Back on the minibus! Again off through the desert we spent the day driving from Luxor to Hurgada, 4 egyptian hours...which could mean any length of time really! But we managed to arrive in enough time to drive through Hurgada, a city only 35 years old, but already so dirty, run down, poorly planned, and probably the worst we had been in in Egypt!

We tied our arabian scarfs around our heads and jumped onto our quad bikes to start the desert safari. In a line we sped off, promptly being so covered in dust we would not see anything as we drove through the desert into the sun at ridiculously high speeds! As a result we had many close calls but luckily avoided any major accidents... just a few small cases of whiplash as you couldn't see the people in front slow down! Climbing up a desert hill we had an amazing view of the expansive Egyptian desert before zooming off to a Bedouin camp (Arabian Nomads) to go camel riding and smoke sheisha... except they forgot us and we were stuck in a little mud brick room in the dark until we decided just to head off anyway! It was pitch black by this stage and the bikes were turned on and systematically belted to make the at least one headlight work... but even the biggest belting would not make mine turn on as the guide just shrugged his shoulders and jumped on his bike! Clearly this was not a workable solution and we swapped bikes... so the guide had it instead.... and we tried to follow black into black. As a result we all lost each other and ended up going cross country alone, at speed to try and catch up, not knowing whether we were going to end up in a ditch or what! Ahhh the joys of no OH&S! We stopped again to try and regroup and swapped bikes around again, giving the guide light and me ending up on one without a protective cover over the engine. Oh my gosh talk about hot!!!!!!!!! One of the bikes then broke down and it couldn't be fixed so we left it in the desert and I rode with the guide, one handle each and tried to keep straight! He took off at speed toward the lights on the horizon to try and overtake all the groups as we flew cross country at about 50km an hour according to the speedo, fish tailing and having a general adventure to arrive back at camp and await the arrival of the group... minus our tour guide Hamada and a quad bike guide....turns out they had lost the group, the guide didnt know where to go and we had left them behind somewhere in the desert! About 15 or so mins later they turned up, a little shaken after their adventure, but luckily no injuries from the guides ridiculous riding up and down mounds causing the bike to launch.... as he had no idea where he was going. good hey!

Hurgada is quite a dangerous city made up of low socio economic communities and we were advised not to go out alone we had included buffet dinners at the hotel. so good! But quite expensive compared to the street for the other things such as drinks and we learnt our lesson trying to bring water / juice into the hotel having them all confiscated by security (as apparently we had to buy them there) so had to find inventive ways to hide them to bring them in!


So making the most of another buffet breakfast feast and it was time to sign out our snorkeling gear and board the boat for a journey out onto the beautiful clear blue Red Sea. We stopped at a massive reef on the way and saw huge moray eels, cornetfish and so many different types of beautiful marine life. The crew came around and made us all hats out of our towels before a traditional lunch and we arrived on Giftun Island, all crammed into a small refugee boat and trying to avoid sinking! We had a plan to make a calender of the trip and so here began the journey of photo taking!

We decided to hit the town tonight in Hurgada so we jumped into a cab to head in. One of the clubs we went to was really weird – they shooed everyone off the dance floor and brought out girls who wern't particularly good dancers and one dude with a really mad mullet haircut to do some random dances. So weird! I was heading home in a cab with Allira and Hamada our guide had spoken to the cabbie to tell him he had his identity number, no funny business or he would call the police. It all started out well enough, but halfway along he demanded more money and stopped the cab and refused to go any further, risking at best stranding us in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Luckily we both managed to diffuse the situation and in the end Allira got so mad at him, he drove us back no worries and she even forced him to apologise before he left! Hilarious! It was pretty dodgy though and the next day our guide reported him to the police for his actions as they were so dodgy and illegal.

Another lovely day to chill out followed as we again ate our weight in the buffet breakfast, played volleyball on the beach and then walked into town. A bit of internet time and wandering around when i tried to head into Burger King to use the bathroom and was watched by one of the employees, followed to the back of the restaurant, up the stairs and would not leave me alone until i yelled at him, he decided to wipe the basin and then stand outside. Finally he got the message and left. SO weird!

The tour that we had all booked upon actually drove back to Cairo and then over to Dahab, which was about 11 egyptian hours on a bus and overnight stop in awful Cairo... but we managed to convince our tour leader that we didnt want to do this and would just catch the ferry across to Sharm el Sheik and drive up toDahab, saving us about 7 hours travel!

