The Ahwas of Cairo | The taxi gingerly crosses the Qasr al-Nil Bridge above the wide, green river. Under the tyres, rocks and debris crunch on discarded missiles harvested from pavements and walls. At the kerbside, the shell of a car smoulders, blackened and twisted, the iron road smeared with its oily blood. Souvenirs of a long night’s rioting. As we drive, little wisps of tear gas seem to hang in the air like the rings of apple scented shisha smoke around the face of the man in the tiny Tahrir café. Unshaven and with a dirty scarf around his neck for the morning’s cold he looks straight ahead. “Welcome in Cairo” he says and he smiles a wide, tender smile. He tilts his head slightly. “Welcome in Tahir.” Cairo is vast. A sprawling metropolis that has straddled the Nile for 5000 years. Today, like the river in flood, it’s bursting at the seams. Nine million people live within the city crammed into whatever space they can find. A repository of Islamic culture for a thousand years, it is known as ‘The City of a thousand Minarets’. As Max Rodenbeck in his seminal ‘Cairo – The City Victorious’ has it, “Only one Cairo institution is more common that than the mosque: the qahwa or coffee house.” Twenty years ago Rodenbeck reckoned that there were well over 30,000 qahwas ranging from humble tea stalls to faded Belle-Époque palaces. This is where Cairenes come to meet and talk and discuss the world. In such an overcrowded city they are a pause, a break in the fabric of daily life and they allow the city to breathe. A poor man, even in these difficult, uncertain and revolutionary times, can be rich in his idleness for an hour and watch the world go by. Twilight on the second anniversary of the Revolution. Near The Ministry of the Interior, the army have erected huge concrete barriers that have become enormous canvasses for graffiti artists and defensive positions for stone-throwers. Around the corner is the Tahrir café... 

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Men play backgammon outside a cafe on Hamid Farid Street in Downtown Cairo
A man reflected in a mirror, smokes inside the Gold Star cafe, Cairo
A waiter rushes through the Gold Star cafe with a tray of drinks, Cairo
A man reads a book at a table at the Zahrat al-Bustan cafe, Cairo
A man with a flag and others who have been protesting in Tahrir Square come and rest at the Zahrat al-Bustan cafe, Cairo
A crowd demonstrating against the Morsi government passes the Gold Star cafe, Cairo
A man smokes a shisha pipe, at the Zahrat al-Bustan cafe, Cairo
Protesters who have come from a rally in Tahrir Square talk and rest at the Zahrat al-Bustan cafe, Cairo
Protesters who have come from a rally in Tahrir Square talk and rest at the Zahrat al-Bustan cafe, Cairo
Celebrated political cartoonist Hassaneen Bassen and Murad, his young protege in conversation in the crowed Cafe Riche after a rally, Cairo
Protesters who have come from a rally in Tahrir Square talk and rest at the Zahrat al-Bustan cafe, Cairo
Couples sit at pavement cafe called the Revolution of the 25th of January in the Bourse area of Cairo. Behind them are graffiti portraits of young men killed in the fighting, Cairo
El Fishawi's Coffee house in Khan al-Khalili Cairo
A man smokes a shisha pipe in the Qamar El Zaman coffeehouse in the Coptic Christian Zabbaleen area of Cairo
A man smokes a shisha pipe whilst watching television in an ahwah called 'Doctor' - allegedly nearly a century old, with the female owner. Islamic Cairo
A couple sit in the Om Kalthoun cafe in Elfi, Cairo
Fil Fil, a waiter who has worked in Cafe Riche since 1943, Cairo
A man smokes in Al Hurriya a cafe bar once popular with Leftist activists, Cairo