoming, and wanted to show me the best parts of Manshiyat Naser.ISO 100, 24mm, f/2.8, 1/250s.
Manshiyat Naser thrives on what other parts of the city dispose of. Here, rubbish is recycled and re-sold after having been collected.ISO 220, 38mm, f/2.8, 1/50s.
Rats are omnipresent. I soon met a young man who'd show me around, and I got an inkling he didn't want me to photograph these aspects of the Garbage City. Rats must be careful, or else...ISO 100, 24mm, f/2.8, 1/200s.
Garbage City smells just like what you'd expect. Rotten food stench permeates the air. There are billions, trillions of flies. Stray animals feast on edible garbage.ISO 100, 52mm, f/2.8, 1/500s.
I wanted to visit local churches. If you travel to the Middle East occasionally, you are probably used to feeling like a potential hostage and a valuable resource for terrorists. In the Garbage City, people thought I was the terrorist!ISO 2200, 38mm, f/2.8, 1/50s.
They did not want to let me into churches because they had received threats from the Muslim Brotherhood, and were generally suspicious of strangers. I managed to convince them to let me into one of the churches, briefly. It was underwhelming and rather bare.ISO 1800, 34mm, f/2.8, 1/50s.
There was a language barrier, as they did not speak English, and I don't speak Arabic. I was told the place was unsafe, and was supposed to go there with a journalist, but he stood me up, so I ended up going alone.ISO 100, 24mm, f/2.8, 1/160s.
They collect rubbish from the 20 million Cairo inhabitants for a small fee, and bring it here. While it's usually the men who collect it, it's women and children who sort it.ISO 100, 70mm, f/2.8, 1/200s.
In 2009, fearing an outbreak of the swine flu, the inhabitants were ordered to cull all of their 350,000 pigs. They have since returned, and have an important role to play, as they clear the rubbish of organic waste, and their meat is later sold to restaurants catering for tourists. ISO 100, 70mm, f/2.8, 1/800s.
I met one person who could speak English. Despite having a Masters degree, he was stuck here sorting rubbish with everyone else. He did not wish to be photographed.ISO 250, 14mm, f/4.0, 1/50s.
Although the place is a slum by Western standards, a square metre here costs as much as £900 ($1282)! [3] That might be because there is international interest in materials recycled here.ISO 100, 31mm, f/2.8, 1/1000s.
There are supposedly 262,000 inhabitants, and the area cover 5.54 square kilometres at the base of Mokattam Hills (which literally means "broken off" [5]). [4] It's those hills where ancient Egyptians got limestone to build pyramids and temples.ISO 100, 14mm, f/4.0, 1/80s.
This is one of the largest mausoleums in all of Cairo, completed in 1456. [7] It includes a madrasa, a sabil, and a Khanqah - monastery for Sufi Dervishes.ISO 100, 35mm, f/2.8, 1/2500s.
This is the tomb of Princess Shawikar and Princess Ruqayya Abd Al-Halim - who only died in 1947 and 1952 respectively! [8] I imagined it would be as old as anything else here, but this mausoleum is relatively modern.ISO 100, 35mm, f/9.0, 1/200s.
