A day at the beach in Egpyt

After spending so long in the hot, hot desert in the south of Egypt I was dying for a swim, and so ended up going to the beach near Alexandria. At first we went to a private beach, which front a private park about 10 kilometres to the East of town. After paying to get in to the park you then have to pay again to get in to a beach (which were all more crowded than the nearby public beaches we had gone past in the bus), but all the best - and most empty beaches - are private private - you can't even pay to get in. (We asked one nice security guard who wandered off and asked the owner who was sitting fifty metres away. The owner took one look and shook his head !!!) So I wandered out on to the point where some guys were fishing, after the security guard caught us wandering on to a private beach after jumping the wall, and when the security guard wasn't looking I slipped in to my swimmers, ran to the edge of the rocks and jumped in. Of course, all hell broke loose - as soon as the security guard saw me in the water he started blowing his whistle, ran over and screamed (mainly with his hands) for me to return. The subsequent conversation, captured in the photo, centred around how he would be taken off in handcuffs if his boss caught him with me in the water.



Not to be deterred we walked out of the park and along to the nearest public beach, just past the Hilton beach, which cost a measly $20 to get in to. The municipal beach instead cost a solitary dollar - for which we got access to the beach and an umbrella - we scrimped on the chairs and table - meaning we only got the second row, behind the umbrella line. As the photo shows, paying to get in to a beach doesn't put anyone off, we had the pleasure of sharing the beach with half of Cairo. Everyone was packed in a single row on the shoreline under their umbrellas as far as the eye could see. Coming from a city of twenty million, all packed on top of each other in dense forest of concrete towers they call home, I guess what I experienced as a can of sardines was in fact for most locals wide open expanses. When I swam out to the depths and turned back to look at the coast line for as far as I could see the entire sweep of the bay - at least 10 kilometres back to Alexandria - was filled with the same line of umbrellas and swarms of people.



The beach itself was quite nice, however it was littered with rubbish, mainly plastic bags and food containers. Likewise the water was filled with rubbish from about the first five metres from the shore, and then the deeper you swam the more sporadic the appearance of rubbish became. Most Egyptians seem to have selective blindness when it comes to rubbish. They appear content to sit in it, walk through it and swim in it as if it weren't there.

A day at the beach for Egyptians has little do with either the beach or the water and more to do with bringing as much as you can to the beach and consuming likewise. Sitting on the beach not more then a minute passed without somebody coming past to sell something - beach clothes, inflatable swimming aids, photos of you and your loved ones, nuts, drinks, fresh fish, shampoo, newspapers, food, flip-flops, ordinary clothes, chocolate bars, board games and on and on and on. Surprisingly I witnessed quite a few sales. There was plenty of eating going on, a fair few people smoking sheesha - the hubbly bubbly water pipe, a few people strolling up and down the beach, but only the kids got in the water. As soon as we got in the water we were surrounded by people, somehow the water seemed to break the ice, and we faced a machine gun round of the same questions over and over - what is your name ? where are you from ? what is your name? Fortunately most people couldn't swim that well so heading for the depths provided for a bit of solitude.
Most people were content to sit on the beach, and with most women who ventured in to the water completely covered, or at least in jeans and a long sleeved shirt, you can see why. Wouldn't be much fun if this was your swimming costume !!!