CAIRO: From the May 15 Bridge as it crosses to Giza you can see the calm, glittering expanse of the Nile below. A few feluccas plough the waves, pushed along by the wind, and a rowing team scoots past on their daily practice. To the right are the tower blocks and expensive hotels of Zamalek, while on the opposite shore is the more downmarket neighborhood of Imbaba, its low-rise blocks dominated by the mosque in Kit-Kat Square.
Nestling beneath the overhanging branches of the left-hand side of the river bank are a line of some 30 wooden houseboats, many of them brightly painted.
The term “houseboat is perhaps somewhat misleading. These two-story structures are indeed houses of a sort and home to locals and foreigner visitors alike, but the majority are not boats in the traditional sense. Unable to move under their own steam, they are in fact rectangular rafts with wooden dwellings above, tethered to the shore by ropes and accessible by small gangplanks.
Supplied as they are with mains electricity and telephone lines, they provide not only a comfortable place to lay one’s hat, but also a quiet retreat for those wishing to escape the dust and clamor of city life.
One such resident is Barbara Dick, a student of Arabic from the UK. She rented an upstairs apartment on an Imbaba houseboat for much of the year, and vouches for the tranquility of life on the riverfront.
“I think just living here on the river makes being in Cairo, which can be a stressful city, more relaxing, she said. “We have a balcony, and it’s a nice place to sit and relax with a beer in the evening and just watch the river life go by.
Buffering the houseboats from the road are sloping gardens, many of them immaculately kept. At night, bats fly about the place in search of dinner, and fishes can be glimpsed beneath the somewhat murky waters.
While Barbara’s rent includes a small rowing boat, she has been reluctant to venture far from shore, relying instead on the nearby ferryboat for transport.
“We are at the top of Imbaba, just opposite Sequoia restaurant, and you can catch the ferry over to Zamalek, which is very cheap. It’s easy to just pop over for a meal, she said.
This history of life on the Nile is long and chequered, dating back to the times of Cleopatra, who is reputed to have entertained her lovers aboard her water-born boudoir. When Napoleon Bonaparte led his army into Egypt some 200 years ago, many of his officers took to living on the river, entertaining in grand style by the water’s edge.
During the Second World War, it was the turn of British officers to do the same, although the sometimes decadent lifestyle provided ample cover for unsavory – and unpatriotic – goings on. The Hungarian desert explorer Count Laszlo Almasy (as featured in the movie “The English Patient ) is said to have secreted two German spies aboard houseboats, from where they gleaned information from British officers with the aid of Hekmat Fahmy, a famous belly dancer of the time.
Some time later, Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz based his 1966 novel “Adrift on the Nile around a group of malcontent Egyptian intellectuals, struggling with the moral dilemmas of the age over a hash-filled shisha.Barbara can indeed testify to the occasional problem with houseboat life.
For one thing, there is the danger of sinking.
“I believe the houseboat next door to us is sunk, she said. “I think somebody installed a marble staircase and it was too heavy, so it just sank. It’s actually under the water now.
“I’ve heard rumors that people used to sink the houseboats every season to get rid of the rats, and then raise them again using inflatable airbags.
Certainly, we haven’t seen any rats here, but I think for some houseboats it can be a problem.
The dangers of mosquitoes, drowning and German spies to one side, Barbara insists that houseboat life has a lot going for it.
“Living in a high-rise apartment in Zamalek has its advantages, but I think there’s something very special about living on the Nile, she said. “There is a certain cache to living on a houseboat, whether it’s a fancy one or not, and I certainly feel very lucky to have experienced it.
