El Gouna - A piece of Europe in the Middle East

It was a long trip on the bus...5-7 hours and we crossed several borders within Egypt where the police came into the bus and asked for everybody's passports. Security in Egypt is quite tight.

When I got there, this is the first thing I saw:

As I learnt later, these buses were brought to El Gouna all the way from Pakistan. This is the kind of ride you want to keep a low profile on a secret mission. I bet the CIA has 10 just like those.

Tempting as it was, I decided to take a tuk-tuk instead.
For those of your who don't know what a tuk-tuk is. Below you can see a picture of one (random picture from the internet).

Alex's apartment turned up to be a really nice 2 bedroom apartment with its own swimming pool and hold tight... its own lagoon, yes, they opened up the area to the sea  in order to create artificial lagoons, in case the swimming pools weren't enough.

You may think the above photo has been taken from some random catalogue off the internet.  Nope... This is the swimming pool on the back of Alex's apartment and Alex's apartment is the one right in front. Second floor.

In case you are wondering, the lagoon is right behind the photographer.

I must admit it was hard going back to the UK.

I thought I would have plenty of time to be by the beach, do some swimming etc... but no. As it turned out the Diving course was quite demanding and it was like a full time job so for the next 5 days I spent all the time on the diving course from morning to evening. The first two days were just the theory and the swimming pool exercises the next three days were a bit more fun... We got to do some proper diving in the sea.

After shopping around and checking prices and offers I decided to go with Orca divers (a German company) by the Marina.

Below is the Marina:

Initially I was the only person enrolled on the course but in the afternoon another guy joined in which was great since we got on really well with each other and made the course a lot more fun.

His name was Holger (sorry about the spelling if it's wrong). He is German but the Diving course in German was fully booked already and only had spots available on the English course where I was the only student, so that's how he ended up in my class.

The three mosketeers. Right to left:
Wael (the instructor), funny guy and Holger.

I can't remember the name of the guy in the middle with the green t-shirt as he only came once or twice with us but he was a really funny guy and we had a good laughs with him.

Left to right:
Karen (Holger's girlfriend) and the reason why he took up scuba diving.
Holger
Funny guy
Wael

It wasn't all work... we had some great times, and between trips there was also time to enjoy the sun.

We even got to go out at night and try a few local amenities

I concluded that wasn't for me. :-)

Unfortunately, keeping myself alive underwater was hard enough so I do not have any underwater pictures, which is a shame since Egypt is a fantastic place and I promised myself I would be going back there one day. There are lots of wrecks as well, World War II wrecks even...

After the diving course it was time to do some tourism again and due to a set of circumstances I ended up joining a German excursion to Luxor, yeah... I was as surprised as you are! I do not speak a word of German but once there I realised that with a little bit of ingenuity you don't really need to. :-)

But that's a story for another entry. :-)

This is what El Gouna looks  like from the sea:

One of the things I liked the most is that there is no haggling for a taxi fare, or at the shops. All items are priced. There are some local shops where you can go and haggle with the seller but not on the main shops... so you know they are not ripping you off more than anybody else. :-)

Egypt - The tale of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves

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Now that I'll have some time in my hands I'm going to take this opportunity to add the two missing trips, Egypt-2008 and Brazil-2008. I am also working on adding a few entries for the London 2.0 experience.

I'm not planning on travelling abroad for the next few months but London is a place full of interesting things to do and see and some of you may find some of these things interesting.

The title may sound intriguing but I promise you, when I finish telling you about my trip throughout Cairo you'll understand why Ali Baba and I had so much in common... at least 40 thieves in common.

The reason why I decided to visit Egypt is two fold. First, I received a threat from my favourite cousin in the whole world, in December we were travelling to Brazil and WE would be diving. Hence I needed to get some kind of diving accreditation or I would be spending a couple of days on a boat looking at other people having fun.

Now, getting into the water in the UK didn't sound very appealing to me. The outstanding views of sunk household waste together with the freezing temperatures were a powerful enough reason to send me somewhere else in pursuit of the required diving accreditation.

