The Moribund Marauder

I am behind on my reading, low on sleep, and my foot is still sore and slightly swollen. This means that although two weeks have past since I collided with a trip to Sinai, the bruises are still visible.

What’s funny is that it was meant to be a relaxing weekend on the coast. I would sleep late, lay around on the beach, and read all day. Unfortunately, like the Schlieffen plan, somewhere between strategy and implementation something was never destined to line up. The bus was scheduled to meet our group of about 35 westerners around 4:30 PM after classes on Thursday. Naturally, we didn’t actually leave until around 5:30. This was not as much a problem as was the fact that it was the first day of Ramadan. We had barely left Cairo when the sun set and the drivers pulled over for iftar. The rest of the “6 hour trip” was frustrating stop and go affair in which every hour saw at least one break either for snacks or check points. The only upside was that being able to eat put our drivers in much better spirits than they had been in when the trip began.

We reached Dahab around 3:00AM and were led in to the Penguin Hotel. Before being shown to our rooms we were led to the hotel’s restaurant, a wood and rushes affair right on the water. The floor was lined with carpets laid right on top of the dirt. Between the wood pillars were long, low, mountain ranges of pillow in reds and greens and blues and yellows, partitioning off sections of floor space for groups of 5 to 20. There were no walls, so the sea breeze wafted through the restraint unchallenged.

I managed to sit still in my pile of pillows talking with Russ and Sam for about 20 minutes before rolling up my pant legs, climbing down the 4 foot stone wall to the beach and wading into the water. The first thing that hit me was the warmth of the water, it was wonderful. The second thing was the firmness of the “beach.” Really it was just rock, solid rock stretching out into the water. The rock was textured by green growth. At first this growth was soft and encouraged the wader to hop from clump to clump seeking solace from the solid stone. But, as I got further out, accompanied by Russ, Sam and a couple others, this changed. A light leap from soft seaweed to seemingly soft seaweed would suddenly spawn a sickening scream as a clump of crusty growth perhaps dried up by the sun would puncture the hoppers foot. This would make you abruptly switch your weight to your other, undamaged foot, giving it just enough pressure to also gouge itself on the rock hard growth. I didn’t let this stop me even as the others stopped a safe distance off, content to watch me two-footed limp deeper into the sea. I found a nice little rock sticking above water, covered in green mystery that was thankfully soft and climbed aboard. I watched the moon for a while, big and bright slowly sailing over Saudi Arabia. Finally, I bit my lower lip, lowered myself off my rock and limped back to the restaurant. I at least had the consolation of knowing that the salt water was washing out and sterilizing the wound. Anything that stings that bad must be good for you.

There wasn’t enough room for everyone at the Penguin, so about half of us were led farther down the water to the Sea View Hotel. Sam, Russ and I got settled in to our room by 4:30 AM, but before I could go to sleep there was something I had to do. I slipped in to my long sleeve black shirt, snuck out of the hotel, sidled down the street and slipped in to a construction site that I had spotted on our way into town. There were about 8 structures, still just a frame of brick and concrete. They looked like they would one day be fine buildings but for now there were just fine play things. The first one I climbed into was small, not much bigger than a large house, and when I determined that there were no secret passageways or exciting circular stairways, I left it for one of the huge hotel sized complexes.

The night was still and starting to turn dim as 5:00 AM crept into view. After exploring the lower levels and traversing whatever interesting architecture I could discover, I found some stairs and made my way up to the third story. I walked till I found a joint between what might become the grand ceiling of a dinning room and the lower ceiling of a guest room. For me it meant a couple-foot crack between the two different levels of ceiling. I scaled a square pillar and slipped through onto the roof. The roof was long and L-shaped curving out towards the sea. I moved slowly across it great expense partly to avoid being seen but mostly because the roof was speckled with sections of steal rebar, sticking throw the cement, and it was still dark enough that these obstacles were as good as invisible until you were almost upon them. I have this paranoia about being impaled. I treated myself to a few minutes just sitting at the edge of the building looking down a few stories to the water below me. Then I pushed my black sleeves back down over my arms, and snuck off the roof, down the side of another section of the building, across some more construction stopping only to jump across some fun looking sections of old or abandoned foundation, back down the street, into the hotel and into bed.

