Arriving in Dahab

---

About 5:30 it became light enough to see that we were on a highway with sandy dessert on one side, leading right up to the ocean with arid sandstone hills on the other side. By 6:45 we were at a place called Abu Zneima, which my map showed me was on the Sinai Peninsula, heading South toward Sharm El Sheik. This meant that the bus was not going the most direct route to Dahab and it seemed unlikely that we would be getting there at 9:00 am as promised. By 7 am we were at yet another police check point and we could see oil drilling platforms off in the distance on the ocean. We passed several oil tank farms and “Nodding Donkeys” - oil pumping machines which you also see in Alberta, Canada.

By 8:40 we were in a place called El Tor and were now passing though low hills with tiny stunted trees growing such that it looked like a mountain scene in miniature. By 9:40 we had now had our 5th passport checkpoint and pulled in to the bus depot at the town of Sharm El Sheik. Despite what we had been told about this being one bus all the way to Dahab, we now had to get off and wait for another bus.

Fortunately this next bus did not take long and we were on our way again. The bare mountains continued and we passed Bedouin huts with Camels “parked” out front. Later Benjamin noticed dead canals by the side of the road - just a bit off putting !

When we arrived in Dahab we were hit with the usual barrage of taxi and hotel touts, but as the hotel was picking us up we didn't have to deal with them. A man from our hotel met us and were were quickly heading off, Joshua, Benjamin, and I in the back enjoying the warm breeze.

Our hotel turned out to be very nice - right on the shoreline and quite modern looking. Joshua tried out the pool and declared it to be freezing, but hey, it looks good. The kids have their own double rooms, so they are happy. There is satellite TV that gets two English language movie stations and wifi, so they should be set. We had lunch at our hotel restaurant, which is a laid back Bedouin type place on the shoreline. A shoreline path connects runs past the restaurant, and there was a constant procession of people walking or riding horses along with groups of young Bedouin children selling jewelry.

After getting some school work done in the afternoon, we decided to head along the beach to check our restaurants for dinner. The small hotels are one next to each other here, each with their own restaurant. The trouble is, they are very persistent if you stop and it is difficult to get away to check the next one as they drop the prices and through in extras to try to get you to stay. This said, the prices along here were far higher than what we had been paying in Luxor. Eventually, after taking a road into town and finding nothing appealing, we stopped at a place called “The Funny Mummy” for dinner.

---