Just for a minute, stop thinking about whatever it is in your mind: pause, breathe and picture a world quite unlike the one you’re currently involved in. Picture a world where isolation from the real world fuels your blood flow and the air is a blend of musty ancient grandeur and distant contemporary hype.
Now add to this the feeling you get when you find yourself alone, utterly alone but for the one you love, cuddled up together with no walls or roof for protection as the night air begins to engulf all that surrounds you; the stars flicker, the blinding moon begins to rise above the black horizon and the enchanting sounds of a lone man, chanting atop a minaret far off in the distance fills the night air as it travels across the ripples of the Nile. Light your camp fire, stoke your fire, smell that wood smoke, watch the embers float off into the night, take a deeper breath, feel the breeze roll off the water’s edge as it laps up on the shore next to you.
Confused? Lost? Don’t be. You are imagining what it feels like to fall asleep on the banks of the Nile; to sail away into paradise as the whole world ambles on somewhere else, far, far away.
Now, get up from your desk, pack your bags and make a point of landing in Egypt sometime as soon as humanly and financially possible.
Taryn Pollock 