We returned home from the month away just before Passover started here in Israel. The company Lee works for is privately owned, and shuts down for the whole week- a bit of a luxury here, apparently. Again, as we had all this time, and we're not Jewish (and therefore, don't have to observe) and every grocery store had completely removed bread from their shelves for the week, we decided to get away. And what better place than Egypt? It's just next door, is pretty cheap, and has some amazing features!
Looking at flights/buses/hotels/internal transport, we decided to skip the pyramids (.....I think I heard your shock, yes we decided to SKIP THE PYRAMIDS) and go to Sharm el Sheikh, on the Red Sea, for some of the finest scuba diving on earth. No matter that I wasn't PADI certified and am horribly terrified of fish, and Lee wanted to learn to kite surf instead....we decided on Sharm. As we had only three days back in Israel before Passover started, we rushed to get things booked- and if I thought that stuff was handled oddly and somewhat haphazardly here........it's ten times worse in Egypt. Phones ring into eternity, e-mails go unanswered, everything can be bargained for or bartered, yet somehow everything works out a-ok. We booked a week in an all-inclusive resort, with a private beach, along the strip of fancy seaside hotels in Sharm. Three Corners Palmyra. Swank swank! I then booked myself a PADI certification course, and got Lee set up with a few days of kite surfing lessons.
Deciding that flying was too expensive (you have to route through Jordan - apparently Israel isn't allowed to fly into Egypt), we booked a bus from Jerusalem to Eilat (the border town between Israel, Egypt and Jordan- we see a lot of Eilat over the next several weeks!), crossed the Taba border on foot, then hired a car to drive us the 2.5 hours to Sharm (as it's known by the locals). Hiring the car was interesting- the company wanted WAY too much money to drive us, and I ended up bartering down to less than half of the original price- and learned at our resort that I STILL overpaid by about 40%! More about the car hire later.....it was our worst experience in Egypt.
The bus ride was uneventful - save the hangovers and me leaving my wallet on it! We started at 7am from Jerusalem, and got to the border around 11:30am. It's due south from Jerusalem, along the Dead Sea and a straight shot through the desert. The bus was full of young Israelis going to spend the long weekend in Eilat - it's pretty much a party town. The two young men in front of us were loud and smelled awful. In their Gucci sunglasses. I would have called them 'frat boys' had we been in the US.
(Egypt! This way!)
Crossing the border was.....interesting. You have to pay a fee to leave Israel. 98.5NIS - which is around $30. You don't pay anything to come in, but you pay to leave. They give you this little receipt at one booth, you walk to another booth, and they tear the little receipt in half, then you go to another checkpoint, and they make sure the little receipt is stamped and torn, then you walk across the border into no-mans-land. Then you go past a duty-free shop, and into a little building that looks exactly like you think a border checkpoint should look like. Tinted windows, brick facade, lots of people milling about inside around odd office furniture, then two little booths at the back - the only thing standing between you and Egypt - a whole other continent away! We were stopped by a man who - I swear - had toothpicks for teeth. And those were black. He gave us a pink entry card to fill out before getting to the booth, so we dutifully inked in our names and passport numbers, and headed to the booths. At the booth, a surly Arab looked at our passports, asked where we were going, absently stamped our entry stamp, and reached for the next person in line.
We walked out the doors nearly two hours early for our pre-arranged ride. Looking around, there are TWO resorts just at the border- a Hilton, and a place simply called "Casino". You are allowed to be within 1km of the border crossings in Egypt without paying your entrance fee (30 Egyptian Pounds - around $6), and that's because they get a boatload of revenue from the casinos peppered just at the border. Electing to go with the familiar, the Hilton won out. We walked up a little hill, through four security checkpoints (had our bags searched thoroughly getting up to the Hilton), and had a refreshing beverage overlooking the Red Sea and the amazing pool while we wasted the time before our long drive. Now, Egypt is a muslim country, which means they don't drink. So they don't know how to make a cocktail. My 'pina colada' was served in layers, no ice, not blended, and tasted nothing like a pina colada. I'm not saying it wasn't yummy, it just wasn't a pina colada. Lee had a banana liqueur and rum thing - super yummy.
