Toda was a lie in, I only had to get up at 7. We were off to do some Red Sea snorkelling at a place called Ras Abu Gallum, and the world famous Blue Hole (although there are other world famous Blue Holes). This sounded OK, well except for me who hates swimming, and except for the fact that we had to go there and back by camel.
Toby's reward for hurting himself was not having to go on camels, although he had caught the cambulance down the mountain yesterday. I say reward, he of course was gutted about not being able to go snorkelling, where I would quite happily have sat in Dahab all day instead of going onthis trip.
After a brief journey in a 4x4, we transferred to our other 4x4s,4 camels. Getting onto the camel was pretty ok, and although you expect it to be a bit tricky when it stands up, its not too troubling. However once hey got moving it became a pretty painful experience. Obviously there was the movement, but the main problem for me was that I was wearing shorts, and the insides of my legs were rubbing against the coarse wool cover they had placed over the camel. So I ended up getting carpet burns on the inside of my calves. For this reason I nicknamed my camel Bernie.
In fairness other than that it was a fairly good trip. Bernie plodded along at a fairly reasonable speed, and although he was a bit hesitant about going downhill, he was fairy surefooted. Which is just as well as we were travelling on cliffs overlooking the see. The cliffs were only a few meters tall, but then we were a few meters further up on the back of the camels. Actually I say Bernie was surefooted, I couldn't actually see. But I couldsee other camels slipping. I'm guessing Bernie did as well, but you don't feel it. Anyway I assumed he didn't want to go into the sea any more than I did, so I left him to his own devices.
I once heard that camels have really good memories for directions, and it must be true, because there was nobody leading us, we were on our own. But Bernie and the other camels seemed to know where they were going and after an hour our camel-nav led us to the village where the first snorkelling would be done. I only did a little as I'm not the best in the water and without my glasses. I went to the edge of the reef, peered over, and saw quite a few fish, but it wouldn't have been fair on the others to have me along dragging them back when we would have had to stick together. So I got out and sat on the beach while the others went off to deeper locations. At least then I was ble to take some photos.
After this firstbout of snorkelling we were supposed to reboard the camel train and head back to the Blue Hole for lunch. However our guide said that these days all the diving has scared off the fish and it is not as good as it was. (That and it is dangerous, more people are supposed to have died snorkelling/diving there than any other site). So the others eleted to stay where we were (I didn't vote as it made little difference to me which beach I sat on) and we had a bedouin lunch.
After lunch the others went back out for another hours snorkelling, and I sat on the beach talking to Mezza our guide. I told him about the various places I've been, and about snow which he has never seen, and explained why I didn't think te top of Mt Sinai as very cold. He tried to sell me the bits of Egypt I wasn't seeing on this trip, although there wasn't much need, I think a separate trip to Luxor has always been likely. Just as long as I don't have to go back to Cairo again. A Kiwi beach bum that I also got chatting to also tried to sell me the idea of visiting the Western Oases in Egypt, which I hadn't thought of before, but from reading the LP descriptions sound pretty cool.
One interesting thing happened while were were out in this remote village. I turned my phone on, and it decided it was in Saudi Arabia, which was actually 10k across the Red Sea. I sent a few texts just so that in future when the CIA are analysing my phone records it will confuse them.
When the others came back in we got back on our camels and headed back. It was a similar trip back, and again the camels were uncomfortable and slow. As it was now quite cool, with our path back in the shade from higher mountains, I think I could have done the 5 or 6 km back as quick on foot. Still we made it back to the Blue Hole just before dark, and with a few spots of rain falling on us (news as we are in a desert after all). As we were booked for a lunch at the Blue Hole we had a late lunch of pizza and then we headed back to the hotel at about 6 to wash the salt and camel stink off.
In the evening I had a wander around Dahab looking for the Irish bar James swore he saw the previous night. I couldn't find it, I think he was hallucinating from the lack of alcohol. In the end we just settled down in an ordinary bar for a few drinks, as you never know when the next ones might come. Overall Dahab is a nice relaxed place to spend a few days, but you would really want to be into your snorkelling or diving to sepnd a week there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahab
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Hole_(Red_Sea)
No comments:
Post a Comment