It was a beautiful day in Cairo.
The high temperature was in the 80’s with a gentle breeze and just enough clouds in the sky to provide a bit of relief from the sun. In short – it was a great day to go sailing on the Nile River.
Noel had reached out to a local travel company and booked us on a 2-hour private sailing trip on the Nile River on a felucca.
In case you are not familiar with a felucca it is a sailing ship that holds no more than about 10 people with a triangular sail and a shallow draft. They have been used for centuries on the Nile River to shuttle goods and people and are a popular choice for short tourist trips. They are also crewed by only one or two people.
Our guide was supposed to pick us up promptly at 1:00 p.m. and was a bit late. The doorman at the Sofitel Hotel told us that there are two Sofitel Hotels in the greater Cairo area – and that often drivers will go to the wrong hotel. After some frantic emailing between Noel and the tour company – it turns out that is exactly what happened and he had been waiting for us patiently at the older Sofitel Hotel property.
After the little bit of drama on whether we were ever going to get picked up – our guide met us at the correct hotel and we navigated through about 30 minutes of Cairo traffic to get to the boat. Part of the tour included a lunch to eat while sailing and our guide asked us in the car what we wanted to eat for lunch. We both picked some local Cairo cuisine. On the way to the boat, our driver double-parked by a restaurant (yes – people were honking their horns at us), our guide hopped out and returned five minutes later with our hot lunch in hand.
About 10 minutes later, we arrived at the dock and boarded the felucca for our early afternoon sail along the Nile.
Our lunch was one of the popular “comfort foods” in Egypt called Koshari. This tasty dish consists of rice, lentils, pasta, tomato sauce, garlic sauce and fried onions. It is vegan – very filling and very delicious!
The Nile River is busy and there was a lot of activity as we sailed. We were passed by a wedding party on a motor boat, local fishermen were casting fishing nets and we observed several other tourists enjoying felucca rides.
We also observed a variety of birds including egrets, herons, and crows.
When we finished our sail – the same driver picked us up and delivered us back to our hotel – the correct one I might add!
As we are still getting used to the 10 hour time difference – we promptly got back to our hotel room and took a short rejuvenating nap.
Overall our felucca ride was a fun and relaxing way to spend an afternoon in Cairo!
Until next time …
