Rosemary Mahoney was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1961. She holds dual nationality for the USA and Ireland. Her travel books have included The Singular Pilgrim – Travels on Sacred Ground and Down the Nile – Alone in a Fisherman’s Skiff . She has contributed to a wide range of magazines and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Down the Nile – Alone in a Fisherman’s skiff (2007)
“Returning home from my first visit to Egypt, I took my boat out on Narragansett Bay and imagined myself gliding alone down the Nile among the flamingos, reeds, and palm trees. For months I imagined this. On winter days, when the Rhode Island sky was gray and cold, I pulled myself across the bay and conjured what I had seen along the Nile. I fantasized about returning to Egypt, finding a boat, and heading off down the river on my own. On that first trip to Egypt, whenever I mentioned my Nile rowing idea to Egyptian people they had all said with real disbelief, Impossible! You are a woman! The river is big! Not mentioning any crocodile! And dangerous ships! And the fisherman who can become crazy seeing a woman alone! Egyptians generally thought the plan was idiotic, pointless, and dangerous, and seemed to find it inconceivable that anyone at all would want to row a boat on the Nile for no pressing or practical or, above all, lucrative reason, let alone a foreign woman, and especially when you could make the same trip lounging on a comfortable tour boat with your feet up and a drink in your hand.”
Published by Little and Brown
