From Cairo to the Red Sea: 3 weeks in Egypt (Part Two) - Andy Webb (2005)
Monday 21st February - Sharm to Dahab
After overdosing on too much coffee we were aided by a young boy who showed us to the ticket office, where we confirmed our hydrofoil tickets. Some lucky baggage handler got a £2 tip due to me having no small notes or coins for baksheesh. The journey across to Sharm-el-Sheik took an hour and a half and was fairly uneventful perhaps except for a girl in front who kept complaining about her insect bites.
We found our way out wide eyed to our taxi eventually and were off on our way to Dahab, the final destination for the our last week. We were treated to an hour long journey with a maniac driver who seemed to like to tailgate other vehicles at 90mph, this coupled with our lack of sleep made for a trippy experience. At some points in the journey I was sure I saw temples and faces rising out of the passing desert and mountains.
We arrived in Dahab which on first impression doesn't look all that, imagine a filmset of a cowboy town and you might get what I mean. We were also treated to rain which was something of a novelty apparently. We got shown to our basic rooms and intended straight away to get some sleep but the fact there were 2 inch gaps between the windows and the walls meant that pretty much every sound from the street cam into our room. After one hour of trying to sleep we gave up and opted to go and check out Dahab seafront.
Dahab was once famous for being a hippy spliff smoking resort nowadays it is a haven for scuba divers and tourists. Dahab is basically one long strip of shops, restaurants and seafront cafes all designed to make just want to go in the water, then flop back in a chair drink some tea or a cold beer and then flop back in the water. Not to be outdone we were booked on a 4 day PADI course at the recommendation of my friend Andy Coates', whose experiences of Dahab are found elsewhere on this website. With a day to kill, we opted for the
Tota's Dance Bar, a bar in the shape of a boat.
My BBQ chicken sandwich that I devoured with a healthy plantation of salad was then washed down by a Sakkara which was finished off on the verandah which looked down on to the seafront. We shared our space with a menagerie of scavenger cats all of which were to be left disappointed as we both cleared our plates. After dinner we strolled along the front past the numerous seafront cafe/restaurants each of which with their very own salesmen trying to entice you in with the promise of fresh sea food. "Hello my friend, you want to eat?", "You want dinner, we serve Stella", "Come into my place, nice food" Despite telling them that we'd just eaten they changed tactic "Come in for a drink", "You eat with us tonight". After getting to the end of the front we turned round only to be subjected to yet more of the same from the same pitchers!
We dropped into Poseidon to get our diving gear sorted and meet the crew, it seemed a very chilled set up with a nice open air seating area with an assortment of friendly and not so friendly cats. After getting our kit sorted and getting a book to read for homework we headed to the bar next door to do some reading, however, our tired minds didn't allow much useful reading so the pool table came to the rescue. We learned after a few days that the place only appeared to have 3 CDs in its' music collection, all of which skipped horribly. For dinner we decided on checking out Al Capones just past the bridge on the front especially after the effort their waiter had made trying to get us to go in earlier. We were told all the fish was fresh from the sea that day we later found out this wasn't strictly the case. The food was OK but nothing to write home about and there was no beer on offer which was quite odd. Then it was back to the hotel to bed and earplugs!
Tuesday 22nd February - Dahab PADI Course Day 1
I awoke at 5AM to the Call to Prayer being served up by a cheap tannoy that must have been placed on our window, still feeling quite lightheaded from the lack of sleep I managed to fall back in to a deep sleep until my alarm woke me again at 8. After feasting on a breakfast* of rolls, laughing cow cheese and some fetid luncheon meat we headed down the Dive Centre where we were formally introduced to our instructor, Sophia, and shown the basics of our kit. We were then joined by 3 guys on their Divemaster Course, the poor sods had to sit through the PADI training videos with us. I must admit still feeling half awake due to the lack of decent sleep and realised that theory was probably not the best plan for my state of mind.
Unfortunately as our luck wouldn't have it, Dahab seemed to be suffering from rare weather conditions deeming it too choppy in the sea for us to start our practical, this is something, I was informed that didn't happen very often and then we would have to make do with more theory for the rest of the day.
After a day of videos containing an incredibly annoying unfunny fat American and short written tests we adjourned to the pub to try and fill in our question and answer booklets, unfortunately the lack of sleep and the draw of beer, pool and the same skipping CDs meant this got slightly waylaid (again).
After our average meal we headed back to Totas for some after lunch drinks where we bumped in to the Poseidon Crew celebrating a dive they had just done or someones birthday, I can't remember which. We joined them just as a food fight ensued, this then escalated into a fire extinguisher getting let off which caused all manor of chaos and annoyance from the Egyptian staff. Luckily a Police call was averted so we were all able to breathe a sigh of relief. The owner of the Club then apologised to us and hoped we would still be coming back the next day, I explained that this was the sort of behaviour we were expecting anyway and we would have been disappointed otherwise! We then realised we should probably get some sleep as we started our course the next day
*We found out on our last day that the pension served free breakfast!
Wednesday 23rd February - Dahab PADI Course Day 2
Another 5.30AM wake up ensued patternated around a peculiar dream, such was my reward another nice breakfast of rolls and soft cheese (the luncheon meat had gone off), nice. The only TV channel on offer was Euro News with a selection of pre-recorded articles that rotate around and a severe lack of football results.
At the dive centre we embarked on our first dive, a confined dive where we practised breathing underwater, equalising air pressure in our ears and going up and down. The 3 Divemaster trainees had to spent their time doing somersaults underwater to keep warm
