Rudders at Home

Tonight was the night we went to Fellah’s Tent. Sunday, it’s also the day I got my henna tattoo. We spent the majority of the day by the pool – yeah we did do a lot of that – and when the henna girl, Maria, came round with her book, I got suckered into getting one done. I’d been debating all week so far, thinking that I wanted one. Paul convinced me that I should. I really wanted something on my hands, wrist, etc, but decided against it. I had to speak at a conference thingy on the first day back, so I wanted something that not everyone could see. So after skimming through her book of designs, I made up my mind to have a lotus flower on my back.

And that’s what it looked like. While she started to put the design on my back, she asked me what my name was. She then offered to put it on my back in Arabic as well. That’s what is written at the top. It was quite cool. She made a paste up with the henna, and then put it on really thick. It then dried and when I showered it cleaned it up and defined the image a bit more. I wanted to get another one before I left, but it just didn’t happen. It was good, though, it’s still just fading away now, and it’s been almost three weeks! I think I got a pretty good deal.

So, we had to meet in the hotel lobby for Fellah’s Tent at 4:30. The event was being held at our hotel, and we’d seen the tents that they used, back by the pool.The first thing after meeting the guide was head down to the dock, where the hotel’s feluccas dock. They got us all dressed up in galabayas and we went for a sunset felucca ride, and got out up river, where the infinity pool and tents were. We were “piped” in by a band of three or four men. I like to think it was a bedouin band, but I might be wrong there.

We really enjoyed Fellah’s tent. It was really one of the best evenings we spent. We had a huge buffett meal, all Egyptian food. I had the best falafel ever, with lamb kofta and kebab and all this yummy dessert, like baklava and tons of things made with honey and almonds and pistachios. The food in Egypt overall was great. We didn’t have anything bad at all the whole time we were there.

There was tons of entertainment. There were these guys who danced with sticks, then came back with a panto horse that I got to ride! There was also a belly dancer, a snake charmer! – we have a picture of Paul with a cobra round his neck!! – and a whirling dervish. It was such a good evening, and they had a photographer there taking pictures of everything, and then later at the hotel, they were selling them. We got a couple, mainly because we wanted to use up our Egyptian pounds, but also because they were quite neat and pretty good pictures. Much better than what I was taking. Simply too distracted to take a nice picture!

We had such a good night. I loved every minute of it. I would easily go back and do it all over again.

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