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Published: January 13th 2008
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Let's Go to the Beach!
Dude, are you joking me? Dahab Rocked!!!
We arrived in Dahab for 3 days of much needed R&R ... and loved it!!! Dahab is on the eastern coast of the Sinai Peninsula. It was probablly the most "touristy" of our stops in Egypt (Europeans flock here to go diving), but certainlly the most relaxing! We decided against scuba diving, but did a snorkel instead ... and it's true that the waters here are amazing, but still nothing compared to the Galapagos!!! We spent the rest of our time shopping, eating, and lazing around - but not on the beach because it's blistering cold and windy in Dahab!!! Across the water from our hotel were mountains from Saudi Arabia ... probablly the closest to Saudi Arabia either of us will ever get!! We were a little more than intrigued that we could actually SEE Saudi Arabia!
On the last day at midnight, our guide had the brilliant idea that we should all drive 2 hours and climb Mount Sinai (the mountain where Moses supposedly recieved the ten commandments). It was ... not his brightest idea! The mountain is 2285m above sea level - whıch ıs about 2200m more than we would have liked it to
be! And it was a good thing it's dark at 2am, because if we could see how HIGH/STEEP the mountain really is, we would not have given it a go! Also, contrary to the popular belıef that Egypt has desert lıke weather ... thıs mountaın ıs freakın cold at 2am! The fırst 2.5 hrs were sımply uphıll (one can hıre a camel, but we were a stubborn bunch) and we were thınkıng "maybe thıs ıs not so bad," but then we arrıved at the base of 750 of the steepest and nastıest staırs one has ever seen. We made ıt to "base camp" (haha, that is Trevor and Kristena for 'the top of the stairs') at about 5:30am and sunrise wasn't until 6:30ish ... so we spent what just might have been the most miserable hour of our lives combatting hypothermia. Eventually the sun did show up and do it's thing ... and our reward for not dying was a spectacular sunrise (which might have been just as beautiful from the ground after a refreshing nights sleep). Thanks to Newtons Law, "what goes up, must come down" and as soon as that sun was in the sky we took off
Just Incase You Need The Loo...
How thoughtful of someone to build a water closet above the cloud line... for shelter! Arriving at the bottom just before 9am, we foolishly hoped maybe Ahmed (the guide who made us do this) would have arranged french toast and scrambled eggs for breakfast ... instead we got the "classic" Egyptian breakfast consisting of hotdogs, cucumbers, white bread and beans. Mmmmmm delicious!!! We then sat around for 2 hours, waiting for St. Catherines Monastery to open up just so we could take a picture of a glorified houseplant and jet! The plant in question would be "The Burning Bush" from the Bible ... supposedly the EXACT same bush that Moses saw ... hmmm ... not so sure what to think about them apples. Either way, we lined up just like all the other kids and snapped our photo! The monastery is one of the oldest functioning Christian monasteries in the world, build sometime around 527 AD and whether we believe the mumbo jumbo or not ... old stuff is still cool to see.
Upon arriving back in Cairo that afternoon (after 7 of the most deserved hours of sleep in our lives), the remaining members of our tour group got together for one last meal of koshary and we pretty much all
Fight Night in Aswan
These guys were going at it ... but before they started, buddy on the right took off all his clothes. went our own ways. It was sad! And random tidbit ... Egyptian men have crazy tempers and LOVE to fight!! Since we've been here, we've seen countless sporatic fights break out ... at the pyramids in Giza the camel guys would start screaming at each other, while floating down the Nile some men on our beach started to pick a fight with our felucca captain (they thought we stole a log from one of their houses but we didn't), driving to Sinai our guide and the driver had a screaming match because we wanted the AC turned on and he disagreed, and at a gas station about 15 men jumped into a fight between our driver and the gas pump attendant ... this time one of them grabbed a shovel to aide in the beating! It usually dissolves as quickly as it starts and is only a little bit scary and a lot of bit funny - it reminded us of teenage girls in high school!
Yesterday morning we flew to Istanbul, Turkey. Omg, we are in Turkey!!! Turkey is cool - it seems really "European" and we are reeeaallly disappointed to learn that it's even colder here than
The Last Supper
Just one more meal of koshary before we leave ... on top of that damn mountain. And EXPENSIVE!!! Europe here we come!!! (and now we're thinking that maybe it wasn't so smart of us to assume we could chop the "recommended" daily budget in half - bring on the hot dogs and cup a soups!).
Hope there is a crazy amount of snow back home, ha ha hahahahaha,
Trevor and Kristena
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Maria
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Cold!
You are Canadians - you are supposed to be used to the cold! I shouldn't say that though - its been really warm here this winter - well so far - all the snow is almost gone too! Very brown and dreary actually :( Talk to you soon!