We’re down to the final two weeks of Sahel season, three if you’re the type to insist on staying until the very last possible minute.
By now the summer weekend ritual has crystallized. Beach by day, dinner reservation you’ll show up late to, a party you’ll leave later than intended, and a Sunday drive back to Cairo spent horizontal in the passenger seat, sunglasses still on, questioning your choices and your skincare routine in equal measure.
For a lot of people, Sahel is more of an endurance sport, you go home more depleted than when you arrived.
We’ve mistaken the performance of leisure for leisure itself, mistaken being seen relaxing for actually doing it. You have two weekends left. Spend one of them somewhere your phone can’t reach and see how rejuvenated you feel once Sunday rolls out. Here are a few ways you can do this.
HORSEBACK RIDING
There are few things more freeing than horseback riding by the shore. You can skip the tanning just once and experience it near Hacienda White for a bit of a change in routine.
KARAOKE
Babbo’s Taverna runs karaoke night by the beach every Thursday, which means you can conveniently make a whole day out of it. Head to Sidi Heneish early, while the water still has that impossible clarity the coastline is known for, and let the day build toward the inevitable: you, a microphone, and a crowd that will forgive you for butchering “Oops!… I Did It Again” because they’re about to do the same to something worse.
THE FALL
Skydive Pharaohs organizes jumps along the North Coast, and there’s something clarifying about free fall that no amount of journaling replicates. You don’t think about your inbox at nine thousand feet. You don’t think about much at all. Fear, briefly, outranks everything else on your mind, and there’s a strange relief in those few minutes.
WATER SPORTS
Not floating adjacent to it with a cocktail. Not getting washed up on the sand by the violent waves. Watersports, whichever version calls to you, jet skiing, wakeboarding, banana boats full of people who will absolutely capsize you, put you in direct contact with the sea instead of in a lounge chair observing it from a respectful distance or attempting to swim against the waves.
SAHEL SURF
Learn to surf at Surf Camp Egypt. There’s more joy than you’d think in falling off a board in front of strangers repeatedly until, on maybe the sixth try, you don’t. Either way, you’ll leave with sore quads and an entirely new skill, which is more than most Sahel weekends can claim to give you back.
BEACH ACTIVITIES
Hazel Farm, out in Solare Ras El Hekma, runs activities by the beach most weekends that trade the usual Sahel script for something closer to actual play. You can recreate the kind of afternoon you’d have had as a kid before anyone taught you to be self-conscious about having fun.
SPA
Vacationing was never supposed to be a second job. Book the spa day. Let restoration be the actual goal rather than the thing you promise yourself after one too many nights out. The version of you that returns to Cairo should feel refreshed, not just coherent enough to survive the drive.
