It was so wonderful, It was so awful....
Trip Start
Mar 07, 2006
1
14
21
Trip End
Jun 07, 2006
Dahab,
Egypt
Monday, April 10, 2006
I've mentioned many times of the Egyptian love of making the most noise they possibly can with their car horns but at night they thankfully refrain from this perpetually annoying habit, instead they use their headlights. They flash them at oncoming vehicles, drive without them down the wrong side of the road, talk to each other with their indicators and quite frankly are absolutely crazy.
We thought it a good idea to sit in the front seats and I swear it was like a roller coaster ride the entire way to Dahab, bumpy road, random and scary headlight activity and driving on the wrong side of the road led me to closing my eyes and wishing it was over already
Bluehole, famous divesite, early in the morning
. Oh well, only 15 hours to go!!! I reckon between Luxor and Dahab we passed through at least 10 police chekcpoints, complete with the occasional sniffer dog, checking for goodness knew what. Mostly though they are checking the Egyptians' Work Permits. The joys of living in a police state hey. Even though the Sinai Peninsula is Egyptian territory and governed by them, under the conditions established by the Israelis when it was handed back to Egypt under the Camp DAvid AGreement in 1982, other than local Bedouin tribes who inhabit the Sinai, all other Egyptians must have a job and a Permit to stay anywhere in Sinai. If they lose their job, they're out.
So after constantly interrupted bouts of dozing the sun eventually rose over the rugged, desolate desert mountainscape that is Sinai and we arrived in Dahab at about 10.30 am. The longest 17 hours of our lives so far I'm sure.
AFter finding a place to stay for the next few weeks and checking out a couple of dive centres, our main reason for coming here, we prepared to relax for a few days before starting 8 blissful days of awesome Red Sea diving.
Without going into a fanatical rave, the diving here was amazing, 90% shore diving where you spend your surface intervals relaxing in the Bedouin hushas (or huts) eating delicious food and soaking up the sun
Dahab
. Doesn't get much better than that really. So we'd dive for a couple of days, have the odd day off and then dive for a few more, too hard I know!!!
And then on the evening of Monday 24th April paradise was shattered when 3 bombs were detonated in the centre of Dahab. We were at a friends house for dinner and as events unfolded over the course of the evening it was evident that the actions were highly pre organised as people in the UK knew more about what was happening that we did, as there was no TV or radio in the house we were in.
So for the next few days Dahab was a changed place. Largely deserted by the tourists that are it's lifeblood we saw it change from an idyllic seaside paradise to a divided community mourning for it's dead and wounded.
As much as we wanted to stay to continue to support the people who's lives will be affected by this needless act we must move on as our Syrian Visa's will expire on the 8th May so we must enter Syria by this date and we still have much to see in Jordan.
So it was goodbye to the blue waters of the Red Sea and hello to the deserts and dramatic scenery of Jordan.
