Egypt

August 27th Cont.

Yeah well we're here - hardest traveling yet.  Something like four countries and 4,600km in two weeks but the last 1200km felt more like 10,000km.

After the nightmare of the ferry we went to a hotel had a beer which didn't taste nearly as good as I was expecting and then having run around paying for the ordeal of the last 24 hours discovered that the car only ferry was delayed.  I wandered around Aswan and had a MacDonalds.  (Big Mac, fries, 6 nuggets, BBQ sauce - Not sure why but all the Europeans on the boat went there that evening, except Jo who doesn't eat that stuff)  They had a full size Hamburglar there in costume 'n all which was wacky.  Slept.

August 28th

The idea I have a sister was particularly strong today.  A nascent thought of her is apparent.  Anyway, didn't leave hotel room until 4pm.  Played some pool with Jo, had a nap and found Rhubarb is probably on the boat but won't be with us until Sunday which is a bit annoying as it's a days work to get him and Jensen Bottle is racing.  Going out to have something to eat and killing all the hotel's bandwidth downloading thirty BBC podcasts.  Plan is leave Aswan on Monday and go to Luxor for two nights and then do a big sweep through the desert for two nights camping before hitting Cairo.  Reminds me, Mazar commented on the Luxor key ring I had Rhubarb's spare keys on that I gave him.  It is true it is a Luxor key ring - but a $5 Luxor Casino gambling chip from Las Vegas.  I'm glad he didn't notice as it might have offended his religious sensibilities which would have been a shame.

August 29th

Did very little but stayed on our little private island hotel for the day and ate and drank some.  Met up with some Finnish fellow Land Roverists for drinks in the evening and then went to bed.

August 30th 

Up bright and breezy to go get Rhubarb.  Drove him off the barge and then dicked around with a 'fixer' all day to get all the many pieces of paper the stupid customs guys need.  Then dickhead Dutch guy refused to share his lunch with the main customs guys who responded with,"I don't think you finish today."  So of course we didn't finish today.  Short arsed moaning bastard.

August 31st

Went back to finish up with customs guy who pointed out to Dutch bloke his folly - which obviously Dutch bloke thought was funny.  Then we drove to Luxor which was 200km of road blocks.   There must be at least ten 'English' bars in Luxor and they're all ghastly.  Seriously punchy prices too.  Some bar guy in one of them decided to randomly ask me to play him at pool, which as I acted dumb gave the greasy slimo a bit a of shock.  We stayed in a local Egyptian hotel so no booze and was just a little odd.

September 1st

We decided to do some culture.  You know, tick some tourist boxes.  'Tick', been there done that.  Jo decided it was going to be Karnak Temple.  Rather than, 'Tick mate, you got no credit left geeze, now pay up for what you owe 'fore I mess you up.'  – Ah! Halcyon days, true but I digress and I have ten days to write in less than hour.

Anyway despite the fact that we'd planned the trip rather badly, (it was midday by the time we arrived and around 45C's) it was actually quite pleasant.  Apart from the shysters and hucksters lurking all around.  Basically it's all still a bit of a work in progress, wander of the beaten path and some dude grabs you, shows you some crappy bit of stone before pointing out a tiny "Work in Progress" sign and demanding the equivalent of $10 for his sixty seconds.

Anyway took some photos of historyness.

Modern archaeologists are now certain it was the work of aliens since at 5000 years old it predates the Garden of Eden.  Oh no that would be the American bible belt that thinks that.

"All persons entering this temple do so at their own risk.  Risks may be manyfold as evidenced by the man sized birds and scary mummies depicted herein." 

Get out of my picture, pal.

So after doing our little bit to support the unofficial tourism industry we crossed to the other side of the Nile to the West Bank where the valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens is.  It took us about three hours to travel the 40km down the river, across the bridge and back up to the town then find a place to stay so we had an early night intending to do some more box ticking the following day.

