In deciding on how to transport myself to the dive mecca of Dahab on the eastern side of the Sinai pinnensula, just a camel's spit away from Saudi, I weighed the pros and cons of flights (the sole carrier Egyptian Air was at least slightly more reliable than, say, Uzbekistan air, and I am sure that I'd not get cholera from the falafel, tho I'd still be paying more than a decent bedoiun dowry), versus the other enticing option of squeezing into one of the ubiquitous"superjet" busses, the name at least implied that it would be more timely than heading east with the salt traiders. As the nearby mosque was finishing up the second of the morning prayers, I arrived at some random bus station at the recommendation of the cab driver who's english was just sufficient to understand my charades gestures indicating I wanted to get to the place with steering wheels and tires (I was considering adding in something about begin squashed in with the goats and sacks of dried chickpeas, but was not sure that the charades rules were the same here in Egypt). I bought a ticket to Sharm-el-Sheik, simply to get out of the chaos of Cairo, eventhough there was a direct bus to Dahab 3 hours later -- figuring that I could wait for that connector wherever they dropped me off in the desert. Sitting down at the "cafe" which consisted of some faded plastic tables which were reserved for cafe customers (and for which I was reprimanded for sitting at later during the wait), I ordered a mint tea to sip while reading the book "Avoiding prison and other noble vacation goals", after which I paid my bill to find that the price of the tea was nearly that of my bus ticket! They getcha getcha getcha one way or another.

With a blaring of horns, and only a moderate stop of about 45 minutes at some gas station for the driver to eat a sandwich and chain smoke a pack of stinking cigarettes, we launched off into the red rust of the desert with her rough contours rolling into infinity, stopping only to present my passport at military checkpoints around the Suez canal, and continued southeast along the clear inviting blue waters of the Red Sea. On and on under the blazing sun with the AC only taking the edge off of the heat while the cheezy machismo egyptian films blared away.



As expected, I got stuck at the bus station near Sharm for a couple hours while waiting for the next bus from Cairo to catch up, which turned out to be fortuitous, as I met three other really interesting Americans -- Paisley, Sam, and Alex, the latter two of which had even been to burning man! So once again, a merry crew out in the vast ocean of the flat and unforgiving desert, cruising on carefree chatting about software development, zen buddhism, and comparing the madness of traffic in third world metropolises across the globe.



Pulling into the Dahab bus station late in the disorienting evening, we all just jumped in the back of the first truck willing to give us a ride into the resort area for an Egyptian Pound apiece (about $0.16), so we zoomed off into the night, giggling when we realized that noone had specified a destination for the driver, and furthermore noone really cared where we ended up. Chance and circumstance, and perhaps the backsheeh offered to the driver by the hotel curators, brought us to the "Penguin resort", a full scale dive center / restaurant / hotel / massage parlor directly on the beach, lacking only the bike rentals, souvenir stand, and high-speed internet -- all of which could easily be aquired with only a 30 second walk along the strip, passing by falafel stands and used book stores on the way.



Settling for a cheapo room (knowing that after the cardboard backpacker ghettos that I endured in rural china while delirious with dysentary and only a trough in which to shit, this would be as comfortable as a camel trek in giza), we negotiated the pricing for dives tomorrow, and crashed out after signing our next of kin away to the PADI beaurocrats, stating that we've never had decompression sickness, subcutaneous emphysemia, or a hangnail that might cause the aforementioned diving related injuries. (eventhough the latter of the two was exactly what I had incurred while cave diving in Florida ... but that is just between you and I and whoever else has the (mis)fortune of sumbling across this whimsical blog...)



Some people are accusing me of being a dive snob, which I must agree to since when asked how the dive was, I tend to say it was good, but nothing like the Indonesian treasures of Lembeh, Bunaken, and Komodo. Ah well... still getting wet and looking at amazing fish that are often so dense that they obsure visibility!



And there are some of the most large and beautiful christmas tree worms that I have ever seen -- and of course I giggle in boyish delight (as much as you can with a regulator in your mouth) each time that I swoosh water at the worm and it sicks itself into it's shell in a flash.



In the evenings, after taking a necessary "disco nap", I've been cruising out to the dance clubs to boogey down inside the big boat with the best beats in town.





Live has pleasantly slipped into the routine of waking for a breakfast of falafel sandwiches, diving, reading, diving, more falafel, napping, dancing, and sleep. Intermittently there are joys of watching the divemaster pausing at a cleaning station where the fish did not discriminate between his mouth and that of the other pelagics, and decided to go in for a feast:



With wonderful diving like this, I will definitely stick around for a while -- geez, where else do you get to see the garden eels poking their shy heads out of their sandy holes to dance in the current?



And what fun to dive in the blue hole swim-throughs!