Charafantah's Cave

It’s all because of Marina, in an indirect way.

My parents went to the north coast and wanted me to join them, but since i hate the north coast and marina, and since i couldn’t afford a vacation of work. I decided to join them on this past weekend, on their way there, my dad had a small car accident (thank God, my parents are fine) so the car is wrecked, so the plan was changed, as i will have to go pick them up from there at the end of next week as they have no car now.

So i have been staying at home alone for quite a few days, and since i had nothing planned for the weekend, i decided to go Dahab to dive. After a beautiful weekend, diving in Dahab, i come back home yesterday (Sunday at 3:30:am) after a nice 6 hours driving, dead tired and wishing for nothing but a bed to sleep!

I open the door, to smell a very disgusting smell, like a dead animal or something, i open the lights, to find the apartment floating in red smelly water.

I discovered that when i was cooking dinner on wednesday, i forgot to close the Deep Freezer properly, so obviously, at that weather, leaving it for 3 days, it melt.

And that red water is melted ice with the blood from all the meat my mom *HAS JUST* stocked for Ramadan, the smell is the moisture from leaving all that crap in this weather for 3 days.

So you can imagine me at 4:00am, dead tired, trying to clean up a HUGE mess…

My first idea, was to make a big barrel of water mixed with Clorox, soap and vinegar to clean this….right after i emptied that mix on the floor, I DISCOVERED (after living in that house for 23 years) that we don’t have a sink(بلاعة) in the kitchen!

Seconds later, water, mixed with soap, vinegar, moisture and blood, started to fill the whole apartment and ruining the carpets (the carpets that my mom brought from the dry clean 10 days ago)… I almost cried

(looked something like this, but with water, blood & soap)

I can’t tell you how much fun i had yesterday (its today early actually), i got no sleep at all, and everything still smells like a dead raccoon. Not to mention how much my mom is frustrated at me, she just wants to kill me.

IF ONLY MY PARENTS DIDN’T GO TO MARINA!!!! (one more reason why not to go to marina & the north coast!)

إنى أتنفس تحت الماء…..بس غريبة قوى, أنا مش بأغرق

That’s how i felt on my first dive, no matter what i say, there is no way i could describe the feeling of diving.

You’re almost flying, surrounded by water from everywhere, sound, vision, colors and motion are all different. Fish and coral reefs around you everywhere, marvelous colors wherever you look. It’s like a dream, it’s a different world.

I’ve been dieing to dive long time ago, but i never had the time\chance, but now i have it i finished my OpenWater course, which is the first basic level of diving, and it was more than perfect.

I heard that people’s opinion about diving comes from their first dive, either they don’t like it and never dive again, or they become addicted. I think i am the latest.

So, here i am going this weekend to Tiran island on a boat-diving-trip, hopefully it will be amazing.

Diving is quite simple, not hard as i thought it would be, actually, it’s very simple even a 12 year old kid would understand how it works and could dive. It is very safe too, not dangerous as i thought it would be, everything is thought of, there is a huge safety margin in everything you do.

Go dive, you will NOT regret it.

كان الكلام من فضة….دلوقتى أصبح دهب البرنامج دة كان رخم أوى و طارق علام إنسان مستفز و بيتريق على الناس مع أنو حمار
Anyway, that is not our topic, am talking about Dahab, the City.

Arriving to Dahab at 5:30am, i found an hotel back in Cairo that had a nice website, it’s called “Alf Leila” off course, no one was at the reception, so i went to the bakery attached to the hotel, it’s a German bakery, runned by Ralph… i did not have a reservation, but i made a phone call the day before and i checked the hotel was not fully booked so i could take a room on the spot.

The hotel is very well decorated, it’s small, but it makes you feel like you’re in Morocco or something, we got a double room with 2 small beds with a bathroom attached it costs 190LE\night, there was a free WiFi in the hotel and the room had clean towels, shampoo and shower gel.

We woke up 4 hours later, went to the bakery, Ralph had some freshly baked croissants and cheesecakes, i had some with a cappuccino in the hotel garden in the fresh breeze, it was the best breakfast ever, the hotel does not have a sea view, the sea is only 3mins walking, but other buildings are blocking the view. Instead, the hotel have a great mountain view

Do not ask me how i got this energy, i haven’t slept more than 4 hours after all this driving and partying, but i was refreshed and relaxed, i think this is because of the weather and the view. The weather in Sinai now is amazingly excellent… Its sunny, but not hot in the day, its not cold at night, and there is always a nice breeze of air day or night.

