It Just Got Real

The bark and roots of this
tree were amazing!

This morning, our last non-travel day in Egypt, Michael and I went for a walk just after breakfast. While to most appearances our hotel occupies the entire island, there are some homesteaders here and there. We said hello to one, who immediately greeted us and wanted to show us his crops and land. Rented from the government, he has had a house here since “forever,” and cultivates wheat, herbage for the animals, and onions. He was in the midst of drying the ripe wheat, and it was beautifully bound in shooks and standing on the stems for proper airing.

The cows are tethered by their horns.
Their wattles are adorable

It turns out that the egrets, which have been enchanting me by being ridiculously large tree birds and making silly noises in their nesting spots, are migratory birds. They are nesting now, but in a month will fly north (our newfound friend said to Alexandria, but it may be just a name that he knows). He then did what I’ve been hoping for: he invited us to his house for a cup of tea! After demurring (luckily, Michael had boned up on cultural mores, so we knew how to respond properly), he persuaded us to go behind his mud brick wall (that he had built himself) to meet his family and have some tea. In the courtyard, his teenage daughter was literally elbows deep in bread batter (not yet dough) in a huge bowl. Our understanding was something about 5 days, and from other questions, we think he said that it took five days for the natural leavening to “take.” It could also be that she was making five days’ worth of bread. He pointed out the clay oven, also in the courtyard, that was about 5’ high. This is where they bake all their bread. Clothes were hanging on the line (interestingly, the babies’ clothing was very Western, but the daughter’s clothing was traditional). We sat on a deep, rickety bench (he brought out a clean blanket with a flourish of hospitality, and eventually tea arrived. In the meantime, we chatted about his children (seven! Four girls, two of whom are grown, and three boys...4, 3, and a baby) by two different wives (only one wife was living with him; it wasn’t clear whether he’d divorced the other or she’d died). He looked about 60, but volunteered that he was 45. We did not go physically inside the roofed part of the house, but it appeared to be one room that was about 4 meters by 8 meters.

Our taxidermist friend in his house. Note the cane ceiling.

We eventually moved on (having given him a “tip”), meandered along a dirt path, and came across another, younger fellow. He and his dad live together, and are fishermen. He lured me into his house by saying that he had an alligator I could see. Now, we’d been told that the crocodiles have been exterminated north of the Aswan dam (which the locals say is universally positive), so of course I wanted to know more. It turns out that the alligators only eat fish, and have tiny mouths and much more lizardy faces rather than crocodilian. The joke that was on us? His alligator was a stuffed one! In fact, he had TWO! And a multiplicity of puffer fishes on which he had performed the taxidermy.

 

His home had no outer courtyard, but rather an inner one. The bedroom (also the main sitting room) had a dirt floor and two deep benches with blankets. The inner courtyard had a portion of cement flooring. I saw green vegetation lying on the floor and asked if they eat it, and he told us it was for the animals. He then offered to let me feed them...yes, of course! He dramatically swept the curtains back from the covered enclosure and revealed: rabbits! There were probably 12 or more in there of varying sizes. I went into the cage and happily fed the bunnies (who, unsurprisingly, were very wary of me). That explained the concrete flooring! He also had a large variegated rooster (the traditional coloring that I think of as French for some reason: copper below, green on the neck and head, and red wattle and comb) and other chickens. 

Baby rabbit!

These Great White Pelicans were
huge!

My newest kid!

Having moved on, we came across the hotel’s zoo! There we found a lovely small display of local fauna, including rabbits (and I got to hold the teeny-tiny baby!), some type of monkeys (which were very greedy when I fed them), large pelican-y birds (which I fed a bunch of dead fish), geese, chickens, goats (he plunked a kid into my arms), calves, buffalo (including two babies!), camels, and horses. It was absolutely delightful. 

Buffalo calves

The afternoon held a rigorous program of napping, working out, swimming, and relaxing by the pool. This was followed by dinner at the Old Winter Palace Hotel, explorer Carter’s hangout when not looking for Tut Ankh Amun’s tomb. A vision of Victorian English colonial splendor, it is opulently furnished in a relatively understated way. Starting with drinks in the bar (which should convey the image of dark walls, glass-fronted bookcases, plush furniture, and low tables), we moved into the 1886 restaurant (there are four restaurants in the hotel), which focuses on French cuisine. I had lobster soup followed by a duck terrine. Other offerings were smoked salmon with crab, lamb something or other, and a multitude of other delicious items. A delightful evening out.

Tomorrow, we have to say goodbye!

View from the pool. The cruise boat floats by periodically.

Love,

Alexandra