Egypt summer 2011, DAHAB part 1

The next morning it was time to leave from the hotel and get ready for Dahab. We left early to the airport which was so small! :D We were there around two hours before the departure of our flight. It would have been enough to be there only maybe 30 minutes before. There were only five desks to check in and only two of them were open. They opened up only one hour before the departure. When we finally were asked to come to the desk (there was basically no one else there), the desk said Alexandaria and we asked several times that they understood that we were going to Sharm El Sheikh. We didn't want our backs to go to Alexandria.. We sat and sat there waiting for our plane to leave which was late. Also at the board there was only a flight to Alexandria but the flight number was right. So we just hoped that we would get on to the right plane. Eventually it was time to board and the flight was ours. It said Alexandria because the same plane first flew to Sharm and dropped some people of and then straight continued to Alexandria.

At Sharm we got our backpacks and got ready to fight with the taxi drivers. I had heard that they could be really difficult there and ask ridiculous prices. We were supposed to take a taxi to a bus station to get a bus to Dahab. We were already a bit behind our schedule since the plane was late. Walking towards the taxi place I spotted this girl and a boy with backpacks also! I walked to them and asked them where they were headed: to Dahab! Immediatelly we decided to share a cab to there. They were this couple from Canada and they had taken time of from work to travel. They had saved money many months to do their trip for over 8 months! They had already travelled for six months. It was a bit surprising that the girl didn't speak that fluent English even though from Canada. Everything went really smoothly! We ended up taking a taxi towards Dahab for 100km and we were there already within about an hour or so. We paid 50 Egyptian pounds / head. If we would have taken a taxi to the bus station we would have only been at the bus station waiting for the bus to leave at the point when we were already in Dahab. They had some travel book with them so we got an opportunity to search some places to stay at in Dahab.

We got of from the taxi and we had no idea were to go. We split up with the Canadians and started walking to different directions. We had only walked about 50 metres when I spotted this swimming pool and hotel called Yasmina. We talked the price down and included breakfast to the price and finally agreed on staying there. We paid for 35 pounds / head for our own small room with a fridge. The swimming pool was the biggest condition for us since it was so hot! It was only maybe 4 metres from our hotel room door to the pool. ;) 

Dahab seashore

We left to walk around in Dahab to see it a bit and after walking over an hour we collided with the Canadians who still hadn't found any place to stay at.. We wondered it a bit since they seemed like really experienced travellers. Anyway, we only changed a couple of words with them and continued our walking. Dahab was really small or at least the tourist area was small. There weren't many tourists there at all. There also the men tried to get us buy stuff from their shops that we had to constantly walk pass. It was these quite narrow streets with shops on both sides we had to walk pass where ever in Dahab we went. After walking couple of times pass the shops most of the men gave up trying to get us to shop in their shops. We ended up booking a snorkling trip combined to some sightseeing oasis thing.

Yasmina hotel's pool

We also found an internert cafe really near our hotel. We went to eat at this cozy and cute restaurant at seashore. We came back to our hotel around 9 pm and decided to take a night swim at the pool! It was so relaxing and it was still warm both the water and the weather. Our hotel also had a billiard table so we played couple of games. 

Sunset in Dahab

Our first night at Yasmina hotel at 00.10 am..

The next morning we ate a good breakfast outdoors and got ready for the oasis and snorkling trip. We bought the trip from Agha Tours and our "tour" guy was Afifi. Afifi looked exactly like one man in Poros, Greece. Even Saija could see the similarity! We thought that Afifi was around 40-years-old, but he claimed to be born -87.. Well, it could be true since his talks weren't that adult.. While we waited for Afifi to come this young boy, selling glass bottles filled with different patterns made by sand, was shyly trying to talk with us. When Afifi came this boy said something to Afifi in arabic and the boy gave us each one glassbottle because he had thought that we were so beautiful. :D

We left to see the oasis or something like that with Afifi's jeep and he drove like crazy!! At some points it was really scary to sit in the front seat. Saija sat in the backseat or back"space" and I was worried that she might not hang on tight.. 

 

We finally got to the oasis and we were absolutely the only ones there! At first it was quite freaky just to be alone with Afifi there. The place was called Wadi Gunai and it is this oasis located south of Dahab with palm trees set againts the mountains. He told as that the word Gunai comes from the word "canal", refering to the canals and streams carved into the ground by the flood rains. Basically it was this valley surrounding by huge rock mountains. It was really hot in there! It was amazing how we could actually feel the sun burning! The valley was dead dry and there were still growing some palm trees. Afifi explained to us that sometimes (not every year) from mountains huge amounts of water stream to the valley and the water gets really high. On the ground we could see white lines of salt from the water. It was really difficult to walk on the little hills with flipflops, it was really slippery!

Driving away from the oasis. Scary ride. I was sure we were gonna hit some rock.

After surviving from the car ride you can see above we went to the Three Pools which is a famous snorkling place. There were maybe 4 people at the sight. "The name “Three Pools” was given because of the three small, shallow sandy pools that you dive through to reach the open sea. These three pools are maximum 3 meters deep and surrounded by spectacular coral walls." (seamore-travel)

We got the snorkling equipment from there. At first it was a bit difficult since there weren't small enough swimfins for my foot.. We enjoyed the sun and drank tea (like we did every where all the time). Afifi came with us to snorkle through the pools. Snorkling there was really cool, we could see lots of fishes and coral reef! We were back from the trip around 4 pm so the trip took four hours. 

