Egypt 2007 - B. and M. from Jeddah, KSA

Yes, i decided to dedicate an entire post to these two guys from Jedda, South Arabia.

They were staying at our same hotel and the first day while i was reading my book (Mille splendidi soli....beautiful book about Afghanistan) on the beach they showed up and sat next to us.

At first i did not pay much attention at them bacasue i was all into my reading but then after swimming i started talking to them...

B. is more lively but also M. is a good talker once he gets more confortable.
We made plans to meet up at night for a drink and a chat.

So we all went out, my friend, i and them.

First we walked to Nama Bay which was actually very closed to the hotel and we chose a nice arabic bar where we could sit on the floor on pillows and where everybody was smoking Hashisha (i hope i spelled it right...).
We assisted to a ballydance show....i really like arabic music actually. It reminded me a lot about Kan Zaman where i used to work when i lived in SF.

We had a good talk and a nice time. We switched ideas and information about our culture and their culture.

I never met anybody from South Arabia.
These guys were such getlemen, kind people and very educated.

They basically adopted me for two days and i really felt good with them.

YOU GUYS ROCK.
I WISH U THE BEST AND I HOPE OUR PATHS WILL CROSS AGAIN ONE DAY.

Egypt 2007- Sharm el Sheik

Well, as u all know by now i won this trip through my job last spring.
I finally decided to take it this first week of september.
I invited my friend Noel from SF. I thought it would have been a good experience for her to see such a different country.

I liked Sharm. It is a small Egyptian Vegas...A small oasis in the middle of the desert.
Got very popular towards italians in the last few years....infact the little town is packed with italians.
To tell you the truth it is crowded of Russians as well....they are as many as italians...Gosh, Russians are way to white for me.

We took a couple of very nice trips inside the trip:=))

*One was the hike up on the Mt. Sinai. The place is amazing and very spiritual...
We got on top of the mountin to see the sunrise. The walk was at night, starting around 1 am.

We met a few beduins..they have such a hard life.
They work all day in the heat...walk up and down that mountin sometime twice a day.
Our guide was one of them. He is a 18 yr old boy, grew up in a village 3 kilometers from the mountin. He lived all his life there.
He walks every day from his house to the mountin and climbs it....pretty tiring isn't it? I guess he'll never have heart problems since he works out so much.
These experiences always make me realize how lucky i am. Too many people in the world still suffer from poverty...way too many.

We took a camel for part of the hike...they are huge animals.
Mine was soo aggressive (i liked him though). He would knock over people...i was scared he would hurt someone.
The funny thing is that people would be annoyed at me because my camel would walk them over without knowing i had no control at all over the animal...it was not my fault:=(((((

The sunrise was really amazing.
Those mountins changed colors with the sun coming up 'till becoming reddish...
So you could see the red colour of the mountins touching the blu colour of the sky...and the moon still shining up there!!!

On the way back we took a short cut down until we reached the St. Cathrine monastery (around 9 in the morning).
AT this point i was exhausted so since i have been there before i went to sleep on a chair, waiting for the rest of my group.

*The other short trip inside the trip was Ras Mohammed, a marine park, where i actually went by myself becasue my friend did not want to come.
It was a pretty funny, weird day.
Arrived to Sharm Harbour we got boarded right away on our boat/yaght called Ever Green.

The sad thing is that there were, and i am not kidding, at least 30 big boats there loaded with tourists. I mean this natural park can not take so many people...the barrier reef is probably seriously damaged by now....

We arrived to the first spot where we jumped in the water.
Our guide wore a thick wetsuit. I asked him if the water was cold and he actually said that the water would have been hot...(so why was he wearing such a thick wet suit???).

We jumped in the water. It was dark blue and pretty deep. We swam next to a reef wall.
Corals were nice but not as nice as the ones i saw in AUstralia, and not as big.
We saw a few nice fishes, a napoleon fish as well ( the one i saw in Australia was much bigger).
After twenty minutes it was pretty cold...our boat was really far and the guide told the captain to come and pick us up after 30 minutes...So we had 10 more minutes in the water.

After 40 minutes everybody was cold and the boat wouldn't come back....
At that point we were actually very cold. I was shivering myself.
The guide started waiving at our boat but nothing....finally another boat, a diving boat saw us and came to rescue us.

They brought us to our boat and only then we realized our boat had broken down. The engine was dead.
We were stuck in the middle of Red Sea. The diving boat towed us for a while. Then our boat's engine started working again but at that point we all decided it would have been better to go back to the hotel since we already got really cold.
This last one was not what i expected but i enjoyed it anyway.

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Egypt 2007-going to Ras Mohammed

Mt. Sinai and Santa Cathrine Monastery

Egypt, Mt.Sinai

Egypt 2007-sunrise on Mt. Sinai