There's bad news and there's worse news. The bad news is that my head cold is at least as bad as it was yesterday. The worse news is that I have a fever, stomach cramps, and the trots. I'm thinkin' flu not cold. How lucky for me. At least I'm not hurling (touch wood). I relaxed most of the day and slept all afternoon into the evening. Now I think my head cold is cleared up but my body is trying to rid itself of something/anything/everything that is inside it via an alternate egress a bit further south.
Ok, lets take a moment to get the setting right. Go into your bathroom. Look at it. Breathe deeply. Admire it. Now close your eyes. Imagine it being just large enough to contain a toilet with a few inches between your knees and the door (this can be a feature at times because you can lean your head on the door if the need arises -- I'll stop there). Ok, now that it's small enough, remove that nice shiny toilet and gather some spare parts from various condemned buildings and construct something that might pass for a toilet if you were to stand about 100 meters from it and squint really tight. Ok, now we have something to work with. Fling some sewage about and let it stand for a few weeks. Now go back and fling some fresh sewage, but be careful not to disturb the sewage that has been aging nicely. Hmmm, probably starting to smell at this point, so we'd better yank it out of the house and put it about 50 meters from the door. Now, to get to the place you'll want only dirt, rocks, random concrete structures, and the odd cat and dog in the way. Did you leave toilet paper in there? How silly -- remove it. Ok, now that you really need to use it, stumble out to it in the middle of the night and, oh, just for grins, put someone in it and increase the wind to something ungodly and biting. Now look to your left and wave at me, I'm the man doing that odd little dance half bent over and moaning.
Back to my plight. I decided to venture forth from my cave to the beach for a bit of food. I'm thinking a nice soup and my standard drink of late, hot fresh lemon juice with honey -- yum! (personal note to my sister, Jill: I have no idea what you've been complaining about all these years, it's actually quite delicious.)
Ahhh, I feel much better today, but then I haven't eaten in a while. My theory is nothing in, nothing out. Alice, who has been quite patient with me, convinced me to eat something by around 8pm. I chose some more soup, more hot lemon and honey, and some potato stew with masses of cheese on it (enough cheese to block a camel up I'm thinkin). Later that night I headed up to Sphinx bar for a bit of socialization. I ended up playing pool most of the night with a couple of guys named Neil and Mathies. Neil reminds me so much of Ron Lorenson that it actually frightened me a bit. We were parners in doubles pool and held the table for most of the night. By 2am, after a bit of relaxation, I headed off to bed feeling good with the noted exception of some stomach rumblings...
Ahhh... Woke feeling fine, but I still have EQ on the brain in the worst way. It must be that typical three month homesick thing. I'll wait, maybe it will go away. It's laundry day again. Why is it that my socks never smelled like this at home? And what happened to my shoes?? One would think something died in there but when I shake them nothing falls out.
I came acrossed the thought today that I'm not here in Dahab. Ok, sure I'm sitting here in a chair in the bedowin village known as Dahab in South Sinai, but as I'm travelling the world in search for myself I now believe, after over a month in this place, that I will not find myself here. It's time to move on, but lets not get hasty ;oP I did get at some e-mail today. After 4 1/2 hours I have a nice form page for the first and last half of any given month and have keyed in up to 12 February. Not too shabby. The guy sitting next to me commented that I type very fast to which I responded that he should see some of the guys I work with -- I'd like to take this moment to say hello to Aaron :o)
Actually feeling fairly normal (for me) so I went to eat with Alice and her friends (now my new friends): Laurent and Leon from Holland, Tamer who is egyptian, and Jemme ("Jimmy") who is american from Arkansas/New York. After dinner we played a bit of backgammon, then some pool at the Al Capone game room (they charge for pool, but it's closer and not nearly as crowded), and finally disco 'til 3:30am. I was able to relax at the disco and it was a blast. Afterwards I was still pretty wound up so I relaxed, decided to shower (which is always a good thing while travelling), and then relaxed until I fell asleep. All in all it was an awesome night. At one point we discussed it and the consensus is that the first day back to normal after being sick always tends to be a good one. Nice how that works ;o)
Typical day of backgammon, relaxing, pool, etc. True Romance was the movie of the evening and I forgot how good it was. We all went to watch it and had a great time. Then we went back and hooked up with Sarah who has been here for quite a while but is leaving tomorrow and a couple americans Chris and John. Chris, John, Leon, Laurent, and I played a card game called "asshole". It's also known as "shithead" and other derogatory terms. Basically you deal all of the cards out and everyone tries to get rid of the cards in their hand. You can only play a higher card (or cards) than what is showing, and if you take the trick (by playing the highest card on it) then you get to lead the next round. For example if a single 10 is showing then you could play a 10 of a higher suit (spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds in that order) or a jack, queen, king, ace, or deuce (deuce of spades being the highest card). If the person lead the round off with a pair of something then you can only play pairs on it and so on. Play keeps going around the circle until everyone has passed, so it's possible (and probable) that you will play more than one time in any given round of play. The first person to go out is the president, second is vice president, last is the asshole and next to last is vice asshole. The president and asshole exchange two cards at the beginning of the next hand and the two vice dudes exchange one card -- president types get rid of their lousy card(s), asshole types have to get rid of their best card(s). Cool game, IMHO. I was president for all the hands we played, but most of us were new to the game... Well, all of that excitement could only be followed by a bit of relaxation and then bed. Tomorrow is another day.
