El Eid Impressions January 2006
Remarks during the El Eid holidays: I’ve never seen before so many people in the streets of El Gouna. In contrary to the new year celebration, (see another article), during El Eid there was much more going on in El Gouna.
Due to the weather, and especially due to the chilling winds, the shopkeepers were quite busy to sell pullovers and wind jacks. Tourists were surprised that, in spite of the sun, temperatures could drop so dramatically in the evening, and so they were in need to adapt their wardrobe.
Quite a lot of kids were driving around those days (and sometimes dangereously fast) with electric or fuel motorized mini vehicles in the pedestrian areas of Downtown and the Marina boulevard, chasing the walking tourists. We noticed that no security guards did stop them.
At some dangereous crossing points, we noticed once more security people acting as “traffic policeman”. In the lagoons, there was much more boat traffic, and as we noted already in another article, sometimes speedy situations were swimmers could have been expected.
The animation programm in El Gouna was quite impressive: every day there were numereous performances, sometimes at day, most at night, and throughout town. Some impressions of the El Eid festivities:
From left to right: crowd in the Marina on the terraces, special performances at many places throughout town, like here in the evening at Tamr Henna, or like Super Size Band in Jobo’s and somer days later in Kafr El Gouna, entertaining the mass of visitors during the festivities in El Gouna.
And at the end of the festivities one could remark long line ups at the (only one) gas station in Downtown, when visitors from all over Egypt prepared their home trip again.