COOL. IN a word, Casa Cook el Gouna is: cool.
As in: ’Cool’, a blanket term covering all sensory interpretations, each, ultimately, justifying the other. A look, a sensation, a mood – as one. A man enters a crammed subway carriage in midsummer wearing in a wool, $900 Tom Ford suit. He looks cool, initially, but as beads of sweat pool on his brow, patches appear under his pits, and a screaming baby sicks on his lapel, his coolness ebbs away in a flash. Casa Cook el Gouna on the other hand…
Casa Cook El Gouna
For one there are no babies – this is an adults only resort. Visually Casa Cook straddles that odd intersection of ancient and space age – linear, minimalist, earthy – drawn up, the design team explains, with “the post-modern traveller in mind”.
Think if Frank Herbert’s Dune featured an Aristocratic, gridded suburb – each private terrace boxed off by hedges every bit as angular as the structures they surround. Muted, heat proof, stone has been carved into benches, and formed into hotel room floors and walls, all delightfully cool to the touch – necessary when summer temperatures reach up to 50 degrees.
Plunge pools are plentiful. Grilled jumbo prawns are piled high. Signature cocktails (the Watermelon Negroni and the African G&T – hibiscus leaves for regional specificity) hit the spot. All in all, cool.
Outdoor seating at Casa Cook El Gouna
Southern pool area at Casa Cook El Gouna
If you can peel yourself away from one of the southern pools innumerable loungers, Casa Cook offers Kite Surfing lessons on their private stretch of beach. For those seeking a change of scene, the town of El Gouna is a 10 minute drive away. El Gouna’s a New Town, and, having been raised on a less than appealing English New Town diet of Welwyn Garden City and Milton Keynes, I had my reservations.
But having been told, then sworn to secrecy, then told another seven or eight times, that Angelina Jolie and Mohammed Salah own holiday homes in El Gouna, I thought, ‘if it’s good enough for them, it’s probably good enough for me.’
Kiteboarding
So, the raw statistics: Age? 35 years. Tuktuks? £1 per trip. Dominant architectural style? Nubian traditional (traditional for locals, practically Tattoine to an ignorant westerner like myself). Lagoons? Well of course! 27, soon to be 28. Perhaps not all New Towns are created equal.
Desert tour with Orascom
It was on my lagoon boat tour that my guide pointed me in the direction of lagoon number 28, mid construction and surrounded by tractors. Maybe I’m old fashioned but I felt, pretty steadfastly, that ‘Lagoon’ and ‘Tractor’ should not share space. Physical space, page space, any kind of space, so antithetical are they in all they stand for.
Patio area at Casa Cook El Gouna
After all is there any word so evocative of natural wonder, of organically occurring, god bestowed heaven on earth as, ‘lagoon’? With that in mind, the invitation to observe lagoon 28 felt akin to a Vegas magician un-vivisecting his long legged assistant in plain view, proclaiming “and THIS is how we did it.”
I averted my eyes. Then remembered I am a 31 year old man. Maturing, after all, is realising that true delusion is believing in the make believe of Hollywood fantasy. Mermaid princesses with Jamaican fish companions? Webbed, damsel snatching, bi-pedal creatures? Not in El Gouna. And frankly, when the illusion of the artificial lagoon is this good, who cares it’s an illusion at all?
Plunge pool at Casa Cook El Gouna
Room at Casa Cook El Gouna
A brief off road drive takes you to a vast stretch of desert, once underwater, that now ranks as the world’s third longest natural valley. It’s traversable by quad bike, with tours culminating with tea in a Bedouin settlement at sunset. Equally accessible from Casa Cook is a yacht dotted bay leading into the Red Sea, home to an abundance of dolphin pods and coral reefs. Boats leave daily.
by Charlie Holder
Lagoon tour and desert tour organised by Orascom Development Egypt.
Rooms at Casa Cook El Gouna start from EUR 300 per night including breakfast. For more information, please visit https://casacook.com/casa-cook-el-gouna