Dahab, Cairo, and the last beach

Mon, 6 May 2002 11:50:29 +0900

It really is. From here on out it's all dry land. And only 2 weeks of that. Which I'm not too crazy about. Unfortunately, I don't see any good options. If I extend, I have to go somewhere not too expensive that isn't too expensive to reach and that I have some clue about what I am doing there. That leaves pretty much nowhere.

I looked at Turkey but I don't have much a handle on what I would do there. That makes the airfare from London a little hard to swallow.

It may not matter. I suspect that my return flight from London is only valid until May 31st. I haven't been able to verify yet though. That was part of today's plan which didn't quite work out because...

Did you know that today is a major Egyptian holiday? I didn't. The guide books feign ignorance as well. I still don't know which one. The last I heard it was some kind of spring feast. The first person said it was Easter, which made me feel pretty stupid for a while before it dawned on me that it couldn't possibly be Easter since it is May.

But, anyway, various business I was to do in Cairo didn't get done because virtually everything is closed. I could have stayed in Dahab another day.

I spent 6 days in Dahab, went on 8 dives and generally felt like an idiot on the first 7. Next time I will take an advanced course and shake the rust out in the class. (Can you stack Advanced PADI on top of Open Water WASI?). I did pretty much all the well known dive sites near Dahab. I didn't make it to any of the remote sites. My one day out on a boat (to Gaber Bint) flopped due to some confusion over was to load the gear and what had been done. Generally, the diving is better than Zanzibar/Stone Town and less than 2/3 the price.

So that's the past in reverse. Switching into forward, it gets rather fast from here on out. The schedule looks something like this:

May 7 @ 2:45am Fly Cairo to Johannesburg/Pretoria
May 8 - May 11 4-day safari in Kruger NP
May 12 @ 11:15pm 12.5 hour bus ride to Masvingo
May 13/14 Masvingo and Great Zimbabwe
May 15 @ 1:45am 12.5 hour bus ride back to Pretoria
May 15 ~8:00pm Fly Jo'burg -> London
May 16 - 21 London, Bath, Stone Henge and whatever
May 21 London -> St. Louis