Rhythmic drumming and the sound of a wind instrument wafted their way up to the balcony on the sea breeze and it took a couple of minutes to track down their source.
Walking along the beach were a group of three musicians, two were playing mizmar’s and one was beating a drum that was attached to a strap slung over his shoulder which he hit with a curved drumstick.
Well I couldn’t miss this opportunity so I grabbed my camera and headed down towards the beach with My Love (ML), they were playing I think folk music and all the Egyptians on the beach were smiling and enjoying it. Maybe it was a well-known piece of music or folk song, I’m not sure and I don’t think there were any words as nobody seemed to be singing along.
I
was absolutely fascinated by the cheeks of the mizmar players as they suddenly popped out like he had pushed half a ball into each cheek like an extreme Vito Corleone from the film The Godfather
One man obviously felt the music more than the other people and started to dance in front of the musicians, one arm held aloft as he slowly twirled around. This was not made any easier by the deep soft sand that was underfoot. Joining in is obviously not seen as unusual and so they played on slowly moving down the beach with their accompanying dancer.
I managed to get some lovely shots of them all and was just zooming in on one of the instruments when a juggling clown came into view.
Well that brings you up a bit short, the sight of a mizmar band on the beach is unusual enough but, a juggling clown complete with red nose, checked trousers, striped socks and very large red and yellow shoes is somewhat surreal. He merrily juggled away unaware I think of the oddness of the two different performances side by side.
Can you have fusion entertainment like you have fusion cuisine?
In a moment of silence, the unmistakable sound of trumpets could be heard faintly coming from the other end of the beach. Off ML and I headed towards the sound – hard going in the heat of the day and deep dry sand. Four men in bright red jackets, black trousers and pale blue beret style caps were playing the music. The pockets of their jackets were edge in ribbon or braiding in the colours of the Egyptian flag and across their shoulders were black and gold tasselled epaulettes. Running from their right shoulder down across their body was a gold sash.
We took some photographs of the musicians and listened to their music but our eye was soon caught by two other performers. One was dressed in a long yellow coat with a full skirt and a red pointed hat and a false beard. He was carrying a metal container on a long chain. The other wore a similar long coat but this time bright red with white decoration and a small red and white turban.
The guy in the red suddenly threw into the air a cloth he was holding and began spinning it around with his hand, it was brightly decorated and the twirled in every which way showing of his dexterity as the cloth spun and twirled blurring the colours. As you can imagine he drew lots of attention and one of the trumpet players wasn’t happy with their loss of audience.
He moved closer towards the performer blowing his trumpet loudly and this didn’t go down very well as he seemed to lose concentration and the cloth he was twirling collapsed. There was a little contretemps between the two and the performer marched off down the beach and started twirling again. The musicians followed and the performer twirling the cloth got very cross with the musicians and folded his cloth and marched off in a bit of a huff.
All very dramatic and obviously diva like behaviour of performers is the same the world over.
When I got back to the room I tried to find some information about the style of dancing and I found it was a derivative of Sufi Whirling. I’m sure you have all seen film or photographs of men dressed in white twirling round their full skirts. The dervishes whirl in repetitive circles as a form of meditative prayer.
The performer we had seen on the beach would have been performing the Egyptian version of this called the Tanoura. In Egypt the dance has been adapted and become a folk dance performed as an entertainment. The tanoura is the colourful cloth or I should say skirt that the performer had been twirling above his head.
If he had been performing the dance on a hard surface rather than deep loose sand he would have been wearing the skirt over his long coat. As he whirled the skirt would stand out straight from his body as it lifted higher he would move the opening up his body until it was spinning above his head as we saw. I understand that there is a show in Cairo where you can see the dances performed and some of the dancers have up to four of the colourful skirts on which as the whirl are removed one at a time.
Having stood out in temperatures hitting the high 30oC we were both very hot and in need of something cool so headed off the beach onto the path which made walking much less effort than on the sand. On what is normally a small football pitch a small fairground had been set up but before you think of the travelling fairs with their lights and music and brightly coloured facades this consisted of small wooden roundabout and swings. Saying that the small children who were on them were obviously enjoying themselves.
