Continued... I will cut a long story short. Dahab is amazing. It's a small town located on the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. A few years ago, it was just desert camps run by the Beduoins (local traditionally nomadic tribe). It has grown a bit, but still leans more to a backpackers escape than a resort location. The entire town is bordered by the red sea, and if you look across the strait, you can see the mountains of Saudi Arabia (a beautiful sight at sunset).
The locals are mix of Bedouins, Egyptians and foreigners who came and couldn't bring themselves to leave. There is a backpacker/hippy vibe and the streets are beaches on one side, covered with outdoor restaurants and coffee shops, where you can relax on a cushion, smoke some shisha (tobacco water pipes which you smoke what looks like charcoal, but is flavored tobacco), and shops on the other (all sorts of touristy knick knacks - I get referred to hear as "My Color" and it tends to get me quite a good discount:) There are camels (domestic and wild) that roam the streets, and goats in munching trash in the Bedouin neighborhoods. If you turn your back to the sea, you see desert, and mountains. Turn back around and its like seeing an Oasis, palm treas and clear, warm water.
We are working for a guy named Ayman who owns a few shops. We are working out of a shop Octopus divers, that he just took over. He wants our help to run it, and turn it into a "proper" shop. So we spend our days sitting in the shop, surfing the web. Or out diving with students. So far we have been just doing some snorkeling and diving to get to know the dive sites. The diving is amazing. It is such a refreshing change from Spain. Here you wade out from the shore and then drop into coral, hard and soft, so many colors, so many fishes. Soooooo amazing. I hope to be able to afford and underwater camera soon.
So all in all, I am very happy and excited that, so far, everything has worked out here in Dahab. In my 3 years of travel, I can't think of a place I have loved more.
