Gulf of Aqaba...

Exhausted...but happy.

Our last stop in Egypt is Dahab - a sleepy little diving town on the red sea  Its beautiful here and we spent the afternoon researching dive shops and exploring the board walk. We've set up two dives for tomorrow - really excited!!

Borrowing someone's laptop on the beach right now. Currently sitting on a cushion eating delicious baba ganough and preparing to play some backgamon. Tonight will be an early night because we travelled for 24 hours from Luxor to to get ´to St. Katherines (Tam's official verdict is that all Egyptian trains suck...but I definitely recomment the sleeper train over first class)  and then were up at 1:30 am to climb Mt Sinai - which was totally worth it! The weather was perfect for the hike and the sunrise was great. Somehow Tam and I managed to squeeze our way into one of the most perfect spots for the event.There were tons of people on the mountain and when the sun came up many were singing and praying. Totally sureal experience. Its crazy that we arrived in St Katherines in complete darkness, hiked up the mountain with hundreds of people with just flashlights in complete darkeness and then when the sun comes up you realize youre in this huge mountain range that goes on for miles. We could look down and see the path that wed used to snake our way up the mountain (before getting to the summit using 750 steps). For the trip back down we took a different path - 3650 stone steps put in place by the local Bedouins. A really great experience and definitely recommended.

Getting to Dahab was a bit of a disaster. I definitely yelled at some Egyptians today. I think Ive finally reached my haggling breaking point. The amount they were trying to change us to get here was outrageous and at one point one guy even lied to get us into his cab so we'd miss the opportunity to get a cheaper ride with someone else. Its a well coordinated operation among the drivers (using cell phones and stalking tactics)to take the travellers for as much money as possible. We finally ended up with a ride we were semi happy with and just gave up. When we got here I told the driver he had better go and get some tip money from his buddies - because he wasnt getting from us. Yeah...I probably needed a nap at that point.

Anyway, we made it and its exactly like wed hoped it would be. For the next two days we plan to do some diving, hang out on the beach (smoke some sheesha hehe) and meet some of the people staying in Dahab (this will likely also entail participating in some of the nightlife...something we've definitely been missing).

Location: Dahab
Temperature at 6 pm: 24