As we headed down the path towards an ice cream we came face to kneecap with a stilt walker all dressed in red with a fez balanced on the top of his head waving to the children.
A somewhat fitting end to a very unusual afternoon’s entertainment.
PS: My apologies for the photographic quality, I dropped my external hard drive onto a tiled floor yesterday and can no longer access any data on it. I have had to pull the images of a post I did on Facebook but many of images I wanted to show you weren’t on it. I have everything crossed that when I head back to the UK in a week somebody will be able to rescue the data. I have a back up in the UK but obviously that doesn’t include the last 12 weeks of images and writing.
If you have enjoyed this blog you may want to read the blogs I kept when I lived in Vietnam and Costa Rica.
Not sure if it is connected but between 1 and 2 pm every day a crow flies onto the balcony. It has a variety of perches which include the back of the chairs, the top of the balustrade or on the wall that the metal balustrade sits on. He sits there and for all the world it sounds like it is saying ‘No, no, no, no,no’ when it is not cawing, although it sounds like it has a sore throat as it is very croaky caw.
Over the following weeks the white clothes turned more towards grey until this week we are at the stage of being embarrassed by the colour of what should be white underwear. And what is worse my pyjama top which should be lemon coloured is now a dirty looking dull colour.
We had a film crew using the hotel as one of the location for a film due for release in January, I merrily took photographs of the filming until I was told in no uncertain terms to stop. Luckily, they didn’t ask me to delete what I had taken but I feel I can’t say anything about it or show you the photographs until it is released as much as I would like to.
There are also trucks with text on them which I am presuming are passages from the Quran or the Bible (in Arabic) and are there as protection from evil or danger. I understand from My Love (ML) that most trucks are owned by the drivers and so I would think that is it one of their most important and expensive possessions so whatever protection they can access they will.
Having thoroughly enjoyed reading about the griffin ML brought me down to earth with a bump when I told him about my research by saying the griffin is the logo for Scania Trucks!!!
Well I’ve been back nearly five weeks and have settled in. I have been gifted with some beautiful sunrises and as our new room is about a minute’s walk away from the beach I can roll out of bed and be there to witness the first rays very easily. Most times I get to watch it by myself or My Love(ML) may amble down sometimes.
The only thing that is really missing is a desk, a round table is not really the ideal thing to accommodate a large rectangular laptop and mouse mat. I can hear the shouts of lose the mouse and mouse mat and use the one on laptop. I need the control of the external mouse for photo editing, I have tried using the track pad but I feel I get better and finer control from the external mouse.
Going by the volume they produce the chick/s sound as if they are something the size of a golden eagle, although it will probably turn out to be something small and delicate. There is no way to see what it is as the nest is behind a parapet and as our balcony is covered so we can’t see the parents either. Logic tells me that it is probably a crow as they are the birds that are most prevalent in the hotel grounds.
I have for some time known that I need to improve my levels of fitness and to that end because I could not face the thought of going into a gym with all those fit, thin, Lycra bodies.
As with most things when you first get them you assiduously use them and that was the case but despite its size I was soon able to ignore its hulking presence, although I never disrespected it (can you disrespect an inanimate object?) by using it as a clothes dryer or coat rack and I did dust and polish it so it didn’t look neglected.
Simple you would think but to count the steps you have to be carrying the phone with you all the time, not something I do or remember to do. Also, there is the possibility of accidents just waiting to happen – not to me but to the phone. Most of my clothes and this is true of lots of woman’s clothing they do not have pockets. I will save this moan for a later date but if you have a phone in your hand all the time accidents will happen. Just off the top of my head it could:
Something had to change and so when we went home on leave this time I bought myself a Fitbit Zip, this is a small device that clips to your clothes and records your steps, it also has an app which records your daily and weekly totals. I didn’t want a watch that would record my calories, heart rate or how long I had slept for. I wasn’t going to let it rule my life but the first time I reach 10,000 steps and the app sent me sparkles and confetti I was hooked.