Having wasted enough time, we headed back down the hill, stood around with the dress-wearing Arab taxi drivers trying to get our business, and looked for our driver. It was hot. Africa hot, which makes sense, as we were on the African continent. I saw a man standing on the meridian with a sign "Mr. Renee Ward". Hooray! We waved, and grabbed our bags and met our driver....Tito. Who immediately complained that he'd been there for 30 minutes already (which would have made him 45 minutes early to get us, as we were still 15 minutes early from the pickup time.). He takes us to his car, tells us to wait a minute, and proceeds to have an extended conversation with some guys standing around, smokes a couple of cigarettes, and finally gets into the car to head south. During this time, we're sitting in the car, roasting. Two little hot potatoes baking in the sun. Finally getting on the way, we use nature's air conditioning (the windows), and make it exactly 1km before being stopped and charged for our entrance. Tito kindly took our USD and ran around to two shops directly across the street from one another, and returned (finally) with blue slips of paper that were our receipts.
THEN we got on the road. Tito chain smoking the whole way. Every person in Egypt smokes. A lot.
The drive takes you down the coast of the Red Sea, past absolutely stunning coastline, and the bluest water I've ever seen. And every inch of the coast is owned by someone - there are miles of tiny shacks set up on the beaches, with dirt paths dug out off the high way pointing to "Diana Resort" or "Coral Beach" or "Dolphin Waves" or some other fun name. Apparently these places are dirt cheap, and you stay in these huts on the beach - get up in the morning, walk into the water for your dive, take a nap, dive again, eat something, dive again, then crawl into your mosquito netting for the night. According to my friend Eyal, if you stay at one of these places, they're most accommodating - ask for waters in the morning, they're set up by lunch. Food? No problem. Only, its no frills. No bathrooms in the huts, no amenities - just you, your hut, the sea, and your little Arab host.
Sadly, we didn't stay at one of these places. I'd like to try one sometime, as it looked like a truly get-away-from-it-all holiday.
(One of the fancier 'resorts' on the way to Sharm)
The rest of the drive was boring and warm. We arrived in Sharm around 5pm, and pulled off the barren desert into a lush oasis. Our hotel was all-inclusive (except drinks at the beach, and specialty alcohols, and internet...), so we got these pink bracelets (particularly lovely on Lee), and were shown to our room. We were walked through the resort, which had 6 pools, three bars, four restaurants (in addition to the two buffet dining halls) a nightclub and anything you could possibly want. Sadly, their private beach was off-site, and you had to take a free shuttle to get to and from, but that was ok, we had all sorts of plans coming up anyhow! Early to bed, as Lee had to be up at 7 (!) for his kitesurfing lesson, and I was being picked up at 9:30 for diving.
(One of the many pools at Palmyra)
The next three days were pretty much the same. Get up too early, eat breakfast together, Lee goes kitesurfing, I go back to the room for a little while, then head to my diving lessons. Arrive back sometime in the afternoon, lay by the pool drinking the free beer and soaking up the rays before getting cleaned up for the buffet dinner. Then early to bed. Wash, rinse, repeat.
(The diving area at Shark's Bay)
Once I was certified (four dives in the absolutely effing gorgeous red sea, and a few tiny panic fish moments later), and Lee had gone pro with the kite thing, we had 3 free days. We decided to schedule a dive for Sunday, which left Friday and Saturday free. As the wind wasn't good on Friday morning, we checked out the Palmyra beach. With umbrellas and beach chairs, and a little bar, it was pleasant enough. Swimming wasn't much of an option, as the 'beach' was a nearly solid block of rock jutting out 100 meters into the sea before a severe dropoff. It made for fantastic tidepooling, but there wasn't much swimming to be had. There were two jettys, one on either side of our beach, but both belonged to other resorts, and we weren't allowed on them. Which was lame.
(Palmyra Beach)
Back at the hotel they were showing a Manchester United match in the "Oriental Bar", which was a bedouin tent set up inside the resort, with pillows and low tables, and hookahs. We sat and watched the match with the 10 other Brits in the resort, drinking beers and being absolutely eaten alive by mosquitoes. Note to self - wear sleeves and pants. We ended up doing this a couple of nights actually, it was really nice to lounge around!
