I too visited about 10 years ago. I found the trash, poverty, chaos, and general attitudes on the street to be fairly repulsive. I referred to it as the armpi

I too visited about 10 years ago. I found the trash, poverty, chaos, and general attitudes on the street to be fairly repulsive. I referred to it as the armpit of the universe. I don't recall heavy air pollution though. Giza was definitely overcommercialized to a nauseating degree, but I don't recall such a stench. I felt that, as a westerner, I was walking around with a blinking dollar sign over my head. We got out of Cairo as soon as we could, taking a 12 hour bus ride to Dahab. This place was a little paradise on the Sinai Peninsula, and the hospitable attitude by the locals was quite refreshing. We stayed a week and only returned to Cairo to fly back to Greece.