We then headed to the beach in Dahab, Dahab is a place for divers and snorkelers, but it’s not really friendly for kids or a walk on the beach and stuff, there is no sand, it’s rocks on the shore…
Anyway, there are a lor of cafeterias and dive centers on the beach, we stayed in one of the cafeterias, had an ice cream and relaxed on the beach a bit, watching people diving near us. Dahab is full with english speaking foreigners, mostly British and Germans, not like Sharm where it’s mostly Russians, or Taba where it’s mostly Israelis.

We then took a walk in the city, a guy there tried to offer us a trip to the Blue Hole for 100le. Which we thought was a rip-off…and it was.
We took my poor car, and drove to the Blue Hole, its 5 KM away from Dahab, after the main road ended after 2km, it was difficult to go with the car, so we found people in Jeeps, trying to get us to go with them, for 60LE…then one of the bedouins told us they are trying to rip us off, so we proceeded with the car. it’s not so bad, you just have to go very slowly, and watch out for the rocks on your way. It went with no damage thank God, you then arrive 200 meters before the blue hole and a normal car cannot proceed, so you can either walk, or hitch hike like we did

The Blue Hole is amazing, it’s very busy and filled with tourists diving and snorkeling, a few shops renting diving and snorkeling equipments, and a few cafeterias.

The snorkeling equipment cost 20le\person, for the mask, fins and that breathing pipe i don’t know the name for.
The place is just like what you see in Animal Planet, or if you remember Dr. Gohar, from 3alam el be7ar…hundreds of fishes surrounding you, with bright colors it was marvelous.

We finished in the Blue Hole, went back to the hotel, had our shower, i had a cheese cake from the bakery, it was the best cheese cake i ever tasted, you must try if you ever go Dahab.
Then we headed to Rush…..Rush is located on the beach, next to Tota’s (the discotheque) …the place have a small garden, a few tables, a small swimming pool next to the bar. a Dance floor, and plays some very nice Chill Out music.

I heard that the food there was excellent, and that they had a new chef.

But they were wrong, it’s more than excellent, i can say that this is one of the BEST meals i ever had in my life…the chef is from Holland, the waitress too… They served a garlic and butter with bread as appetizer, followed by a green salad with mayonnaise…my main dish was Fried Shrimps with Fruits, it may sound funny, but trust me, its like you never tasted before, the dish is served with baked potatos, and i chose a Calamari salad which was excellent too, and a drink…the food came a bit late, but that because it was the first day for the waitress at work, she made a mistake and 3 different persons came and apologized for the food being late, which is a behavior i never seen in any Egyptian restaurant before.

After the meal, we had a tea with mint (the mint was not fresh they used ISIS, el 7ayah ba2et organic) i tried a Shisha mooz (banana), it was not as bad as i expected, the shisha itself was great, the flavor of banana is acceptable. All this costs 100LE, which i paid happily.

It was around 10:00pm, and there was a party starting at midnight for 35LE , everyone recommended it, so we decided to hang around in the city a bit, go pack our stuff at the hotel, checkout, attend the party then head to Taba.

Well, long story short, we fell asleep while packing and we missed the party, i woke up at 5:30am, trying to wake up my friend who was like a dead zombie, refusing to wakeup.

I take my shower and have a freshly baked Cinnamon roll with nescafe at the bakery (i just love that bakery, Leila’s bakery its called – they also have a Sushi party every week or so, it was on Sunday this week and i couldn’t attend it) we then headed to Taba.

To be continued….

So, am planning my weekend trip to Sharm – Dahab & Taba… am planning to go sharm thursday night (attend the House Nation at Pacha) then head to Dahab in the morning, spend the day, go Taba and then head back to Cairo Saturday night.
It’s insane, i know…but i will do it anyway

I want to visit Ras Satan, the Blue hole and Ras Abu Galoum, but I don’t think i will have time, we’ll see how it goes.

And here I am today, trying to plan my trip, specially that every minute counts, am spending less than 3 days in 3 different places… so i found some really nice websites that could help you guys around:

Hostel World, did any one knew that you can get a room (B&B) in Dahab for less than 30LE\day? they have A\C too….same as sharm(i think it was around 60-70le)

And the places seems really nice too…and clean…next time you plan a crazy vacation, visit this site.

second thing is WIKImapia  its really nice, its a google map, with tags and wiki functions

you can highlight any place in the globe and put tags and describe the place….

It helped me a lot  understand the geography of the places i’ll go to and discovering a few good spots and chill out places i’ll be going to (e.g. Open Air disco tech in Dahab open on Friday’s how would i know such info without you my love (am talking to the internet here, not YOU offcourse!!! i hate you!! and you know that too!!!!no reason, but i do)

See you when i get back