I woke very early today at the behest of my bowels. I'm not a very tolerant man, and I definately have no patience when it comes to this shit (heh). I went back to bed and relaxed the AM away. When I awoke I still didn't feel motivated enough to actually leave my room so I broke out a tarot deck and did my first reading ever. It's kinda cool. According to the cards everything will work out ok -- well that's freakin' comforting. I wish they could have filled in a few of the details, like when, how, etc. I won't bore you with the details of the spread but it was remarkably accurate about the past and present stuff so I can only hope that it is just as accurate about the future as well. We'll see...
On a more concrete note I've decided to climb Mt. Sinai tonight. There are two options when climbing Sinai, you can climb during the day and watch the sunset from the top or climb at night to catch the sunrise. I opted for the night climb which is clearly the best way to go. I went to the guy that Pernille and Cicile were arranging their trek through and asked him his price. He was offering the trip at 30EL which is pretty standard (although 20EL is a good price). I had spoken with a guy at my camp who was offering it at 25EL, which I told this egyptian to which he responded that he didn't want to play that game -- it's his friggin game! I'm the tourist here who doesn't want to barter, he's the danged egyptian. What's this world coming to when an egyptian doesn't want to barter?? Sheesh. So I went to the guys that run this internet cafe (yes, the one I'm sitting in right now, as I type) and told them that I want to buy 10 hours of internet time and climb Mt. Sinai. Standart internet time is 15EL per hour, Mt. Sinai is 30EL, I got him to give me the combo for 100EL -- not too shabby I thought :o) Then it sunk in that I just scheduled to climb Mt. Sinai after sitting on my ass for a month and a half. How hard can it be??
Relaxed in the evening, went and saw Bad Boys, and then headed off for what I hoped would be a great experience...
I met a canadian guy named Gary who also arranged his Mt. Sinai trip through this place. Nice guy. Has a PhD in something English language related and is looking to teach it abroad. We took our time climbing it as the reports were that it was bitter cold at the top. There are small huts on the way up that sell beverages and snacks at exorbitant prices, so we stopped in one and sat for 45 mins in the middle of our "climb". We were warm from the climb and took off our jacket as we rested. There was a group of germans huddled on the other side trying to stay warm as we stripped down to t-shirts to cool off. They spoke amongst themselves with furtive glances our way and then one asked us if we were from Alaska. Alaska?? Sheesh, just Canada and Seattle. "Ahhhh", they all nodded. We then continued our climb, policing eachother so as not to go too fast and arrive too early. Turns out with another 30 min climb we arrived at the top just minutes after 5am to watch the false dawn and finally the spectacular sunrise. It was nothing less than amazing. I actually took pictures here, just over 50. I'm thinking if I'm lucky one or two should be quite nice. Somehow Gary and I got separated after dawn so I made my way down alone. That was ok since I could go at my own breakneck pace. I chose to go down the steps on the way down as I heard it had a nice view -- it did (we had taken the camel track on the way up). Now these aren't exactly "steps" per se. What they are are rocks placed relatively close to eachother in a step-like fashion. I pity the monks that did that work over the decades. They say there are over 3000 steps there.