 Saija can't get out of the water..

...

Then we hang around by the pool and I really tried to sunbathe myself! I didn't wanna go back to Finland being white after three weeks in Egypt were the weather was HOT! In the same hotel there was only one family besides us. But they weren't at the pool so we had it all ours. :)

By the pool there was also this mmm... dog house? Or something? It was too small for a dog to get in. And we didn't figure it out what was it. But we got a great laughs about it.

Yasmina hotel and our pool

Saija trying to figure out the dog house by getting inside..!?

In the evening we left to eat at the same place as yesterday since it was cosy and it was a cheap place. :) Before we stopped by the internet cafe and we had been in contact with the boys from WakeUp Cairo hostel and they happened to be in Dahab at the same time! They told us where most of them were staying at and we decided to go look for them after eating since Dahab was a small place.

The roof of the cozy restaurant

Full moon. On the same night there was a total lunar eclipse which was beautiful and it was really dark because there was no light from the moon

Dahab, taken from the restaurant's roof

The boys stayed at 7 heaven hotel which was popular among the backpackers. We found the boys from one restaurant and there were many other travellers with them. We saw the familiar faces from Cairo: Alain, Kurt, Greg and the Brazilian girl who left already the next day to continue her trip. There where some new faces: Norwegian guy Kjetil, Peter from the States, Egyptian guy Mo, one guy from Netherlands and one from Germany. We had such a great night! We hang at the seven heaven hotel's hangaround spot drinking beer. We told everyone about the cross Marc from Canada and how he had lied to everyone. Kurt and Greg also told us their youth stories how they both had done some stupid things.. We left to sleep around 1 am and ate healty evening snacks: soda, chips, nuts, bread and Nutella..

Saija: "Tomorrow I'm not gonna need a pre-breakfast before the actual breakfast since we eat stuff now.."
...the next morning I wake up when Saija is eating...

Egypt summer 2011, HURGHADA part 3

The next morning (12th of June) we started the day by eating a great breakfast and headed to the swimming pool. When we had gotten enough from the pool we headed to the internet cafe near by and from there we went to the beach. At the beach we were really irritated by all the people trying to sell us something like: trips to different places (Cairo, Luxor, Aswan..) or people selling water bottles for crazy prices!! It was just ridiculous how the prices were so different in different places. If somewhere on the trip we were asked some "tourist" price for, for example water, we refused to buy it. We tried to haggle the price down or simply walked to an other kiosk or supermarket etc. Anyway, the whole day practically went at the beach and swimming pool. Then we took a nap before getting ready for some serious shopping.

At the other Greek restaurant

Sheraton St. was this long street with shops on each side of it. Not really tourist shops but they sold carpets, lamps, papyrus paper, souveniers, and mostly impractical things. We went to take a break from shopping and walking and to get ourselves hydrated by drinking beer. At the restaurant this man working there was really friendly to us ended up asking if he could join us later on that night. No wonder he had been so friendly.. The man was this ugly around 40-year-old. We kindly refused.. Then we continued our shopping but we only bought a few small souveniers to some people back home. While walking we noticed this other Greek restaurant so we decided to give up the shopping and to go drink beer and wander the street and its people. Yet again, no one spoke Greek there. When the clock was around midnight we wanted to give an other chance to that Ministry of Sound bar. We got in and there was NO ONE THRE! :D Again we left from there before even being there more than 5 minutes. Back to the Greek restaurant which was rather near the place. At there we had such a good time laughing to two young and drunk Estonian girls. The other one was a bit chubby and not that pretty.. (I know, I know, harsh but so true) and she was making everyone know that she was there. She was trying to hit on this one waiter boy who was really annoyed by her actions. Then suddenly her friend shouted something and left from the restaurant. When this chubby girl Paula decided to join our table she explained the situation to us. They were leaving the next morning and her friend had forgotten to buy a watermelon to take with her to Estonia. So she had left to find one for herself. Paula didn't enjoy that long in our table propably because I really couln't stop laughing at her..

Around three o'clock we decided to give one last chance to the bar Ministry of Sound. We walked there again and went inside. Now the music there was a bit louder and maybe 50 people were there. Not much for a such a big club. It was still empty. We stay there maybe 30-45 minutes dancing and walking in the water and watching the stars glowing from the sea level. Oh, and there was this UGLY old man trying to get us to his table by waving to us. We noticed that the same man had already been at the Greek restaurant. We wondered how long he had been watching us..

At 3.30 am we took a taxi to our hotel. To the same taxi where we were already sitting at ran this 21-year-old Italian man named Cappo. He looked like this mafia boss with his shoes and his wet hair combed backwards and he also talked fluent arabic. All of his clothes were black and he had this long cross pendant around his neck. He was really talkative and immediatelly started chatting with us and offering some snacks to eat. Cappo was the boss of the biggest parties held in Hurghada (or that's what he told us). After talking a while to him he started telling us his story about how he had escaped from Italy to avoid jail time. His ex-girlfriend had cheated on him with some police officer and Cappo had stabbed him and he had died later on to his injuries... We really didn't know what to believe. He seemed that kind of man who could have done something like that and personally I was afraid of him. I just wanted to get out from the taxi. We got to our hotel safely and Cappo invited us tomorrow to a foam party at one of his clubs. He wasn't scary nor did he do anything to be afraid of. My imagination did it for me.

