Summer Escapes to Egypt’s North Coast: Where the Heat is Only Half the Story

Summer vacations on the North Coast of Egypt are like an annual pilgrimage for Cairo's elite, a journey that combines the raw beauty of the Mediterranean with the simple goal of escaping the city’s unbearable heat. It’s the sort of place where men don their flashiest swimming trunks, women sport wide-brimmed hats that double as solar panels, and everyone pretends that the sunscreen they're slathering on is a fashion statement rather than a desperate plea to the sun gods.

At the heart of this ritual is Hacienda, Marassi, and all the other gated slices of paradise that dot the coast, where sand is imported, and so is the attitude. Here, every lounge chair tells a story of triumph over the urban grind—never mind that the triumph sometimes looks like a carefully choreographed dance of Instagram poses and competitive beach volleyball.

You see, the North Coast is not just about the sea and the sun. It’s a test of endurance, a survival course in overcooked barbecues, night-long beach parties, and dodging rogue beach balls. It’s where a serene afternoon dip can be rudely interrupted by the deafening roar of a Jet Ski—or worse, an impromptu concert by someone who has mistaken their karaoke machine for a musical gift.

Then there's the quest for the perfect tan, which is practically a contact sport. You can always spot the newbies—they're the ones who apply SPF 50 at 9 AM and think they're safe. By noon, they're the color of a well-cooked lobster and huddled under an umbrella, cursing the sun, the sand, and the guy who sold them the "authentic" aloe vera that smells suspiciously like household cleaner.

Dining on the North Coast is another experience altogether. Restaurants compete for the title of "most exclusive reservation," a game that’s part art and part combat sport. Your standing in the community can be measured by how effortlessly you can secure a table at the latest hotspot, where the fish is flown in daily from places that sound exotic but are actually just the Cairo Fish Market with a better PR team.

And let’s not forget the kids, who are herded into endless loops of swim lessons, soccer games, and the occasional sandcastle competition that somehow turns into a fierce debate over zoning regulations. The real heroes are the grandparents, who are deployed as the summer’s uncredited lifeguards and dispute mediators, proving once again that retirement is not a vacation—it’s an unpaid internship.

But for all the chaotic bliss, there is something deeply comforting about the North Coast’s unchanging rituals. It’s where old friends reconnect over shisha and backgammon, where love blossoms under starry skies, and where even the most harried urbanites find a moment of peace—if only between the third espresso martini and the first reluctant phone check for work emails.

So here’s to the North Coast of Egypt, where the heat is relentless, the Wi-Fi is patchy, and the memories are sun-kissed and sand-sprinkled. It’s not perfect, but then again, neither is the ideal summer—it's just the perfect excuse to escape, unwind, and return to Cairo two shades darker and ten times more stressed about your inbox. But that's a problem for September.

Zarzour a.k.a. Tarek Labib

You had just arrived to Cairo from California.

It was Ramadan of 1999 or 2000 and something. My wonderful sister Shahira invited you, and your pony tail, for Iftar at my mother's house. I was the only family member and invitee fasting.

Shahira told us that she was inviting a very interesting architect friend of hers who had just arrived to Egypt, and who knew no one here. She wanted to make you feel at home at our family place.

What a non-conformist, funny looking, broken Arabic speaking, fat, awkwardly suspender dressed , environment friendly, non-fasting man you were!!

I endured several hours of very humorous observations you made of our country, especially during Ramadan, and of how Egypt had changed. "You are still fasting in this day and age ya Ismain"? you asked me a minute before Iftar. I wanted to bite your ear off, but restrained myself because I was still fasting.

You spoke about California and your life there. You spoke about your family, and how you loved your brother Hesham. You talked of how you had a yearning to meet your long lost friends, and make an environmentally architectural  difference in Egypt . You spoke about your mother and your relationship with her . The lengthy diatribe reminded me of the archetypical American passenger spilling his heart out while sitting next to him in an economy seat on a flight from New Zealand to New York. I wanted to murder you.

