So Chelsa and I headed to the airport early in the morning to catch our flight to Egypt. Like I said before we went through a Czech travel agency so it was a little bit interesting as we were the only non Czech people on our chartered flight to Egypt. I thought it would only take us about 2 hours to get there, and of course I was completely wrong, four hours later we arrived. We flew over desert which was pretty cool and then landed in the middle of nowhere and I mean nowhere. All that was there was a little airport amongst rocks and desert. Hum...at this point, I was kind of like, what are we doing? But amongst the ways and whistles from the airport workers, we boarded our little bus and off we went to our hotel. There were three buses for all the people on the plane and as you can see from the picture below we had a bit of a caravan going on to the hotel area. If you’ve ever seen the move Babel you maybe can make a bit of a connection to the terrain we were driving through. It reminds me of the same type of terrain that was in the movie when the lady got shot on the bus. That kind of crossed my mind at that point in the trip, but no worries, we made it to our hotel safe and sound.
Taba airport middle of nowhere
The bus caravan to the hotels...where is the water?
Found it!
Our hotel was call the Three Corners Hotel and it was located probably about a kilometre or so from the beach. We did have a nice beach area that was designated for the hotel guests along with a beach bar and swimming pool right on the beach. Not a bad set up. Between us and the beach was an 18 hole golf course which I never did end up golfing on. There were two hotels on each side of us along the beach. There was a nice little path that connected all the hotels to each that you could walk along and if you wanted to explore each other’s restaurants and bar. But not without going having someone check your bags that you were carrying before stepping foot on the hotel site. Secerity there was...let’s just say... heighten. On one of the last days we were there, we headed to the Hyatt to explore a bit and had one of those guys jokingly ask us if we had any bombs in our bags. Ah...nope...but glad you’re here checking for that. It was funny because literally upon arriving people were asking us where we were from and guessed that we were Swedish or German by the looks. Nope Canadian, that pretty much shocked them all and we were told that we were the first Canadian’s to come through that hotel, so that was kind of neat. Not to mention word got around and every time someone on the staff saw us, they would be like “Canada!” Yep that’s us.
Our hotel
View from our deck
Looking back up at our hotel from the beach, with golf course in front
A typically day for us pretty much had us at the beach the whole day! And it looked kind of like this...
The beach!
The beach under the hot sun!
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Beach Bums!
We did manage to take a couple of trips though throughout the week. The first one we did was a shopping trip to Dahab, a city about 2 hours away. It was a really pretty drive going right along the coast. Along the drive you could see some abandoned hotels, or more like unfinished hotels in prime locations on the beach. I was wondering at the start why there were no workers there finishing them up as it was a week day. Come to find out that I guess some business owners took out loans for the construction of the hotels, started going on them and then once got the loan fled to Jordan. Interesting business strategy. Also there were about 3 to four stop checks along the way to Dahab. We would be in the middle of nowhere rounding a corner and all of sudden there would be a couple of little huts and blockades where we would have to stop and the bus driver would have to show the police his permits of some sort. The city of Dahab was fairly touristy with a ton of knick knack type shops but Chelsa enjoyed her time bartering down the guy in the store for a pair of shoes from $100 to $15. Shopping is quite the process.
Looking out the bus at one of the check points along the way
Dahab
Where do I start?
One of the highlights of the trip for me was taking our day long sail boat snorking cruise. We boarded this sail boat and headed off to two different snorkelling spots as well as being able to tour Pharroh’s island with the ruins of some Medieval castle. Our first snorkling spot was just off the coast of the main land. I tried to stay close with our tour guide in the water as he knew where all the good spots were. It was pretty awesome as many of you can attest to. I haven’t been snorkling since I was little in Hawaii and forgot how awesome it really was. But there was an interesting spin on the first leg of our trip. While I was swimming around once in awhile I would get a little bit of a sting on my arms and legs. The first one I got I pretty much jumped and got a mouth full of water thinking I had just been stung by a jellyfish. Come to find out after once we were sailing to Pharroh’s island that what was stinging me was something called Slep. They were longer string like things that were maybe a little thinner than spaghetti. So at the second spot there weren’t as many and I stayed clear of the ones I saw. Although I was a little surprised that they didn’t warn us about them the first time as us land folks don’t really know what we’re getting into. Pharroh’s island was the next stop and probably the better spot for snorkling. The island and ruins was pretty interesting but the tour guide that was there had a horrible accent and I really could not understand a word he said, so Chelsa and I did most of the exploring on our own. We were served lunch on the boat which was much better than the hotel food and on the way back they were able to put of the sails for awhile which was so relaxing!
