Hail to the Hive!

After 4 days of stunning views, ancient ruins and crazy streets it was time to finally leave our little oasis in Giza and make tracks for the Sinai.

It had been 30 years since my last visit to Egypt, which is a blink of an eye to the Sphinx, and I have found myself falling in love with the old place all over again. I think @millycf1976 has fallen for the place too, it’s kind of hard not to.

So feeling a little sad, but not too sad as we knew we were headed back in a few weeks, we made our way to the airport in Cairo to take a short hop to the Sinai, where my scuba reawakening was set to take place.

It’s funny really as I never used any airports on my last journey to Egypt 30 years ago. I arrived by crossing the border from Eilat Israel, made my way back and forth to Cairo by bus and left Egypt by boat from Sharm el Sheikh.

So I didn’t feel guilty in the slightest by taking an hours flight this time, and at $50 each way why would I?

I certainly have never flown Nile Air before, so another first as well.

It’s a short hour long hop out of Africa and into the Middle East effectively but still in Egypt. And they say the UK is complicated.

Sharm airport was a breeze to negotiate and the familiar sight of the Red Mountains of the Sinai desert greeted me as I deplaned. I had a big smile on my face, it felt good to be back!

We now had an hours drive along the Sharirah Pass up to Dahab and I was bracing myself for considerable change.

I had been told by many folks that there had been a lot of development in the Sinai, lots of hotels built etc and that Sharm & Dahab were no longer the little Bedouin outposts of yesteryear.

The road was certainly new but the mountains were timeless.

I spent the journey either lost in my thoughts and memories or chatting about the Sinai with the driver. I was worried I had become that traveler that says ‘ you should have been here 30 years ago’ and I think I have.

Even in the emptiness of the landscape there were still signs of construction happening with plumes of dust being thrown up into the desert air.

I have to say I was impressed with the road though, a huge improvement from years gone by. Can’t beat great roads with no traffic and nice scenery.

In no time at all ( ok an hour and a bit ) with the sun starting to set, we arrived at our destination.

I felt a little weird as last time I stayed in really cheap back packer bedouin huts, kinda like ‘ Hostage chic ‘ style traveling and this time I would be on a resort. Now I have stayed in hotels many a time and I have worked as a scuba instructor on big resorts but I have never paid to holiday on a ‘resort’ ever in my life so I felt a bit out of character.

The driver said it was very low occupancy as its low season. He was almost apologetic but I was thinking ‘yessssss’ as I really didn’t fancy the idea of crowds. By the time we checked in it was dark. We unlacked, went to eat and fell into a blissful sleep.

Next morning we awoke to a beautiful sight. I went to check out the dive shop and meet up with @diveratt , who we’d arranged to meet here, and was smiling like a cheshire cat.

It felt like we had an empty resort, well almost, all to ourselves.

I think I might just enjoy this!