Jo's Jaunt

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Striking out alone...The Land of the Pharaohs

I went to Egypt mid May. Started by catching “fast ferry” to Nuweiba on the Gulf of Aqaba. The boat trip only took 1 hr but it took more than 2 hrs to embark and another 2 hrs to disembark. Spent the first day lying around and swimming in the clear waters trying to get used to the heat.

Caught a local microbus to Cairo, full of locals with limited English but fun anyway. Got dropped off 30km from centre of Cairo, a sprawling city of 20 million people, had my first experience of Egyptian taxi drivers and haggling for the fare. The desert Bedouin have a saying “never trust the weather or a Cairo taxi driver”, my fair skin an invitation to triple the prices. Finding (and using) the excellent metro train system, and local buses (ask the locals which one to get on) was a big breakthrough.

Stayed in backpackers on the 6th floor of a downtown Cairo highrise. Strange to be up so high but at least not so polluted and crowded as down at street level. First day went to museum, cramped and overcrowded collection of stone sculptures and sarcophagi. Next day caught the local bus to the pyramids, amazing to see the great pyramid looming over the suburb of Giza, at least I knew when to get off the bus. Sphinx was the most impressive 4000 yrs old.

That evening I got the overnight train (sleeper compartment) to Luxor, arrived there 7am. Went to Luxor temple early and managed to beat the crowds and heat. This formed the strategy for my 2 days there, up early and walk to the tomb or ruin before it got too hot and busy, then back to the B&B for a late breaky and lie around during midday heat with the air-con and fan, then visit another site before evening meal.

The B&B was out in the country, surrounded by fields and date palms, great to have a bit of green in the otherwise brown landscape.

It was so hot I had a haircut and shave with cut throat razor, a long drawn out process with cups of tea. Final visit to the Luxor museum which was well set out and above all air-conditioned, far better than the big one in Cairo. No Photos allowed unfortunately.

Caught another overnight bus to Sharm el Sheik, the “Las Vegas” style tourist city near the tip of the Sinai peninsular. High rise hotels and miles of sun loungers and beach umbrellas for the package tourists from all over Europe. Managed to find a quiet dive camp with basic accommodation right beside the main jetty where the dive boats depart for their daily trips.

Did 10 dives over 5 days including 3 days of boat diving. Sites were straits of Tiran, very popular with a dozen or more boats all rafted up together and groups of snorkelers and scuba divers in all directions.

Fantastic coral walls like a hanging garden, with fish of every colour and shape. Pelagic species like tuna, turtle, jackfish, sliver trevalli and barracuda cruising past on the “blue” outside the coral. The reefs drop off steeply to a bottom of hundreds of meters deep and it wasn’t uncommon to start a dive by going down to 25 meters. Usually there was a current, so all you had to do was float along looking at all the scenery. The best site was Ras Mohammed, near the confluence of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba, with the mixing of the two there was a lot of big fish, including leopard shark and manta rays. One dive included the wreak of a container ship, all busted up but cargo items lying around the bottom, including bizarrely a whole lot of baths and toilet pans, and the captains BMW becoming part of the reef.

Back on shore the day ended with more swimming and people watching, there were a few locals but mostly sun burnt tourists irradiating themselves on the beach loungers.

Then back to Nuweiba and the “fast ferry” back to Aqaba and the quieter life of Jordan, home to Amman and Julie and our apartment, a haven of coolness and quiet after 2 weeks of bedlam that was Egypt.