Into Africa - 18th Jan 2002
Dahab Wisdom
Living It Up for Less than a Fiver
Goodbye To All That
Suez: Gateway to Africa
Just a couple of points that we missed while in Dahab.
When sitting on the floor cross-legged in bars, be very careful to inspect any stray animals that may come up seeking affection from sad westerners. Members of the Hot Rock party were not so observant and I had to point out to them that the dog that they were petting had a two inch peeper in the form of a tapeworm projecting from where the sun does not shine. Imagine their surprise. My how we laughed.
We have been much entertained by the efforts of hawkers around the Middle East and their attempts to attract attention. It all started in Istanbul when they shouted "Lovely Jubbly" all the time. Of course, each one has to be more inventive than the next or they simply get ignored.
Dahab boasts one of the finest Ali G impersonators on the planet. Strangely, when we congratulated him on his "bowackers" and other mannerisms, he had no idea who Ali G actually is. Seems that he had managed to pick up on his guests little contributions and reconstructed the whole personality by himself. Errr remarkable.
Pats hair is now back to number 1 as its been cut by the hot rockers. This means that he can get a bit more fresh air around his head when the going gets hot. Hopefully the approach to Cairo will be a little more level headed than might have been!
Living It Up for Less than a Fiver
On our final night in Dahab, we took to one of the outrageously priced beach front restaurants.
Sat on tapestried cushions and listening to the sea lapping on the shore with soft music and an open fire to create that warmth on a winters evening. The whole thing had a hippy romance about it. Soup, salad, appetisers and beef stew and rice, with tea. All for an outrageous 4 pounds 50 for the two of us. It has been hard to spend money here. The nearest we got to reaching our budget was when we had the rum session.
The problem with Dahab is that it is rather sucks you in, the relaxed pace of life, blue sea and warmth, makes it difficult to see the logic in moving on. Certainly, this at the moment seems a tempting place to spend the rest of our days.
Back to reality. Unfortunately our temporary import of the bike only lasts a month so it's time to drag ourselves away from the soporific Dahab.
We didn't manage to barter the manager of our camp down at all even though we had spent many days in his domain. We departed resolving always to cut the best deal we can before settling in.
We decided to take the central route through Sinai so that we could pass as close as possible to Mount Sinai for a photo call. Regrettably, the road passes no closer than 30 km to the said lump of rock and the angles are all wrong at this time of year for good shots.
The road improved dramatically from sun induced corrugations to newly laid paving once we got onto the civilisation side of Mount Sinai. Clearly the tourists from the Gulf of Suez resorts are more highly prized. There are far fewer passport checks, too.
Plunging down into the Suez gulfy bit, all became flat and sandy. All that there was to see was endless oil wells out in the sea. After about 50 miles of this, holiday resorts started to appear. We had intended to stop for the day about here, but found on inquiring that these hotels were charging 240 Egyptian a night and we had just been paying 13 in Dahab.
Pat was much amused by the "beware of the camel" warnings at the side of the road. There have been camels wandering about everywhere that we have been, but no signs before. As he rounded a corner to find a large behumped roadkill at the side of the road, it became clear that there is a local breed of kamikaze camel.
We made an executive decision to press on to Suez where there was a guarantee on seedy cheapies. All went well even though we did not have a map of Suez. We used the ask your way approach and got there in the end. It is well known in Moslem circles that the head of the family is the man and in situations where communication is required, he should be the one to do so. When we asked the way from one family, it was clear that the missus was by far the better English speaker, but because 'it was not her place', she had to tell her husband what to tell us. It really could have been a lot simpler with a bit of liberalism.
We met this crazy guy who was really helpful in finding hotels, restaurants and even an internet cafÈ. Apparently he has made something of a name for himself in the "Let's go" travel guide to the area and is known as Crazy Eddie. It's very difficult to compose emails while he is wittering in the background.
So, here we are. Finally, unarguably on mainland Africa. Cairo beckons and we live in trepidation.