Our sail boat
Pharroh's Island...second snorkel spot
Looking out from the ruins
Hotties again!
Our last big adventure was of course a camel ride. I had to take one of these before I left. We signed up to do a camel ride and supper with the Native Bedouin people. This was some adventure! Started off with getting on the bus and the introductions of the staff on board, this is Joe the tour guide, Tom the bus driver and Sam the body guard. Umm...the what? Okay should we be worried? We head off to the small town of to go where the Bedouin people live and where we will be taking the camel ride. Driving through the area is was probably comparable to a really really poor reserve in Saskatchewan. There were goats and chickens running wild and the poverity of it was evident. Our bus drives up to the coast, like literally and we get off and sit down under this tent to enjoy some tea before our camel ride. In the back part of it there are about 15 or so girls and women who have set out towels with hand made jewlery and also some wood carved camels (I of course bought one). I think the only English words they knew were “buy from me!” I shopped around a bit and ended up getting a cheap neckless and those wood carved camels. I went to take a picture at the end of some of the girls and one of them covered her face as she was made at me for not buying from her. I laughed aloud at that, nice one.
The town we were in...humm...
The little girl I bought my neckless from
So next up was the whole camel ride, wow was this an experience and a half. We went down the coast and turned the corner when there must of been about 20 or more boys and men with camels. Quite a chaotic seen as they our tour guide and kind of the chief Bedouin guy were trying to figure out what camels to use and who to put them with. Chelsa and I kind of stood back and watched the whole scene go down taking a bunch of pictures and videotaping the madness. It’s pretty much a collection of the the town folk and their camels to do this communal camel ride. I’m not sure how the whole money situation works, but it must somehow. I was happy with my guide as he looked to be about low twenties in age compared to the eight year olds that were leading some of the other tourists. Chelsa and I got on some of the biggest camels so we were in the front most of the time walking along the coast line. We stopped along the way to let the camels eat, or more so for us tourists to take a break from riding them. I thought it would be much like a horse. Ah...nope not so much, I was pretty sore the next day from my trek. Chelsa and I were stationed a little bit away from the group and had already gotten down from our camels and were taken pictures when all of sudden I hear a lady screaming “get me down from this camel!” Oh okay she must really need a break from the ride. Actually that was not the case. She was wife of the man who had just falling off the camel. I guess the camel was starting to sit down and if you know camels then know that their front two legs bend down and then their back ones. Well that started to happen and his saddle came lose in which case he just fell head over tea kettle. Ended up cutting his head and getting semi knocked out. I didn’t see this all happen, but did see him ride away in the back of a truck to the hospital. I think the whole group was a little shook up after that and many people decided to walk back. Chelsa and I went back to our camels and started checking the saddle to make sure all was tight. After we had dismounted our camel and were walking back to our camp for supper, I heard a bunch of commotion and looked back to see a couple of camels racing towards the couple of us that were walking back together. Well I pretty much jumped into the ditch with one leap to miss the herd of camels coming our direction. One of the little kids let go of his camel and caused a couple of them to run and fight/play with each other. So all in all it was a great way to end the trip on a camel right keeping us on our toes.
And the chaos begins...
The coast line where we walked with our camels
My camel
View from atop a camel
One of the guides
1 comment:
Such a cool adventure. I love your pics!
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