Off to the Suez Canal

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With no INTERNET at our hotel, we haven't had a chance to book anything for our next leg. We debated if we wanted to head back up the coast to Dahab for a few days, with a 9 ½ hour drive to Cairo after that, or to do to Suez for a few days, breaking up the journey. In the end we decide on heading to the Suez, partly for some new site and partly to shorten any one days travel.

Our hotel has prepared box breakfasts for us and arranged for a taxi to take us to the bus. The taxi driver tries to convince us to pay for a taxi to Suez, but gives a rate of 400 Egyptian pounds - some four times the cost of the bus so we say no.

While we are waiting for the bus, another minivan pulls up and tries to convince us to go with him. He already has one driver to Cairo, but wants fuller load. In the end we agree on a price just above what the bus will cost us, but taking us all the way to the hotel we want to try.

Our travelling companion is a middle age women carrying an Israeli passport, but she doesn't say much so I suspect her English limited. As the road climb though the jagged mountains that rim the Red Sea, we pass a flipped tractor trailer - a grim reminder of the road safety issues here in Egypt. We soon find ourselves crossing many miles of desert with mountains always in the distance. Sets of power line towers follow the course of the highway.

About 8:45 we stop at a coffee shop at a small town. A herd of goats wanders though, rooting through garbage before moving on. As we get closer to Suez, the desert becomes less rocky and more sandy. In spots, irrigation systems and sprinklers create surreal green fields in the midst of the sand.

After a final security checkpoint, we descend into a tunnel and travel under the canal. Shortly after we emerge on the other side, we stop and let off our other passenger to take another van (she didn't seem to happy - this was obviously was not part of the plan), and head into the dismal looking town of Suez.

The hotel that we have in mind, The Red Sea Hotel, wants and incredible $150 per night. This is three times what we normally pay, so we check out two more places to find even higher prices. In the end, we get our driver to just take us to the bus station with the intention of finding some INTERNET access and checking for other options. At the bus station, there is neither INTERNET nor even an ATM around (we are now nearly out of money). Our book lists one more hotel, so we get a taxi back to the city to check it out. This final place is cheap, but just scary looking - dirty with cracked walls. We decide to bite the bullet and return to The Red Sea Hotel.

The Red Sea Hotel was obviously a nice place at one point, but is now faded though it still keeps up appearances with a doorman and a plush lobby. It is certainly not worth $150 / night, but there really don't seem to be any other options. It sort of smells like my grandmother's old house.

The one thing this hotel does have is wifi, and we decided we need to book something in Cairo for tomorrow night as our budget can not handle too many nights like this. Benjamin also used the wifi to make a skype call to his Aunt Stefania in order to interview her for a school project about theatre. The hotel dining room has an amazing view of the Suez Canal and surprisingly normal prices (in comparison to their inflated room rates) so we spend dinner watching the boats heading through the canal.

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