So Close to Saudi Arabia

All done here in Dahab, Egypt.  I've spent our four days here diving with the nice people from Fantasea.  Here's a site if you're interested that lists some of the dives around here.  The best dive for me was the dive from "The Bells" to the "Blue Hole".  After going under water, you drop down a crack about 2-3 persons wide and descend to 30 meters or so.  Around there is a little arch you swim under.  Then it's around a corner to the right and you're along a huge 90 meter vertical wall of reef.  The deepest I'm able to go is 30 meters though, but we passed over a few technical divers quite a bit lower down.  I also dove "The Canyon" twice, once really early in the morning before any one else was even near the site as well as another dive near there simply called "Canyon Right."  "Um Sid" is also mentioned on that page above, and we did the "Golden Blocks" near that location as well.

I spent 3 dives on the training reef "Lighthouse" to get my advanced certification.  It's a little boring there, but one was a night dive.  Being down there when it's completely dark is amazing!  There are little plankton in the sea that glow in the dark when you wave your hands back and forth very much like a special effect.  It's really something to see when you shut off your flashlight and hard to believe it's not a cartoon.

Otherwise it was pretty crowded at the really popular sites, but the less well-known spots were nearly empty.  Of course, they're not as spectacular but neither are the popular sites when you can barely swim for fear of running into another diver.  Oh, and I also have to mention the "Canyon Right" dive...  After swimming out in water about 15 meters deep or so, you come to a reef cliff that you more or less launch yourself over and free descend to 30 meters.  That is definitely the closest thing to flying I've experienced.

And of course, we end each day watching the sun cast a red glow on the shore of Saudi Arabia, just 20 or so kilometers away.

Greetings from the Deep.

We're off to Morocco tomorrow!  First person to guess what this is (if you can even make it out) wins a prize.

The Sights and Sounds of Egypt

We've been here in Egypt for a little over a week now.  About half of our time was spent in Cairo and the other, slightly larger half here in Luxor.  The heat this time of the year is stupendous and some monuments we've visited are listed among the hottest places in the world!  Egypt itself has a very well developed tourist infrastructure.  In fact it's so well developed that it's hard to catch much else going on in the country other than in Cairo.  

The Pyramids of Giza are located just outside of Cairo, and it's hard to believe just how close the suburbs of the city have come.  It's also hard to believe that you're there when you're there, and they are truly amazing to see.  The other big stop in Cairo is the Egyptian Museum which is more of a stock pile of unlabeled and fascinating ancient artifacts.  The best thing to see there (and the only thing actually cared for) are the mummies.  Well worth the extra US$ 20.

Luxor is the ancient capital of Egypt (or at least for a while) and there are truly spectacular ruins and tombs to see here.  The Valley of the Kings is probably #1 on the travel site list but I found Deir el-Bahri to be nearly as amazing as the pyramids themselves.  Medinat Habu was another very interesting stop and our last on the West Bank here was the Colossi of Menmom (spelling?) that I can't seem to find the link to at the moment.

We were lucky to find a good taxi driver that took us to see the exact places we requested.  Of course, this wasn't without some hassle from a guide and a bunch of people claiming to be our driver's brother (also happened to be filling in for him).  Sure enough, our driver was always exactly where he said he would be.

Not much else to report other than I've made friends with the guys at the local internet cafe playing Fifa (a soccer video game).  Off to Sinai tonight to start some more diving tomorrow!  I'm hoping to complete an advanced course so I will be able to have guided dives to 30 meters (100 feet).  Hurray!

Adios.

Conflict Zone Flyover and Pictures

Greetings from Zurich! I can't believe I'm here either. En route to our 3 hour layover, we had a short tour of some of the worst conflict zones in Africa. As we departed Tanzania, we may have been able to see small Rwanda just on the left of the horizon. A little past that, and you're in the Congo. As we flew north, we entered (and stopped over in) Kenya which has had recent turbulence. Departing Nairobi carried us north just past the edge of bordering Somalia and into Sudan. Happy times!

In other news, I've taken the time here to upload pictures from India through Tanzania.

And we're back in Dar for a couple of days. A short flight from Zanzibar carried us to the Selous Game Reserve in southeastern Tanzania. What an experience it was... I'm not sure what was better, animals in the wild (of which we intimately saw many) or having an espresso while overlooking the Rufiji River at our spectacularly rustic (yet elegant) camp.

Day #1

Depart Zanzibar at about 8 AM and arrive to the camp (after a few stopovers) around 9:30 AM. From there, we had a guide and driver pick us and one other couple up and proceed to take us into the wild of the reserve. Unfortunately, we didn't see much that first trip, and I was beginning to worry a little about the extravagant cost vs. lack of sight of any other living things... The morning ended as we pulled to our camp and had a personal greeting from one of the managers. We arrived into tent #2, a good ways from the main dining and reception area. Inside we found all the luxuries you would never expect to have in "the bush:" a huge bed, running water, flush toilet, hot (kind of) shower, and 24-hour electricity. As we settled in, we watched an elephant eating in the river about 50 feet away. Things were definitely starting to look much more positive!

After what I swear is the best meal I've had in the country (ingredients arrive 1 time a week after an 8-hour drive from Dar by the way), pork skewers with a light peanut sauce, we headed out for our afternoon activity: a boat safari on the Rufiji. Along the way, we had our first real experience of the wildlife as giraffes, elephants, impalas, and birds of all sorts congregated around the river. We floated past dozens of hippos and crocodile and wrapped it up watching the sun set over the wilderness.

Dinner was nearly as good as the lunch. Champagne was available FYI, though we passed on it.