- Editor's Note:
- I found a note later that one monk laid all 3000 steps as a form of penance. I'd really like to know what he did to deserve that! :o)
Down at the base of Mt. Sinai is St. Catherine's Monestry. Impressive as far as monesteries go. I couldn't take any photos in the church itself but I got a couple snaps of the burning bush -- ok, not the acutal burning bush, but an example of the burning bush. I was told that the actual burning bush is not green (alive) and is in a chapel nearby. It's sort of a drapey thing with thorns on it, not at all as I had pictured. I think I expected more of a burning shrub. I blame the felts from church as I was a kid. How friggin hard is it to get that right?? It's just a bush for pete's sake!
The day blossomed into a hot one, intense sun and all. One would think we were in the friggin desert or something. My ride got back to Dahab around noon-ish. I was in need of a shave and a shower, both in a bad way. The driver kept stopping everywhere but where I wanted to get out, so when we got close I just got out and happened to be right in front of my barber. Cool. I rinsed my head and face in his sink and we were in business. He took the hair on my head down to 1 on the top and 0 on the sides, shaved my face, and trimmed my goat better than it's ever been trimmed. That guy Mohommad rocks. I wonder if he'll fit in my backpack... I decided against sleep and played backgammon, went to Shark's for food, and then saw A Bug's Life. You would think that after the movie I'd be tired enough to sleep, but no. I then went and shared a sheesha, relaxed a bit and finally, after much work, was able to drift off to sleep. Long day, but very memorable.
Woohoo! Spent about 7 hours in the internet cafe today doing, you guessed it, this. I'm actually typing on the current day! Let's see, what did I do today... Got up around noon and was grumpy for some reason. No, I'm not always grumpy when I get up, or maybe I'm just not always around people when I get up... Anyway, I was grumpy today. Danged people and their idiotic questions. Sheesh. I went to a bookstore with Pal and actually found a book I wouldn't mind reading -- until the guy told me the price was 24EL. 24EL?!? That's like US$7.00, for a used friggin paperback. I put it back. I realize that it's not that much money, but it's the principle of the thing for pity's sake! Went and played a bit of backgammon and was consistantly beat by the dice. That gets really old. I should learn not to play dice games as I have no luck with them. The group of us got together for our evening feed and then went to see Men In Black -- a great movie on any land mass. After that we adjourned to the coffee shop for tea, sheesha, and no danged backgammon. Pernille and Cecilie left today. At one point I was planning to follow them to Petra via Nuweiba but am now going to follow Laurent instead and go via Eilat. I didn't want to leave right yet and he's been to Israel before so that should help somewhat. I'm thinking we'll leave at the end of the week or thereabouts. Oh, then I came here at 11:15pm and it's now 6:07am. The weather today is at least as windy as I've seen it here and a bit on the cold side. Boy when it wants to blow it can really blow. My calves and quads hurt -- that's what I get for moving beyond the safety of the beach. Well, time to get these pages uploaded, send out the mail and relax before getting some shut-eye ;o)
For the record, I was up at dawn... before going to bed at around 8am, so I got up around 5-ish (yes, that would be PM folks). The day is way windy again and significantly colder. One would think it was winter or something, sheesh! I went and found my friends (Jemme and Leon have left by now), relaxed for a bit and then went to do the same ol' thang: dinner at Shark's and then a movie. Today's film was Snow White: A Tale of Terror! Oooh, scarey! NOT I didn't recall seeing it before because I blocked it out as a traumatic experience. This thing sucked the big wally (thanx August for the phrase ;o) Now I'm here to do a bit of e-mail, update one day, add a bit of info to the 7th, and then off for some much anticipated relaxation. You might note that I tend to relax quite a bit here in Dahab -- well that's cuz it's friggin Dahab folks and frankly that's what you do here: dive or relax and I don't want to dive so... ;oP
I saw that german chick from Cairo today. It's weird (and cool) seeing people that you met briefly, became friends with, then moved on. Such is life on the road ;o)
It's sunny and hot today. Alice is leaving tonight to go back home for a couple weeks. She'll be back though to manage a new restaurant. I can't imagine working in Dahab. The pay sucks and you don't even have time to relax. What's the point?? We went over and hung out with her after she mostly packed, just for a bit of relaxation. Talk about accumulating stuff. This chick can do it in spades! Green Valley restaurant was the lucky winner of our stagnation. Nice place to hang out and their food is quite good for a nice price. I then went and bought my first two cassette tapes (ever). One is a dub of John Lee Hooker's Greatest Hits, the other is a compilation of pop hits of the 80's. It's damn nice to have music again.