Something funny:

• Almost everytime we left from our room, the door closes and Saija says: Ups, forgot the water.. Again the door closes and Saija says: Ups, forgot the camera.. or shoes, or sunglasses or sunblock or phone etc.. 

• On the beach Saija told me: " You know there are these magnets floating in the water.." I went to the water and wondered to myself what magnets, I can't see anything but jellyfishes how come hasn't she seen them.. I came out of the water and told Saija: " I didn't see anything but jellyfishes but what magnets did you see!?" Saija: " Ups, the word must have been in Swedish, those were what I meant.."

•  Saija: "My backcalves are burning.." Ira: " What is a backcalf may I ask..?"

• Saija: " There are no airports in Estonia... right?"

• Saija: " There is only one hump in that camel! The tourists must have sat the other one down."

• One guy working at the pool tried to hit on me saying: " Finland is the best forget the rest... or how did the saying go.."I just stared and him and he got really embarrased. :D

On the next morning after again the great breakfast we went to the swimming pool to sunbathe and just to chill. This German man started talking to us and I spent quite a while talking to him about everything. He was travelling alone since only a few days before the departure his friend had broken his leg. The day went by like every other day in Hurghada. Swimming pool --> internet cafe --> somewhere to eat --> beach --> nap. 

We left to Sheraton St. at 9pm because we had learnt that nothing happened before that. We went straight to the Acropolis Greek restaurant to drink beer and sit around. These two Egyptian men started talking with us. Saija talked with a man the was a beatboxer and was about to perform in Hurghada's Got Talent. The guy I was talking to was performing with the beatboxer and he was some kind of rapper. :D The guy was really friendly and very clever! It was really difficult to discuss with him since he had such a strong opinions about everything. We talked about reincarnation and history (it was a bit embarrassing that neither me nor Saija could remember Finland's history and that he remembered it better than we did..). After the conversation he said that he could think about me being way more than 21 based on our conversation... :D (I know nothing about history or the stuff we were talking about..! :D )

We said thanks for the evening to the guys and hopped on to a taxi and towards the foam party. The Irish Mark had earlier texted me that he might join us later on that night. We told the taxi driver the name of the bar: Buddha and he dropped us in front of this glamorous looking big night club which wasn't excatly what we had imagined it to be. We waited outside for a while before going in when this man from the club came to talk with us. We proudly and a little arrogantly told him that we already have the tickets to the foam party.. This man looked at us and told that there is no foam party at that club and we were actually at the wrong club.. So that wasn't embarrinsing at all.. Thank god we didn't try to get in with the tickets..

The second taxi driver took us in front of the right place and it was actually called Buddha Ramoza beach club. Outside the bar there was Cappo waiting for us and we didn't even need to show the tickets when we were with him. He immediatelly tried to take my hand and stuff and show me of as his girlfriend or something. I was panicking. I can usually pretend that everything is fine but now I really couldn't. He had this huge guy with him that almost looked like some bodyguard of his and my imagination took of. I was sure that they would kill us or something if I didn't pretend like I'm having fun with him. He ordered something to drink, but I refused. He asked me to dance, but I refused. I just sat there horrified next to him. Saija seemed pretty cool but bored. Cappo asked me why I'm not having fun and what's the matter and I tried to convince him that I had super time and my boyfriend waited me at home so that's why I was so distant from him.. It must have been less than an hour but it seemed like eternity sitting next to him. Then the Irish Mark texted me and saved my evening! My eys lit and I ran to the entrance to meet him before Cappo could follow me. I explained quickly the situation to Mark. Cappo soon followed me like a dog, they shook hands and tried to take it easy. Mark immediatelly totally took control of the situation! I felt safe! Mark offered to buy me a beer and I agreed. We went to sit down and talk and pretty soon Cappo and his "bodyguard" realised that they weren't needed nor wanted. Cappo hugged me like a gentleman and whispered to me that I could have just told him that I had feelings for another guy and told me to go for it and not care about my (imaginary) boyfriend back in Finland. 

We sat there for the entire night and I got used to his deep voice pretty soon. Throughout the evening I had to ask him several times what he had said because I just couldn't figure it out and the music was also so loud. His English with Irish accent was really difficult to understand. For instance when we first met Mark, Saija asked him where he was from and he had to say it three times and even then Saija didn't get it.. :D Mark was a teacher and we teased him that it's not fair to the girls that they can't concentrate when he is teaching..

