The final hurrah in Egypt

One night in Hurghada was all that was needed. A strange mix of luxury resorts and the usual local flavour. A town where the europeans check in to their resort and don't leave until it's time to fly home. The tourists that do leave are the ones (usually female) looking for a little local action from the fellas. Combine this with a very conservative muslim society and it makes for some strange scenery.

For us it was a stop over point to take the ferry to Dahab, located on the gulf of Aqaba. Also a tourist haven but attracting the backpacker/diving crowd. Very laid back and enough scantily clad tourists that I was able to wear shorts for the first time in weeks. (It's been a little surprising how conservative everywhere since we left China has been, especially for women of course). We spent a few days in Dahab finalizing details for Tanzania and enjoying the R & R. A big diver spot with lots of 'have ya done the blue hole' and 'how many times ya been down'? We did visit the blue hole but with snorkeling gear and it totally rocked. Could see way down, we reckon about 20 feet and lots of different fish.

Another big highlight was climbing mount sinai, where moses is reported to have received the 10 commandments, and St. Catherine monastery. The neat thing was we left Dahab at 11pm...sorry egyptian time meant we actually left at 11:40pm...lol... Arrived at the mountain about 1:15am and started climbing with headlamps. The number of stars was stunning and we were surrounded with desert mountains that we could only partially make out in the darkness. And of course we kept passing the camel touts, hearing a camel bray in the dark is one helluva indescribable sound. We arrived at the top about 4:30am after stopping for a pita bread, peanut butter, and honey break just before the summit. Along with others we rented a mattress and put on all our cold weather gear and snuggled up waiting for sunrise. Just had to wait an hour and a thin red line appeared in the distance. Watching it get brighter and more colourful until the tip of the sun appeared to ooohs and ahhhs all around. The way down was a bit chaotic with tourists and camels all vying for space on the trail. Was a beautiful early morning walk and fun to see where we'd walked up in the dark the night before.

From Dahab we returned via bus to Cairo. The usual 9 hours to go 400km (although more like 250km as the crow flies). We returned to the same hostel we'd stayed at before in Cairo and the familiarity was a nice reprieve from the usual hectic arrival into a new city. We stayed one day in Cairo organizing our tanzania travel and then ventured off on the bus again. This time we're headed west into a desert oases. It's about 18 hours round trip on the bus and we've decided to take 3 days to get there. The bus rides are never dull but often a bit draining so we like to break it up a bit. Tomorrow we do the final bus leg into the Siwa Oases where we'll spend 2 nights and then return to Cairo via Alexandria.

And then it's off to Tanzania for a safari and to climb mount kiliminjaro. And of course a few days on the beach to recover from all this travel!!!

hope all is well in your worlds...
k & k