Day #2

The day started around 7 AM with a wake up "call" which is a camp staffer personally waking you up in your tent and bringing tea, coffee, or whatever it is you've asked for the night before. We had arranged for a walking safari, not possible in the Serengeti mind you, which had to start early because of the heat. In total our camp had 6 or so tents, and all the safaris are capped at 6 guests total. As it happened, this was our only safari that actually had a full group of 6! On top of that, we had our guide and the armed ranger along for the walk.

We were fortunate to happen upon a family of elephants that didn't seem to see us for a good while. Otherwise, we had a relatively uneventful walk. You do get to experience a different side of the wilderness though, just taking it easy. We emerged after a few hours to a surprise breakfast setup under the trees, a really nice touch.

After lunch and a nap, we headed out for another game drive around 4 PM. We hadn't seen many of the big animals like lions, etc. so we were a bit discouraged on that front though lots of free espresso helps. As it happened, we had the driver and guide all to ourselves for our final afternoon safari. We just finished hanging out with a pride of hippos when we got a radio call informing us of a pride of lions. Though the site was quite a ways away and it was starting to get a little late, our guides decided we couldn't leave without seeing at least something more exciting than giraffes and sped off without much further consideration.

We were lucky to have such accommodating guides. Along the way, we spotted a 2-week old giraffe where you could still see the umbilical cord hanging from it's stomach. After that, we stopped to watch a few wild dogs napping in the bush. They're limited to about 4000 in the wild worldwide, much rarer than lions, so that was a great treat. The guides mentioned seeing them only 1 or 2 times a month. Finally, we arrived at the lion site where a dead wildebeest was a long way gone into the stomachs of the pride. It's amazing how close you can come to the lions without them moving or even acknowledging you, even while they are eating. At most, we were 10 feet away in our open-sided car. After sitting mesmerized for a while, we had to race back to the camp as we had only 2 minutes to beat the park-wide vehicle curfew... This against a 45 minute, bumpy drive back! Needless to say, we made it back well after dark but extremely grateful that the staff had gone out of the way to help us see really rare animals.

Day #3
After the excitement of the last day, I didn't think anything else would really compare. As I made my way back to our tent to pick up Emilie after breakfast, I came around a bend in the bush to see her standing perfectly still but with her eyes quite wide in shock. She squeaked out to me and pointed... As I peeked around the last tree, I noticed the camp's resident hippo, Andrea, standing just under the tent next to ours.

You see, hippos are quite dangerous. Apparently, they can run up to 35 km/h and like to charge you when you get too close. We called our resident Masai guard over, and he was even kind enough to let us play for just a bit with the hippo. By play, I mean walk close enough until it started to get upset at which point he raised his stick (not gun or even a knife) to discourage the 2 ton hippo from attacking us... It was a great, exhilarating few minutes! Surprisingly the stick was quite effective.

We left the camp a few minutes later and caught our flight back to Dar Es Salaam.

Alive and Now Able to Breath Underwater

Dear blog: Yes, it's been almost a month since I wrote to you, but we had a long detour from our "rough" travels to relax in South Africa. If I told you how many days we spent lazing at a nice cafe or just hiking up Table Mountain (well I did do it one day) in Cape Town, you'd be embarrassed for us I think. Nonetheless, we packed our bags regretfully and made it all the way up to Tanzania. And I'm glad that we did. Zanzibar is our home at the moment. We've just returned to the main city from 5 nights on the beach at Matemwe. For those interested we stayed at Nyota Beach Bungalows, which is actually a little nicer than they manage to make it look on their website. The beachfront room is definitely worth a little extra though Emilie successfully negotiated a small discount. Unfortunately, something of similar quality is much further out of our price range here in Zanzibar Town.

Now the job is to organize a safari on short notice and hopefully fly directly out of Zanzibar rather than needing to return to Dar Es Salaam. We spent two nights there and managed to see pretty much everything that I think there is to see in one afternoon. Not really, but we were mightily hassled trying to buy ferry tickets to Zanzibar and we were stopped by the police since apparently a known thief was following us. He seemed like a nice guy to me... Anyways, we're hoping to check out the Selous Game Reserve as we hear that it's very uncrowded but still amazing as opposed to the Serengeti. Unfortunately that means we'll miss Kilimanjaro and obviously the Serengeti itself, but I think I can safely say that I'd like to visit Tanzania again at some point.

Matemwe was an amazing beach. The sand was nearly white and really felt like powder... When you walked on the wet part as the waves came in and out it was really like walking on a sponge. The water was crystal clear, turquoise and warm. I was a bit amazed to see that a beach you might find in pictures really existed without a touch of digital enhancing. It's a bit upmarket, not a backpacker party beach as well which made our time even more relaxing and enjoyable. In the morning, you can walk along the beach and watch local women collecting seaweed that has collected near the shore. At night, you can see almost every star in the sky. The tide swallows all of the beach around dinner time, perfectly cleaning it up for the next day.

I spent almost all of my time at the beach learning to scuba dive. I am officially a PADI open water diver now, which means I've got 4 whole dives under my belt and about 10 hours of reading, video watching, and exams... This compared to my instructor that mentioned in passing an old piece of equipment that held up for his first 3000 dives or so. Anyways, it's a different universe underwater, and I'm glad that I can check it out now. It's a bit like flying and a bit like just being one of the fish, especially when you float a foot from a school of 100 or so. The diving at the beach was great I believe, and I'm told that the fish life here is among the best in the world. The second day even included a very brief snorkel with some dolphins that passed near our boat. Luckily our next stop is Egypt which supposedly is even better along the Red Sea.

Internet is slow and expensive here, so I'll keep "getting around" to uploading pictures... Baadaye!