I have been in Dahab, Egypt for a few days now. We (my friends Jon-Michael and Lindsay and I) arrived mid-afternoon Thursday and are checking out first thing tomorrow morning. Dahab is a small town on the Sinai Peninsula, near the tip where the Red Sea splits. Dahab is described as a "backpacker's paradise" because it's cheap and not filled with huge hotels and chain corporations. Nearby Sharm El Sheikh (where I had originally planned to spend the first few days of my vacation) is much more alive and vibrant (and expensive) while Dahab is a much calmer town. I've really enjoyed my last few days here and and very glad we chose this location instead of Sharm El Sheikh; we have Beirut at the end of our vacation for our vibrant city fill, not to mention that we live in one of the busiest cities in the world.
The hotel we're staying in is called "Seven Heaven" (that's not a typo; it's not "Seventh") and is rather basic. We have 2 double rooms for the 3 of us, $7/night each; can't get much better than that.
The staff is amazingly friendly, especially the chef of the restaurant, Mohammad. He opened up a "tab" for the whole AUC group, so we just write what we buy in this little notebook and pay at the end. It's all honor system, which is actually really refreshing to see. We get free wireless internet for an hour any time we buy something in the restaurant, which is usually a few meals a day.
The town is essentially all down one strip of sidewalk (pedestrians only!) that runs along the water, with only outdoor seating for the restaurants between the sidewalk and the shore. There are a few little offshoots with some more stores and restaurants, but it's a very quaint town, filled with little shops. The town is very focused on diving and a few other underwater sports, as well as desert excursions, though those are definitely secondary.
The first day in Dahab, we arrived too late to do much of anything, so we basically ate a late lunch and hung out with a few other AUC students who were staying in the same hotel as us. Around dinner time, we found our way to a little Thai restaurant around the corner from the hotel, which turned out to be very good (and actually came highly recommended by the chef of the hotel restaurant). Afterwards, we found our way to a little local bar and spent an hour or two there.
The second day, we woke up around 9 to meet up with other AUC students and head to Blue Hole, a snorkeling and scuba diving hotspot. It was absolutely gorgeous to snorkel there (not to mention $6 for the ride there and the equipment). We spent a few hours exploring the reef and seeing quite the variety of fish in and around the reef. Once we got back to the hotel, Lindsay, JM and I officially decided that we would hike Mt. Sinai that night. We headed back to our rooms to rest up for a little while.
Around 9pm, the three of us went to dinner and finished just in time to be ready to catch the minibus to Mt. Sinai at 11pm. Once we made it to the mountain (about an hour and half away by the time we picked up others from different hotels), we unloaded from the bus and began the nighttime trek up one of the most religiously significant mountains in the world, the one where Bedouin traditions dictate that Moses received the 10 Commandments from God. It was a challenge to make it up the hill, as exhausted as we were from snorkeling all day and the fact that it was the middle of the night. We finally made it to the top around 4am, in time to stop for a cup of tea before finishing the last few minute walk up to the very peak. At 5:30am, the sun rose in all its glory and we took an absurd number of pictures.
Once we were satisfied with the sunrise, we began the journey back down the mountain, thankful that at least this direction was lit by the sun, not cell phones and flashlights. At the bottom, we explored St. Katherine's Monastery, the oldest working monastery in the world and where the Burning Bush is said to have been located.
We eventually made it back, exhausted, to the hotel at around 1pm to discover that some of the AUC kids we know are still here even though we thought they had all left this morning. Which leads me to right now: heading to ride an ATV with some of them through the desert!
Tomorrow morning we begin the journey to Jordan via Nuweiba, Egypt, taking a ferry to Aqaba, Jordan and continuing through Petra and culminating in Amman. From there, we fly to Beirut!
More updates soon, I hope!
Kevin
Note: I added some pictures after I wrote this!
