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| Dawn over the Red Sea at Baron Resort, Sharm El Sheikh |
Outside the hotel the low morning sun cast long shadows as
it rose over the Gulf of Aqaba. A fresh tarmac road lay before me. I began to run.
The road was bordered on the side nearest the sea with well-tended
flowerbeds and luxurious resorts. On the west side a rubble-strewn wasteland
spread out towards the main highway and the edge of the Sinai Desert. Beyond
the polished and manicured confines of my lodgings this was a stark reminder
that the holidaymakers’ haven of Sharm El Sheikh is improbably located and has
been conjured out of the dust by the hand of man. Once the hostilities between
Egypt and Israel ceased in the 1980s, the agreeable year-round climate and
clear waters encouraged developers to build at an astonishing rate. Now a
sprawl of touristic compounds act as a sort of human shield between the ancient
land of the Pharaohs and the Middle East.
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| Half-built resorts are all around |
I was living the life of a cartel kingpin on an
all-inclusive Egyptian Christmas and taking full advantage of the many
indulgences this afforded (Beef Wellington with cheese, anyone? We nicknamed it
Chief Wellington) but I can never resist to run in a new place. While my family
slept, dreaming of another day on the sun loungers dangling club sandwiches
mouthwards, my road curved past the half finished shell of a supermarket. A
pack of weather-beaten but bright-eyed strays watched me with curiosity,
ears pricked. I scooped up a stone and hefted its reassuring weight in my palm
in case of attack. I imagined mounting a hopeless defence, clobbering one with
a well-aimed shot only to be savaged mercilessly by the other five. No point in
aggravating the beasts, keep calm and they will most likely leave you be, even
if they do come unnervingly close. I learnt my lesson at the wrong end of canine
incisors in Ecuador.
Safer to walk
“Loads of taxis. Just down the road” He told me.
“Excellent!” I exclaimed happily, glad of the opportunity to
explore under my own steam and save money.
“But,” I paused on my way across the marble floor, as the
man behind the counter continued, “Be careful that the driver is okay. You
know, that is he is not smoking some drugs.”
It was 7am and there were no taxis. In the end I found the
local minibus and travelled for just 3 EGP. My experience with stoned taxi
drivers came later in the form of a journey at over 100mph with the cretinous
pilot chatting merrily on his mobile phone. After that, I stuck to the minibus.
What lies beneath
As the sun climbed slowly in the sky I ran on. Northwards
the road passed checkpoints where policemen slept. The Foreign Office website
advises against all but essential travel to South Sinai with the exception of
the resort towns, which are heavily protected. You can imagine what fun it was
for my family and I to gather around a monitor and view the alarming colours
indicating the dangerous areas. Armoured vehicles and submachine guns are
regularly visible but the slumbering bobbies did little to reassure me that I
was safe from the “high risk of indiscriminate attacks”. It felt strange to be
spending Christmas in the sheltered enclave of a country experiencing so much
unrest. Tourism is vital for the Egyptian economy but look beyond the
inflatable snowmen and plastic Santas and there is a country on the edge of
another major crisis. Behind every cheery “Good morning!” there is an uncertain
future. On a star gazing trip into the Sinai Desert our guide launched into a
desperate rant about the state of his homeland, ending ominously,
“In three months Egypt will go down.”
That remains to be seen but what is a certainty is that
Sharm El Sheikh comes complete with all the trappings of your average British
high street so you need never feel like you have really left. Starbucks, Burger
King, KFC and the Hard Rock Café, are all there and on an enormous scale.
Bare-chested Russian men swagger about, boiling prodigious bellies in the
heat while their glamorous girlfriends totter alongside. When it’s –20 at home
you can see why Russians flock to Sharm at Christmas. Further south in Naama
Bay holidaymakers can enjoy the Ibiza experience at Space and Pasha. Or, how
about Urban Fresh, Egypt’s premier weekly RnB and hip hop night?
The flyer reads:
feel the groove and
busting a move in the water
in a stylish pool for
the Sexy ‘n’ Stylish ladies
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| Look closely for the dolphin surfing Pharaoh |
Come on lads, let’s go. But on the other side of the flyer
there is a picture of a huge room filled only with men. After the plastic
monument to the Pharaoh who surfs dolphins I turned back and altered my route
by running along the beach. I struggled past acres of sun beds and umbrellas in
the soft sand. Out in the Red Sea the rusty protuberances of shipwrecks were
clearly visible; the shallow and coral-littered waters are notoriously
treacherous. Later on in the day boats of tourists would wend their between
them on salty sightseeing visits.
Back at my hotel I enjoyed a massage in the spa. Ahmed my
masseuse promised me he loved English people and would give me a “special
massage” with “special oil”. I was somewhat alarmed as he began to roll down
the top of my shorts and I debated with myself where my boundaries were and at
what point I might have to call time on this unusual experience. Thankfully,
there were no extras and the massage was excellent, even if the constant
discourse Ahmed insisted on maintaining did make it slightly less relaxing.
Not your average Christmas
That evening was Christmas Eve and having made our way
through Santa’s grotto, past the nativity scene complete with real human
babies, and the manger where children were chasing the rabbits and chickens, we
enjoyed a sumptuous banquet. Being a family of 6 we were joined at table by 4
complete strangers. The Silent family had little in the way of chat but we soon
discovered that if you drink enough wine it is possible to pretend that someone
sat right next to you is not even there.
Wind-powered
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| The Auditorium of Embarrassment |
The rest of the week disappeared all too quickly in a
whirlwind of kite surfing, beach volleyball, snorkelling and being roped into
humiliating Club 18-30 style games with a Russian girl in an auditorium full of
families with children. My mastery of the waves is somewhere in the future but
I have certainly caught the kite surfing bug and I have learnt a great respect
for the power of the wind. There were moments of frustration as I repeatedly
face planted the water in my attempts to get upright on the board under the
force of a 12 meter squared kite. All about me on the lagoon the curves of
multicoloured spaceships filled the skies against the dramatic backdrop of
Tiran Island. Beneath their polyester steeds the experienced riders took to the
air with a simple tug of the power bar, looping and twirling gracefully, hanging in space like ballerinas on the moon, before landing to carve a high-speed wake across the swell.
That sight was my motivation. I began to consistently water start and get up on
the board heading both left and right at a good clip. But, turning comes later
in the learning process and so it was on the last day that I narrowly avoided
mangling myself on the beach on a particularly fast run. I did manage to put a
rip in a brand new kite and almost got hit with a 1,200 Euro bill. It was at
that point that I decided to quit while I was ahead but have no doubt I will be
squeezing into a wetsuit and taking to the water once more at some point this
year. It is a remarkable sport.
Christmas in Egypt was excellent. It was a real opportunity
to get away from it all and spend quality time with my family. Despite the obvious peculiarities of Sharm El Sheikh, the all-inclusive
holiday can certainly be fun. If you ever go then I can highly recommend the
Baron Resort for an excellent hotel and Kite Junkies for good kitesurfing tuition.
Happy new year.
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| My sister and I in the Sinai Desert |
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| Tiran Island in the distance over the Red Sea |
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