17. A bit of diving, a bit of climbing

Dahab is the sort of typical tourist town that has everything on offer: from fake Crocs to Billabong swim shorts, from fresh fish to burgers and from resorts to cheap hostels. Kosta and I are staying in Seven Heaven, a hostel near the sea side (I can’t say beach side ‘cos there is not really a beach in Dahab, well I wouldn’t call it a beach) where we can park our car safely inside. The hostel has a gate they close while everyone takes their beauty sleep and a guard at night to keep an eye on all the diving equipment. We don’t have any prejudices, or maybe we do a little LOL, but now that we are in Egypt we might need to be a bit more careful with the car. And so, for the first time in two months we sleep in a room with a mattress that does not need to be pumped up at night. ;)

MacGyver busy again

Dahab is known for its superb diving and so Kosta and I are looking forward to doing three splashes under the sea. Our first dive is near the lighthouse. Plenty of fish to see there and even an octopus! I tell you people, that is one amazing animal! The way it moves is just to funky for words! Fascinating! The next day we are off for some more water fun: a dive at the canyon and one at the Blue Hole. Both dives go down to about 30 meters. And the lower you go, the more air you use. For some reason I have ended up using so much air on the first dive that I have to ‘buddy breathe’. For those not familiar with diving: I have to breathe via the extra ‘breathing tube’ of the dive master. Sharing a bit of air under water. So there I am, arm in arm with our Egyptian dive master. Never dived like that before but a first time for everything!

Our second dive of that day is my favourite. We enter the water and immediately we decent head straight down to 30 meters. Just love it! This time no need for any buddy breathing. We dive towards the Blue Hole which is about I don’t know how many meters deep, but trust me you don’t see the end of it!


After a couple of days we head off to the monastery of Saint Katherine and to Mount Sinai, the holy mountain where Moses was given the 10 commandments. For many tourists it is a must do and for some it is even a spiritual journey (or maybe just a break from lazy beach bumming), for me it is more a not so must do. Now why would I get up at 4 in the morning to hike on a mountain where loads of tourists have spend the night to watch the sunrise in the morning while I could be sleeping? You see my point?! Kosta however is in a more sporty mood and before the sun has given any sign of coming up, he is on his way to the top. I, obviously, turn around and sleep a couple of hours more in The Cruiser. And although for most people it is a two to three hours way up, Kosta arrives back down three hours later. Good thinking not to go along, I wouldn’t want to wait for him all the time. ;)