September 2nd

Decided to skip more box ticking and headed off to Hurgharda on the Red Sea.  You hear the Red Sea is beautiful.  Apparently it is if you are part of the newly emerging Russian middle class.  Like a cheapo Vegas for Russians it is horrific.  There is more than 20km of coastline devoted to all inclusive style holiday resorts packed three deep, all themed.  There was even one called 'The Santa Claus Resort & Spa."  On the way into town we got stopped for speeding.  Allegedly we were doing 100km/h in a 90km/h zone.  Only Rhubarb is a bit knackered and physically can't do that right now.  Oh, and I was cruising up to a roadblock doing about 70km/h and no evidence was produced.  Only the less than damning, 'Man you radio said he saw you doing 100km.'  So I refused to pay and he confiscated our Egyptian driving license.  We found a place to stay, ours I think was the Chernobyl themed one and headed out for dinner.  The Gaucho - an Argentine diner.  Well the food was a weird mix of Russian and Mexican but it's what passes for Argentinean in Hurgharda.  We had a day to kill the next day and we'd booked a couple of dives the next day but ended up a little pie-eyed nonetheless.

September 3rd

Woke up with too little sleep and got on a big boat with lots of nasty looking Russians.  Had two dives, the first way deeper than I'm qualified for and when I said I was low on air what does nutter Dive Master do?  Hands me his secondary air supply.  It's very naughty and I would have been far happier just going up to  the surface, but these whacky Arabs!

Actually he was wasn't whacky just a bit of an dick.

Went out to an "Italian" restaurant that night.

September 4th

Drove a long way to Cairo and met my parents and some girl at a hotel there.  Had some dinner with them and the girl had brought us our Amazon Kindles that I'd asked her to get in Chicago.  They rock.  If you don't know, they're basically electronic books working with E-Ink.  This stuff means that it looks like real ink - you can read in direct sunlight for example - and it holds around one thousand books with the battery lasting a couple of weeks.  They are awesome, don't think I've said that yet.  Rhubarb got parked in the underground loading bay of the hotel as he wasn't quite what the place was used to.  Best digs he's ever had I'm sure.

September 5th  

Not content with having hit four different continents in five days my dad had an overabundance of energy and had booked us in on some early morning jaunt around some more box ticking locations.  Photos below.

                        Aliens built 'em, I reckon.

People, get out of my photo.                                                                                                                                            

Wow, I'm really behind so a quick update on the last few days.  We went out on a boat on the Nile that evening, had a picnic where one basket would have fed us all - but the hotel gave us five.  Bed.

September 6th

My parents and the tagalong girl left in the afternoon for their flight back to England.  Whilst they were busy missing that we had some lunch.  They told us they missed the flight by an hour or something due to nutty Cairo traffic.  Had a lazy day by the pool ourselves.

September 7th

Unable to afford so much as the parking at the hotel we were in ($20 a day) we moved down the road to Hilton.  It took us three hours of driving 'round in circles to cover 2km.  We wanted to stay another night in Cairo to go to a couple of local bars and restaurants that had been recommended to us.  This we did and they were alright - although no drinking as it's Ramadan.  That I just don't get - the Qur'an bans alcohol but you sell it anyway, but then just not at certain times unless it's a 5* hotel.  Lunacy, but then all of it is anyway I suppose.

September 8th  

We headed off towards Sharm el Sheikh on Sinai planning to stop a night on the way, perhaps in Suez.  Suez is grotty and horrible and you can't get a beer so we took the tunnel under the Nile and pushed on a bit to a most bizarre place.  Designed to hold the best part of 1000 guests on the western Sinai coast it was almost entirely empty.  Coupled with the fact that there was just one tiny restaurant with about ten tables, no bar and no sort of entertainment available you kind of wonder what the point of it is.  At dinner a couple of tables of young travelers from the U.S, Oz and Europe came in and I heard one of them let slip to the waiter they were staying for a week.  By the following morning the same guy was wondering how they could get hold of a car - presumably so they could leave.  It was super hot there that night, even with the A/C on full blast it must have been high twenties.