The second reason is that Alex, a very good friend of mine here in the UK, had offer me to go and spend some time at his place in Egypt.

Now, Egypt did sound a bit more appealing for learning how to dive. Average water temperature in the Winter: 25C, crystal clear waters and amazing underwater fauna. Not to mention a nice constant 30C temperature on the outside (a bit hotter in the summer though, like 20C more).

It was a difficult choice, of course, but in the end Egypt won so I booked my flight, packed my stuff and off I went.

Alex's place is in El Gouna. An amazing little known place in Egypt!

As it was my first time in Egypt I decided to fly to Cairo, spend a couple of days there and then take a bus to El Gouna where I were to spend the rest of my stay in Egypt.

Let me start by saying that my near death experience of travelling from the Airport to my hotel took all the life out of me. Driving in Cairo is not for the heart fainted... also using both hands for driving at more than 140 Km/hour should've made the trip a bit safer, but I suppose it makes sense to drive with only one hand when you are taking half of your body out of the window every 5 minutes to shout about some profanities in Arabic and swerve brutally right and left as you step on the accelerator at more than 140 Km/hour

I was in the back holding myself to the two handles on top of each passenger window, trying not to fly out of the car with each bend.

At this point you may wonder why I didn't say anything to the driver to slow down and take it easy... Well... I tried, but with the speed and the windows open and all the shouting I was doing, I soon lost my voice, plus the fact he didn't understand a word of English didn't help much either. Besides, after a while I realised it was better if I close my eyes and kept my mouth shut that way I wouldn't have to stare at death straight in the face nor would I swallow any more flying by insects sucked into the car by the speed. Also, better not to distract the driver...

When we reached our destination, my hands were in so much pain I couldn't even pick up my suitcase I was also voiceless from all the shouting. As soon as I made it to my room, the adrenaline shot from the taxi experience was starting to wear off so I practically fell unconscious in bed and woke up the following day, ready to start a new day in Cairo.

When I woke up the following day, it really felt good to be alive and in one piece... the things you give for granted sometimes...

The plan was simple. Visit the Cairo Museum, have some lunch and catch the bus to El Gouna...

As it turned out, I did not visit the Cairo Museum, I did not have any lunch, instead I did visit the pyramids, a papyrus shop, a perfume shop, also against my wishes I rode a... let's be generous and call it a horse, haggled with every taxi driver in town, got ripped off more times I can even remember and finally, exhausted, I made it to the bus... with a much lighter wallet.

This is the story of how the 40 thieves took good care of Ali Baba's money.

Once upon a time, in a far, far away place there was a tourist called Ali Baba, one glorious morning he was walking down the street looking for the Cairo Museum when a local approached him and asked him where he was heading.

Ali Baba knew better than talking to strangers so without saying a word smiled to the stranger and kept walking. The stranger, also known as thief number one, smiled back and in a friendly tone told Ali Baba that if he was going to the museum, he would find it closed. It was the end of the Ramadan and a bank holiday in the  whole country but the pyramids were open, they never close.

Ali Baba pondered about this for a few seconds, he hadn't planned going to the pyramids but what was the alternative. Going back to the hotel? and while Ali Baba was considering the possible alternatives, thief number one, offered Ali Baba to share a taxi with him to go to the pyramids since he lived close by.

Having nothing to lose, Ali Baba decided to accept the generous offer and after half an hour in a taxi  and a longer than normal conversation in Arabic between thief number one and the taxi driver in order to work out how much to pay he found himself in a papyrus shop outside Cairo.

Once in the shop, thief number one introduced Ali Baba to thief number two, one of the papyrus seller and just to make a long story short, after half an hour in the shop, a nice cup of tea, a detail explanation of how the papyrus get made, 10 minutes of endless haggling and of course the purchase of 4 clearly overpriced papyrus, Ali Baba found himself back in the back of the taxi.

