I had no real expectations of Cairo, or of Amera’s trip. I find things are always more exciting when you don’t try to imagine what they will be like. Regardless of any expectation I might of had, nothing could have prepared me for just how fabulous it could be!
Cairo 7pm: It is the last night of Ramadan, there are 20 million plus people on the streets of Cairo, all shopping last minute for their new clothes for the Eid! The excitement in the air is so intensely jubilant that it almost lights up the warm night air. We have a 10-minute walk to the restaurant for our first nights meal. The traffic is grid locked as the millions of people far out way the amount of sidewalk. Singing, clapping, dancing and shopping all at once, we receive a few “ Welcome to Egypt” ‘s and “ Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi” ’s, before they return to their bargaining for their new Eid fashion.
Aside from the fact that I am convinced that this city is built on sand and has very dodgy foundations (I later found out I was suffering a little vertigo from 25hrs worth of flying) I wouldn’t change a thing! I have already fallen in love with the grubby, overpopulated streets of Cairo. The Egyptians are so happy! There are 20million people on the streets all in party mode without the influence of drugs or alcohol! Fantastic. No drunken brawls, just pure Egyptian jubilance!
Our hotel, The Grand Hotel, is really not so grand! The cab drivers can’t believe we are staying in the midst of downtown Cairo.
“Oh you mean Grand Hyatt?” each cabbie would exclaim!
“No, no! The Grand Hotel –Downtown!” we would reply, much to their disgrace.
But we wouldn’t have had it any other way. We were in the midst of it all. Of true Egyptian culture, not some false touristy version but the real deal!
When we exited our hotel, every head would turn. We seemed to be the only westerners in downtown. If fact it was as if we were the only westerners that had ever been to Downtown they way they would stare! Perhaps if we didn’t grow up with the notion of ‘don’t stare it’s rude!’ We wouldn’t have found it so amusing! They were fascinated with us! I later found out that the Egyptians think that western culture is so strange that they like to observe every detail of this crazy western species. They watch the way you walk, talk, dress, laugh, your social interactions, eating habits… everything fascinates them. I felt like I was a newly discovered creature on National Geographic Channel! Surprisingly you become accustomed to all this within a day and, like a horse with blinkers on, you no longer realise the entire population is watching you!
So you think you can chill out for a day? Please, what a waste of time! We are off to the Pyramids at Giza on day one. OH MY!! Hooray! The history of this country is overwhelming, especially for an Aussie living in a country with a mere 200year history!
The spirit of the city gets you at once but the spirit of the desert is different. It wasn’t till we had visited the pyramids at Dasher that I finally began to understand the spirit of the desert. You need to stroll quietly to hear the wind whispering to you. You need to feel the magnetic pull of the centre of a pyramid and marvel at how you are standing in perfect alignment with one of the constellations in the heavens above. You need to stand on the cornerstone of the pyramid, eyes closed and arms raised and feel 5000 plus years of history flow through you. The desert energy is peaceful but powerful. It is just as intense as the energy of the city but a lot more spiritual.
So I thought this trip was a dancing tour I hear you say! I had begun to think the same thing! But never fear, Amera knows this land. She knows that it takes more than technique to make a dancer, and without letting on, she is exposing us to all the elements, giving us time to let Egypt in, so that when we begin to dance, it oozes out every pour in our bodies! And for me it does – but not right away.
We took classes with Egyptian teachers Aida Nour, Randa Kamel, Raqia Hassan and Shallaby. All were amazing! All were beautiful and magnificent dancers and taught us some beautiful choreography. Due to their limited English and our limited Arabic these classes were watch, follow and learn experiences. And though we still might need a little practice - learn we did!
A class with the British Sarah Farouk proved invaluable. She was able to verbalise that ‘certain something’ that you can see in all the good dancers and the above teachers but that you just can’t quite describe. She called it the ‘ arhh’ factor. She describes the pelvic region of one’s body as being like a living breathing entity from which all bellydance movement is born. Leave behind your head, your thoughts, and your technique and just feel the music living in you. Sarah gave us a whole new insight into the spiritual essence of dancing.
By night we experienced the greatest of dancers, the likes of Lucy, Soraia, Dina, and Asmahand (in order of my preference).
Although we had to stay up until 3am for The Lucy Show, this two and a half hours of pure energy pounding us in our seats was the most amazing two and a half hours of my life! My god, Lucy puts on a good show – She even shimmies her lip – much to my amusement! Her entourage was really quite impressive - she had the standard thirty musicians with her, except that with each new piece of music another six feature musicians would appear up front of the stage. She had multiple singers, sometimes all at once. All singer and musicians of course were exceptionally talented. Lucy is the only performer who I could still 100% enjoy every second of when she was wearing one of the ugliest costumes I have ever seen, i.e. lycra flares consisting of two tones of electric green!!
Let me just say at this point, in my probably very uncultured Australian sense of fashion, that there are some very tragic bellydance fashions going on in Egypt at the moment! There is also the other end of the scale beautiful and amazing fashion too. However the trend for 1970 style lycra flares just doesn’t sit right with me! Every dancer sported this tragic fashion at least one tragic per show.
Soraia is beautiful. She and I defiantly share the same taste in costumes! She is elegant yet earthy like a little pixie. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Even with a major wardrobe malfunction (her bra cup came undone and she had to hold it for the rest of that piece of music) she conducted herself in a graceful and humble manner.
Dina. Dina was amazing. So over the top! With her signature hand over the mouth little fake laugh/gasp at audience comments; she certainly knows how to hold a crowd. Again some of her costumes though I’m sure expensive and designer made, left little to the imagination and lacked taste. Some loved it some hated it; a black bra with gold hands holding up the breasts was my least favourite!
Asmahand appeared in a silver star carried by her entourage of male backup dancers! She is defiantly a dancer who believes in ‘show’ value. She burst out of her star and danced up a storm on the Nile Maxim cruise boat dance floor. Very entertaining.
I must stress at this point that this ‘holiday’ was action packed and I cannot even begin to try and include all of our activities in one article. Let’s just leave it at; there was not one second that wasn’t adventure filled!
Day 12 – The final day of the Tour.
We rode horses and camels out into the desert, up and around to the back of the pyramids at Giza and stopped to watch the sun set behind them! WOW. Yes WOW! The desert didn’t whisper to me this day, when the wind whipped the desert sand past my skin, it spoke very loudly of knowing how to appreciate how amazing it is to be alive. I sat on my camel and sent out my thanks to the universe for letting me hear the voices of the desert and letting me feel the essence of Egypt.
Back at the stables we dined on the rooftop overlooking the pyramids as the lightshow in the distance turned them from gold to green to pink. We threw our chicken bones over our shoulders when we were done – much to the cats’ delight, all 10,000 of them! The saiidi musicians arrived and we danced the night away. The perfect end to a perfect trip!
And what could be more perfect than coming home with all of that under my skin? The experiences of Egypt are deeply engrained upon my soul! I feel my dancing has improved ten fold, as I can feel Egypt exuding from me, all over my audience, every time that I dance.
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