Still Alive

Omar and his dad
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If there was a navigable waterway to Las Vegas, allowing cruise ships to dump their fleshy passengers off by the thousands, I imagine the end result would be something like  Sharm El Sheikh, which is on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula.  Never have I been to a place so cheesy, where everything is paved out, commercialized and tacky, catering to the what I call, "guidos in Speedos" crowd.  We were even told by a Canadian, "it's where old Russian prostitutes go to die."  It's all very true, and having been the target of past car bombing incidents, we quickly  decided to head north to the small diving community of Dahab, which is more relaxed, less gaudy, but unfortunately too has been the target of bombings just last year.

The Red Sea out our Hotel window
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We soon found ourselves at the bus station for a one way ticket out of the cheesy resort town of Sharm, waiting for the unreliable bus service whose breakdown forced us into a one hour cab ride....this of course after the token one hour negotiation on fare with the cabbie. Our cab driver, named Chumaka (which I of course changed to Chubaka), had all the manners of a Star Wars Wookie; he picked his nose a lot, smelled funny, and had the driving talents of a deficient attention-spanned three year old.   I felt I was going to die no less than 26 times during our one and a half hour escapade to Dahab.  But wait Brian, you told us it was only an hour drive to Dahab.  Well, after about 30 minutes, Chubaka decided to drop us off with one of the dozen cars that he had passed along the way, negotiating a deal with a headdress-wearing man to deliver us the final segment of our destination.  I put up little argument at this point, suggesting to Anne that we ride with the headdress guy and his two kid passengers, as his driving skills were much better than the Wookie.  Anne concurred, and so we finally made it to our destination, unscathed.

"frankly Brian, we don't give a damn"

Is this the burning bush?...note the garbage
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During our first stroll down Dahab's main corridor, we were approached by the aggressive Egyptian sales force, who usually ask where you are from for their opening sales-pitch line.  In just one hour, we were from Germany, Switzerland, Belize, and Liechtenstein, as to avoid being targets for further suicide bombings.  In case you are wondering, United States also works, as no one has heard of it.  They only know our nation as America.  Now, on to the diving.

The Red Sea boasts that it has some of the best diving in the world.  I was a little apprehensive of this claim, as we have been around the world with some remarkable sites.  Let me go on record, it lived up to its strong reputation.  Water clarity was fantastic, housing some amazing underwater specimens such as the green, and extremely poisonous I might add, stonefish, whose eyes looked like tiny mirrors atop his coarse body of armor.  Garden eels poked their heads out of the sandy slopes that sunk into the deep, almost looking like twigs that poke out of a Colorado ski slope during a spring snow melt.  It was spectacular.  Of course, there is a down side.  Dahab has a horrible track record when it comes to water related fatalities.  According to our guide, 23 people lost their life in the water just this year; some scuba diving, some tech diving (where they go real deep for longer periods of time, and then have a strong likelihood of dying in the process), and also with free divers who hold their breath and see how deep they can go.  During one of our deep wall dives, it was easy to see where things can get out of hand.  If not paying attention to your depth gauge, the azure abyss would lure a less experienced diver to their grave.  I'm glad this was not our overall first dive for this reason.  After our deep wall dive, we drove to our second location, where hours earlier, they had just pulled out a Russian tech diver who bought the farm...that makes 24 for the year.  Rest in peace comrade.

There's a new one
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On our final day in Dahab, we decided to take a tour to the top of Mt Sinai.  This is the place where Moses did something with the Ten Commandments or something (see bible for more detail), and also has a relative of the burning bush.  You can mark this little adventure under the "lame" column, as the entire mountain is now a garbage pit.  Our overnight expedition left us with 500 other tourists waiting for a beautiful sunrise.  Japanese speaking in tongues, bowing at the mountains and all, this experience was as bad as it gets but would prove beneficial for our upcoming adventure in Tanzania.

Sunset over Dahab
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Now if you excuse me, I have a mountain to climb.

bkh

ps:  during my last night in Dahab, I befriended the owner of the hotel who also has interests in travel.   I had witnessed him the prior evening in very formal sheik-like clothing, as he was preparing for the Ramadan feast.  He invited me to tea in the evening, with all his friends who also wore sheik like clothing.  It was crazy.  A little white boy from Minnesota sitting with a dozen sheik-like guys, drinking tea at night, and solving all the world's political problems.  They don't like George Bush (shocking), but still talk about that peanut farmer Carter.  I asked them how they felt if a woman was elected as president, and the leader sheik guy (who owns the hotel) said, "frankly Brian, we don't give a damn."  So there you go.  I'm still alive after an interesting visit to Dahab.