After, the Iftar was over I told Shahira "When on earth are you going to stop befriending these social misfits"?

This social misfit became one of my closest and dearest friends, and family member, ever since. Does this sound familiar to you too?

Zarzour's story is classic. We all have a Zarzour, or Zarzours, that come across our way in our lives. They epitomise how we are all conditioned to assess, define and classify the people we meet. They turn out to be none of the Zarzours we had judged during our first encounter.

Funny looking: You were definitely not. I think you were the coolest looking guy on this planet.

Broken Arabic speaking: I could listen to you talk for hours in your broken accent. You were so much more coherent, knowledgeable, interesting, charming, and genuine than the most eloquent Arabic speaking men of our times.

Fat: Yes, you were fat. After knowing you, I didn't see fat. We talked a lot about our love of food. I jog 6 km 4 times a week. You walk them in a year. Who is happier? Our conclusion was that we are both happy with the way we are. It is not about how long we live, but the quality of how long we live.

Awkwardly dressed:  You looked trendy in anything you wore.

Environment friendly: Very fitting that the Paris Climate Change Conference was held a couple of days before your moving on. Your home in Abou Sir is an environment friendly masterpiece. You are a genius when it comes to building environment friendly homes. There is not enough space in this ode to you to enumerate your observations and recommendations on how to build today's age homes. Walking in to your abode was a revelation. I consider myself privileged to have had the honour to enter, eat, sleep and enjoy this wonderful place you humbly called home. A true masterpiece in architectural and interior design. A work of genius. You are the Van Gogh of environment friendly architecture. You unfortunately shall be immortalised for your design long after you have left us. I don't think people are yet able to understand where you were going with your designs. You are way ahead of our times. My heart bleeds for another lunch, cooking your flowers, and enjoying your home and friends.

Tarek's Abou Sir Masterpiece

Non Fasting: No comment.

Last Wednesday you didn't show up for dinner.  It was a dinner you would never miss. One of the Pop Up dinners we enjoyed together so much!! Your seat remained empty till we all went home. You called in to say you didn't feel well. Don't we all sometimes? Yet the lesson I now have unfortunately learned is to always go back to check on a friend who is unwell. Never leave an unwell friend alone. Never, ever, if you truly care.

They say that our souls linger around for several days after we die. If they are right, then let us all say a little soft and gentle prayer for Zarzour. Let us wish you a lovely journey onwards and send you a ray of tender loving light. You deserve it our friend. You gave us days of your loving light, it is time we returned some of ours.

We will not mourn your loss, but we will celebrate your life. We will hold a party in your honour in a  place you loved dearly. We will sing and laugh and remember you, because we have not left you, despite you leaving us.

Please be there for us when it is our time. There will not be a lovelier, gentler, warmer, welcoming, and loving face to see on the other side.

The Zarzour and I

The sweetest of all plums !

My Dearest Magda,

You are on your way on a wonderful, beautiful journey we shall all definitley take either the next breath, the next minute, hour, or day.

You are not alone. Fear not the journey. Enjoy the ride until we can catch up with you. I have always wanted certain people to welcome me on the other side when my time is one day up. You weren't one of them because I never expected your leaving us so soon. But now I definitely want you to be there for me, welcoming me with that beautiful warm smile of yours.

I am therefore speaking on behalf of myself, and a little for all those who know you.

I shall not speak on behalf of your husband, sons, or sisters. They have much, much bigger volumes to say.

To me your, family name always spoke wonders of you. No one can be more of a plum than you ya Bar2ou2a :)

The first thing that comes to mind is the sweetness of the plum. No one is sweeter than you Magda and sweetness permeates. You have been such an easy person to know. Sweetness is also very infectious, and that is why anyone who lived around you also became sweet. Omar, is a typical case where you made such a huge impact on his life. His success came from the serenity you managed to bring to his busy and hectic world.