So we were up early to catch the sunrise and then onto the minibus to say farewell to our guide Hamada as we were dropped off at the ferry port with no idea where to go! We figured out the plan and stamped our tickets,went through the box pretending to be a metal detector and onto the boat. As we boarded the crew were giving out tablets to everyone which we declined. Apparently they were sea sickness tablets. And we soon found out why we needed them!!!!! What a ridiculous bumpy ride!!!!!!!!! awful!!!!!!!! I cannot say any more... plain awful! The journey was supposed to be an hour and a half... egyptian hours! As we arrived about 3 and a half hours later! A topdeck bus was supposed to be meeting us but it was nowhere to be found! We walked up the hill and found a minibus with a topdeck sign in the window and hopped on and hoped to be not highjacked and dropped in the desert!

Driving along through the desert in the middle of nowhere with mountains either side of us we randomly came across a little 'service stop' with goats and dogs in the toilets and a boat – in the middle of nowhere! bizarre! About 2 hours later we arrived in Dahab, the driver a little confused as he dropped us off at the back instead of the front of our hotel! We were staying in the Happy Life Village Resort which was a massive resort right on the Red Sea with its own beach, 3 pools, 2 waterslides, restaurants, scuba club, games room... you name it!

Each day the cleaners came into the rooms and made the bedspreads and towels into various shapes such as doves, love hearts, flowers... and fold your clothes!!! weird!!!! But not only that, they knew your room number, then hang around outside your room to find out how you liked it!

So a great hotel, but also a little bit out of town and so needed to catch the shuttle in for dinner. We walked through town,down the esplanade into a little restaurant called Yallla. Egypt were playing Algeria that night in a world cup qualifier for the soccer and the whole of the town were excited, flags drawn on their faces and tv's pulled out into the streets to watch the game. As the last goal was scored and the game won 2-0 by Egypt the entire town went crazy! The music blared, people danced like maniacs, burnt the algerian jersey and there was a massive impromptu street party!

The next day we went into town and got some supplies ready for our big evening! It was nap time and luckily i placed a wake up call with reception.... as it never came! I headed down to the pool to get some food that the same guy at reception had told me was 24 hour to find it stopped at 10pm! oh well! Luckily i had 'acquired' some extra breakfast! :+) 11pm we all met in reception ready to climb Mt Sinai.

Mt Sinai is very significant in the Christian culture as it is where Moses received the 10 commandments from Jesus. We jumped on the bus and drove for about 2 hours to the start point of the trek. We paid 2 egyptian pounds(LE) to pee here too! crazy! We then joined hundreds of other trekkers and pilgrims in the dark walking up the first section, attempting to avoid being run over by camels and avoid their wet droppings everywhere! Some people opted to ride camels, but most of us trekked, making a path with our torches up the trail. We stopped at various little 'coffee shops' along the way which was quite random! And COLD!!! walking was okay in a t-shirt, but when you stopped the freezingness hit you in a split second. awful!


We continued our ascent which wasn't actually too bad.... but a definite kickstart to the fitness campaign after doing nothing but lying in bed for the last month!!! Until the last section of 750 stairs anyway. pain!!!!! Finally we arrived at the top, hired a little mattress to stop the cold whilst we waited, and rockclimbed across the face of the mountain, kind of glad we couldnt see down onto a little rock jutting out that we were all to huddle on. We rugged up with everything we owned and watched out waiting for the first suns rays to rise over the horizon.. It was dead quiet as we sat there waiting, literally on top of the world before different layers of coloured rows of light began to shine through the darkness and the glowing pink ball of sun arrived to show us the gorgeous mountainous terrain we had climbed.

We completed a few more pics for our calender and began our descent down the 'steps of repentance' that were built by monks thousands of years ago. Down down down down down we walked the uneven rock steps.......3500 apparently!!!! 14km :+)

Meeting up at the bottom we entered Saint Catherines Monastery, where God set the burning bush alight to catch Moses' attention to speak to him and tell him to climb the mountain to receive the commandments. The monks that live here are also the ones that built all the crazy steps up.