Caroline returned today, which gave cause for us all to hang out and relax again. It's nice to see her back again. It seems so odd to think of the groups of friends I've hung out with here. It all seems so long ago but it has only been a matter of weeks. Right, so back to Green Valley for dinner and backgammon. The movie this night is The Life of Brian. We went to catch it and all the power went out for that side of town -- c'est la vie, time to head back to Shark for a thick shake (chunky strawberry and banana -- yum!). The rest of the night is pretty much par: relax with Alice, Tamer, Lau, and Pal, then to Friend's Coffee Shop for tea and sheesha, then back to my room to relax a bit more with my new music and sleep. Damn nice to have music again!
Not too hot today, one might say it's pleasantly warm :o) Regardless of what Caroline says, she did not wake me up at 2pm -- I had been awake since noon listening to music. I spread some tarot around a bit then we headed off to Green Valley. That afternoon I went with Tamer to visit a couple friends of his. The guy owning the apartment is a dive instructor. It's nice to see that there are some relatively normal lives here in Dahab. The paint on the walls is oil based so it doesn't come off on your clothes -- and the paint on the wall is only on the walls, not on the ceiling. It seems that the majority of the painters here have a problem staying within the lines. They replayed The Life of Brian since it wasn't shown last night. Tamer and I got there in time to catch the last half of it. It was interesting to hear the reactions of differnt folks after seeing it. Believe it or not some of them don't find it funny -- go figure. Al Capone won our business to finish the night. I sat there for a bit after everyone else headed off, just soaking up the Dahab night. This is quite the nice place :o) Finally back to the cave for a bit of relaxation to my new music and then to sleep. Tomorrow is yet another day...
I actually woke quite early today. Ok, I can't tell you exactly when, but the sun had about 5 meters to go before crossing the cement block, and it crosses that block around 2pm so I'm guessing it had to be 8 or 9am. I figure today to be a fine day for relaxation -- yes, even better than most, so that's what I did: relaxed and listened to music. I threw the tarot around a bit then headed over to Shark at (and I'm embarassed to note the time) around 7pm. No, I didn't sleep the day away, just wanted a bit of time alone to relax and contemplate the complexities (and simplicities) of life. The movie is Titanic -- I can't believe I watched it. I had seen it twice before. The first time it was spectacular, the second time it was arduous, this time it was comical. Our habit has been to grab a sheesha after the film, so why break from tradition. After that we headed down to Sphinx for some pool and lame-ass beer, then over to the disco for some major disappointment. I hooked up with my friend Mark from england. I met him about a month ago and wave as we pass in the street from time to time. Anyway, we get to the disco and a couple english twats (rhymes with "hats") had moved in and were playing damned drum and house music. The sign of a good DJ is that they can notice when nobody has been dancing for hours and are not making a move to begin dancing and switch the friggin music. These DJs were not remotely close to good. The place was a damned morgue. We left. Relax double time and then off to sleep.
Right. It's time to leave.
Up at 2pm and actually began packing, which made me realize that I needed to do laundry in a bad way. I handed off the toxic duds and became a tourist -- taking pictures is not my forte but when I decide to do it I generally don't mess around. I shot up the town and hung out with my local friends. It will be interesting not to be asked daily to buy a string bracelet from bedowin girls. I'll miss my friends Samira (she who sold me most of my string), Johanne (Samira's best friend, dreadfully afraid of a small furry dog), and Noella (gruff, but in a good way). I then went to another friend, a shopkeeper this time, and traded my snake ring and 5EL for another that is nearly identical but made of a better quality silver (an excellent deal). The claim is that this one won't turn my skin black/green -- we'll see.