As soon as I walked in a I knew my worst nightmare was already there, in fact there were two of them. Both very young, stick insect thin and wearing tight multicoloured L. One was in shorts and a cropped top with a bewildering array of straps crisscrossing her back and the other was in leg hugging leggings and vest top. As I had already stepped foot through the door and they had both seen me I carried on in feeling like the rank amateur I was.
couldn’t attend the holiday, it was all very complicated due to early completion of one contract and moving forward the start date of the next. Suffice to stay it was easier for me to stay and go on holiday and ML to return to Egypt.
I have set up at the inevitable small round table in front of the patio doors to the balcony from the bedroom. The view is sumptuous, if I look up from my screen I can see the sun glinting of the tiny waves as they run in towards the shoreline. Below this is a forest of white wooden umbrellas shading white sunbeds. Bright blue and white beach towels are scattered on the sunbeds decorating them with as they flutter in the breeze.
graciously in front of the pillar. At the bottom of the view I can see a table tennis table, two foosball tables and an air hockey table all standing forlornly unused as the children are all in the lagoon pool.
There are one or two people staying here who have been looking at me trying to work out if I am anyone special as yet another person welcomes me back. What they don’t know is that I am this hotel’s Eloise, who lived in a “room on the tippy-top floor” of the Plaza Hotel in New York City with her Nanny, her pug dog Weenie, and her turtle Skipperdee.
Unlike 
If you have ever stayed in a hotel depending on which one it is there are always a collection of extras in the bathroom and usually in a desk drawer. These can be a simple as a bottle of shampoo and conditioner to a basket of luxury bathroom products. I have even stayed in hotels that have a pillow menu, a dental kit and there are even a hotels in the US and Europe that will loan you a goldfish for the length of your stay.
The sewing kit contained one lonesome needle so I promptly stuck it into my top so that I wouldn’t lose it and tried to unravel the black cotton from the other colours. It was and All the ends were twisted together and tightly wrapped around the cardboard. I set about the fiddly task of separating out the one I wanted. The black cotton was not smooth as I expected but fluffy and that didn’t bode well for threading it.
Almost reverently he opened the foil to reveal a small cardboard container filled to the brim with small spicy samosas. The foil had help retain the heat and the plastic bag had trapped the aromas from escaping.
Now I know I wore white tights as a child with Sunday dresses, and I vaguely remember wearing them in the early 1980s along with piecrust collars of a very young 
And it just goes to show you that I am really a fortune teller and my crystal ball enables me to foresee the future, as today somebody wore a tiara to breakfast.
There are lots of different stories about the Egyptian use of lanterns and its connection to Ramadan. Some historians say that during Ramadan over a thousand years ago during the Fatimid period, the people of Cairo took to the streets carrying lanterns to welcome the new Fatimid ruler 
crowds but Monday was 
You will see countless references to ‘
Every year the Egyptian Government issue a health warning to not eat fesikh as it can cause nausea, paralysis or in a worse case scenario’s death. In 1991 eighteen people died from eating fesikh but in more recent years although people have been hospitalised there have been no deaths recorded since 2010 when two people died.
Not surprising the coloured eggs were all I got this year, just before I left England the first Easter eggs were beginning to grace the shelves of the supermarkets but there was definitely no room in the case to bring some with us and I am sure if I had managed it somehow, they would have melted long before I had the opportunity to eat it.
There is a chef that cook’s omelettes each morning, resplendent in his chef’s whites and his towering toque blanche he is surrounded by small bowls of chopped onions, peppers, various meats, cheese etc and he will make you a two egg omelette with whatever filling you want. Not much wrong with that I hear you saying – true but he does add a large spoonful of oil to the pan. I have tried asking him not to but the language barrier defeats us. Also, there is always a huge queue of people waiting for him to cook their omelette first.
View From An Egyptian Balcony 