The second attraction of the plum is its roundness. You have always enjoyed a well rounded life ya Magda. You have never done anything in excess. The universe does not like squares, and anything round is welcomed. Therefore, for anyone who came in contact with you, knows how easy going and amenable you are to all living creatures. There was also always that glint of mischievousness in your eye because you are fun loving, which is a great gift. A well rounded character can also only live this way.

The third virtue of the plum is its seed. You are leaving behind wonderful seeds. I personally adore them. Your beautiful belly cooked them well and many on this earth have grown to love your sweet products. They too have chosen two girls who have been cooked in a lot of love. A mother wants nothing more than to see her sons happily wed to women who will love and cherish them. Rima and Alix will be just that. Their bellies have had a chance to talk to yours, and they too shall produce beautiful offspring. I just know the first girl will be a Magda, who will carry your torch of happiness, acceptance, and joie de vivre!!!

So dearest sweet Magda, we will be there with Omar and your family saying good bye to you. We will also continue to enjoy life and always celebrate knowing that you will be there. You are just going on a trip and all I can say is "au revoir" and a "bientôt".

Tons of love and sweet blessings to you.

Seifallah Fahmy

Pray for an Egyptian Lee Kuan Yew

The Egyptian political scene so far looks desolate.

There are too many feeble political parties. They have not been able to come up with an ideology appealing to the masses. None of our existing parties can put forth a candidate of their own for the upcoming presidential elections. None of them have the funds to support a presidential candidate. None of them have the funds to win a majority in the next parliamentary elections.

These parties are not to blame. It takes time for political leaders to mature and recognize how the political game needs to be played.

This does not bode well for Egypt. Why?

Sixty five percent of our population is below the age of thirty five.  Some people see it as a problem. I see it as a gold mine. They need to be given hope and nobody is giving them that. Neither a political party nor a presidential candidate has been able to appeal to our youth.

We luckily now have a constitution which unambiguously defines his or her role, and limiting the term to two four year terms. This might be the first ray of hope that things might be on track. Yet the majority of our youth didn't vote for it. Skeptical as they may be, I foresee it will one day be an invaluable tool in their hands. This is how they will keep our leaders in check.

Therefore, we now must only wait for our presidential elections and hope and pray that our next President is a Lee Kuan Yew. I hope our candidates study this Singaporean leader well. This man managed to rescue Singapore from desolation. He turned it into an Asian economic powerhouse and a vibrant democracy. In this day and age we however can do well without his caning policies and unique autocratic idiosyncrasies. 

The only difference between our future Egyptian president and Lee Kuan Yew (apart from one being a constitutional president and the other a prime minister) is the decade in which they will govern. Mr. Yew didn't have tech savvy, internet connected, social media linked, politically opinionated, and this many economically deprived youth. Ours will. After both revolutions of 25 January and 30 June we all know what our youth are adept at.

I hope our presidential candidates make sure to address the needs and aspirations of our youth as a top priority in their programs. For them employment is their urgent and most imminent need, and a move towards oppression their worst fear. They need a well-defined economic program that will employ the maximum number of our young women and men. They need clear programs of future democratization.

The candidate then may be, may be, able to win over the trust and hearts of our youth.

Believe In Our Youth

These past three years must have been the worst of my life.

The pressures, the burdens, and the sheer daily will power to hang on and not skip country have been enormous. To wake up, and go to work to businesses crumbling because of a depressed economy. To look in to the faces and eyes of your hundreds of lifelong employees and to not fire them because they are your family. To pay them salaries from your life long savings in the belief that life will be one day be good again. Just believing in that is a heck of a burden.

To think of the future of your family. Can I maintain the standard of living I have provided them? Will I be able to provide them for the needs they are accustomed to?

