Our Red Sea Rest Stop

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Hi everybody, we have now come to the end of our time in Egypt.

Since our last post we grabbed an overnight bus from Luxor to the Sinai peninsular, stopping initially at Sharm El-Sheikh to look into some diving options for Simon. We heard that Sharm was a bit of a strange place, being the Russian package tourists beach resort of choice. We were certainly not disappointed in this as we found everything really overpriced and overrun by hordes of heavy and pale Russians. We stayed at the cheapest place that we could find as most accommodation in town was at least US$70+ a night, leaving us sleeping in a straw hut on the top of a cliff at Shakes Bay just outside of town.

Simon's main reason for stopping there was to complete some dives on the wreck of the Thistlegorm, a British freighter sunk by the German air force in the Red Sea during WWII. Unfortunately the organisation in Sharm left a lot to be desired, as we ended up spending two days there waiting for a trip to go out to the wreck only to be told on the second day that the trip had been cancelled, and wouldn't be going again for a number of days, but that they had a number of dives on coral reefs available :-(

Hearing this, we immediately left town and headed north for Dahab, giving up Sharm as an overpriced package tourist resort more interested in catering to training divers doing open water and advanced certificates only. Happily, on our arrival in Dahab, we found a much more relaxed atmosphere, with the prices of everything dropping back to normal again. The dive shop associated with our hotel (where we had a lovely 3rd floor sea view room) was also offering trips out to the Thistlegorm at much lower cost than at Sharm, and the trip actually went! Sorry, no underwater camera in our packs to give you an idea of what the wreck looks like, but some images are posted at the following link: http://www.redseadivers.com/thistleg.htm. This was a fantastic set of dives, as the visibility wasn't too bad and the strong currents normally present at the site were totally absent.

We used the time available to us in Dahab to recharge our batteries in the sun, in one of the many Bedouin style lounges/restaurants located along the waterfront. We were surprised to find that Dahab did not have a readily accessible beach (long walk away) although when the tide was in you could walk over the rocky/coral shore to a steep drop off populated by lots of healthy colourful coral.

While in Dahab we also undertook an overnight trip to Mt Sinai. This involved climbing the approx 2300 metre peak in the dark, starting at 1400 metres at 1 am to catch the sun rise from the summit just after 5.

This climb was a bit of a challenge in the dark, as no one had bothered to tell us to take a torch (we assumed we would be provided with these, and had stored our torch in Cairo). We reached the peak an hour or so before sun rise, so hunkered down with hired mattress and blanket to shield against the cold and wait for the sun to come up. As you can see from the attached photos it was a pretty clear morning apart from a bit of low cloud, giving us great panoramic views of the surrounding topography.

Other than this, we have been doing a lot of loafing about making the most of our air conditioned hotel rooms in anticipation of the upcoming two months of camping out of a truck while traveling from Nairobi to Capetown.

We have heard conflicting stories on the availability and speed of internet connections in central and southern Africa, so unfortunately we may not be able to post our blog as often as we would like for the next couple of months. Fingers crossed for good connections in the future :-)

S&S

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Photos

Shark Bay, Sharm El-Sheikh
This photo was taken from the top of the cliff where we were staying