A little patch of earth in Egypt

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I didn’t plan to blog about Egypt but after being here a couple of weeks I decided to record some of the quirks of Egypt and the Jaz Fanara hotel in particular.





I had decided to spend some time in Egypt, at a hotel on the beach and close to a reef where it is easy to spend a lot of time snorkelling. The plan being not to leave the hotel, but snorkel, read and plan more trips which is why I called the blog a little patch of earth. A few weeks before leaving Gillian found she was free to join me so we added her on to the booking with Tui.





The airport experience was still chaotic and surprisingly Tui handled it less well than easyJet. The queues were long, only 2 check-ins open and no additional Tui staff to be seen anywhere. Nor were there any seats in the check-hall, All in all, a challenging and unpleasant experience. But once on the plane all was good.





On arriving at the hotel we were given the traditional welcome drink, lots of information about the restaurants, which ones open when, which nights etc. We were steamrollered with facts until we had to stay stop! We can’t take it in as we are tired. At least we were able to go for dinner even though it was 10.30pm.





Then we were taken to our room. It was tiny! I have never seen such a small twin room. Yes, there were 2 beds but jammed close together to fit them in. The corner of the bed was only 30 cms from the middle of the bathroom door, making it very difficult to walk around the bed. The bathroom was squeezed into a corner with insufficient space to place my toiletries around the hand basin, never mind Giiil’s. It was very disappointing but we were so tired we decided to wait until morning to do anything. I wondered if it was in fact a single room that they had originally booked for me, then just crammed another bed in.





So next day I went to Reception to be told that all standard rooms are the same size. Later I spoke to the Tui rep who met with the manager and identified 2 other rooms that were available. One of them was much better, being only slightly bigger but having a much larger bathroom & balcony with a better view. It was just enough but certainly not the size of room expected in a 5 star hotel.





As days passed we came to realise that in normal times the hotel caters mainly for Russian & Eastern Europeans. When we first arrived it was only about 15-20% occupied, rising perhaps to 30%, mainly with Italians, Eastern Europeans & Brits. I wondered if the Russian & East European clients are happy with smaller rooms?





So as I said, I wanted to record some of the quirks of the hotel. The first one is the a la carte restaurant, La Gazella. It is open 4 nights a week and must be booked between 10.30 & 11.30 on the day you want to eat there. The menu is brought to the reception at that time and you choose what you want to eat. No information is posted to tell you this, you only find out if you ask at reception, so it seems quite secretive. What we quickly realised is that the menu is always the same anyway, a choice of 2 starters, 2 soups, 4 main courses, & 2 deserts. The restaurant itself is completely different in style, slightly Scandinavian, all light wood & smooth lines in contrast to the Egyptian decor everywhere else, and situated at the far end of the hotel plot, 10 minutes walk back from the sea. Only 5 or 6 tables are booked at most in what is a large restaurant. Then at each course they ask, “ are you ready now or would you like to wait 20 minutes”. Very strange! Gilli described it perfectly when she said it reminded her of Startrek, where any scenario from any time/planet can be replicated on the hollodeck for people to experience & enjoy but sometimes lack of complete knowledge means something is askew. That is how La Gazella felt, almost authentic but not quite!



Then the stomach bug hit. No question it was a bug but the staff all say it is the effect of sun/heat. Gilli suffered more than I but the waiters were very good at bringing ‘special ‘ soup ( ie clear vegetable & chicken), & ‘special’ tea, ( mint & lime) for those suffering & that helped. It was interesting to see how the number of ‘special’ dishes increased rapidly from one or two to half the people eating, and I guess some were not even venturing out of their rooms!





Then there were the rules, very few of them, & not very visible. So for instance, you are requested to only enter the pool in swimwear but occasionally someone will choose to wear T shirt , shorts, hat & shoes. The lifeguard will quietly remind them of the rule but is usually totally ignored, and nothing else is said. Same with other rules, a polite request always ignored by the guest and no further action taken. I never saw this in other Egyptian hotels where rules were firmly enforced so I am not sure if it is a result of the fall in the number of the guests with few Russians coming at present, or something about their normal clientele. Staff seem afraid to say anything.





Then we received an invitation to a cocktail party! We went along to discover the managers and chef etc lined up to greet us. Beautiful cocktails & canapés were lined up but there were only about 12-15 people there, only one other couple who spoke English, and after saying hello the staff never spoke to the guests again. A very quiet ‘party’.



Another oddity was that we would receive random plates of fruit in the room. It is quite common to find one when you arrive but these kept on coming until we had to leave them outside the room to try and stop them.





Despite these little idiosyncrasies we really enjoyed the holiday, although Gilli didn’t appreciate the 2 days when the temperatures went as high as 47C with gusty, burning winds!





The snorkelling was very good especially when we took a boat trip out to reefs near Tiran Island. They were even better than I remembered, full of colourful soft corals and lots of fish. What is interesting is when I first went to Egypt with the dive club from 1989 on, only divers went, there were only a few basic hotels in Sharm itself, and there were strict rules to protect the reefs. Boats dropped divers a short distance from the reef and you had to surface swim to reach them, no gloves were allowed to prevent people touching the reef and no reef shoes were allowed. This has all changed. Boats now anchor into the reef itself which causes damage, gloves and shoes were worn by snorkellers and no training or advice is given to snorkellers who were standing on coral and generally causing a lot of damage.





I think that when the decision was made to build the hundreds of hotels which now stretch along the coast of what was totally empty desert, the government realised that they could attract far more holiday makers looking for simple sun & sand than just divers. Literally millions go now every year. There is even a special part of the terminal just for Russians, although, as you might expect, it is closed at present. It is like a newly built country, so the need to protect the marine life has been overtaken by the desire to fill the hotels with the huge numbers now visiting.





But the totally unexpected highlight was the hoopoes! (Readers already bored by birds in previous blogs can skip this!) They are lovely birds and these Egyptian ones seem smaller & more delicate than I have seen elsewhere. We saw them feeding constantly, often a parent feeding a juvenile as big as themselves. We saw the young ones when they were totally dependent upon the adult for food, then watched them making tentative and half hearted efforts to dig insects out of the ground themselves until eventually they managed to feed themselves. Sometimes there were as many as 14 gathered together.





Then one evening, while drinking a cocktail as dusk descended, I saw one land on a palm tree, it looked around carefully until darkness fell, then tucked itself into the tree for the night. As we had only seen them on the grass feeding I had not expected that. The same bird (I think?) came back to the same spot every evening. Then another night (yes,and another cocktail) we saw some land on the side o palm tree trunks and settle there to sleep, right next to the lights and people. Clearly they have found their paradise in Egypt, the grass is constantly watered, so the supply of insects is guaranteed and they don’t seem to have many predators. Having said that the juveniles get surprisingly bossy & impatient waiting for the adults to dig food out for them.





After another quick turnaround at Anna’s I am off to Barcelona. Hopefully there will be more about that in the next blog.

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