At the Buddha Ramoza club this one worker totally fell in love with Saija!! :D He asked Saija to dance and offered her drinks. He bought a rose to Saija and gave us mosquito repellent because there were tons of mosquitos! The club itself wasn't that different from any other bar. There was not that much of foam but I had had such a great night with Mark that when we looked around there were only gay men dancing and the bar was almost empty. It was somewhere around three am when we called it a night. We walked to same direction where Mark lived at and in the middle of the street we hugged goodbye. :) We were both disappointed that we didn't have more days in Hurghada to get to know each other better. :/ 

What a great last night in Hurghada! :)

Egypt summer 2011, HURGHADA part 2

Lots and lots of tourists

The next morning we woke up early to eat at the buffet restaurant downstairs which was included in our hotel room price.. The breakfast was perfect! There were plenty of good things to eat there and we spent time there getting ready for the day by eating enough! We also heard Finnish spoken there of which we weren't that happy from.. We grabed a taxi and left for Sakkala to find EgyptAir office to buy plane tickets from. We had to take two taxis because the first taxi driver didn't know where the office was. No wonder why, usually all the tourists have all-included trips so they don't need to buy any tickets. The office was hard to find but we eventually did find it. It was at the end of this supposed to be a tourist street with NO ONE THERE! :D We got the tickets to the plane we had searched online: on 14th of June to Sharm El Sheikh. We took a taxi back to our hotel and the driver was so creepy and scary! The first time we were really scared that something would happen and we were in a tourist destination! The driver was gross. We had to take his number and promised to call him (NOT!), we made all kinds of excuses that our husbands were waiting for us at the hotel and stuff. We got back to the hotel safely and nothing happened but he was scary! 

We headed to the beach of our hotel. The hotels had their own areas from the beach. We didn't even find any public beach so we had to go to our hotel's beach full of tourists with tourists prices also! There were plenty of activities set up for them for example zumba, volleyball and pool exercises. We ended up buying a snorkling trip for 180 pound /head for the next day from 8.30am-5pm. Some people told us we got absolutely ripped of but I didn't think so. We compared the prices and this was a real trip to the sea. It was actually a diving trip so we would be the only ones snorkling. First we were suggested a trip with only Finnish people! That would have been my nightmare! :D and it didn't appeal to me either that there would be hundreds (..well at least many..) of other snorklers on the water at the same time. 

We left to our pool the hang out because there weren't so many people there. We had a nice time listening to the Celine Dion - My Heart Will Go On from the pool's radio or some place. At the pool we watched a punch of New Zealanders and Australians playing water ball. Most of the girls and also many of the guys were really big. That's what caught our eyes. :D Despite from the sunblock, for the first time on the trip, I burned from the sun and Saija was totally eaten by mosquitos (they were itching in the sun) so we got enough from the sun. We decided to go check out the free of charge gym! We found the gym and it was mostly held as the staff's tv room.. There were only staff members hanging in the airconditioned room watching tv. We would have had to pay for using it and there weren't that much stuff we could have done there, so we decided to give it up. Instead we went to our room to get an exercise by ourselves. We put the counterpane on the floor and then we did push ups, abs, back and some leg muscles. :D

In the evening we tried to walk to the different direction to find some place to eat at but we found nothing! After walking around 30 minutes we found one restaurant and we were looking at the menus outside when the owner asked us "ootteks Suomest?" (are you from Finland?) and our mouths dropped when the man started telling us his story. He had been married to a Finnish woman for over 25 years and most of it they had lived in Helsinki right at the center. He had two children who both had Finnish names and now he was divorced and had moved back to Egypt and opened up his own restaurant. Again, what a small world. Anyway, we didn't want to stay there to eat because it was a little too expensive for us. We left to eat at the same place as yesterday because the view and the food were good there. :) The walk there would have been long so we decided to take a taxi for the short maybe 2km ride. We had learnt (especially in Hurghada) to be careful to negotiate the price beforehand because the drivers could agree on 5 pounds but later say that they were talking about us dollars.. So I  agreed with the driver that it was five egyptian pounds and the driver agreed with me. When I was paying him he went nuts! He told me that he had been talking about euros, so for the max 2km ride he would have wanted 35 pounds and that amount in Cairo for example we almost could have had a driver for a whole day! When we wanted to get of and I gave him the money (5pounds!) he went absolutely crazy and told us that we were liars and cheating and whatever! He didn't want to take the money (at that point Saija was already outside) so I left the money on the back seat and quickly took of. Maybe he went crazy 'cause he had thought that the two young girls are easy money and we would get scared and would have paid him the amount he wanted. The taxi drivers were scary!

 

After eating we walked past (or at least tried to) couple of shoe shops.. I bought two shoes for 25 pounds ( 3,5€!!) each and one pair of Nike's winter shoes for 185 pounds (25€!). The starting price for the Nike shoes was 395 pounds!!! I already once walked out from the shop and the owner ran behind me.. :D What a show!

Then we went to our nearest supermarket to get stuff to fill our fridge again mostly with water bottles and sodas. Then we were hanging in our room and taking it easy and early to bed to get ready for the next days snorkling trip.

Inside the boat

On 11th of June we were picked up in front of our hotel in the morning. There was this Finnish looking man wandering in front of our hotel like he was lost. When we got into the car we left to pick some other tourists from some other hotel. And from there this same man came into the car. It was maybe after a minute when the same man from the back seat asked us "ootteks te Suomesta?" (are you from Finland?). The man was around a 50-year-old gay man from Helsinki travelling alone. So much for speaking in private with Saija for the whole day.. We drove to the harbour and picked up snorkling equipment for us and then headed to the boat. The boat was really nice and there was maybe 15 other tourists with us, mostly older couples. We hang outside on the deck of the boat. When the boat was heading towards the coral reefs the Finnish man came to sit near us and told that he was doing some diving course and all the assignments were in English and that he didn't speak fluent English so I tried to help him out the best I could.

