Knocking my Knees on the Bottom
Written: Nov 10 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Unbelievable scenery, wonderful underwater life, great trips
Cons: Longish transfer from airport
The Bottom Line: Good value for money, extreme chill-out, great places to visits, wonderful sea life
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| suetoo's Full Review: Egypt |
Hi guys, me again and just back from my latest mid life crisis.
Hubs and me have been to Egypt 3 times previously. Once to El Alamein and twice to Nuweiba and this was our fourth trip back, once again to Nuweiba.
First off though let me just say this about El Alamein which we went to 3 years ago. Originally we were supposed to actually land at El Alamein airfield but as we were delayed and would have to land in the dark and it had no runway lights we were diverted to Alexandria. El Alamein itself is almost non-existent and apart from lots of new building going on along this mediterranean shoreline there really was nothing else. Even Alexandria International Airport only had 5 or 6 flights per week and you can see the airport employees cycling in with the tea urn as you pull up on your tranfer bus and see them cycling back out again as we taxi'd onto the runway prior to take-off (so no Heathrow or JFK then).
The one good thing about this resort though was that you can actually visit Cairo for a day trip from here without having to fly or do a Nile cruise.
Anyhow back to Nuweiba.
We do like to chill out and found Nuweiba by chance. Its a small Beduoin village between Taba in the North of the Sinai at the Israeli border and Sharm in the south. There are very few hotels there and a lot have been started and then left when the recession hit and money ran out. Apart from the Coral Hilton which is the biggest hotel in the area we found a gem of a hotel called Swisscare owned by Alvin, who with his wonderful staff make you feel like you are staying at a family home. This is a really relaxed place with double rooms in white blocks running either side of a 4-leaf clover shaped pool and with a small restuarant where you get a set 4 course evening menu (you can request alternatives if you don't like the menu). Lunch can be served on the lovely sandy beach overlooking the coral reef and across the water is Saudi Arabia.
Anyhow, three months before going, while I was still deciding how many Paticia Cornwell and Martina Cole books I could read in two weeks, Hubs drops his bombshell.
"I've decided I want to try to scuba dive".
Stunned silence from me. It took me 5 years to learn to snorkel. You see unfortunately, I can't stand my face getting wet. I go in the shower and put the shower cap over my face not my hair, it rains and I've got a paperbag over my head (well only if I've forgotten my brolley), I only swim breast stroke so I can keep my head well out of the water, that's how bad I am. I practiced in the bath, sink, puddles etc before I finally bit the bullet and mastered the for me terrifying art of snorkelling. So you can imagine how I felt. Absolutely scared stiff. Come on, I hear you say, you're not the one doing it , but you are absolutely wrong because despite his faults, I love Hubs dearly and if he goes off by himself diving, I will not know a moments peace until his head pops out of the water again. So best I go with him, just to make sure he's OK.
Before I lost my nerve, we had completed our theory and swimming pool dives in the UK and armed with our referrals were to do our open water dives in the Red Sea, at the truly excellent African Diving Centre attached to the Swisscare Hotel. The owners Sarah (English) and Daniel (German) run an absolutely tight ship and are excellent teachers.
Following our first on shore lesson prior to our first dive and togged out in our less than glamorous wet suits, complete with unco-ordinated boots, fins, air and the other essentials we staggered down to the waters edge and swam out to the dive site. It was a master piece of total incompetence. Despite Sarah telling me exactly what to do i.e. let your air out slowly and float like a leaf down to the bottom, I let everything out at once, dropped like a stone, panicked and filled everything with air again and went straight back up. This is NOT how to do it. I was now convinced I would die of the bends and lost my nerve completely.
Anyhow, to cut a long story short, I did eventually get back in and spent the next two days bobbing up and down along the bottom on my kneees. And on one particular occasion when there was a current narrowly missing a stone fish (nasty critter) on some coral.
Despite all this, me and Hubs finally finished all our tasks and are both Open Water Divers and on our celebratory fun dive actually looked like proper divers, keeping fairly steady as we hovered over shoals of fish and saw rays and giants turtles.
The Sinai peninsula is a really lovely place to go. No visa required for visits below 15 days and a load of interesting places available to visit from here. We did a day trip to Petra from here and although it is an extremely long day, it really is worth while as it truly is one of the wonders of the world.
Another place to visit from here is Masada in Israel and the Dead Sea. Another long day but really interesting and you also experience mud baths and thermal springs.
We decided to climb Mount Sinai for sunrise. This is definetely not for the faint-hearted. Make sure you are fairly fit, have good walking shoes and plenty of fluids but you will be rewarded by a sight straight out of the Old Testament. St Catherines Monastery - that of the burning bush fame is available to visit if you are not too tired on the descent down.
Apart from these things to do, there are many beautiful canyons containing wonderful rock formations and colours within the rocks. The Coloured canyon is the most famous and normally very crowded but we visited the Red Canyon which was a half day trip from Nuweiba. We went with a local Beduoin who took us to a Beduoin family at the end of the canyon out in the desert who with great courtesy made us tea in exchange for a small monetary token. This was not a tourist site here and therefore no hard sell, gift shops etc, just a grandmother and her daughter and 2 gorgeous grand-children welcoming us to their home. We sat on a large coloured mat in the sand to drink our tea with camels tethered a few feet away. How amazing is that and the happiness on the childrens faces when we left a few Egyptian pounds for them and some sweets.
The Beduoin people are the locals in this area and are gradually being forced into complying with the Eyptian way of life. They do eke out a living in this landscape which is barren sand and rock but saying that tourism is helping them. We found that by going with them somewhere within the area, they were not only cheaper than the tour operators but gave the best experience and catered for smaller groups of us.
Nuweiba is roughly half way between Taba Airport and Sharm and we have done it from both. A few low cost airlines and soon BA I believe are flying into Sharm but the road distance is slightly longer, whereas we have recently flown in on Monarch to Taba which is a real experience. Taba originally an old Israeli military airport is on a plateau on top of the Sinai mountains. When you come into land, you still have desert under you when you are 50 feet above the ground and just before suddenly there is the runway. To take off, it is normally straight off the plateau and over the Red Sea, wow a real sight. The new road had been dynamited straight through the rock of the mountains and the descent takes about 10 - 15 minutes so you can see how high up you are.
The Swisscare Hotel is not for you if you require 20 different meal courses or complimentary bath oils, but is a medium budget friendly hotel, where there maybe as few as 10 guests and where you get a country club atmosphere, where people stop and talk to each other. The bar area is a bit sterile, but has a pool table, dart boad, TV so Alvin can watch his beloved football matches on Satelite and actually there is nothing that can beat sitting outside in the evening after a lovely meal with a glass of excellent wine and good company.
For snorkellers, the beach offers a walk in from the beach. There are no jetties, just walk off, swim through any of the 3 entry/exit points in the reef near the hotel and see an amazing sight. There are wonderful corals and loads of great fish to see and even a novice would not have a problem feasting their eyes on this amazing underwater world.
As for me. I'll be going back for my regular fix of scuba and snorkelling here. I'm just hoping that Hubs doesn't decide next time to take up hang-gliding in the Himalayas as I'm getting a bit too old to want to do that!!
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Couples
Best Time to Travel Here: Sep - Nov
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Epinions.com ID:
suetoo
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Member: Sue
Location: Ely, Nr Cambridge, England
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Travel maniac
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