Back to the bus and so tired after missing a nights sleep! It was afternoon by the time we arrived back to the hotel and walked down to the beach and jumped off the jetty into the beautiful blue water to swim around and snorkel on the reef with all the marine lifeon our doorstep..

Meeting up for dinner we headed into Same same, but different for dinner with the gang and all tried to stay awake!!!!!!!!!

Struggling out of bed the next morning we limped into town as some guys scuba dived, and the rest of us chilled out at the net cafe, had a delicious lunch at Aladdin, where sitting next to the water we suddenly saw a movement outside and 2 young girls were tapping on the window trying to sell us bracelets!!!

Back to swim out the pain in the beautiful hotel beach and snorkel as we watched the sunset over the mountains around us. so cool!

The next morning dawned another beautiful day as we brought snorkels and hired jeeps to take us to the famous blue cave snorkel spot just outside Dahab. As we drove along,we passed a check point as we see commonly throughout egypt and suddenly the driver said...'safari???' and all of the sudden drove the jeep off the side of the road, up and down the sand as we hung on for dear life in the back, being thrown around and trying not to be thrown out the back with a lack of seat belts or anything real to hold on to!

The blue cave is a really famous dive/snorkel spot, a massive massive blue cavern, much further down than you could see and outwards in all directions full of amazing reef,coral and marine life. I saw gorgeous little Nemo fish in their home, schools of those super fancy lion fish with all their spikes out and hundreds of awesome awesome sights! Unfortunately it was really cold in so hard to stay long, but soooo awesome!

On the way out we ran out of petrol... even though we were only about 15 mins from town and had to wait for the other jeep to return with a water bottle full so we could begin again!! We stopped at a desert oasis which was were fresh water seeps through from the ground and many varieties of plant life grow all around the area, making a cool little escape from the desert. Then our final stop just a few mins south of the hotel to the famous snorkel spot called the 3 pools, which surprisingly enough was 3 pools! :+) We swam though literally thousands and thousands of whitebait in schools so thick you could barely see through them, schools of Dory fish from Nemo, saw massive bright blue clams opening and closing and heaps of the long, thin cornetfish. It was amazing!

Our final night together had arrived :+(! Egypt was again playing a football world cup qualifier against alergia and so we suited up for the occasion with cleopatra eyes and 'go egypt' written across our faces in arabic. Unfortunately it was not to be and the town was dead silent as Egypt lost the match and their chance at the world cup. We had a fantastic dinner though at a beautiful restaurant on the water called Ali Baba that had masses of fresh seafood and prawns bigger than your entire hand!

Our final all you eat breakfast buffet before our backpacking trip started! Bags packed and we were on the road again! Our time in Egypt had drawn to a close and we had to say goodbye to our new friends GI and Jo as we caught a mini bus to the border town of Taba to begin our adventures in Jordan and Israel, sitting in the smallest mini van known to man kind where even my knees were squished up against the seat in front! In Egypt you always need police clearance for your route for tourists and we figured it out they saw it is for safety, we say it is just for the police to get lifts as we stopped and picked up several random police on the way, which is apparently quite common as it is even mentioned in the lonely planet!

Things I will miss about Egypt
Breakfast Buffets
Moussaka, moussaka, moussaka!!! (an egyptian dish with baked eggplant...mmmmmmm!)
sunshine
warm weather
beautiful crystal blue water
hotels and beds every night!!!
delicious freshly squeezed tropical fruit juices
snorkeling and the beautiful reefs and marine life
the amazing ancient Egyptian history everywhere
friendly helpful locals
being able to offer camels for people or goods!


Things I will not miss about Egypt
Dirty Hurgada
paying to use the toilets
having to carry toilet paper everywhere
squat toilets, drop toilets or no toilets at all!
running the gauntlet of sellers trying to get you into their stores/restaurants!
freezing cold swimming pools
Egyptian yellow guava juice and kerkade...hibiscus juice. YUK!
Egyptian time.... 5mins meaning anywhere from 5 minutes to hours!
Foul – this strange brown bean dish that is out at every meal... how they make them taste so disgusting is beyond me!
Haggling with taxi drivers to get a good price to get home
sand....everywhere!!!
no grass or green, just dirt and rocks
everyone trying to be your friend...fun for the first day, and then just plain annoying!!!
Tour guides forgetting to tell us about the important things we can see
all the egyptians always saying yes to everything when they don't know the answer!!
Cairo traffic