CAIRO — When it comes to dust and din, perhaps no city on the planet can match Cairo, a desert-bound megalopolis clinging to the Nile whose 17 million people get by with only a few square feet of green space each.
For years, residents wanting fresh air or rambles away from their stifling apartments have had little alternative except to go to the crowded zoo, the traffic-packed bridges over the Nile or even the grassy medians on the road to the airport.
But now, in an unusual initiative combining horticulture, community development and archeology, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture has created a 74-acre park atop a 500-year-old garbage dump. The rare green space offers Cairenes what they have been missing: an oasis to call their own.
Dubbed Cairo's "Central Park," Al Azhar Park has been an instant hit.
It is lined with palms and ornamented by fountains, ponds, a stream, a waterfall and hundreds of thousands of new trees and plants. And it's close to some of the Egyptian capital's most historically significant sites: Saladin's Citadel, the Khan al Khalili bazaar, the City of the Dead cemetery and the 1,000-year-old Al Azhar University.
From the terraces of the park's Hilltop Restaurant, diners can look down the spine of the park to the magnificent citadel and the stately Alabaster Mosque built by Egyptian ruler Mohammed Ali, or turn slightly and look past the roofs of the Darb al Ahmar slum at the medieval minarets of Islamic Cairo and downtown toward the towers of the five-star hotels bestriding the river.
For a city famous for its chaotic, honking traffic and the omnipresent crush of humanity, the serenity and green of the park seems somehow un-Egyptian. The landscaping, the al fresco dining venues and the winding promenades smack of something from the high-priced resort hotels along Egypt's Red Sea coast -- just without the lobby, the porters and the guest rooms.
On an evening during the waning days of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, young couples, business executives and three-generational families hungrily flocked to iftars, or evening feasts to break the fast, held in the restaurant and the park's lakeside cafe. Sated, they perambulated in the gathering dusk.
"It's lovely -- one of the nicest things to happen to Cairo over the last 50 years," said Max Rodenbeck, a longtime resident and author of "Cairo: The City Victorious."
