On to Dahab

Dustin and I were going to be dropped of at the beach town of Dahab, and the girls were going to the Sharm airport to fly to Cairo. When we got to the turn off for Dahab around noon it was apparent that the girls were not going to make their flight if we took the detour. Dustin and I made the decision to hop out there to make sure the girls got to Cairo.

The car sped away, and we were left alone on the side of the road. We weren’t sure how far away Dahab was, so we just started walking. We had to laugh at our situation, we had hardly slept in two days, and now we were walking alone through the Sinai desert. The road had an occasional car speed by, but none showed any sign of slowing down. After walking for a half hour with our thumbs out, a small pickup truck pulled over for us. We jumped in back and rolled into Dahab fifteen minutes later.

Dahab is a pretty cool place. It is a small backpacker town that is a weird mix of Bedouin and hippy culture. It was a small Bedouin village until the 1960’s when Israeli troops started going there to relax on their time off. Since then it has evolved into a backpacker destination where travelers go to hang out. The town is about a mile long, with places to eat and chill out all along the water.

There weren’t many people in Dahab while we were there. Just this April, an Islamic extremist bombed the main bridge in the middle of town, killing three people. We could tell that this had definitely kept a lot of people from visiting.

We didn’t see a single other American while we in Dahab. When talking to people who lived there, they would start guessing where we were from. It would go like this: Australian? No. Canadian? No. Swiss? No. German? French? Swedish? No. No. No. And then when we told them we were Americans they seemed pretty surprised. There seemed to be very few Americans traveling in Sinai, probably a direct result of the recent terrorist attacks.

The place we stayed was called ‘Alaska Camp Backpackers’ and cost us a whopping five dollars a night. At this point all I really need is a roof and a piece of foam to sleep, and this is pretty much what we got. We also learned that bed bugs really do exist. Dustin and I still have bites all over our arms and legs to prove it.

So backing up a bit, as soon as we got into Dahab and got our room, we headed to the beach and jumped in the Red Sea. The talls hills of Saudi Arabia loomed right across the gulf, about 15 miles away. This became our joke while we were in Dahab, at random times one of use would say “Hey guess what” “What?” “That’s Saudi Arabia over there.” After swimming Dustin went to get some beers. We were laying out on the beach in the afternoon sun, drinking a cold beer, and looking at Saudi Arabia. That was pretty awesome. I started feeling pretty giddy, and then I realized that I was drunk after drinking one beer. I looked at the bottle, and sure enough this Egyptian beer had 10% alcohol by volume. Having slept 6 hours of the last 60, climbing Mt. Sinai, being dehydrated, sunburned, and starving, it took just this one beer to do me in. I am super mild sauce. The rest of the day was kind of a blur.