Sun and Civilisation

An interesting trip to Hurghada (Coral Beach). "The sea is a desert painted blue," says an old Arab saying, "and Allah ordains that the rarest and most precious things happen to you there"... This is the story of Abdalla, a young fisherman marginalised by his tribe because he is mute, and of Hebatullah, a dolphin that one day got caught, wounded, in the meshes of his net... a story of friendship that began on a clear and silent morning, in that magical place called "Allah's aquarium"... The first rays of dawn skimmed the waves... soon they would snake quickly over the cold sand to end up climbing the mountains, lighting their slopes with antique pink... this spectacle had always fascinated Abdalla, who at every sunrise thanked Allah for what he had given him: two strong arms to work and the heart of a poet, with which to express himself even without the need for words...

Suddenly, as a wave higher than the others swelled, something appeared from the depths of the sea and a silver glint flashed in the net, which came out of the water revealing a small, wounded and frightened dolphin: Abdalla lifted it with infinite care and carried it to the shore.. several times, in the days and nights that followed, he feared it would not make it, but Hebatullah, as he had named her, got through the worst moments and, tended with infinite love, survived. Legend has it that, in the long nights, Hebatullah told Abdalla about her life beyond the reef, about how she had learned to recognise many signals just by listening to her own heart, thus opening the doors for him to the understanding of a new world, where words were only a source of misunderstandings...

and, when the time came to return to the sea, Hebatullah chose to stay with her new friend, to remain and live forever at his side.... The hot desert wind, which moves the dunes and accompanies the seasons, is soaked in the scent of karkadè, the red hibiscus tea prepared by the Bedouins. The ritual of tea, drunk in the shelter of the tent, the home of the desert, is made of ancient gestures, repeated over the millennia, simple but for this very reason so sacred, almost outside time in the context of the crystal and concrete of the ultra-modern Hurghada, by now launched into the third millennium. What is not always remembered when on holiday in Egypt is that this country has entered its seventh millennium...

seven thousand years of history, of which three thousand spent founding and consolidating an empire of which we still speak today as one of the most resplendent and mysterious in the world. The locality where Hurghada now stands, long before it became one of the most sought-after destinations of world tourism, was known in the Ptolemaic era by the name of Myos Hormos. It was a small fishing town that had no other merit than that of being strategically positioned at the mouth of the Suez Canal, therefore at a fundamental point for the passage of commercial ships that sailed up the African and Arab coasts. It was only at the end of the 1970s of the last century that some diving pioneers discovered the marvellous coral reef: since then hotels and tourist facilities have multiplied in the area, transforming it into one of the African destinations most frequented by world tourism.

Apart from the sea always living up to expectations, we went to Luxor with excursions to the Valley of the Queens and Kings, on the Nile and to the Temple of Karnak. The Temple of Karnak is one of the most fascinating things I have been able to admire in my travels, a construction of two-three millennia that has remained intact for very many centuries and is now offered to the view of the whole world in all its extraordinary beauty. On the island of Giftun Kebir I was positively struck by Mahmya beach. Few places in the world manage to be as beautiful and perfectly preserved, albeit regularly visited by tourists, as Mahmya beach. A perfect picture-postcard spot: turquoise waters, beaches of fine white sand, breathtaking views and a natural architecture made of straw huts and simple stones.

A particular memory of Hurghada goes to Didi, a courteous and very kind Egyptian who took us on beautiful excursions at a low price.