Final Days in Egypt

Final days in Egypt
A smile goes a very long way in Egypt. We have smiled our way round Egypt and everyone has been really generous. Felix Agency has even wavered its agency fee and we have had more people refuse baksheesh than take it, saying “its my gift”.

After our lovely special day where we took a guide with us to the infamous 130m deep Blue Hole where several people have lost their lives and apparently their bodies remain at the bottom due to the expense of getting them out. Luckily I did not know this at the time and anyway we were just snorkelling at the back wall where the reef is totally amazing - the tropical rainforest of the sea. I have never seen such a huge variety of coral and so any wonderful colourful fish. Big fish, small fish of all colours of the rainbow and many shapes. Some with whiskers, others with fabulous wings, completely square fish and others that look like a balloon. We are so lucky to see this and hope that generations to come will, though sadly we saw evidence of coral bleaching, and watched tourists ignore signs and walk on the reef table - a big no, no, as the table is the nursery of the reef but from above looks like rock. Yelling doesn’t work though of course I tried it!

The other highlight of our stay in Dahab was climbing Mount Siani in the dark to see the sunrise. We were taken there by mini van and started our climb at around 1 a.m. Our guide took us up slowly - our party was 14 - a pace which suited the slowest. We were not the only party! We looked like a trail of ants going up the mountain as people had come by the bus load. We had a 7 km walk up a camel trail culminating in 750 steps to the top. It took us around four hours and at the top it was decidedly cold. A whole industry of camels, tea houses, earth toilets and blanket and mattress rental has sprung up on the side of the track. We hired a mattress and blanket, snuggling down at the top of the mountain to wait for the sunrise, along with dozens of other! A veritable dormitory. By the time the sun rose I was so sleepy that I almost missed it. I struggled to wake up to watch a big red sun spread its light over the surrounding (lower) mountain tops. The landscape is impressive - like giant stone sand dunes.

We climbed down by a different route - 3,750 steps all carved from the stone by one monk (allegedly)! - very steep and hard on the knees, to St. Catherine’s monastery at the foot of the mountain. The monastery is built around the burning bush - or its very close relative - and also has some special icons that Catholics come on pilgrimage to kiss. It is run by Greek monks and guess what! The exterior has been renovated using Greek and European funds!! The interior could do with a damn good clean.

One evening we went horse riding. The young man who ran the stable was lovely and, despite the evidence everywhere we rode that the Egyptians do not have a waste disposal policy and that tourist create a horrible amount of plastic rubbish, we had a fun ride into the mountains at sunset behind Dahab. The stables only owned five stirrups so Ali rode with just one! The bridles were repaired with whatever came to hand - mine with a tape measure! Despite the obvious poverty the horses were healthy and well behaved though after mine bucked a few times when the horse behind came too close Ali admitted that my horse was a few weeks pregnant. “she is protecting her baby”.

We had two good fish meals while on our inland explore, otherwise the food was very disappointing. Unfortunately Andy got a tummy bug and spent several days trying to starve it away before relenting and going to the pharmacist. Egyptian tummy medicine is a little TOO effective so now he is on the figs!!

Our journey home was slightly more eventful than we wanted. The connecting buses did not due to the extra three hours the first bus took. This meant that we ended up in Suez in late after noon having left Dahab at 8a.m with no bus to Port Said until the next day and had to negotiate a taxi for the last 150 kms back to DB. The taxi driver had no idea where Port Said was and had to keep asking the way. He would drive alongside a moving lorry or taxi and start yelling at the driver to ask the way! It cost us the grand total of £27 UK - EP220. Having said that - Egyptian pounds have the tendency to run out of your purse like water and though this has been the poorest country we have visited it has been our most expensive. Our biggest cost has been Deep Blue - administration and “marina” fees - though there have been days when we got back to our hotel and wondered where all the money went. When they are old all the notes look the same and you have to be VERY careful when paying for things. In the end we kept all the big notes in one purse and the small ones in another so we did not make a mistake when paying someone. A few lucky people got 100EP instead of 1 or 10.

Now preparing for our long sail to Greece and looking forward to having Judy, Sam, Lynn and G join us.