You would think that Ali Baba would now be heading for the Pyramids, no such luck I'm afraid. Next stop, some stinking lotus shop. I had enough with all this touristic crap and I told thief number one so. He seemed disappointed (he was getting a commission from every shop he made me stop on) but relented.

Finally, the pyramids! but for Ali Baba's surprise the taxi wasn't going to the main entrance... they just got into some dodgy looking narrow streets. Thief number one always guiding the taxi driver through the maze of little streets until we reached a point where the stench coming from the surrounding buildings made it clear that 4 legged creatures had an important presence in the area.

The taxi stopped by some dodgy looking individual. Thief number one greeted the individual and a couple of minutes later Ali Baba was introduced to thief number 3, they kept talking in Arabic until someone brought a camel into the picture.

Ali Baba told them there was no way he would be riding a camel and that he would prefer to walk thankyouverymuch... They said walking wasn't an option with the heat and the distances which Ali Baba had to admit made perfect sense so after some re-negotiation and another 10 minutes of haggling  Ali Baba managed to convince thief number 3 to procure a docile horse instead for an exorbitant amount (mind you, still was half of what thief number 3 was initially asking for).

Once the money exchanged hands, along came the guide, thief number 4, the King of bribes... together with my ride ... Rocinante

Rocinante and I

The poor four legged creature looked more dead than alive and there still are some questions regarding its species but just for the sake of the argument let's assume it is a horse.

The ride through the Egyptian sands reminded me why I do not like horses. Don't take me wrong... I like horses... from the distance! but not riding them... it is worse than a bicycle!. It may all be down to simply having an ass that lacks volume and substance hence the painful experience of bouncing up and down for an hour on the above four legged creature is not my cup of tea.

So summarising... I am in the pyramids that I wasn't planning on visiting, I am riding a horse and I hate riding horses but it gets better.

Thief number 4 turned up to be a very colourful man, the King of bribes and the dodgy deals... so not even 5 minutes had passed that he offers Ali Baba the long tour instead of the medium tour that Ali Baba had paid for to Thief number 3 (Thief number 4's boss). Just for a small tip he would give Ali Baba the grand tour.

These are the pyramids as we were getting closer to them.

Once we reached the pyramids a couple of guards approached Ali Baba's guide, this asked him to keep riding along that he would catch up with him later.  Ali Baba couldn't resist his curiosity and looked back just in time to see thief number 4 paying off the two guards...

Ali Baba knew better than to ask directly but through various indirect questions he found out that thief number 4 had purchased an Egyptian ticket for him rather than a tourist ticket and was better off by just bribing the guards and pocketing the difference. This scene of Ali Baba riding ahead and thief number 4 staying behind while spreading the wealth among the guards collective was repeated several times during "the grand tour".

Yes, it was hot and I had no hat so I had to do with what I had at hand...Laugh it out! don't mind me... I know it is not pretty but it was much safer than getting a heat stroke.

I was in constant fear that my four legged friend would drop dead at any moment so I tried to give it as much rest as possible but he did also come out in some of the photos.

After some extra bribing and me pretending to be Egyptian I've managed to make it into the great Sphinx of Giza. I suppose my olive complexion together with my Arabian nose played an important part in the deception but just in case, money exchanged hands just to make sure nobody looked too hard into my olive complexion and Arabian nose.

From here it was time for Ali Baba to return to civilization... which wasn't as easy as you might expect... and a visit to a lotus shop, four taxis later and hours of haggling with taxi drivers Ali Baba made it to the bus station. Thank God Ali Baba didn't have to spend a week in Cairo or it would end up being the most expensive week in history!, you may think you are an experienced traveller but trust me, no one will make you say good-bye to your money faster than in Cairo. Specially taxi drivers. By default they'll try to charge you 1000% the price of the trip and no, I didn't put an extra zero by mistake. If you haggle real hard you may get it down to 100% the real price of the trip.

When I was in the bus heading out of town I was relieved and at the same time exhausted from being always watchful and also from the constant haggling.