Coral reef

At the first coral reef we were a bit confused about what to do because no one told if we could go to the water or not. We put our gear on and finally hopped to the water. This one man working at the boat was sent to come with us.. :D maybe we looked so confused that they thought we would loose the boat or get lost in the ocean or something.. :D The water was so clear and bright blue and the weather was perfect like every day. In the water we saw so many different coloured and shaped fish swimming at the coral reef which was just below the water surface. It was really easy to swim even though it was very windy and lots of waves. We had the whole sea for us since we were the only snorklers but still me and Saija collided into each other in the sea. We also had quite a few hysterical laughs about something in the water and the man with us must have thought that we lost it for good..

Ready to hit  the water and the coral reef

Going to diving with Arnold

At the boat there was working our age boy named Arnold from Holland. We was a really nice guy and kept us company the whole day. He had gotten tired of his live in Holland and wanted to leave everything behind and try something new. So he had educated himself to be a diving instructor and had moved to live and work in Hurghada. Arnold offered that we could try diving with him for a while for free. Diving with him was so cool though it hurt me ears even though I tried to even the pressure. I could see the coral reef much deeper than just benieth the surface. It was really nice! :)

We also visited another coral reef near by and swam there also. We also had a good time laughing to that Finnish man because he was so confused all the time about everything! He for example had the snorkel pipe upside down. All the staff at the boat laughed at him and told us that it's gonna be a hard time for him to pass that diving course..

Getting a massage from Tamer

The boat ride back to the harbour was really nice and the time went past quickly. We burst into laughter when we asked the Finnish man to take a pic of me and Saija and he told us "I'm wondering if there is a zoom on or whether you just look so big.." At the back of the both there were two Belgian men, Arnold and Tamer who also worked at the boat and me and Saija hanging around. The guys had some kind of bet going on that Tamer wouldn't have to courage to give me a back massage but he ended up winning since I was happy to get a massage. :D Saija also got one from one of the Belgian man.

Belgian men and me. Which one is the brownest..? Me? :D

We were exhausted when we got back from the snorkling trip! We took a nap and when I woke up Saija wasn't sleeping, surprisingly.. We had created this joke with Saija because it seemed that everytime I woke up from the nap Saija was either eating or in the bathroom putting on make up, plucking eyebrows, putting nail polish on or something else. This didn't happen once or twice. It happened almost everytime! :D

After the nap we got ready and left for Sakkala to eat and to find some bar to go to. :) We asked the taxi driver to get us to a place called New Marina which was supposed to be this tourist area with restaurants and bars. When the driver told us we were there, we were in the middle of nothing surrounded by locals. Then we just started walking to one direction and totally got lost. We saw this 17-year-old looking boy and asked him for directions. The guy ended up being nearly 30-years-old and really annoying. He started walking with us but after being in the middle of nowhere again we didn't believe him anymore and took a taxi leaving the man on the street. We found the "shopping or the main street" called Sheraton St. where we found a Greek restaurant were we ate. The staff didn't speak any Greek. :/ It was almost 11 pm and we walked to this club called Ministry of Sound. The bouncers asked us to pay but we refused 'cause there was no line or anything. We started walking away but they shouted us to come back. We went inside and there was almost no one even working there yet! :D It was empty! :D We stayed there for 10 minutes and took off.

Bar Shade. Mark on the background also.

We started walking behind some other tourists and found ourselves to the New Marina where there were plenty of places to eat and drink. We went to a bar called Shade where this awesome live band was playing great songs! The band was really good! Arnold came there also to hang with us. We listened to the band and drank beer. I started talking to this Irish guy named Mark who was a teacher and had decided to spent his summer holiday living in Hurghada. He had just arrived there. We was a really nice guy (and good looking ;) ) with the deepest voice I have ever heard nor will I ever hear! First I thought that he must have some throat cancer or something. :D Me and Saija kind of run out of money what we had with us and the bar closed already at 1 am so I changed numbers with Mark and me and Saija left to the hotel. We took a taxi from this young boy who wasn't irritating like the rest of the drivers outside the New Marina gates. After sitting in the taxi maybe 100 metres we came to the same spot from which we had started walking to some direction and gotten lost. We had been that close to the place but we had chosen the wrong direction and had ended up walking over an hour..

Memories from the bar and the song we listened to with Mark :)

Egypt summer 2011, HURGHADA part 1

After the last night's wedding we were a bit tired to wake up early. We took our breakfast with us from our reception and left on to the street to catch a taxi which was much easier than we had taught it would be. We went to the bus station and there was no one there. We were there at 5.30 am and our airconditioned-tourist bus was supposed to leave at 6 am.

Saija buying the tickets for the bus

Taken from the bus

Taken from the bus

I slept the first four hours in the bus so it went pretty fast. We had heard that the bus ride takes less than 6 hours so when I woke up it was less than two hours left. That would go really fast we thought. The time went on really slowly and when we had travelled six hours in the none airconditioned bus we could only see sand from the windows..

