Anne Kingston - The Art of Belly Dance

travel

I was born to travel, it comes from being brought up in a nomadic family, my Mum was born and grew up in South Africa, my favourite Aunt was born and brought up in India, in the days of the British Empire.

My Dad joined the Navy as a young man to travel the world and did so extensively. When I married my husband Tony he was serving in the Royal Air Force and already had a posting to Germany so I accompanied him for a three year honeymoon. We lived in Germany again several years later and it was there that I had my first taste of bellydance. Both our postings in Germany were close to the Dutch border so we travelled throughout Europe with ease, ski-ing in Austria in the winter and sunning ourselves in the South of France in summer. Pictured right lazing at my friend's villa in Spain.

travel

It’s in the blood!
My Great Aunt Phyllis on Aubrey the camel.

My love of Egypt came before discovering the dance when Tony and I were on holiday in Cyprus and the day we were supposed to fly home we boarded a boat and sailed to Israel and Egypt. A whistle stop tour of Cairo gave me just a hint of what was to come I guess, an ongoing fascination with a city that breathes life into its visitors, graps hold of you and never quite lets you go.

"This is Orientalism not as it is, but as it swims before the sensuous imagination." "What one sees in dreams surpasses reality, but all that one could dream of Cairo falls short of the truth". Written by an essayist for the Knickerbocker in 1853

I take a trip to Egypt every year and try to see other parts of the county rather than just Cairo or the Luxor tourist route. To date I have trekked across the Sinai, explored the Red Sea coast, slept under the stars in the White Desert and picked up wonderful ‘desert roses’ in the Black Desert, watched beecatchers flying around the oasis at Bhariyya, haggled in the markets in Aswan and Luxor, sailed down Lake Nasser to Abu Simbel in Nubia. Recently I travelled to another oasis, Siwa (11hrs out of Cairo in the Great Sand Sea), to the coastal resorts of Marsa Matrouh and Alexandria on the Med coast and then back to Cairo. Many of the more exotic trips have been skilfully organised by my friend Sara Farouk from Cairo.

Enjoying the view of the city from the Citadel, Cairo

travel

My November 2007 trip to the Tunisian Sahara renewed my love of the desert and of wonderful times with like minded women, kind Bedouin people and beautiful camels - can't wait to go again! In fact am off soon, Oct 2009, to the beautiful Tunisian island of Djerba then a night in the desert and a night in the mountains.

As for travel wishes I would love to visit India and anywhere I haven’t been before and anywhere in the company of fellow trekker and dear friend Natalie.

Here's me riding a camel in Egypt, not quite so elegant as Great Aunt Phyllis but equally at home!