September 9th

Off to Sharm.  Then straight through Sharm as it's a Mega Resort Toilet.  Another place where you can't see the sea because of all the developments so we shot straight through and did another 100km to Dahab.  Dahab rocks, just.  We went to a little Swiss owned place and had several cold beers.  It hasn't be laid to waste by the resort developers yet although there are signs it's on it's way.  There's a nice little promenade down the beach front with loads of restaurants and bars not all of which are totally ghastly.  You only get pestered by every second restaurant host and all in all it's quite quaint despite a couple of bars filled with drunk English people watching football.

September 10th

Really can't remember - ooh I can.  Spent pretty much the whole day on the bed/in the hotel.  Only went out to book some diving.

September 11th

Dahab is most famous for it's diving so we did some of that.  One of the most famous dive sites in the world 'Blue Hole' is 9km out of town and there's loads of other cool stuff too..  Typically as soon as you ask to do any diving the companies try and extract loads of extra money out of you and so as soon as we asked to do any of the more interesting dives they were asking for all sorts of extra stuff.  We agreed to do an adventure dive course with a check dive at the start.  Went out with this grim Northern bint you started off by asking me, –  So you live in South Africa but where are you from originally?  Uh, England.

Loads of boring out of air procedures and clearing masks etc. followed by 5 minutes of looking at a rubbish covered dead reef right in the middle of town.  Fortunately we got a new instructor for our night dive later in the day which was pretty cool - although there is so much light from the town that it wasn't much different from daylight.  Had some dinner and that was that.

September 12th

Woke up feeling really sore.  Jo watched the rugby while I slept then we out and dived the 'Canyon.'  it was to qualify as 'Deep' Divers or something and was freaky as.  Basically you swim out of a lagoon through some little reefs and then into a canyon that is actually more like a cavern.  You get down to this darkish hole, watching your air deplete three times quicker than at a shallower depth.  Then if you're me, your weight belt falls off and your alternate air supply un-clips.  If you're  Jo you grin inanely while I have to put it all back on.  Then we swam up through a crack back into the lagoon.  Very cool.

We then drove a little way up the beach to the Blue Hole.  It was awesome and since we were doing a photography bit there are some photos too.  We entered through the 'Bells'  a chimney open on one side to the sea that drops to 28m before going through an archway that you swim through.  then we swam along a wall to the Blue Hole itself.  It's only a meter or two off the shore but descends to over 100m in places.  That is seriously deep.  At 60m or so  I am told there is a hole out to the sea.  Loads of people have tried to make this using normal gear or not trained properly and died.  It is basically twice the normal scuba depth.  There's a load of memorials to them affixed to the wall where you enter the water.  Dumb people.  One of the memorials stood out.  It gave the guys name and some crap about overcoming your fears to follow your dreams.  Well, he overcame his fears and died in an entirely avoidable situation.  Clever or no?  Interestingly it's where the top female free diver lives and practices - they get down to 90m if they're very good.  Our instructor does loads of technical diving with four tanks and stuff and the deepest he's gone is 65m - the decompression problems prevent you going too much deeper - yet a human with no kit other than a fish like single fin get down to 90m.  Mind you, plenty of them die too. 

Exiting the Bell's.                                                                                               It's a hole and it's blue and there's Jo.

Fishes                                                                                                                 Do I have air?  Oh yes, I'm hyperventilating it up to the surface now.

The David Bailey of the Seas?                                                                       A Fish

That was all pretty cool so we allowed ourselves to be convinced to do two more dives the following day to qualify as Advanced.  Found out that our instructor, Mike, who Jo had guessed was in his late thirties is actually 22 and Master Scuba Instructor which threw us a bit.

September 13th

Got up pain free after all the exercise for once and did a dull navigation dive.  This was made harder for me than Jo.  Instead of pretending to follow the compass and actually just swimming back to the line on the bottom like Jo I was forced to do it properly as they wound the line back on the reel as I was swimming.  This was followed by an awesome dive through a massive coral garden called Islands. Possible my favourite ever dive.  Watched the F1 in Arabic which was pretty dull and had an early night.

September 14th

Drove to Nuwieba and dealt with stupid Egyptian customs for the last time.  Five hours of crap and paying money to halfwits to take a ninety minute ferry to Jordan.  Rhubarb got a shiny bunk on the car deck.