Cairo - Pharaonic Period - Part 3

We then drove back to the hotel from the Papyrus shop and I had an hour for a shower, change of clothes, and some other pfaffing around before being driven back into central Cairo to jump on a river boat for a dinner cruise, another optional extra added to my trip.

Dining Room of Riverboat

The river boat was decked out like a fancy salon; quite tasteful. Ray negotiated a good table for me ‘close to the action’. I acquired some bread and dips from the buffet and a beer from the waiting staff and started making notes about my day. Here’s what I wrote when I got to this bit:

“Two girls are singing (mostly in Arabic). It’s like some kind of low-rent cabaret for Egyptian Fat Cats with their trophy wives or groups of foreign tourists. And they’ve just started singing Kylie’s Can’t get you out of my head! OMG!”

Nighttime scenes of Cairo from the Nile

Perhaps I was a bit tired; I know I was a bit tired. The cabaret singers were actually very good singers, although their act lacked some polish. They were followed by a Whirling Dervish who was astonishing. It’s clear that he has a complete sense of where he is in space as he’s spinning as he never faltered and was able to throw things to an assistant while spinning and hit the assistant exactly. Most amazingly was just how long he spun for continuously; 10 mins, maybe 15; really! At one stage, the darkened the room and he turned on lights on his costume while spinning. I don’t know; I thought that kind of cheapened his skill.

The Dervish in action

Now whirling his 'dress' above his head

Finally, the headline act appeared, Layla, the belly dancer. She was a comely lass in suitable belly-dancing attire and she performed with great skill. For all her skill in three different dances in three different costumes, the performance was never alluring, as I have always imagined belly dancing to be. The dancing was skillful  rhythmic, musical and clearly built around the idea of showing off her assets as a woman; just not alluring. This was further reinforced when in her final dance she would periodically run out into the crowd to be photographed with a patron at the behest of the ship-board photographer; a scrawny old man whose photo-composition skills were not exactly first rate!

Layla (Bad pic adjusted)

Layla, dancing

The food on the cruise was very nice, as all the food I’m eating in Egypt is. The city lights were pretty and I have some photos of them. It was a lovely dinner outing, all told, although certainly something better shared than done solo.

Ray was waiting for me as I disembarked and he returned me to the hotel for the end of a long day in Cairo. But what a day! An alabaster Sphinx; the vista of dozens of pyramids receding in the distance; the size of Great Pyramid; the tomb of Kafur; Dina; and a belly dancer. There are just not that many of those kinds of days in one’s life!