The government says it wants a cleaner, greener, better Cairo by the year 2050. Yet, it still has a long way to go in getting people to trust in its designs, writes Dena Rashed

Were the ancient Egyptians to revisit Thebes these days, writes Nagwa Abdel-Hamid, who knows what they would make of their descendants (and others) surveying the centuries-old necropolis in colourful hot-air balloons? Last week, in the warm winter of Luxor, photographer Mohamed Wassim and I set out to the west bank of the Nile at 5.20 in the morning, too early for anyone to want to get out of bed. Yet we were too excited to pass up the opportunity, so excited we were positively eager to wake up.