I just couldn't wait to get to El Gouna... but that's another story...

New Year in Stockhom

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Yes I know, I shouldn't be travelling any more. It's time to sit tight and look for a job but you see... I had a very important reason to travel this time. O:-)

My cousin Maria has been living in Stockholm for almost two years now and in less than a couple of months she'll be going back to Spain so I found myself pondering about my options.

Option number 1: Miss my last chance to pay Maria a visit in Stockholm and stay put instead.
Option number 2: Do the right thing.

So I did the right thing. I always do the right thing. :-)

This time I was travelling from Spain and I had an excellent pick up service.
My friend's Javi pick up service.

The owner of this excellent pick up service collects you personally at home in his flamboyant car, and drops you at the airport.

I know what you are thinking.

He's missing the driver's cap!

On the other hand if you were to be picked up in style like this:

Would you complain about the driver's attire? Of course not, you would let it slide, just this once. :-)

After flying to Barcelona, waiting there for 3 hours, catching another fly to Stockholm then the bus and finally I made it to my destination almost at midnight where I had another pick up service.

You can appreciate the Swedish uniform on the above photo, head, neck, hands all covered. -10 degrees

Only 25 degrees less than in Spain.

There was no party throwing flowers and singing at my arrival, no sweets nor celebratory drinks either (I daydream sometimes) just María, waiting in the freezing cold for 15 minutes until my bus arrived. No wonder I awarded her with the highly prestigious title of "favourite cousin in the whole world" some time ago.

It was snowing which for me was quite an event but everybody else there went like... "uh?, yeah...not again!
I've been led to believe it had been snowing for months.

I'm not sure whether they use those bicycles in the summer but after a few months under the snow I don't think they'll be of much use.

The following day was New Year's Eve and María had invited a few friends over at her place to celebrate the end of the year and the arrival of the new year, but in the morning we went for a walk. It was sunny and the low temperatures don't seem to bother anyone so we geared up and went downstairs where María wanted to show me an interior courtyard that joins the different buildings, as soon as we went outside into that courtyard I closed the door to prevent the cold from getting into the building.

María stared at me with horror in her eyes and asked: "What have you done?"

"I just closed the door" I replied with surprise at her reaction.

"Now we are locked out" she responded with a defeated gesture. "We can't get out, we'll have to wait until someone opens it up".

Luckily for us a lady from the building opposite to ours decided to take her dog for a walk in the heavily snowed courtyard, the four legged creature looked more like a mole rather than a dog. It was doing more digging  than walking with all the snow. It was a teckel  (see below)

So the poor fella didn't have the legs to walk in the snow but you wouldn't think so should you had the chance to see him running in the snow.

While we were explaining the lady about our predicament, the dog just run off (or should I say dug off?), anyway, I run after him and despite of having no legs (the dog, not me) it took me a couple of minutes to catch up with him.God! Was he fast!

My good deed was rewarded with safe passage through the lady's building for me and my laughing companion María who spent 10 minutes laughing out loud about my running around in pursuit of the legless but quick canine.

Finally we made it outside and our first stop was a river/lake (hard to say with all the snow) that was nearby María's place.

Yes, it was frozen and you could walk over it! which of course we did in order to take these pictures.

After that, we walked in direction to the town centre where we had arranged to meet Ruth, one of María's closest friends in Stockholm.

 We did the last minute shopping for New Year's Eve dinner and did a little bit more walking.

I didn't know ducks could survive these extreme temperatures, but there you have them.

This was the first time I saw this but gutters and water pipes were full of ice.

To the point that in many places there were a lot of stalactites made from ice

This becomes quite dangerous when the ice melts so if you walk around town you would see lots of signs like below:

Not sure about the exact translation but it sounds to me as: Warning! Ice.

It seems that a lot of people get hit by falling ice every year, hence the signs all over the place.

