An azure sea, a white beach and large waves crashing on the shore, this is what I pictured the North Coast to be, and this is what I get. I hear myself exhale with a big sigh of relief. This was a really good idea I tell my friend gratefully.
It all started two days ago, the casual invitation to ‘come to Sahel’ for the weekend was issued in between the ordering of a cappuccino for her and a strong double espresso for me. Now, not being a native of this country, and having only been a Caireen for 6 months, I had no idea what Sahel was. A cool new restaurant? The hip new club somewhere close to the Nile? Sahel turned out to be something much more fun even and a trip to the Mediterranean sounded great, so Thursday afternoon we set course to the Alex Agricultural Road. I was eager to escape the heat, the smell of exhausts and the traffic and had pictures of vacation commercials in my head of deserted beaches and crashing waves, I was full of high hopes and excitement.
Yes, high hopes and excitement. On a Thursday afternoon, on the road to Sahel. Now I have been in Cairo long enough to know what a traffic jam is and I did not really think it strange to be surrounded by so many cars. However, at some point I noticed a road sign telling us Alexandria 105 km and still the traffic was as hectic as it is on the Corniche. A slight uneasy feeling was creeping up on me that the peaceful environment I was expecting to find at the end of our journey may not turn out to be as relaxed as I envisioned.
At first I was proven wrong, the villa situated in Diplomatic Village was all I could have hoped for. It was too dark to see the sea, but I could hear the surf and the air was filled with that familiar salty scent that brought back memories of childhood years. Bougainville’s rained different colored flowers on the grass of the garden and it was at least 10 C cooler than the stifling summer heat of Cairo. I went to bed with gleeful expectations of days filled with golden sunshine and sandcastles. OK, maybe not sandcastles, but you know what I mean.
The morning brought a different itinerary though, apparently our company of three was setting out to a place a little further up the coast called Marina, and more specific to a new beach that just opened there, Tahiti. It did not matter that much to me, as long as I got to spend time on the beach I would be happy. With our bags packed we set of on the road and again I was amazed about the amount of cars that surrounded us. This was not something only the three of us planned on doing this weekend, the endless resorts lining up on our right side also made it clear how popular this destination was to my fellow Caireens.
Arriving at Marina was a whole new experience though. What I had considered busy before turned out to be light traffic compared to the amount of cars that was zooming around filled with bronzed and scarcely clad young people. Except for the attire, it looked a bit like Thursday afternoon traffic on the 6th of October bridge, but then with an added smell of sun tan oil.
I had never seen a queue of people lining up to go to the beach before, and I thought it was very amusing to find myself in one upon arrival at Tahiti Beach. We were asked to purchase a ticket and as we weaved our way through a throng of teenagers that were all trying to convince the doormen that there was a specific reason why they should be allowed in for free, I could not help but wonder what was going to be so special about this particular part of coastline.
I have to say, it is a really nice place. Well designed, with good music, loads of lounge chairs and bean bags and attentive serving staff. However, no beach, or at least, not a real beach on the open sea. The beach borders a huge lagoon, so swimming is easy and safe, but there are no waves and none of that sense of awe at the enormity of the sea that I personally love so much.
The place was packed with mostly a young crowd, but all ages were represented and it was soon obvious that most people were familiar with each other, if not knew each other well. Funny that, all of these people wanted to get away from their normal life to end up together with all the same people in the same place.
After finding our spot on the beach I amused myself the rest of the day with talking to my friends, swimming in the nearly too hot lagoon and observing the people around me. I think people can be divided in two groups, those who watch and those who like to be watched. I belong to the first category, even if the fact that I was the only tall, blond foreigner on the beach firmly put me in the second one. This did not stop me to observe my fellow beach loungers however, I find stare and let stare is a good policy in those circumstances.
Soon after our arrival a young couple sat down on the two lounge chairs next to us, both not older than 20 was my guess. They were reasonably new to this boyfriend-girlfriend thing I could tell, there was no ease yet in their holding hands and no relaxation in their postures as they sat and talked.
Marina is a bit of a noisy place there, many speedboats and Jet Ski’s storm over the water and their revved up engines disturb the peace and interfere with the lounge music that was pouring out of the many speakers. Suddenly my eye was caught by a very peculiar sight. Out on the lagoon a Jet Ski seating two people approached the jetty at full speed. A young man was seated on the back, a boy even, dressed in fashionable boardies and slick sunglasses. He was holding on to the girl that was driving the Jet Ski, and it was her that made it such a peculiar image to me. She was dressed in black, and fully veiled. Now I am very much aware that this was obviously prejudice on my part, but somehow seeing her, fully covered in black, veiled except for a small slit for her eyes, with a half naked boy clutching her sides, storming around on a jet ski was not something I ever thought I would see. So much for being open minded I mused to myself.
Not long after I got distracted by a small drama that was taking place right next to me. The young lovers were having a spat, and it looked like it was going to be a good one. The boy had his head in his hands, literally, while the girl was sitting up straight, breathing as fast as she could while desperately trying to push some tears out of her eyes.
Finally she succeeded and he noticed her tears, which gave her the queue to get up and walk away with long drama-filled steps. He just sighed quietly to himself and settled in for the wait that he was going to be subjected to. Young he may be, but not inexperienced in the ways of girls I thought.
I bet with myself she would be back in under 10 minutes and lo and behold, after only 8 she suddenly showed up from behind, barely leaving him time to set his features in an appropriate mask of worry and concern. A lot of close whispering ensued and not long after the young lovers went for a dip hand in hand, leaving me thoroughly amused. I could picture them 25 years from now, with a few kids playing in the sand, still performing the same ritual.
The next morning we decided to go to the beach close to home and that finds us at the point where this story started. No matter how amused I was the day before, at myself as much as at others, this was what I had hoped to find here. The beauty of it filled my senses and washed away the stress from my normal existence. Now this was getting away from the city I thought as I ran into the waves.