Dunno what the film was, but clearly I didn't care to see it. Headed down to Sphinx for some pool with Samuel, Galel, and Caroline. Samuel showed up in Dahab recently and is another friend from the past. I met him on the ferry from Athens to Haifa -- he got off at Cyprus. Helluva nice guy, glad he popped in again. I met a couple german guys (Olem and Peter), and israeli girls (Hadas and Seagull). We played pool until around 3am then headed over to the disco, which had just shut for the night :o( Fine. We moved on to a restaurant I'd never been to but that was closed and talked about random things until the sun came up. Since it was windy as hell (making it less than warm) we headed down the beach to a place in the sun and some tea. Hadas and I outlasted the rest -- surprisingly I wasn't tired at all. (this has all of the earmarks of a very bad day, read on.).
The sun (dear god, the sun) was warm but the breeze kept it from being unbearable (damned breeze). Seagull came back around 11-ish, I headed off for a much needed shower ("stink" is not the word I would use -- but it would be fitting) and we met back up at green valley for brunch. For some unknown reason I consented to actually swim (yes, the sun was still blazing away happily in the sky). It was my first time swimming in waves which was quite fun -- that should have been a clue. After getting out of the water I was a bit cold and decided it would be a good idea to sit in the sun to warm up/dry off. This was clearly not the wisest thing I have ever done. At 3pm I headed off to retrieve my now clean laundry, relax a bit, shower, and get a bit of sleep. So to sum up, I watched the sun come up, sat in it for a while, stripped down and swam in the magnifying/reflecting sea, got covered in salt water, sat for a very long time in the sun again, and then headed off to watch my skin grow increasingly red. Did I mention the period where I slathered on the sunscreen? Hmmm, that must mean that I skipped that part. What about the part where I moved over to the shade to avoid actually blistering part of my body? No?? Hmmm, musta skipped that too. In short, I'm in a bit of pain.
Right, so I woke up at 6pm after a luxurious 2 hours sleep, listened to some music for a bit and met up again at Shark where the food is always good. What to do after a sleepless night, day of swimming and too much sun, and a couple hours sleep?? Why head back up to Sphinx again and close the place at 3am. Genius, yes, I know.
I saw dawn again (how do I sit??) but this time went to bed shortly after. This night I blame Mark for my sleeplessness. He, Hadas, Sea, and I sat up talking about religion, spirituality, talking blankets, dogs, pets in general, and danged near anything else you could think of. The upside is that the sunrise was spectacular. I slept from around 7am to 7pm, and it was good. Did a walk through of Shark, Friends, Green Valley, and finally ended up at Lucky Zone. You may remember my last experience at Lucky Zone -- their food was ok but the service was abyssmal and the music was too loud. Well, the music was good this time... ;o) Caroline is friends with the folks that took over managing it last week so I figured I owed it a shot and it was good to talk with her before leaving. Oh, I'm definately leaving tomorrow AM.
Ah, the reason I couldn't find anyone is that Pal left today for Israel, Tamer and Lau went over to Blue Hole and then spent the night in Abu Galum (I was invited but was still angry with the sun so begged off), and Hadas and Sea were sleeping -- something about staying up for a few days or something...
My friend Ehab (aka Benny) returned to Dahab today. He left weeks ago saying he'd be in Cairo with his brother for just a week -- One week egyptian time works out to about a month real world time. It was nice to see him again before I left :o)
After dinner Caroline and I headed down to Sphinx. Not a bad night for pool, until I started playing my friend Neil -- then everything went to hell. Sure all my shots were close, but close doesn't really count in pool. It was fun anyway, and that's what counts. Hadas and Sea showed up around 10:30 hungry and lookin to eat. I showed them to Penguin and said goodbye to that place as well. It's going to be strange leaving Dahab after so long, but then the Dahab today isn't the same Dahab of two months ago. It's odd, when I came here I commented that they should pave (brick) the street because it was hard to walk on. Now they are bricking it and I am apalled that they are ruining the feel of this place.
Made it back to the internet cafe to do this updating and e-mail only to find it closed. Sheesh, any other night it wouldn't matter... :o( This is me being grumpy!