The next day we decided to try to get Lee out with a kite again, but once again the winds weren't playing nice, so we sat on the beach at another resort (where the kite surfing shop was) for a couple of hours, did a little snorkeling, and decided to do some real snorkeling at Shark's Bay - where I did my shore dives for my certification. We took the free shuttle to the bay, found ourselves two loungers in the shade, and were promptly told that we had to be at the "Palmyra section". Apparently all the resorts own certain parts of the beaches. Anyhow. After relocating, we paid 20 Egyptian Pounds to rent snorkel gear, and waddled into the water. Gorgeous! It was amazing! We took some stellar photos, and spent most of the afternoon floating on the sea with our flippers and masks and all the pretty pretty fish. All of the dive schools in Sharm use this same beach for their certification and training dives- it's protected and calm, with a good beach to walk in, and loads of coral formations, so plenty of things to look at.
(Snorkel!)
Sunday was DIVE DAY! The school I used to get my certification set up day dives off boats in the sea, so we signed up and they picked us up at 10am. We got to the docks and got on a boat with 30 Russians. (All the tourists there were Russian. All the hotel guests, aside from us and the 10 Brits, were Russian. The Russians simply love Egypt.) After a 30 minute jaunt out to sea, we geared up and did our first open water dive off the boat with our guide Ibrahim. Who also owned the school and the boat. Again, simply gorgeous. The water was warm and clear, the fish were showing off, and it was an incredible dive. Back to the boat for another motor to another site, and once again, gear up and dive. Lee and I were the only divers on the boat- the Russians were all snorkelers, so we got to spend a great deal of time down. Awesome.
(Diving; Descending)
Time for lunch! They made a large buffet of traditional Egyptian foods- kafta, kebab, several kinds of salad, and for the kids- beans and chips. We motored to a third site while we were eating, and then a quick swim/snorkel. The last two sites were much more crowded than the first site, and when we went to fill in our dive books, Lee inquired as to the names of the dive sites. Imagine his surprise when he was told "shhh, we weren't supposed to dive in that first spot!" Apparently we got a little bit of a special treat and were taken to a remote and off-limits spot for our first dive! That explains why it was so pristine and beautiful.
Back to the resort, tired and waterlogged. Sleeeeeeep.
Check out day had arrived. We'd pre-paid and pre-arranged for Tito to pick us up at 10am. He didn't show up, so we ended up calling him on the mobile number he'd given us. He had no recollection of needing to get us at all! Arriving 45 minutes later, with a man he introduced as his brother, we got headed back on the long drive to Taba. Here's where things sucked.
We arrive in Taba, where Lee and I get out of the car. And say "bye bye" to Tito and his bro. Tito looks surprised and asks us for payment. I'd paid Tito in full the previous week, when he dropped us off, and had a contract with the car hire service stating as much. He continued to refute this, and said he wasn't affiliated with that service (!!), and was demanding payment. We could see the line to cross the border was insanely long, so we kept walking towards it, with Tito and his brother following along arguing that we owed them money. Finally he calls the company owner, who asks us why we aren't paying - and when I explained that we'd paid last week, it seemed that was that. (After we got home, I got an email from this guy - Waleed - asking what happened, and why I broke our contract - I explained that I'd paid up front, as we'd agreed, and his driver was trying to steal from us, after forgetting our arranged pick up. I got an instant apology, and assurance that he 'fired those idiots'!)
The border crossing back into Israel took 2.5 hours. TWO AND A HALF HOURS TO WALK 100 FEET. Which meant we missed our bus back to Jerusalem. By 30 minutes. Had thieving Tito been on time, we would have made our bus. The next two buses to Jerusalem were sold out, the border delay caused everyone to miss the 4:30 bus; we ended up taking a bus to Tel Aviv, and a very expensive taxi back to Jerusalem from there. We were supposed to get in at 8:30pm, and arrived at 1:30am instead. C'est la vie- the rest of the trip had been so wonderful, that something was bound to go wrong somewhere. It was me traveling, after all!
So, that was Egypt. It was beautiful and amazing, and the people were so incredibly friendly. We learned that all the workers are men- and most of them bedouin, as bedouin women don't work. At all. We ate some great (and some awful) food, and both learned a new skill. On a scale of 1 to awesome, it was closer to awesome.
Next post: Eilat (again) and Petra!
**To see the rest of our photos from Egypt, go here**
No comments:
Post a Comment