Heat, Dust and Dirt Bikes in Egypt

« Return to Egypt

It was not until the plane took off for Sharm el Sheikh that my shoulders loosened, the air cleared, and the sun could sparkle in a clear blue sky. Much has changed since last visited the blue, salty Red Sea, 16 years ago. The backwoods backpacker haven of Dahab is now a resort town, and the granddaddy resort town of them all is Sharm el-Sheikh. Just about every major hotel chain is represented, offering 5-star service for visiting Brits, Italians, and most of all Russians. It’s a world away from the bustle of Cairo. I see tourists in bikinis crossing the wide, dusty main road, and alcohol is freely available. As a tourism powerhouse, vital for Egypt’s economy, nobody’s going to deny a tourist a cold beer, or even topless sunbathing. And tourists come in droves, around 130,000 a week, on direct flights from Moscow and Warsaw and England and Rome. Sharm’s tourism magnet also attracted fundamentalist terrorists in a series of suicide bombs in 2005. 88 people were killed, mostly Egyptian, but dozens of international tourists too. Security is tight: roadblocks, checkpoints, metal detectors at all hotel entrances. Tourism has recovered, although it sickens me that there are terrorists cowardly enough to attack a bus tour. Sharm is back because of the quality of its hotels, the colour of the sea water, the diversity of the Red Sea’s marine life, and the day-in, day-out terrific weather. We stayed at the Savoy, a sprawling resort on either side of the desert highway, with a half dozen restaurants, three overflowing pools, tranquil and watersports. Once you walk out on the plastic blue jetty, which gets you over the sharp coral and directly into fishy wonderland, you can see similar jetties stretching into the aquamarine Red Sea, tentacles of the Holiday Octopus. Snorkeling and diving here is famous for a reason. Of all the places we’ve snorkled the last couple years – in the Philippines, Maldives, Barbados – the Red Sea delivered the brightest fish with the clearest visibility. I haven’t seen anything like it since I snorkeled off the Blue Hole in Dahab all those years back. On the beach, it feels like I’m in Russia, a wild assortment of mullets and nouveau riche bling, not to mention hot bikinis. Swimming in the buoyant waters at sunset, breathing in the Sinai, I could sense the memories of Cairo fading like a coffee stain swept off a marble cabinet.

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