We have first to traverse the old town of Cairo, a maze of streets still full of charm…But nevertheless, what ruins! What filth! What rubbish! How present is the sense of impending dissolution! And what is this, large pools of black water in the middle of the road!…But the good Arabs, patiently and without murmuring, gather up their long robes and with legs bare to the knee make their way through…
-The Death of Philae, 1909, Pierre Loti
Loti complained about the loss of Old Cairo’s lamp-lit charm on his way to New Cairo’s “sham elegance and Semiramis Hotels” where he could take a clean bath. In my later visits I liked to stay at a dilapidated pension in the shadow of the Semiramis InterContinental. The Garden City House had mostly shared bathrooms and some of the water heaters worked by a blue gas flame burning under the pipe connected to the tub but not to the sink. You bathed in hot water but had to shave in cold.