Sea Sun Dahab

... the restoration work was starkly obvious it was quite impressive.<br><br>Right, Luxor was not our fav place in Egypt so far, but we did have a great time anyway and when we were ready to leave we dedcided to doi a bus straight to Dahab on the Red Sea. We thought it was for max 14hrs, then found it was about 16, and of course it took 22!! The bus was OK, not too old and was full of men. Sarah and anopther foreign women were the only females, and the other woman was a bit of a ...

... I've seen before. It was so clear that you could lie down and see nothing but stars, almost making you believe that everything else had fallen away. That was definitely the best part of the dinner.<br><br>After the dinner, we decided to check out the clubbing scene. Girls can basically go to any club for free, but we were able to get the boys in for free too since they were our "guests" so that was useful. When we first got to the club, we were the ...

... days, Lindsey and Brittany left for Siwa. After 10 days, Sarah left to meet up with them.<br><br>Glums and Glows:<br><br>Sarah<br>Glum: Mask removal exercise<br>Glow: Squid ink during advanced open water class<br><br>Lindsey<br>Glum: Meso said we didn't need a flashlight causing near death experience<br>Glow: Thistlegorm<br><br>Brittany<br>Glum: Thomas leaving<br>Glow: Milkshakes, Thai food, and being the #1 student<br><br>Tom<br>Glum: Leaving Brittany (and Egyptain breakfast)<br>Glow: Scuba diving<br>

... the coast to Nuweiba. Our next hotel, Swisscare Resort, arranged for one of the staff, Ashraf, and a driver to pick us up at Dahab and drive us to the hotel. On the way we stopped at an ancient granite column which was rescued from the Red Sea in 1978, but inscriptions had been eroded over time. However, in 1984 an identical column was found directly across the sea in Saudi Arabia and the inscriptions (in Archaic Hebrew) were ...

... hour. It was so cold that Jon's shins were shivering. Dahab is a quite international tourist town full of seaside restaurants and hotels. People of every nation seem to be here enjoying the same wonderful environment as we. It is a diving mecca. Speaking of that, just 18 km across the gulf of Aqaba is Saudi Arabia. I was surprised to find it so close. From here it is beautiful with tall 4-5000 ...

... Trip Advisor that is quite new and comfortable and is in the Bedouin area called Assala. We just have to walk for about 15 mins along a promenade to get to the touristy Masbat area with all the restaurants and dive shops. Further on still (quite a long walk) is a lagoon with all the bigger hotels and windsurfing schools clustered). So we feel we are in the right spot - closer to the locals means cheaper housing and more authentic ambience - and that is what we were looking for. The ...

In Dahab now which is a very laid back, more touristy Egyptian mini-resort on the Sinai Peninsula. Took the overnight bus which worked out very well as I was asleep for most of the journey; saved myself money by not sleeping in a hostel; and got here for 9am so had the whole day free. One thing I cant stand about bus journeys here is the loud Arabic pop music and films they blare out through the ...

... to Big Blue dive shop, where our guide gave the most informative briefing of the area and our schedule that we have so far received. We decided we just wanted to drink beer and do nothing, so that's what we did. A good sleep in the following morning (Nov 17) preceded our first dive in the Red Sea. Because it's been a year and a half since we last dived, we did a refresher dive that involved practising the necessary skills before going for a ...

... was a reef shelf that dropped off into the big blue then a little further out, some underwater reef islands that went from the ocean floor to close to the surface. There was corals of all kinds and colours like the fan coral and brain coral plus lots of the giant blue clams. The whole scene was a surreal dreamscape and i would liken it to the fantastical visions obtained when drinking Ayahuasca medicine in the Amazon jungle in Peru, it's that good. I saw a Lionfish ...

... at 1:30AM we began our ascent of the 2,900m mountain. We went up via the camel route (there are an infinite number of camels with their handlers hawking their services). It's quite the steep trail with endless cutbacks up the mountain. It took us until about 3:45AM to make it to the top. For my ex-running companions, I must admit to feeling pretty good about my "performance" up the hill. You know how I always did like hills. Rodster the Rocketass ...