We stayed in Dahab from then (friday) until Monday afternoon when we took the bus to Cairo. Dahab, was, as usual, very laid back and fun. We spent our time swimming, tanning, and drinking thickshakes at Al Capone's. It did get a little annoying having to fend off Sam at Al Capone's repeated requests to go out for a drink etc, but mostly we had a laugh.
We met an English guy called David who we hung out with a bit [insert at a later date under threat of serious pain: Dahab Dave was more than just some guy we met, he was really cool,even if he didn't know who the prime minister of Australia was, and he and Michelle became good friends. He also may not have the proper amount of respect for Al Capones thickshakes despite providing my only photo of them! :)] and also a guy form Perth, Evan and his Italian girlfriend. He was a really good fire twirler and he certainly had some interesting stories; like when he was hitchhiking in WA and got stuck for 3 days without food or water on the highway near the 80mile beach. He was hallucinating and everything by the time he got picked up!
On Sunday night we went to Tota and watched films, Crocadile Dundee 3 (awful) and Crash, which was the best film I've seen in ages. Really powerful. After Tota we went to Rush whcih was a funky, hippy kind of bar, lots of fun.
I didn't really want to leage Dahab, but alas I had do (Turkey, Anzac Day...), we stayed back at the Dahab Hotel in Cairo, a couple of the same people as before were there. Michelle and I spent Tuesday (18th) morning at the Turkish AIr office, she has such bad luck with flights and now they were trying to hike up the prices. I went in as 'bad cop' and it ended up working our ok.
wednesday 19th APril: We didn't really do much else yesterday, went to the the Citadel again because Michelle hadn't seen it, and then shopped at Khan el Khalilil. We had felafels and 10% Luxor beer for tea, its like beer with a shot of vodka in it!
Today we were flying out at 2.45 in the afternoon, (we though), turns out it was 2.45 AM this morning! Very, very bad as we have missed it. We're now sitting in the airport waiting for the Turkish Air office to open at midnigh (why this time I don't know) so that we can go on the waiting list for the same flight tonight. This means that we won't have to buy new tickets, but just pay a penalty which is great news. If we don't get on the flight tonight though then we can either do the whole waiting list thing again tomorrow or purchase new flights. Bad thing is that Turkish Air doesn't ahve any flights until after the 26th of April (after Anzac day) ! Clearly our situation at the moment is not good and we are kicking ourselves for being so completely stupid! What makes everything more annoying is that I have no Egyptian money left and I couldn't find anywhere this morning that wold change Jordanian dinar so I'm not sure what we're going to do about food etc. At the moment we're camped in a cafe, with the bare minimum of a coke bought to appease them.
Friday 21st April We did (thank god manage to get on the flight at 2.45am Wdnesday night (or morning). We waited all day in that cafe and then at about 11pm we went and camped outside the Turkish AIr office, waiting for it to open at midnight. True to Egyptican form it didn't open at midnight so we went down to information to see if they could lovate someone to help us. The guy at the dest was very helpful and friendly, actually he was far too friendly. I had gone off with him to get a message put over the system but I got scared when he started toelling me how beuatiful I was. He was really, really creepy; Michelle noticed it too, especially when he touched her arm and was trying to get her to sit with him behind a wall out of public view! Still he did help us in the end. Michelle's ticket didn't have a pnealty attached, but mine did unfortunately (£100). It was so stressful because the flight was baording and we were still in the Gulf Air office getting out tickets sorted. Then I had no cash on me and my credit card wouldn't go through their system so the guy was running around with me trying to get something worked out. The exhange bureau was Thomas Cook and they wouldn't accept American Express travllors cheques and I was worried that my debit Australian account didn't have enough in it. Luckily it did and the there was a mad dash through departures to where Michelle was waiting at the gate ready to baord. It was just like in the movies, I literally sprinted there and when we got onto the plane we were both so relieved that we couldn't stop talking and laughing! The most annoying thing though was that the plane was a quarter empty at least, not overbooked like we'd been told!!
