Cairo, 99 degrees

We’re just back from Sharm el-Sheikh, the ritzy resort town on the Gulf of Aqaba in the Sinai Peninsula, and I’m killing time before it’s socially acceptable for me to go to bed.

I’m a bit dazed as I haven’t had much sleep in a couple of days – more on that in a second. On Thursday night, we all went to the Moghul Room at the Mena House Oberoi, the bazillion star hotel that sits at the base of the pyramids out in Giza, to celebrate Monica’s birthday. It was fun, and who knew that the best place to watch the sun set over the pyramids was at the swimming pool? Not I …

Friday morning, early and bright, we boarded one of EgyptAir’s rickety new A320s for the 30 minute flight over to Sharm el Sheikh. We were met by Carlson WagonLit’s rep there, a friendly guy named Khaled, who escorted us over to the absolutely beautiful Sofitel Sharm el-Sheikh in Na’ama Bay. Pictures to come. We all dropped our stuff in our rooms and went to the beach for snorkeling (equipment rental: LE 50). Turns out I can’t snorkel. I couldn’t catch my breath, breathe in the mask, and managed about 10 seconds with my face in the water before I finally realized that I was not enjoying myself and retired to the pool.

Sharm is one of those places like Protaras in Cyprus and [insert Greek island here] that caters to foreign tourists and you can get away with not speaking Arabic, so long as you’re fluent in Russian or Italian. The brand-spanking-new airport recieves several charter flights per day from cities in Russia and Italy, Germany and the occasional load from Britain, all sparing them the hassle of having to go to Cairo or Alexandria and experiencing the real Egypt. Prices match accordingly. The foreign currency of choice in Sharm is the Euro, and unlike Turkey, they know that the Euro and the dollar aren’t on a 1 to 1 exchange.

The reason I bring this up is that prices are ridiculously expensive in Sharm. A bottle of water at the Sofitel that costs LE 1.5 in Cairo is LE 12. Lunch was unreal. I got a sunburn and, naturally having left my aloe vera lotion in Cairo, had to buy more. LE 75. Someone just reported that they saw the same item in a pharmacy down the street for LE 20.

Around mid-afternoon, it became apparent that the air conditioning in our room wasn’t working. It was around 38 degrees outside (102 F), and was easily 42 or 43 in the rooms. Kamran went to talk to the desk, and it seemed that they didn’t have any air conditioning because it was time for the regularly scheduled maintenance. In July. When it’s hot. Not in December when the temperature is in the mid 20s (80s). But, we were promised, it would be running “in a couple of hours.”

So we went out into the desert for a camel ride and authentic Bedouin dinner. There’s still a bunch of Bedouin in the desert, and they supplement their income made in the drug trade by opening their camps up to serve tourists dinner at $50 a pop. Not to mention you have to tip them for everything. And camels ain’t nice, and they’re not comfortable to ride. Still, it was a cheesy sort of fun. Even the part where one of the standard lurkers offered us what we later determined was opium.

So last night – the reason I didn’t get much sleep – 9 of us went to climb Gebel Musa, the mountain that is almost certainly not the site where Moses received the 10 Commandments, but it’s where all the pilgrims go anyway. You start climbing at 2 am in the summer to see the sun rise around 5:30 and get down before it gets hot. It’s dark, rocky, and 6 miles in each direction, but somehow we all made it despite (not because of) our tour guide. He was a jackass, and doesn’t deserve more time in print than he’s getting here.

Having conquered the mountain and visited the Monastery of St. Catherine at the bottom – lots of tourists, little to see – we all sacked out in the bus for the ride back to Sharm, where there was enough time for shower and lunch before checking out. It transpired that the air conditioning finally came back on around midnight, and half the group was suffering from heat exhaustion. When it took 35 minutes to check out because we couldn’t produce our towel cards, Kamran began to have a meltdown. This was the first time I’d seen him actually lose his temper – usually he’s the levelheaded one and I’m the one who flies off the handle. I ran interference, although I was plenty pissed myself because the hotel staff were incompetent and made up for it by being rude. In the end, I fairly threw the balance of the money we’d signed to the room at the clerk and declared, “We’re done, let’s go” without waiting for the clerk to respond. He didn’t – fortunately for him. I wasn’t sure I could stop Kamran from reaching across the desk and strangling him, and I’m not sure I would have cared to if he did.

So, we went off to the still-brand-spanking-new airport and flew back to Cairo. It’s now 7:30 in the evening and I’m exhausted, since I nodded off on the bus back from the mountain and on the plane and that’s all the sleep I’ve had in the last 36 hours. Even though we were only in Sinai for a day, it seemed like we were there much longer.

At any rate. Pictures are coming. In the meantime, enjoy Flat Selim poolside at the Sofitel.

Tags: bedouin, camel, gebel-musa, khowaga, monastery, sharm_el_sheikh, sinai_peninsula, st-catherines-monastery