When Sam and I awoke the next day Russ was already gone. So, we went exploring. Where Dahab brushes the water a thicket of villa-ish hotels and hostels has grown up nurtured by the wet sea breeze, the bright beach sun, and the rich silt brought from around the world on the soles of millions of tourists. Clamped to the walking path that runs along the shore, each hotel to the city side of the path has a partner restaurant on the shore side of the path. Most of the restaurants are the same pillow-lined, pole-shed style as the one we had been in the night before. As we strode along the walk way (actually Sam did most of the striding, I mainly limped, hoped and hobbled) we were confronted by a constant shelling of sales pitches by painfully friendly restaurant workers. Almost everyone was offering some special deal—fifteen percent off, free appetizers, free dessert, 15% off plus free appetizers and free dessert. We would try to explain that the sun was still up and as it was Ramadan we were unable to eat. None of the sales men could seem to comprehend that westerners might actually be fasting, because our attempts to explain were usually met by, “OK, OK, for you friend 20% off, OK? 20% OK? Come sit. You like tea? Tea. No Charge. You can at least share a cup of tea with your friend. OK?”

Finally, we broke free from the brambles and found a little beach. By beach I mean an area where the rock dropped off quick enough that you didn’t have to walk a quarter mile closer to Saudi to get your hair wet. We swam for a while and then picked out way back to the Sea View Hotel.

That night we were going to hike Mount Sinai, but first we wanted to get a good meal in our bellies. We met Russ and went back to the battlefield. We settled on small restaurant close to our hotel that only offered a free appetizer platter and free desert but had a good menu and pretty cheap meals. Dinner turned out to be divine. Our little pillow filled nook was all the way to the back, right on the water, and the wind grow thick and damp with spray as the night darkened and the tide rose. The meal stretched almost five hours and while waiting for our dishes I would lean close to our dieing table candle and read short stories to Russ and Sam from “Me Talk Pretty One Day” by David Sedaris. I ordered chicken stuffed cannelloni with cream sauce. They switched my cream sauce for simple marinara and it still proved to be the best meal I have had in recent memory. The only detractors were Sam’s shisha tipping over and sending a shower of sparks cascading over the table and all of us (OK, I secret enjoyed this) and the free desert. Considering the amazing quality of meal the only way I can make sense of the slop that was dessert is that the restaurant must have a free version and a paying costumers’ version of each dish. I ordered the fudge covered brownie with strawberry ice cream. What I got would be best likened to a 25 cent, Hostess, chocolate cake slice with some watered down Hershey’s syrup drizzled on top and a blended up strawberry popsicle dumped on the side. But even that could dampen the occasion.

After squaring up our bill, which came to something like $7.50 for me, we made our way to the Penguin were people were meeting to go to Mount Sinai. The trip to Mount Sinai was delayed by a long stop at the police station in Dahab where we had to pick up a police escort. At around 1:30 AM we arrived at Mount Sinai, and the most exhausting an surreal event of the journey began.

There is little I could hope to do–short of quitting college and using my savings to fly each of you to Egypt to climb Mount Sinai in the middle of the night after first giving you an ice cube bath so as to simulate the state of being at the height of a month long cold—to express what this voyage was like. The first thing that hits you is the dark. Living in the Middle of Cairo darkness is a state, occurring late at night, when the dirt becomes less noticeable. This was real dark, not blackness, even without a flashlight you could pick your way between the boulders, but darkness thick enough that it was not uncommon for one of those boulders to suddenly turn into an ornery camel. The second thing that hits you waits for that window of opportunity as your jaw slackens, jumps down your throat, grabs as much breath as it can fit in its 6 clammy hands and dashes back out to hide its new found treasure somewhere a million miles off in the sea of stars that seem to be slowly slipping closer and closer to the slobbering observer. As we hiked up the mountain, I would occasionally have to just stop moving and rotate around on my axis trying to take in everything around me. A Parisian, street side, spray paint artist could hardly have painted a scene this surreal. Sam and I got separated from the rest of the group, and avid hiker both began charging up the mountainside. We slipped past masses of Russian, and clumps of camels, hoping up on the stone retain walls or cutting between two switchbacks. Often we would simple step to the side of the path and walk alongside the immobilized masses snaking up long sections of steps. As we neared the top you could look back down the mountain and see the stars mirrored in the threads of light unraveling between cliff side and cliff top, as group upon group made the somber pilgrimage along the path that Moses may have walked thirty-three hundred years before.

