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Published: November 23rd 2009
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Hurgada is 36km long seashore resort on the Red Sea. It seamed rather new and boring so nothing attracted us except prospect of snorkeling in the famous waters and visiting our friends Tamara and Marko who worked in El Gouna.
We decided to go over agency because it was impossible to get to charter flight from Belgrade to Hurgada otherwise. Joca lost a wallet on the plane and a friendly guy found it. Good start of a journey. The airport was like a large tent. The group was greeted by charming Ali Salama. We arrived late at night and the cold desert wind was merciless and didn’t promise much fun. But later the weather was better and rather hot during the day (till 3p.m.). The night was falling sharp and hard at this time of the year (around 5p.m.).
Hotel Charm Life was huge and kitschy, totally not our style. By day it all looked better. Complex of (cold) swimming pools in tidy gardens, stretch of sand and torques water, camels on the beach. Food was great, smorgasbord, especially local one we liked. Hotel staff was very servile, too much for my taste. Idiotic belly-dancing lessons on the beach.
Hotel swimming pools
Pools looked fantastic but the water was cold We took diving lesson in a freezing pool and were ready to take off after 30-minute training. Only in Egypt…
And The Sea…fish were amazing!!! This was and still is the best underwater experience in my life. I would bring some bread in plastic bag down there and feed them. Corals were so diverse (but the damage done by tourist was sadly obvious). I even sow a sea turtle. And all this was possible with simple snorkeling. Diving was also great. Only 4 of us applied in the group and 2 of those were 2 Czech girls who got seasick (or hangover) so we had the whole yacht and the crew for ourselves. We went down to 5-6m. I was a bit afraid of hearing my bubbly thundering breath and nothing else.
Walking the bazaar in the afternoons was also fun when you try to see beyond the shopping. People were sitting in tea-shops smoking shisha and playing backgammon. They had strange blue marks on their foreheads from prayers. Elections were near and funny adds were everywhere (with recognition signs for each candidate such as gun, car, airplane or even umbrella - in rainless Egypt). The small taxi
vans were transporting people and honking to any pedestrian they saw. Honking was actually very common mean of communication, and very important because of lack of street lights and no habit of using car lights in the night.
You could feel terror of low season in the air and desperation of vendors to sell you anything. They all wanted to make you drink tea with them and tell you of their life, usually about hardship of getting married because it was preceded by collecting money to get home of your own and then passing rituals with all relatives meeting each other and approving the marriage. It was much simpler with foreign women, and that is why they have German girlfriends. You could see old European women with young Egyptian men all over the place. Sex tourism of a different type then in Thailand.
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