Again, not many people spoke English on the bus, and on the tourist bus we were the only tourists. :D We asked from different people how long would it take and everyone told us different answers.. One man told us that it's only one hour more and one said that it still takes more than four hours. My stomach was killing me so I couldn't even eat anything. We had only one water bottle (at that point it was too warm to be drank) and two sodas.

The time just went on and on and we were so impatient to sit there! It was terrible! At 4 pm we were still on the bus and had been on the road for 10 hours! We stopped at Safaga and where we were told that it's one more hour. We didn't believe it. The bus driver drove the bus on the way that we sometimes thought that the bus broke down when he almost switched off the engine. It would have been just our luck that the bus would have broken down in the middle of nowhere.

Finally after sitting on the bus for over 11 hours we arrived to Hurghada! We got of from the bus and we were not exactly on the neighbourhood where we thought we would be. We thought that we could only see tourists and big hotels. Nothing. The bus station turned out to be more than 6km from the hotels. We took a taxi to our Three Corners Empire Hotel and when the driver stopped in front of it we didn't believe it could be our hotel. It was HUGE! It had metal detectors in front of the entrance and the reception and the lobby were huge. The hotel had three swimming pools, bar, two restaurants, shop, ATM, gym and other stuff. It looked like a five star hotel (it was only three stars?!). It was quite a big change for us when we had slept for example in a countryside at some tiny hut. Now we were surrounded by tourists.

The biggest swimming pool, taken from our balcony

Feeling a bit down..

We had our own big room with a balcony and we both had our own big beds. We had a tv, a fridge and air conditioning! When we opened our balcony doors we could hear some band playing next to the biggest swimming pool. The songs everyone knows, no more local music. We left to eat and immediately when we left from the hotel doors we were surrounded by irritating men from the souvenir shops. "Where are you from?! Sweden, Finland, Norway? Can you come to my shop and write to my notebook this sentence in Finnish?" And they really could speak Finnish! "Finland Finland, NOKIA NOKIA, mita kuuluu?" When we walked and tried to find some place to eat at this happened several times. I hated it. I didn't like it at all. The last night we had been in a local Nubian wedding with local traditions, language, music and stuff and now the ugly men were trying to use us to get us buy something for ridiculous high prices talking Finnish to us! When I'm abroad I don't want to talk Finnish! I want to get to know the country I'm in and its lifestyle and language etc..

We found a nice restaurant or cafe towards the sea.

After we had eaten we walked back to our hotel and just relaxed on our room for a moment. Listened to the music coming from outside our balcony and watched a bit tv also before going to sleep.

Coming to Hurghada we knew that it was supposed to be this tourist location but after all we weren't surrounded by that many hotels or tourists than we had expected. All in all we found Hurghada being confusing, maybe it was because it was big or something. We got lost many many time! The city is divided into different section, like El Dashar (where our hotel was) and Sakkala where the most tourists are. The city was just weird or maybe we were just stupid for not figuring it out.. As a tourist destination there was supposed to be many tourist shops and clothes stores etc. but we didn't find that many.. Personally I didn't like the city at all! All the locals we spoke to told us that it's made for tourists and all "the locals" have moved in from different parts of Egypt just to work there. The city was also dirtier than the other parts of Egypt where we had been.

Originally we were supposed to take a ferry to Sharm El Sheikh after staying 6 nights in Hurghada but we heard that all the ferry connections were cancelled because the ex-president Mubarak was in a hospital in Sharm. So our options were to sit in a bus for over 11 hours or catch a flight. Guess which option we chose?

• On the whole trip we were thought of being under 18-years-old. All the time. Most often I was the younger one at the age of 16! This really happened ALL THE TIME! :D 

Egypt summer 2011, ASWAN part 3

The next morning we had a date with Mostafa at the internet cafe downstairs to get the number to the hotel in Hurghada and call there. After that we bought more sun tan lotion, some snacks and water to go and headed to Mostafas boat and towards the same place where we had spent time yesterday. It was a great great day! We enjoyed the sun, swam, hopped from the roof of his boat, swam to the rocks, watched camels near by, played in the water. There were also couple of other boats with local families cooling in the water and the kids playing around and of course watching us. We ate some watermelon, bread and other stuff. We were there until 4 pm and then left back.

Mostafa invited us to see his other apartment in Aswan (the other one was in the Elephantine Island). We bought some dinner with us (fish from the River Nile) and ate it at his apartment. The flat was in this hill in Aswan with many apartment buildings there. The flat was a nice and rather big with a lot of carpets and other rugs there. When Saija was standing on this small balcony which faced towards an open area where some kids were playing and when they saw Saija they stopped their games and started whispering and waving to Saija. When we left from the apartment all the kids (around 25) came to us and the bravest ones started talking with us in english. They were so cute!! They asked our names and where we were from and how old we were. The youngest one could barely stand by herself. We left by car and the children ran next to the car waving us goodbye. Mostafa took us to our hotel and we agreed on seeing around 10 pm. We took nap and backed most of our stuff before leaving to the wedding.