At the top we fled the crowed which was already amassing to watch the sun rise and slipped over the edge of a cliff to a little couch-sized crevice. As the sky lightened my cold deepened fueled by the long hike that was starting to catch up to me, and the cold sweat soaking my back. I squirmed deeper into the crevice while exorcising pints of snot into the tissues I had thankfully brought with me. Though moist, blurry eyes I watched the hills gain independence from the dark around them and begin to seek autonomy in a world of enlightenment and self expression. The sunrise was set to the soundtrack of a beautiful Russian Orthodox service taking place across a small gorge to our left. As the sun climbed further into the sky the Russians were replace by Ethiopians featuring invigorating percussion although they seemed to be beating the same drum.

I slid away from the crowed and went in search of a bathroom or any solitary place to story my crap. At this point I wasn’t quite sure if I was more likely to vomit, sneeze out my brains, or do something more embarrassing still. My affliction and fluids seemed vile and cantankerous to a place like the peak of Mount Sinai, and I was loath to defile any part of it by making it into my emergency bathroom. Luckily after a short search I found a small read hut labeled bathroom and rushed in. The quaint little hut clearly held an attraction to more than merely the desperate traveler for within a minute a man with a digital SLR and lofty aspirations of one day seeing his work on the cover of National Geographic, sauntered around the corner looking for his next great shot. Seeing the hut he drew in and went to work, an archetypal image of rich tan, ramshackled, reed walls set askew against the deep blue brown background of molar-like mountains bouncing around in his mind as he tried to line up his expectations with what he was seeing through the viewfinder. I like to think that I will get my revenge on this man and his invasion of my privacy when he returns home ready to send out these pictures with his résumé and after blowing them up to 11X14 notices my hairy legs peaking through the reeds at the center of every print.

When I imaged somewhat refreshed, most of the peak was deserted. I skidded and tripped and leaped down the hillside stopping only to get bit by a bored camel with bad breath and green saliva. Eventually I reached Sam and we descended the rest of the way together. At the bottom we spent a moment exploring Saint Catharine’s. Then we headed back to the busses where we fell in and out of sleep for 2 hours while waiting for the rest of our group to arrive. Those two fretful hours were as close to a nights sleep as I was destined to get.

Later that day Sam and I joined a couple other people heading to the Blue Hole to go snorkeling. The crazy 4X4 ride to the Blue Hole was possibly more exhilarating than the snorkeling itself. I love the way that screams fuel and already insane chauffer. The Blue Hole is an area about 20 minutes from Dahab were the long monotonous stone beach is interrupted by a gaping, underwater, coral cavern reaching within a few meters of the shore. The Hole is about 40 meters in diameter and in one area falls to a depth of 80 meters. The flora has been trod upon and the fauna is rather tame but it is still amazing. This was the first time I had even been snorkeling outside a swimming pull or lack. I was in awe, unfortunately I was so stuffed up that if I ventured deeper than a few meters my head threatened to explode. And SALT. SALTY SALTWATER SALT. I hate it. I really do. My name is Cole Agar, and I hate salt. It wouldn’t have been quite so bad except for the fact that all the hotels draw their water from the ocean, so showering is not so much a cleansing experience as it is a diluting experience. The thought of riding ten hours in a cramped bus grimy with sweat crust and salt dust was enough to make me cut my dive short and head to the shad of a little café, where we had left out bags, to take a nap.

The last hurdle to overcome was tallying up the bill. We had 35 people’s worth of lodging, dining, diving and traveling on one bill, and we were dealing with Egyptians. After nearly 2 hours everything was finally in order and with a sigh of relief we were out the door. Once again we had to stop by the Dahab Police Station to pick up our escort. We were stuck at the police station for a while and no sooner had we gotten back on the road than we had to pull over for gas. This beginning heralded a lurching trip back to Cairo much like our original ride to Dahab. However, while the ride there had been undertaken under the influence of anticipation and excitement, on the ride back we all just really wanted to get home. In addition, on the journey to Dahab I had been the proud occupier of the entire front seat of the bus, the ride back found me lying, cramped in an aisle.

We got back to Cairo at about 4:00 AM. I got to bed about 6:00 AM. Two hours later I was walking up for school.