Woke at 9am -- 5 hours of sleep is plenty, aye? I mostly packed last night so packing this morning was easy. Paid my 11 days past due rent (not too bad at 5EL per day) then headed over to do this -- e-mail and web update. Lau is now waiting patiently for me to finish up and then we're off to Eilat. We may push through to Jordan today, in which case I'll come back and change this topic's heading, but in any case we're on the move northward. I'm starving! I should eat...
Right, as I said I did return to change the heading from Dahab to Eilat Israel to Dahab to Wadi Rum Jordan. The day was busy and it went something like this...
After e-mail and updating the site I headed over to Green Valley for a bite to eat. My friends there told me that Hadas and Seagull had been there for the morning and said that they were heading back to Israel that afternoon. Cool. I ordered the typical "5 pound hamburger" which, contrary to what you might think, is not made from 5 pounds of ground beef -- rather it costs 5EL (five egyptian pounds) and "may contain some beef parts" (yummy!). After ordering I dashed over to their hotel at the other end of the beach (ok, ok, I walked, but I must take some liberties while writing...). They were packing up and planning to head for Eilat to catch a plane. Hey, I thought, we were headed for Eilat too! What a coincidence. The plan changed to include them and leave by 4pm (they had info that the border didn't close until midnight -- rock on!). I went back to Green Valley where my culinary delight awaited and filled Laurent in on the new plan. He was fine with it, especially since it meant that the cab to Eilat would be split 4 ways instead of 2. Right about then my friend Ehab (aka "Benny") came by, heard our plan, and said that he would arrange the car for us with his friend. Things were falling into place nicely -- as I was sure they would :oP. Lau and I ran around a bit (said "mas salama" to Galel and gathered my bags) and we all bounded into the cab at 4:30 -- right on (egyptian) schedule. The ride to Eilat ended up being 30EL each, only slightly above a "good" price but well within the range of "not too bad".
Ah, so I'm sure you're all wondering what changed to keep us from staying in Eilat as we had originally planned. The deal is that the next day is a holiday that will cause the Israel/Jordan border to be closed, thus keeping us in Israel two days just by staying the night. Cak! Not optimal to say the least. Lau and I were treated to a cab courtesy of Hadas and Sea over to the Airport, which is conveniently close to the Jordan (Aqaba) border. We got there at 7:30. (The crossing from Egypt to Israel was relatively uneventful so I simply won't bore you with the details except that it cost us 2EL to get out of Egypt.)
After seeing Hadas and Sea off at the airport Lau and I caught a cab for 17NIS (Israeli sheckels, you get just over 4NIS for US$1) over to the Jordan border at Aqaba, crossed without a hitch and hit Aqaba at 9:30 (the cab ride was about 5 minutes with about 2 hours to cross about 100 yards from Israel to Jordan) less 66NIS Israeli exit tax and 33JD for the Jordanian Visa (Jordanian Dinars are equivalent to the English Stirling Pound which is about US$1.50) -- sheesh! Incidentally, Lau paid much less for his Jordanian visa than I did. Americans pay a high rate for the Jordanian Visa second only to Canadians (hail Canada!).
The astute reader might note that by this time Lau and I hadn't eaten in like 9 hours. We got the service cab from the Jordanian border to stop at a small store where we bought tuna, a tomato, an onion, and some pita bread. We stepped out to the sidewalk where I mixed the tuna, tomato, and onion together and had the best danged meal in a long time -- the quality was undoubtedly heightened by our extreme hunger. With our bellies full we then arranged for the service taxi to continue on to Wadi Rum for only 10JD (I think).
*Sigh* We finally arrived in Wadi Rum around 11pm where we found a small, cold canvas tent waiting for us. We ate more of the same tuna glop (not nearly as good this time) and settled in for a night's sleep by midnight. It was cold at first, then got really friggin' cold, but my sleeping bag up to the task (gotta love REI!).
For those that don't know (hell, I didn't), Wadi Rum is a desert village in the south of Jordan. It's hot, sunny, and dry during the day and bitter cold at night. The upside is that it is incredibly beautiful. If you're in Jordan I highly recommend stopping by for a day. If you're not in Jordan then what the hell are you thinking?!? :o)