We saw Mostafa at his boat at 10 pm and he drove in front of the Elephantine Island where we had to wait. We waited for two hours sitting in the boat! We had company from couple of his friends for instance the chief's son was there with us. At first it was really boring just to sit there! But time went past really fast and I enjoyed myself. I was sitting on the edge of the boat, one leg in the warm river and at the same time I was admiring at the starry sky. Mostafa and his friends tried to teach us arabic and nubian language. We listened to music from our phones. I also recorded Akon's No more you from Mostafas phone to mine. :) After waiting for two hours something started to happen. People gathered on the dock and they all started to climb into boats. There were three boats of people (not all of them full though). Finally the boats took of into the middle of the River Nile. Then all the engines very switched off and all in all five boats were fixed together floating in the river. Most of the people went to the boat in the middle but we stayed on the next boat. On both edges of the boat line there were one man on each to make sure that the boats stayed at least almost in the middle of the river. Once in a while they had to put the engines on to move the line. There were both woman and men on the boats. They had drums and man did they play them loud! They sang some traditional Nubian songs both sad and glad (we didn't recognize any difference). The noise that came from them was so loud! They didn't have any microphones or anything! It was amazing to watch them move, dance and sing their songs. Everyone was so into it and not one member on the boat stayed silent. Mostafa tried to teach me some nubian dance, but I sucked at it. We were watching them for a little over two hours when we told Mostafa that we wanted to leave and get some sleep. We took the boat from the end of the line and he drove us in front of our hotel and walked us to the street. We hugged him goodbye and promised to remember him! We won't forget the nubian  little village boy with Akon's No More You as his ringtone! From our hotel window we could still hear the drums playing somewhere in the middle of the River Nile.

Mostafa's ringtone and the song that reminds me of Aswan and the great time we had there. Since then it has also been my ringtone.

Learnt in Aswan:

• The men there didn't wear the gowns so much than in Luxor
• Nubian people with their own culture and spoken language
• Gasserekom = thank you in Nubian
• The weddings are usually two days, the first day is a henna day (people have A LOT of henna tattoos on themselves) and the second day is the party day (that's what we were told but different info can be found from the net)
• The River Nile flows from Aswan to Cairo not the opposite way we thought.
• Aswan is as high as the tip of the Cairo's highest pyramid

Arabic:

• Ismik e? = what's your name? (to a woman)
• Ismak e? = what's your name? (to a man)
• Ana Ira = my name is Ira
• Andak kamsana? = how old are you? 
• Hamdulellla = I'm good
• Ana zort Masrr = I have been in Egypt
• Masr jemila = Egypt is beautiful
• Bas har sjuwaia = But a little hot

Egypt summer 2011, ASWAN part 2

On Tuesday 7th of June we left to the Elephantine Island in the morning. We took a boat to the island and it didn't take that long. We entered the Island and saw nobody anywhere when suddenly this old man came to talk with us and told us he's going to show us around the island for a little money in return. We told him that we can get around by ourselves and we didn't like the man at all. Well, that wasn't okey for him so we had to let him show us the Island. The man was the chief of the village and one of the elderly of their people. The people who lived in there were Nubians. Not Egyptians, Nubians. They had their own spoken, not written, language. The Nubians have their own culture that is different from the egyptians. Nubians have their own dresses, dances, traditions and music for example.

We walked through the village and got to see a lot of their traditions and the way they lived. The chief showed us the school of the village etc. He took us to a house were this young Nubian woman made Henna tattoos for us (for a high price..!). But we were too embarrassed to start to haggle the price. I took a henna tattoo to my ankle with stars and my name written in arabic and Saija took some flower thingy in her arm. After the tour around the village the man started wanting money from us and he wasn't pleased at all to the money amount we gave him. We took a local ferry boat back and the payment was that you just left some money on the table whatever your conscience told you to leave.

Here's a video that I found from youtube. On the video you can see the chief that introduced us his village:
Nubian village

Like every other day it was really hot so we wanted to walked to the Isis-hotel to swim. Going to the same direction this Nubian boy called Mostafa started talking with us and I was really rude to him at first. (you'll never know what they'll want..) He was really patient with me and my angry answers to his questions. He walked with us more than 5 minutes and I started to like him when I noticed that he was just curious about us and he was being friendly. He offered to take us to this area mostly used by locals only and we could swim and relax there. It was his day off from work (he had his own boat and business) but he offered to get us there for a two hour trip and we would pay him something. We told him that we'll give him a call if we decide to accept his offer. 

At the pool we had so much fun when Saija noticed (while I was trying hard to sunbathe and get some colour since I was still white!) that there were three local men trying to paint the numbers how deep the pool is to the egdes of the swimming pool. Saija noticed that some of the numbers were incorret. It was supposed to say: 1,2 m but the number two was upside down, like a mirror image. I didn't beliave Saija so I got up to see. She was right and of course she wanted to correct it to the men that didn't speak english. Once we started to correct them, we did it throughly.. All the numbers were incorrectly marked down next to the pool and had already been painted. The deepest place in the swimming pool where I could barely stand with my head above the surface was marked as only 1,4 metres.. So they also had all the numbers wrong how deep it was at what place of the pool. Also when they meant to put 0.9m they put cm instead and didn't believe us when we told them that it is supposed to be metres. When they finally got their job done, after they had had to do it again several times after we had checked the numbers. We thought that since we were so nice and helped them out that they're gonna offer us something to drink, at least water. But no. Nothing. They just waved us bye and left. :D

We only had two hours of patience to stay put at the pool so we decided to call to Mostafa. The boat ride took around 20-30 minutes and the view was amazing! On the other side of the River Nile was the city and on the other side all you could see was sand. At some points the river was really rocky and Mostafa had to be careful not to drive too fast and he really had to know where all the rocks in the river were for not to hit them.