Yet, you and I have held on to our faith that things will get better. You and I did not move to Canada, the USA, or Dubai. We are sticking it out here. Why do we do it midst what most people perceive as total chaos, anarchy, and hopelessness? Because we believe in our genetic composition.

We as, Egyptians have brought to the world one of the most beautiful civilizations humanity has ever known. We have given humanity the breadth of wealth in all sciences while humanity was foraging from trees and hunting wild animals. We built temples and pyramids that have withstood the test of the ages as symbols of our humanity. Those genes live on. We are Egyptians, and we are proud of it. We have been ruled by Monarchs and Queens. Hatshepsut and Nefertiti, and even Cleopatra who we considered our own. We had women rulers, while everywhere else women were held in the abyss of ranks in human society.

Now to put things in to perspective we actually have things going pretty well for us.

Would you please entertain just for a second the thought of what the world would be like if a German General toppled Hitler because he believed he was evil? Sixty million lives would have been saved. Imagine if one of those lives was your son, daughter, wife, sister or mother or father? We have a general who did.

My son goes to college overseas and I don't have to worry that he will be one of the 37 million who had to go to war and die in World War I or of the 60 million who died in World War II. Therefore these are definitely good times.

These are times to think positively. We can debate all day on who should, or should not, be president. We should fight abuses by the police, we should fight for the rights of our women and youth. But we should do all of that believing in our genetic make up and that we shall come out of this better. We need to keep working to bring this country back on track. We need to give hope to the youth who are under 35 who make up 65% of our population.  We need to give the youth who have fled Egypt a reason to come back.

Youth is our hope.

Believe in our youth.

Our Children

 

How far back does your memory go?
Be honest, because we sometimes look back at a picture or a video of our childhood experiences and think we remember it?
“We know that having language can be very important to memories because in having words for our experiences, we can talk about them, repeat them, and structure them” say some experts.
So do we start remembering from 3 or 7?
That is really not the point I am trying to make. For those of you who have children as old as mine, 25, 22, and 2 (that excludes a whole bunch of you) I am asking this question because our eldest children only hear from my friends what great parents we were. They don't remember how great we were!!!!
Mona and I were absolutely great parents. We sacrificed everything for the well being of our children. A sacrifice that was done with a lot of heart, and no misgivings whatsoever. We did it willingly and without the least of regret. Do our children remember those moments? No. We only have the pictures and videos to prove our love? Yes.
When they were old enough to remember fully, they didn't want to be with us. We would implore them to go on this, or that, trip. The answer was always no. We would gladly take their friends along, but the answer was always no.
Now that I have a two year old and watch myself drool, and dribble, over his highness I remember my previous experience with my older children.
My advice now would be the same. Give, give and give and don't expect any appreciation. None is warranted. You are giving because they deserve to be given to. Not because they are your own but because they have no one but you, for the time being.
That’s a fact that sometimes makes me sad, since I now cherish Shams's company, as I did Zein and Aly's,  time together so dearly. But remember that conscious, autobiographical (also known as “explicit”) memories are only the tip of the iceberg. “Implicit,” or unconscious, recollections shape us too. The truly important and formative memories are the ones we don’t have words for — the ones that are logged somewhere deep in our children’s brains. That’s where our kids learn that they are loved, that relationships bring them joy, and that people can be trusted.
No, my children probably won’t always remember the time when we rolled in the grass, or when I carried my daughter day in, day out, to the beach in Agami, and we all laughed. When I swam with Aly in the pool to attack Captain Hook, or when I carry Shams in to his favorite "Aquamium" in Gouna, or when Sabrine and I smother him with kisses on his way to his first day of school.  But what they will remember is that their favorite people always take care of them, relationships are intimate and fun, and life is good.
Peace and love to all of you who are in our shoes!

Insignificant Pain

At 3:15 am today I heard my 2 year old son Shams scream my name. I was in my bedroom five meters away from his. It was an unusual beckon. One of a child who has had a bad, very bad, dream. A nightmare. Even these little angels have them?

