Reviews for Egypt

The average rating for Egypt based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-06-26 00:00:00 Richard Leathers This book combined several of my favorite things: a travelogue, an outdoor adventure, a strong female narrator, and as a bonus, there is some astute social and cultural commentary. In short, I developed a major girl-crush on Rosemary Mahoney while reading about her experiences in Egypt. I had come to Egypt to take a row down the Nile. My plan, inspired by a love of rowing, was to buy a small Egyptian rowboat and row myself along the 120-mile stretch of river between the cities of Aswan and Qena. This was a trip I'd been considering for more than two years, since my first visit to Egypt when I caught a glimpse of the Nile in Cairo. The first part of the book covers Rosemary's preparation for the rowing trip, which took much longer than she anticipated, mostly because she was a single woman in a traditional patriarchal society, and no one would sell her a boat. She finally found a sympathetic friend in Amr, an Egyptian boat captain who agreed to help her. (Amr was such an interesting and thoughtful character that I wished he would write his own book.) The rest of the book is Rosemary's adventure on the Nile, which was fascinating. The author did a nice job of weaving in stories of the region's history with her own experiences. I especially enjoyed the quotes she included from other Egyptian travelogues, as she explained how travel and tourism has changed in Egypt over the decades. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes travel tales, outdoor adventures, or those interested in Egyptian stories. Favorite Quotes "The more I learned about the Nile, the less forbidding it seemed. I had so often imagined rowing on the Nile that doing so had begun to feel less like a fantasy and more like a memory that only wanted its corresponding action rightfully exercised." "In Egypt, a western woman would never truly be a woman, nor did she quite approach the status of a man; instead, her identity was more like that of a pleasant but irrelevant animal like, say, a peahen or a manatee. It was like moving through a strange kind of limbo, yet Amr seemed to take me more seriously than he did the local women. I felt no disrespect from him." "Down the middle of the river I rowed, feeling that I was not floating but flying. No one shouted at me because there was no one to see me. The river was delightfully empty. This was not like any other body of water I had rowed on. I knew how far this water had traveled through time and space, and what in the world it had inspired. Because the Nile, idly, mindlessly slid down the incline of the African continent, human beings had been able to develop civilization; sitting on top of this water was like being reunited with my origins." "I rowed with a little bit of fear and a great deal of joy. I was alone, finally, with no one to protect me. I wanted to sing for happiness — a rare, raw, immediate sort of happiness that was directly related to my physical situation, to my surroundings, to independence, and to solitude. The happiness I felt that morning had nothing to do with the future or the past, with abstractions or with my relationships to other people. It was the happiness of entering into something new, of taking the moments simply for what they were, of motion, of freedom, and of free will. I loved not knowing what would happen next, loved that no one here knew me. I felt coordinated and strong, and the world seemed huge and vibrant."

Review # 2 was written on 2011-09-20 00:00:00 Duane Davis The review I wanted to write was going to describe the rape of Egypt's artifacts (circa early 1800s) when it became popular for European travelers to visit the African nation after 1000 years of rule that virtually barred foreign visitors from the area. Visitors looted mummies, bones, art, and artifacts. They thought nothing of it. They didn't see themselves for what they were - grave robbers, thieves. I was also going to reference the fact that both Gustav Flaubert and Florence Nightingale visited Egypt at the same time, though they never met. {Isn’t that cool? I want to read their journals/letters.} Both wrote about their travels and their impressions of the locals. {Flaubert visited a bunch of whores.} Both commented on the amount of graffiti that was carved into the ancient monuments. {Hermes wuz here 1820. Ramses II rulz! Okay, those aren’t real, but there was some old graffiti.} I thought that was a shame, and it reminded me of my own visit to the Colosseo in Rome. In photographs it is a marvel of ancient architecture and it is amazing that it is still standing after all these years. Up close there is graffiti both carved into and painted on it. It sits in the middle of a busy modern thoroughfare and almost looks like an eyesore. I wanted to write about the way women are viewed in Egypt and how it hindered Mahoney’s search for a rowboat with which she could make a solo trip down a 120-mile stretch of the Nile. As you can imagine, people thought she was crazy and no one wanted to sell her a boat. She made up a story about it being a surprise birthday present for a non-existent husband. I admired her persistence. I admired the way she was able to navigate through cultural differences to ultimately make the voyage. For the most part she was able to do this without offending people and without coming off as an “Ugly American.” I wanted to relate it to my own experiences in 1996 when I traveled Europe alone for a month. But...I don’t feel like putting much more effort into this review. I'm kind of sick of book reviews. Anyway, good book, 3 ½ stars.