The place was called a Nubian Beach and it was really amazing! We were almost the only ones there and the sand was so soft and warm (hot). We had a great time hanging and sitting on the warm sun for couple of minutes at the time since after that we had to go to the water because it was too hot. Mostafa told us a story about this indian man called Ajakan who had visited Aswan many times. The man had some kind of rheumatism and in India he had been running from doctor to a doctor to get some help for his symptoms. Nothing helped. Not the medicine or anything. He had tried everything that he had heard of, even some herbal stuff and legends they knew in his town in India. Ajakan came to Aswan with his family for the first time and he heard from the local people about their old ways to treat people with his kind of symptoms. It was the magical sand on the Nubian beach. The sand was so soft and different from what I've ever come across anywhere. The sand was said to have this magical power because the sun kept it warm almost all the time. For example if you had knee problems you were supposed to sit on the sand and cover your legs to the warm sand. Ajakan thought that hey, why not to try it. The doctors in India had promised him less than 5 years to live. The sand did miracles for him. He could move and do everything better than before. Eventually he and his family moved to live in Aswan and the man lived much much longer than expected. Before his death the man dig a grave to him and his wife on the hills of the sand dunes. The graves they wanted to be buried into. The story felt like a was hearing this old urban myth or legend that were usually told around the bonfire from father to son.. :D

You can see the rocks to where we swam

Anyway, at the beach we had fun! At the shore we jumped of from the roof of Mostafas boat! We swam in the River Nile and we even swam to the nearest rocks even though to currents were really strong. And you needed to be a good swimmer the get there. Me and Mostafa jumped to the water from the rocks and it was about 3 metres to the water. First I couldn't even walk on the poiling rocks, when my feet got dry. Mostafa didn't even notice that the rocks were that hot and I couldn't walk there at all. After a while my feet got used to it at least a bit.  I was too scared to jump because I was afraid of the rocks benieth the surface. Mostafa knew the water like his own pockets and to places were the rocks were. He showed me exactly were I could jump and it was so cool! :D Swimming back to the shore was much much easier and we didn't even have to do anything because to current got us almost to the shore. :D

When we got back Saija and Mostafa's friend had disappeared from the boat and my bag was gone (I knew she had taken it). Then I saw one snow white hand moving behind the sand dune and we ran to see what happened. Saija and the other guy were riding on a camel!! :D Me and Mostafa also got a short and also a free camel ride. It was fun but also a bit scary because the camel was a bit stubborn and when he felt like it he just went down all of the sudden to rest.. After riding the camels we swam and hang in Mostafa's boat to get some cover from the sun and wait for the sun to go down. Our agreement for the two hour trip didn't go as planned 'cause we really fast became friends and had such a good time so it was like friends spending a day rather than that we had bought a business from him.

We waited the sun to start setting and then started to climb our way to the top of sand dunes! We had to wait because the sand would have been burning hot otherwise. The way up was sweaty, hard and long! It felt like walking without moving anywhere. The guys walked without shoes but me and Saija had flipflops on and they told us when we needed to use them when it was rocky. The rocks were sharp as knives! So we didn't want to get cut.

On our way up

Half way up and the view was quite something!

Finally we were at the top and we could see the whole Aswan! Our boat seemed so small when we saw it. We were at the top for almost an hour just admiring the view and enjoying the cool breeze from the wind.

Our boat

You can see the strong currents

Me and Saija holding the Sun :D

Then we decided to walk even higher to the other side of the sand dune to see where the sun was setting. We ran the hill up and it was a great excersise!! We were at the top. Couldn't get any higher.

Running up the hill

Coming down from the sand dunes was fast!! :D it only took a minute or so! :D The sand was so soft and still warm for the sun. While we headed back to the boat Mostafa's friend took of running to what seemed like a desert for us. Mostafa told us that they know the places and the sand like their own pockets. Their villages was just around some of the sand dunes so the friend left there to get us some sodas to drink.

Coming down

Back at the boat we finally left back to our hotel. First we picked up the guy from around the corner of the island. We were starving so Mostafa drove his boat in front of this restaurant where we ate. He kept us company. After eating we wanted to go to take showers with Saija and agreed to see him in a bit. After taking a shower we went to this bigger boat with a restaurant in it to drink beers. We were joined by Mostafas friends and we had a good time with them. :) Mostafa invited us to a Nubian wedding the next evening so we decided to stay one more night in Aswan. We would miss the first day of our hotel reservation in Hurghada but we didn't care and Mostafa kindly offered to call to the hotel to tell them that we're going to arrive one day later than expected. We were only a street across from our hotel so Saija left to sleep earlier and I stayed with the boys. We talked over two hours about everything like coverments, religions and the situation in Egypt. It was an interesting night with the boys. :) Mostafa walked me to my hotel at 3 am. And Saija, the magical girl with electronics, couldn't get our door open for a while, but finally I got in..

Shokran Mostafa for making our day so great and unforgettable!