Dahab, Egypt

My introduction to Egypt was a crazy one...

We left Jordan on a ferry. We were forced to pile into a bus to get to the docks. We spent fifteen minutes packing luggage and arranging things so all five hundred people could fit in the fifty seats. We then drove approximately 40 yards on the bus down to the docks. You may think to yourself, "Why didn't you just walk?" I would have no good answer. Sometimes you do things in foreign countries that make no sense whatsoever. This is the golden rule of travel.

After we arrived at the docks we spent eons queuing in (what was supposed to be) a line but was more like a mass of writhing amoebas.
Okay, maybe we didn't spend eons waiting, that's my impatient side talking. However, when your nose is buried in a stranger's unwashed arm pit and some man has taken it upon himself to press against your bum, time seems to pass very very slowly.
As we stood there waiting, some people cut in line. We pushed them aside and cut in front of them. And so the process continued...
Finally our passports were checked and we were safely aboard. Hooray!

We were actually upgraded to first class, for reasons we failed to understand. (By this time we all looked pretty scuzzy. Not first class material.) We later realized that we had ordered food, and as Ramadan started two days prior, it wasn't really kosher of us to chow down in front of so many fasting (therefore hungry) people. Therefore, we were sequestered in the first class compartment.

Disembarking was just as chaotic and followed a similar set of illogical principles. Apparently using computers or any modern technology to expedite the crossing is frowned upon. After staggering around for a bit with a confused look on our face, we hopped on a bus and headed off to Dahab.

Dahab is exquisite. It's right off the Red Sea, which gets its name from the mottled pinks and reds that appear in the ocean at sunset. (The color comes from a reflection of the mountains on the water.)

Adam, our tour manager, was finished with his portion of the tour and we were turned over to somebody else for the "Egypt" portion of the trip. Adam has a (very lovely) house in Dahab and invited us over one night. We were just chilling out when the guys started playing these bongo drums from Africa and had a really tight impromptu jam session. I kept hearing an odd noise, but assumed it was the kitchen utensils vibrating on the wall. It wasn't. It was the doorbell. Apparently we were bongo-ing loudly enough to wake the dead...and the next door neighbor's father.

So we took the bongos and the alcohol and headed down to the beach. Okay, more like stumbled around the beach front because it was pitch black and we couldn't see a blessed thing. So after staggering around for thirty minutes, the girls decided to abandon the boys and their bongos and head home. We took a short cut to the road...through a oh-so-fragrant trash dump. We then flagged down a vehicle and secured a ride back to the hotel. However, we neglected to do a few things, namely check on the driver's sobriety, which seemed very much in question as we drove off. The dude actually drove his vehicle--in reverse--for a quarter of a mile. (At I speed I would consider "inadvisable".) Though our ride wasn't the *safest* one, we did arrive home--to my surprise--with all appendages intact. Phew!

One day, Rachael (the coolest chick on our tour) and I went snorkeling at this place called the Blue Hole. It was quite fantastic. So fantastic that we completely lost track of time and made our driver wait for us. Oops. So I mostly passed the time swimming, snorkeling, and reading while at Dahab. Of course, I consumed my fair share of banana milkshakes, which taste like little slivers of tropical clouds mixed in a frosted glass.

We had this crazy ant invasion at our hotel. They were everywhere, but that sort of thing has long ceased to bother me. Okay, I am lying a little. I didn't mind bedding down with the ants, but I did mind them taking refuge in my towel. (I got bit all over after one shower. It was not pleasant. At all.)

In Egypt there are police checkpoints. Everywhere. Mostly they just make you sit there and wait while they diddle around. Of course you can circumvent this "inconvenience" by offering bribes. Tea, coffee, cash, or cigarettes work well. So do rolls of electrical tape and half-eaten bags of potato chips. And that's Egypt for you.