Katameya Heights

Attended a lunch today at a wonderful lady's house for Bengali New Year.

She lives at Katameya Heights which is way out on the outskirts of Cairo. On the ring road it falls between Maadi & Heliopolis.

This was my first visit in over 18 months to that part of town.

I was pleasantly surprised on my arrival at the complex. It is a gated complex with pretty decent security. Lots of villas in the complex. Everyone has their own garden and walls and parking spaces within the building complex!

For entertainment there is an 18 hole golf course. Many houses have their own swimming pools and some of them have their own badminton courts too. There is a common club house with lots of other sports facilities.

Katameya Heights supposedly covers an area of 1.5 million square meters.

They have a long list of facilities but what really impressed me was the greenery all around. IKt felt like such an oasis compared to the concrete jungle of Mohandaseen. When you realise that the complex is bounded by arid desert on all sides, this achievement becomes even more remarkable.

Only negatives I could see there were that
1. the temperature was a couple of degrees higher than the rest of cairo - perhaps becuase of the arid desert around.
2. for schools, kids have to travel to Maadi or Heliopolis, although taking the ring road means it takes less time than it would for someone in Zamalek trying to drive to the British School in the All Saints Cathedral Complex.

Anyways, after a wonderful South East Asian themed lunch and interesting conversation with some very interesting ladies, I headed over to Khan el Khalili to help more friends from India shop for their Egyptian souvenirs :)