Wearing cool aviator sunglasses, a spotless white not-quite-buttoned-up shirt and a pair of khaki capris, 19-year-old Mohammad is globalization personified. "Habibi," he says, flashing an easy grin, "put down your bag, relax and drink something. There is no need to hurry." At this point, I had been at Penguin Village for all of 20 seconds, and in Dahab for about 10 minutes. Ten metres ahead of me, the Egyptian Red Sea gently lapped against the rocky barrier that shielded the outdoor bar from the elements, and I paused, considered the suggestion, and decided that after a four-hour bus ride across the scorching Sinai Peninsula, Mohammad made a very good case. "And my room?" I asked, still a little weary from the breakneck back-of-a-Toyota-pickup taxi ride from the bus station. "You will sleep in the palm tree room," he grinned again. "And do not worry, you will like it." The bar itself was a wild mixture of palm fronds, soft carpets and giant cushions. It was two hours later, still on my back, when I made the executive decision to stand up long enough to carry my backpack to my room. Sure enough, up the stairs and some 30 seconds away, the promised palm tree went right through the tile floor, entering through a hole next to the bed and exiting through a similar opening in the ceiling. Mohammad was still smiling, the sky was perfect, and the only thing that betrayed the passage of time was a slight change in the tide. And if the beginning of my stay in Dahab sounds idyllic, I can only offer that it got better with time. Located on the western shore on the Gulf of Aqaba some 80 kilometres north of the internationally renowned resort of Sharm-el-Sheikh, the Red Sea backpacker mecca is as close to perfect as it gets. Despite the lack of a pristine sandy beach so associated with tropical paradise, the blazing sun, the spotless sky, the warm and clear water and a lax attitude toward the milder western vices all come together to create the ultimate "black hole," where a scheduled three-day stop can easily turn into a month-long stay. At the nexus of hippie culture and Bedouin sensibility, Dahab's collection of beachfront cafes offers a much better vibe than the noisy nightclubs of Sharm. The crowd is a comfortable mix of divers, wind-sailing enthusiasts, hippies, backpackers and weekenders from Cairo, with Arabic, English, Spanish and German all coexisting peacefully between the cushions in the cafes. Here, the famous Bedouin hospitality seems far more natural and subdued than in Sharm, with little guesthouses, hostels and camps dominating the tourist landscape. The local Bedouins like Mohammad laugh, cajole and facilitate, and since Dahab is the gateway to both desert adventure and some of the best diving in the world, it's usually an easy sell. Having stumbled onto Dahab completely blind, I was in the mood for a sales pitch, but it was an exuberant Swiss traveller who got to me first. "You have to see the Blue Hole," he said, stretched out on the cushions across from me. "Even if you're just snorkelling around, you wouldn't think something like this was even possible." The Blue Hole has a reputation as one of the most wondrous dive sites in the world, which, sadly, illustrates just how much I knew about diving coming into Dahab. "I don't care if you haven't dived in years," he insisted. "You cannot come to this place and miss it." For the uninitiated, the Blue Hole is a pothole -- think of an inverted cave -- which shelters a ring of coral reef from the tides of the Red Sea. The opening is 70 metres wide and sits just barely below the surface of the water only a few moments away from the rocky shore. One can wade up to the ledge of the sea shelf in knee-deep water before the bottom drops out incredibly quickly to a maximum depth of around 110 metres. The site is widely known as one of the region's best spots, but also one of the world's most dangerous, due to multiple fatalities of inexperienced divers drawn by the siren call of "the Arch." The Arch is a unique feature of the Blue Hole, making it an absolute must-try destination for experienced divers. A 26-metre-long tunnel connecting the pothole with the open sea at a depth of around 60 metres, it is notoriously difficult to find and to navigate. | | Although the Egyptian authorities are not keen to keep track, rumours persist that as many as 100 people have perished there in recent years, which, of course, made my eyes go wide with wonder on the Jeep ride from Dahab. The site itself is only a few kilometres out of town and one can easily arrange for a trip to the Blue Hole, the Canyon, the Eel Garden or any number of other Red Sea or desert destinations around Dahab. Each guesthouse has a driver who makes the trip each day and our driver, Jamal, took great pleasure in flying at breakneck speeds along the rocky shore of the Red Sea, laughing with delight at each expletive uttered by the tourists in the back. Still, 30 minutes after leaving my cushions, I was ready for a glimpse of the abyss. Because the depth of the Arch forces divers to use a reduced nitrogen mixture, and because the strong sea currents sometimes make the tunnel difficult to navigate quickly, forcing subsequent decompression, the dive should only be attempted by experienced and disciplined divers. Of course, being neither, I chose to snorkel. A bit of a letdown? Not at all, although I'm sure it would have made for better reading if I conquered the Arch, saved a sea creature and got the girl. Instead, I had to settle for a wonderful introduction to some of the northernmost fully developed coral reefs in the world. Since the water in the Red Sea is perfectly clear, and the salt content makes staying on the surface incredibly easy, I could swim around the circular rim of the Blue Hole exploring the rich coral and its amazing undersea inhabitants with little effort. Just below the surface, a shimmering mountain of spongy soft coral reflected every colour imaginable under the glare of the desert sun, while schools of tropical fish darted to and fro in search of plankton. From the depths, the experienced divers exhaled their oxygen, nitrogen and helium bubbles and some searched for the elusive arch, with its promise of thrill, wonder and bragging rights. Hours later, after another thrilling ride with the jovial Jamal, I was back on the comfortable cushions with the sweet scent of water pipe tobacco floating through the air. Here, tales were recounted, photos exchanged and encounters with venomous fish lionized to epic proportions. After the tide moved in and the sun set, Mohammad sat down with me to practise his English and we turned to music, girls and all the other urgent topics that teenagers and 20-somethings discuss the world over. A couple of hours later, wearing the same easy grin with which he'd originally greeted me, Mohammad began to tell me about Dahab. Although his own days were not as idyllic as mine, the conversation was filled with high notes, with tales of Bedouin tribes traversing the desert, the uneasy politics of the region and the creeping tourist trade all changing the matrix of opportunity for the younger generation. "I love it here in this place," he said wistfully, "and as long as it stays like this, I will not ever leave." Looking across the gulf at the glimmering lights of Saudi Arabia, the young Bedouin hippie got up, stretched his back, and repeated a mantra so natural to his native Dahab. "I wish everyone in the world would stop fighting and visit me here," he said, sounding equal parts like a western backpacker and a Bedouin raised in a culture of unyielding hospitality. "Don't you agree?" SOURCE - Calgary HeraldSCUBA FORUMDISCUSS THIS TOPIC - Dive in and have your say at Scuba Forum |