It would be funny that after surviving snakes, spiders, lions, crocodiles, sharks, jelly fish, etc, etc I were going to die from some ice falling from a roof. Just in case I kept my distance with the buildings at all times. :-)

A farmer's market

Below is a place where they sell a spiced warm wine which for some reason María has grown quite fond of.

After all the walking we went home to prepare everything for the night.

Ruth made a total show off of her culinary skills, María had done some previous preparation but in 25 minutes she managed to make the meat, the fish and the potatoes all in one oven and judging by how little was left after dinner I would say that dinner was a complete success.

After dinner we ate the grapes at midnight (Spanish tradition) and went outside to see the fireworks. It was still snowing and we went to the river/lake I had gone with María in the morning.

From left to right: Ruth, Thomas, María and Iftikhar (Ifti)

Then it occurred to me it would be a good idea to throw a few snow balls to see what happened, and this is what happened:

Funny enough, as I was taking pictures I wasn't perceived as a threat so they let me be. For some reason they all forgot who had started it all. O:-)

Then I gave my camera to a couple nearby so they could take a picture of all of us together

When I went to claim my camera back, the ice cracked under my feet and my left boot sank into the freezing water. Got my camera back , then my foot, checked I still had all my toes and someone decided it would be a good idea to get back home should I wish to preserve all of my toes.

Once at home, Ifti was still arguing with María about something (it's a sport and they train every day), Ruth was falling asleep after a long day in her one million dollar dress and Thomas...well, we suspect he was sexting but we have no proof except for the above photo.

The following day after a lazy start we went to have lunch to Ruth's house. Ifti, María and I were there on time, Thomas got there quite late and dodged all our questions regarding his late arrival so it is an exercise for the reader to work out what had been Thomas up to the previous night and in the morning, let's not forget the morning.


Anyway, after lunch Ruth stayed home with a few more guests while Ifti, María and I went for a walk, and it was snowing again. :-)

We tried our luck on some local coffee shops, we were just looking for a warm place to stay for a while

But it became obvious that the Swedish population had the same thought so they were all busy. Eventually we found one that apart from being a coffee shop it was also a bakery so together with our drinks we got a piece of pie. :-)

We spent a good 2 hours in that place. We had a lively conversation, food and drinks. What else could we ask for? Eventually we had to make a move and get back home.

The following morning we met with Ruth, now fully recovered from her hostess duties, and did a little walk around town.

Below you can have a better look at the stalactites I was talking about earlier on.

 Then I went to see a museum that María had recommended to me while Ruth and María went shopping.

I must admit that this museum is a bit different from what one comes to expect from a museum.

On the 17th century the Danes were building a large war ship so the Swedes decided to build a larger one, then when the Swedish learnt how many cannons the Danish ship would carry they decided to double that number on their ship.

The result was quite predictable, almost as soon as the ship left port, it sank.

Why am I telling you about ships on the 17th century? you may wonder.

The reason being is that in the sixties they rescued the ship, brought it to land, restored it and build a museum all around it. Yes, that's right! the museum is a building with a big ship in it! Well, it's quite a bit more than that. It also gives you a glimpse into 17th century life in Sweeden.

They even reconstructed some skeletons they found and re-created their faces (just like in Bones or CSI), you could actually see their faces. It was quite impressive.

Just to give you a scale of the ship, the building where it is hosted is 5 storeys high!

Something that appealed to my geeky nature was the attempt of savaging that took place in mid 17th century.

They already knew about the diving-bell!! although getting into those freezing waters must have been a feat in itself even in the summer.

After the museum I met up with María and Ruth again and went to have lunch. Then a nice and lazy afternoon and finally an early night as I had a taxi waiting for me downstairs at 3:30 in the morning in order to catch my flight back to Spain.

I definitely had a great time in Stockholm and I'm glad I visited it in the Winter breaking my holiday rule of no visiting any place with less than 30C. :-)

The place was nice but María, Ruth, Ifti and Thomas made it even better so from here I would like to thank them for the time we spent together and for not throwing me in the snow when they had the chance.

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