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 :)