Chilling out in Hurghada
Trip Start
Aug 11, 2005
1
13
149
Trip End
May 22, 2006
Hurghada,
Egypt
Friday, August 26, 2005
Our day started out quite innocently enough. We were transported to the bus station, 10 km out of town near the airport, at 8:00 am. We were initially told that the bus departs at 8:00 am, but we were being convinced that it would depart Hurghada between 8:30 and 9:00 am. The ticket agent at the bus stop tried to barter with me for the tickets. He wanted to give me the tickets for free, in exchange for me permitting Tamalyn to spend one week with him. In addition, he would permit me to spend one week with one of his two wives. This seemed to epitomize the Egyptian way of life where women are treated as second class citizens, and they are oppressed beyond our wildest imaginations. I hesitated, trying to think of how to diplomatically tell him to go to hell. He asked if my hesitation was an indication that I was scared for Tamalyn, but I responded saying that I was scared for me
Bus to Hurghada
. This got a bit of a laugh from the locals in the office who understood English. My response was repeated in Arabic to the others, who all roared hysterically. Eventually, we left the office with our tickets and a homemade cookie in our tummy (the ticket agent's wife made them). We boarded the bus for our 5 hour journey north and east thru the rugged desert.At the second stop-off point along the road from Luxor to Hurghada, we realized that we probably didn't have enough water, snacks or pop for the entire trip. I went to the store to pick up two cans of sprite, and a large bag of potato chips. Not planning ahead seemed to come back to bite us in the rear, as the entrepreneurial spirit of the shopkeeper had him charging three to four times what we would have paid in Cairo. I guess when you are stuck in the middle of the desert you have to pay quite the premium to get what you want.
Our arrival in Hurghada provided us with our first experience with ultra-aggressive touts. Almost immediately upon disembarking from the bus, a swarm of locals approached us. "Do you have a hotel?" "Please stay at my hotel, it is close to the ferry terminal." "You need a taxi? I have one right here for you." We forcefully said we didn't need anything, and that we had a hotel lined up already
Market in Hurghada
. Two guys were quite imaginative and even had a tourist cop with them. They said that the tourist cop had to know where all tourists were from and where they were staying. Yeah right! We weren't giving them any info. They continued to prod us until I said, "If he wants to know, why isn't he asking us?" They responded that he couldn't speak English. Tamalyn got a bit frightened by this and almost cracked. She said the first word of the hotel that we were thinking of and then stopped herself. I said if the tourist police want to know where we are staying, they can find an English speaking one to come and ask me. What they didn't know couldn't hurt them. We walked about 200 m down the street looking for an internet café. We wanted to get an idea as to where everything was in Hurghada. Having not come across an internet café, we stopped briefly outside a small confectionary/pharmacy store. We asked the shopkeeper to explain to us how we were to go about making a phone call (to contact a hotel). He sold us a phone card and explained the phone number system, including city codes, and pointed us to a telephone booth on the street.We called the hotel where we had a reservation for the next night, and we asked if we could stay there an extra night, one night earlier then our current reservation. Giving us the OK that he had availability, he also informed us that instead of taking a taxi, we could take the minibus. A taxi would have cost us 15 to 20 Egyptian pounds, but the minibus should cost us only 1 Egyptian pound each. Between the shopkeeper and the hotel clerk on the phone, we were getting service that we were led to believe was impossible in today's tout-infested, baksheesh-damanding Egypt. Maybe things were going to be great in Hurghada.
Our two-night, day and a half stay in Hurghada was just what the doctor ordered. We caught up on our diary, did our laundry, and enjoyed a very clean, spacious room that actually had a TV. The only English speaking channel was a movie channel, but at least it was in a language that we understood (Shallow Hal was just as good both the 2nd and 3rd time we watched it!). Our batteries re-charged, we couldn't wait to get on the ferry destined for Sharm El Sheikh and our 7 day scuba trip.
