Done! Please don't make me go...

Our favourite hangout, great for dipping, drinking and doing nothing

Not everyone obeyed

Whizzin' by bible land...

Food was fabulous

Our Hotel. Very clean, very comfortable, very unegyptian

Getting ready to go under

And so's he

It’s a windsurfing day. Whitecaps wave to the south all the way across the Gulf of Aquabba, the body of water separating us from Arabia. The windsurfers are moving aimlessly, frenetically across the choppy surface magically missing one another much as the flies that swarm about us on shore. But I’m not a windsurfer, with its grace, speed and athleticism it’s a younger man’s sport. It’s a good day to sit and watch.

We’ve been below the surface every day since arriving, enjoying the spectacular reef and the creatures that dwell there. It’s a beautiful frontier where the drama of its silent movie plays before the visiting wetsuits with the only soundtrack the blowing bubbles and air sucked through the regulator. Kinda like Darth Vader meets Lawrence Welk. Yesterday an octopus battled a few pesky fish for our viewing pleasure. As they pecked at his exposed bulbous head he turned his suckers outward giving them pause, a moment that he used to squirt along the sandy bottom to a nearby rock. Once there he folded himself into it becoming protected and invisible. Now that’s entertainment.

Diving has been our main entertainment here with reading, eating and relaxing rounding out our days. Tough, huh? I hadn’t been diving in ten years so our ‘check’ dive was a welcome start. There’s a ton of equipment to refamiliarize with and it really does feel like a ton when it’s all strapped on and I’m waddling across a rocky beach. But beneath the whitecaps it’s a weightless world, a place where the weight of the world doesn’t exist, all my cares left on shore. Interesting. It’s only in writing this that I crystallize its appeal.

Every day wasn’t perfect. Almost as soon as we arrived She and he got the Arabic equivalent of tourista which we initially treated the “ol’s”; pepto bismol, tylenol and gravol. It didn’t help so the hotel owner offered some ciprofloxacin, a broad spectrum antibiotic that in western countries is only available by prescription but all drugs here are OTC (over the counter). Worked fast.

Our last night here (last night) we went to a bedouin home for dinner. It’s oxymoronic as bedouins by definition don’t normally maintain a residence but rainfall has dropped to 3 or 4 days a year forcing the nomadic peoples to the established centers where desalinated water is available. Another example of sociological change related to climate change.

Anyways, in spite of having moved indoors their lifestyle is much the same. The only furniture is the stand holding the TV so we gather in a circle on the ‘living room’ floor and sit on cushions. The lady of the house spreads a plastic tablecloth in the center then a platter of rice and a bunch of spoons - no plates. Ah well, at least I don’t have to eat with my fingers. Our guide, the owner of the dive shop, instructs us in proper bedouin etiquette. You eat your rice from the section directly in front of you as do the others so that it starts to look like a large pizza with slices missing. A few bowls of chicken and veggie stew and a small platter of fried chicken backs follows. Not the most amazing meal but memorable in its intimacy and introduction to an alternate lifestyle. But it’s too late for these old bones to be shaped to their lifestyle; it’s a one-off.

It's now early AM and I'm at the airport at Sharm El Sheik. It's north of Dahab and we've already driven through the desert for over an hour; it was a very early start. But our plane is about to board so I’ll sign off and try and post this. We’ll spend today in Cairo and fly out at midnight for the four hour flight to Madrid then onto Heathrow (I hear it's snowing there) after a three hour layover then a two hour drive to Cardiff. Yeesh.

OK, so I wasn't able to post there and then, connections are kind of iffy. We're now back in Cardiff after a l e n g t h y trip home. I'll be writing about that and my enduring memories of Egypt next time.
John