I jump out of bed and run towards his room. I am half asleep in my quest to hold my baby in my arms to comfort him an to tell him that everything is alright. I am here for you my son, don't worry. Yet all of a sudden I find myself sliding on the bedroom carpet and falling headlong into a low table. I hear a crack and and sense extreme pain in my left hand. Yet I get up convinced I just had a bad fall and scurry on towards his room. Right before I open his bedroom door I feel something very warm gushing down my hand . I lift my hand, and now the warm sensation is transferred towards my elbow. Something red was oozing down towards my arm and elbow. What is this? Blood? Impossible! This is a dream. Why am I bleeding?

I hear Shams's nanny enter his room. She will comfort him and I recoil into the bathroom to asses the damage.

I look at my hand and in horror see that my thumb has been half severed and a white bone is protruding out of my skin. My thumb is sadly listing at a forty five degree angle towards the left. My childhood dream was to be a doctor. For many reasons I cannot delve in to here, I did not become one. So I curiously looked in to the protruding bone and bleeding and  listing thumb. It didn't bode well. I have never broken a bone in my body before. This is a calamity! Will I be able use my thumb again? This is new to me, and my mind starts pacing, and racing. What do I do now? What do I do now?  It is Friday dawn in Cairo. Do I call a family member or doctor friend for assistance? No. Don't bother someone at 4 am in the morning with something like this. I decide to go to the Dar El Fouad Hospital emergency unit.

I wrap my thumb in four layers of  Kleenex, jump in the car and furiously drive towards 6th October City. 

Four police blocks later I arrive at Dar El Fouad. 

It is now 4:30 am and the pain is excruciating. I enter the Emergency Unit. I see the resident doctor. He sees my predicament. In two minutes a nurse asks me a list of medical questions, I am tagged with a bracelet, I am bar coded, I am X-Ray-ed and I am in a very familiar room tended by the young and just awakened Dr. Maged. He is a young, handsome, very intelligent emergency unit surgeon. I feel relieved he is young. I have so much faith in today's youth. He professionally tells me that this procedure will hurt from the moment he will inject my thumb with an anesthetic, to the moment he re aligns my bones in my thumb. He proceeds and makes nine stitches to seal the wound.. He has therefore very well managed my expectations. I groan and moan while he does what he promised to do. I am X-Ray-ed again and the thumb is back in place.

I am left alone in the room to await someone to escort me out. I cry. I cry floods of tears. The awakening of my child at 3:15 am that led to my destruction of my thumb, that lead me to the journey to reach Dar El Fouad also lead to another experience.

While I thought that my thumb was the most important thing to my existence, and while I was wallowing in self pity and grief, and blaming the universe for my misfortune, a very young woman is rolled in to the berth right next to me. She is pregnant. Her colour is the colour of a lemon. Her facial features beautiful, yet immobile. She looks like she is in another world. I try to look in to her eyes, but her eyes do not see. A nurse rushes to close the curtains between our berths and we are separated. I hear the doctors talking. She is a four month pregnant woman who passed away before she was even brought in to the hospital. They don't know the medical reasons for her death. They make assumptions It is a cold, methodological, clinical assessment of the situation. These are two souls who are no longer with us. A mother and an "in body" child? Can there be a tragedy worst than this?

I try to be as empathetic and compassionate as  I can with this beautiful soul, yet I can't. Her grief is overwhelming. Here she is is, so young, so expecting, yet so far gone away from our world.? 

Her mother enters the room and starts wailing. She is hugging her daughter, and grandchild,  in utter disbelief.

My thumb pain and my predicament now seem so dwarfed by the magnitude of this tragedy I am now witnessing. I was ashamed for being in pain! What trivial pain can I be in? What self pity am I wallowing in? What grief is this mother experiencing this moment? Unfathomable !

Now the tears are freely rolling. I empathize, I understand, and I am silent..