Day Twelve starts with us waking at Abu Hamza, our unexpectedly nice beachfront hotel-of-sorts on the Red Sea. As nice as the place was, it did still suffer from what seems to be Egypt’s complete domination by flies. We were sleeping inside our small room, but as soon as the sun came up, the flies became unbearable. Anna and I both pulled our sleep sacks over our heads in an attempt to escape, but I ended up being far too warm and getting up earlier than I would have liked. Still, we were on the beach, and had the promise of heading to Dahab, where we’d likely be able to do laundry and, more importantly, get a beer.
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The night before, Friej had told us our plans, in his usual somewhat opaque way. It was clear that we needed to make it about 4km to a nearby village, and then about 15km to a small diving town, and then about 5km to Dahab itself. It seemed clear that we’d take a truck for the first leg, and there was some confusion about whether we were riding camels or taking another truck for the second leg, and then a truck sounded likely for the final leg. Whatever, we were ready to go. So after a quick breakfast of the fantastically tasty but increasingly monotonous Bedouin bread, cheese, and the treat (for everyone but me) of eggs, we packed up, through our stuff in the back of a pickup, and climbed in.
The first part went great; we got to the small village quickly. We hopped out of the truck, and Friej had a camel handy. Ok, I thought, we’re riding camels. Anna and Lars had found them a bit painful previously, but they’d be fine for such a short trip. We loaded up our packs on the animal Friej had, and started walking with him to our rides.
Except, well, our rides didn’t exist. It turns out we were walking the second leg. Not a big deal, but I would have taken water with me, worn different shoes, and so on. The communication snafu here was typical of the one recurring issue we had in an otherwise fantastically organized trip: we never felt like we knew what was going on, and we had the suspicion that Friej didn’t either, and that he didn’t like to tell us that plans had changed or were uncertain. So, anyways, we walked.
The coastline we cruised down was absolutely stunning. I don’t know about you, but when I think of Egypt, I think of desert, pyramids, the Nile, and so on. There’s just something kind of surreal about being in Egypt, walking along a coastline with a Bedouin guide, a camel as a pack animal, and yet looking out across the Red Sea to the coastline of Saudi Arabia, about 25km away and very visible.
On our walk, we passed numerous buildings, ranging from ramshackle shelters to fairly modern and luxurious looking. It seemed odd, since the coast was utterly deserted. However, Friej said that starting around noon, hundreds, or even thousands, of tourists would arrive in the area by camel for snorkeling. Still very much in our desert mindset — we hadn’t seen anyone but each other and a few Bedouins for the past week — other than on Mt. Sinai, we hadn’t seen anyone but each other and a few Bedouins in the past week — we were just as happy to not be in the middle of thronging tourists.
We also walked through a spot that I’m going to render as Lehlaba in English. Friej noted it, and said that no matter how calm the day elsewhere, the wind and waves in this particular spot were always very, very strong. And, sure enough, the wind and waves here were very, very strong.
And then, after n hour and a half or so of walking, we arrived in the promised dive town. No, not like a dive bar. Think Scuba. This small town seemed to be entirely given over to divers, and there were plenty of them walking around in wet suits, carrying air tanks, and so on. And there, on the road ahead of us, was the trusty Range Rover that had taken us out of the desert and to the coast.
We got a picture with Friej before we all, Friej included, piled in to the vehicle for the short ride to Dahab. As we came into town, you would have thought that we had never seen civilization before. And Dahab is not Manhattan, either. But we peered out at all of the people and cars and, speaking for myself at least, felt a bit weird about the transition.
Once in the center of town, we stopped to let Friej head out, with arrangements to see him at Desert Diver around 4, when we would stop by to settle up. And then we continued on to Crazy Camel Camp, the hotel where we’d spend the night. Under normal circumstances, I think I’d probably say that it was a very cheap hotel and, while perfectly livable, far from luxurious. But these weren’t normal circumstances: we’d just spent a week in the desert, with no restroom facilities to speak of, and certainly no shower. And now we had private rooms, with bathrooms and showers and electricity and mattresses and everything. It felt like the Four Seasons.
After much needed and positively ecstatic showers, we headed out into town to grab lunch and, more importantly, a beer. Along the way we stopped at Desert Divers and got to meet some of the people we’d worked with to set up the trip. They tempted us with the possibility of getting out rock climbing in the evening, but we (wisely) decided that we were more likely to want to sit in a restaurant and eat and drink.
And that’s what we did for a couple of hours. We settled on a place called Yella, since it had alcohol (not everyplace does) and a great beachfront location. That first beer was truly wonderful. As was the pizza, the chicken wings, the garlic bread (pizza sans sauce, basically), the calamari (or so I’m told), the shish kabob, and the second and third beers. As turned out to be commonplace in Dahab, there was also a terribly cute kitty who hung out with us and paid for her meal with sheer adorability.
After lunch, we dropped off some laundry at a local place, then arranged for massages and, for me, a shave. The massages weren’t great, but were very affordable, and I think it’s good to get the muscles moved around a bit after such a long week of exertion. My shave was… painful. By this point I was verging between deep scruff and a full beard, and I knew I didn’t want to do it myself with disposable razors (my shaving kit is still trying to make its way from Aqaba to catch up with us). Shaving that much beard always hurts, but this was a bit over the top since he started with threading, the process of ripping out individual hairs by twirling two threads on them. Having that done across the entire perimeter of beard, plus eyebrows and ears, was painful enough that I was sweating profusely and about to beg for mercy when he switched to the straight razor. From there it was all good.
It was at about this time that Anna found an entry in our Egyptian guide book that was relevant to the scorpion attack of a few days earlier. The entry informed us that, while the sting of black scorpions was no worse than that of a wasp, anyone stung by the paler scorpions should ice the area and seek medical attention immediately. We’re pretty sure that’s a pale one there. So Lars’ up close experience with desert wildlife is taking on whole new levels of danger and bravery. Or something like that.
Moving on, we grabbed some electronics and headed back to Yella, which in addition to its previous charms also had WiFi. So we had more food and drink, I updated the blog, and we generally chilled and talked for a while. Until sometime in the evening when we got talking to a couple sitting next to us and shared that it was Anna’s birthday. About a half hour later, the lights in the restaurant went out, some jarring recordings of gongs played, and about four minutes of utter birthday mayhem ensued. There was dancing, clapping, loud music, a huge dessert, much stammering and shock from Anna, and an elephant. Ok, not an elephant. But there might as well have been. It was surreal and shocking and hilarious.
We wound down the evening and headed back to the hotel around 11, well fed and watered, and got ready for Day Thirteen, which day would see us make the ferry crossing from Sharm El-Sheikh to Hurghada to begin the Nile portion of the trip.