It used to smell of all-inclusive holidays.
Colorful wristbands, gigantic slides. The strangely warm, calm waters of the Red Sea.
Military planes flying overhead.
Hiding behind your mom’s back when a man in a turban at the market offers 10 camels for your hand.
Riding a quad bike through the desert, where there’s no shade and the sand sticks to your skin like the dust of history.
A stop where everyone smokes shisha.
Goggles that leave a mark on your face but protect you from the sand.
You remember jumping off a yacht in search of colorful fish and a reef that seems taken from a fairy tale.
Sailing too far away, and when you surface — you see five identical boats and don’t know which one to return to.
Do you remember camels led by children who are barely ten years old?
And the riots in Cairo—Egypt, screaming for change. And Tahrir Square trembling in global broadcasts.
And now Egypt is back. But differently.
It’s white dresses, linen pants, a hibiscus drink in hand.
Jewelry, headscarves.
Dancing at a festival under the Giza pyramids.
Mysterious glances reflected off the stone face of the Sphinx.
Parties under the pyramids—raves, laser lights painting the sky, faces illuminated by the rhythm of the bass.
Sacred and fun in one breath.
Because where else can you dance under structures five thousand years old?
Pyramids—tombs that have outlasted empires.
They were built when Europe didn’t even have names yet.
And yet, there are still mummies here, tightly wrapped in golden secrets.
Hieroglyphs you can’t read, but you feel their meaning.
Sarcophagi—decorated like queens’ necklaces.
Shadows of gods whose names you don’t know, but who watch in silence.
The Nile—eternal, swaying, like the breath of another order.
Canals—not just the ancient ones, but also modern, industrial ones.
The Suez, connecting seas and interests.
It cuts across land and time. It digs up the past to build the future.
Egypt is also a scent.
Cumin, mint, cardamom.
Bazaars smelling of dust and spices. Smelling of time.
Cleopatra and Nefertiti.
Bastet, Horus, Isis, Nemesis—they are all here.
In the walls. In the breath of the desert.
In dreams of something greater than everyday life.
A place that never stopped being a legend—only now it has Wi-Fi, an open bar, and an infinity pool.
Egypt is the archaeology of the soul.
It’s the space between worlds.
It’s a story that depends on how you look at it.
Egypt is thousands of years of civilization squeezed between windsurfing and a luxury hotel with a view of the past.
