Under the Stars, Under the Sea
Dahab,
Egypt
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
We weren't even a third of the way up the mountain before the woman beside me stepped out of a camel's way to puke. It was three o'clock in the morning, and the moon was bright. It illuminated the path at our feet until it sunk behind the mountain an hour later. But by then, the people on the path were more spaced out, making it easier to avoid the camels. In any case, when one approached, there was always a camel handler ready to move you aside for his camel which was invariably carrying a lazier tourist to the top. Perhaps that woman, who just before puking told me that she had never been hiking before in her life, should have got on one of those camels.
The way that most visitors see Mt. Sinai, as I found out when I got into Dahab, is by night trek: Climb the mountain in the middle of the night and then witness the sun-up before trudging back down. I decided to make the trek on the night of my arrival. Perhaps it was an ill-advised decision, considering that I had already spent myself the previous day touring Petra, and then this day travelling the preceeding 12 hours without rest. But I thought that I could see Mt. Sinai and save a lot of time, with the help of a few pain killers and and stimulants. By those I mean Ibuprofen and Coca Cola.
I shared the minibus to St. Cathrine's with thirteen other travellers and one very weary driver. All of us tried to sleep except the girls in the front seat. In "all of us" I include the driver; those girls in the front seat were doing everything they could to keep him from nodding off. So tired as I was, I didn't realise how we were veering from one side of the road to the other as he drifted in and out of sleep. This I only found out on the way back, just before we got into the minibus. The girls verified that he slept well before they got in, and all of us paid careful attention to his driving on the way back. He didn't earn any baksheesh after that.*
Back in Dahab and dog tired, it was time to look for a place to sleep. A couple of people on my bus had suggestions for me, and I tried the purportedly cheapest one. Unfortunately, one of the touts from the bus station was there. He wasn't so flattering this time. Perhaps seeing how tired I was, he thought he could pull a trick on me. A tiring story in any case: First, only one room was available. But I had to wait for half an hour. Then another half an hour. Then it wasn't available anymore and the only available room was now more expensive. Etc. Etc. I left.
I found a beautiful (and naturally more expensive place) at the next recommendation. A single room with a functioning bathroom, thick curtains, clean sheets and floors and a new matress. It had a tranquil setting, just thirty meters from the beach. A good breakfast was included. All for ten Euros. While that's a lot for the region, it was a heck of a bargain, and I could have it immediately.
I woke up to have dinner with the Australian girls who kept the driver awake. One of them, Jules, had the energy to go diving after the sleepless night on Mt Sinai. I inquired as to whether or not she had a diving certificate. She didn't need one, she told me, because she went diving with the help of a master diver. He controlled her air, buoyancy, and all that important stuff that to do by ones' self one needs certification for. I was really happy to hear this because I had wanted to dive, but I thought that I needed a whole week to get certified first.
Although the Australians took off the next day for Cairo, I went on my first underwater dive with the help of the Polish master diver Lucas. I have never seen so many fish at once, and I could never have imagined the colours of their scales. Oh, to be eight meters underwater. It is sensational and a sight to behold.
Diving felt almost like falling, but if I kicked my fins I would go forwards. Looking up at the surface made me think that I was falling, eyes to the sky. Yet if I turned back over and looked down, I found out that I hadn't moved from when I turned onto my back. The same coral was at eye level towards the shore (we did shore diving) and the same red fish was still hiding in it.
All too soon though my air was getting short, and it was time to come up. First time divers tend to use up their tank air especially quickly, but for my first dive, I did quite well to not use it up in ten minutes. Getting out of the water, I felt the weight of my suit, my gear, and even my own body for the first time in half an hour. I realised how comfortable I had been underwater. And I wanted to go back down.
Back at my hotel, which has its own competitively priced dive centre, I inquired about doing a PADI (generally recognized) open water diving certification program. I could do a course in four intense days. I spent some time thinking about it as I walked around Dahab. Already after one day it felt a lot more pleasant than when I had first arrived. Either I was more used to the place than when I had first seen it, or the shop keepers and touts were less intense. I decided that I liked the town and that I would enjoy a few extra days in it. So I signed up for the course.
Amr in the office gave me a course book to read and some DVDs to watch in the tv room, and at ten the next morning my teacher Mohammed showed up to give me private lessons. We went over a bit of the curriculum and after a few hours we went to prepare for our first dive. We really took our time getting into the water.
Now that I would be controling my own equiptment, I had to know a lot of things, and all the exercises had to be completely pre-decided, because speaking underwater is naturally impossible, and when underwater one doesn't want to waste any time (because that wastes air) being confused about what to do next. Unfortunately I found it a bit dull, but that must be a natural result of being out of school for a year already.
Once we were in the water I started having fun again, because the exercises were not very difficult. Even the most difficult one (taking off my mask underwater and then putting it back on) turned out to be okay, because neither of my contacts fell out and it wasn't very hard to do the exercise. We did two dives that day. The last one included a swim around the reef at the so-called "lighthouse" reef. My highlight was seeing a Napoleon fish, whose scales were deep purple with a few yellow and green stripes. Mohammed reckoned it to be about 1.5 meters long. Naturally it looked a lot bigger under water, and it came as near as ten meters to us.
The next few days were satisfyingly intense. I learned more diving skills, such as taking off my gear underwater and putting it back on, breathing with a broken aparatus, learning how it feels to have one's air cut off for a moment, and my favourite - controlling my bouyancy by regulating the amount of air in my lungs! And every single dive ended too soon!
I had thought that the course would be relaxing, but I had so much to learn so quickly that I didn't get to know much of Dahab's night life, apart from one internet cafe! All too soon I had learned all my diving skills and aced my exam, and I became a certified open water diver. Hooray!
But it was time to move on to see the rest of Egypt (So I thought). At a quarter to twelve on my last day of diving, I found out that to get to Cairo, I needed be up by seven to catch the first bus. Otherwise I would be stranded for the day in Dahab. I had spent a few extra days diving, and my intinerary couldn't afford any more. I missed saying my goodbyes to get to the bus station by a quarter to eight. But I bought my bus ticket for sixty (Egyptian) pounds and got on an East Delta bus. Direction: Cairo.
I say "direction" because it sure as hell took its time to get there. I was lucky to have met Dale, also from Edmonton (but the one in the UK), because by myself I would have been hardly sane by the end of it. Instead of the projected seven hours, it took ten to get to Cairo. I had been in such a rush that I hadn't been able to buy any food for the trip. The bus wasn't especially crowded, but it had a quasi toilet by the second exit. Inside it was pitch black, it didn't really flush and after six hours the bus was rank. I survived by breathing air from the air blown from above my seat in little sips, and occasionally eating some of Dale's peanuts.
Along the way, the bus made a two hour tour of Sharm el Sheikh, in which the driver inexplicably drove around in circles before leaving the city. The only stop was at a rest stop where the toilets were not the most foul I've seen, but pretty close. The door man had the gall to charge two pounds entrance. But it was better than the bus'. Hours later we made one other stop at the border between the Sinai peninsula and Egypt proper. Egyptian soldiers searched the bus and its passengers, but there was nowhere to buy food.
And then we arrived somewhere in Cairo. The bus let everyone out at some random bus stop, not at all the one we were told we would go to...
*baksheesh = (often undeserved) tip.
