Leaving Ancient Egypt behind, we moved up the coast to the Sinai Peninsula, to the spot where we planned to dive into the Red Sea. The town where we stayed, Dahab, is a sort of Thailand-esque backpackers’ sty. We had to use all of our most advanced ninja travel skillz to avoid getting ripped off here. Everything was grossly overpriced to cater to the European bourgeois who frequent here in the grossly tiny bathing suits - prancing around almost as if oblivious to the lewdness of their own displayed junk.
We found a decently priced hotel, which we thought looked nice and clean for the price. Yet, we ended up with bed bug bites all over our body, spiced with a little bit of mosquito bites on the parts of our bodies not covered by our blankets. The hot water never worked, we didn’t get any toilet paper or towels, and there were so many cockroaches that when we left we had to go through our bags to eradicate them (there were three, one inside of Alex’s toiletries bag - yuck!)
So, it was even more wonderful and pristine to escape the wretchedness of humanity and slip into the cool Red Sea and it’s underwater wonderland. Each day we rented snorkels, masks and fins for one dollar each for the whole day. We then walked over to the reef, slipped our feet into the fins and plopped awkwardly in the water. We did this with the looming truth that our travels are coming to an end and this is probably the last time we’ll be in this altered Eden for quite a long while. This fact just made my attention even more rapt and my endurance unending. We swam in endless circles, bobbing with the waves and examining our fish-kin. As I ebbed with the tides and the sacred Sinai mountains blazed red in the distance, I was wishing this wasn’t the end of era.
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