Welcome to the Good Life

Dahab—There's a vibe in this small town on the Red Sea, long inhabited by Bedouins but discovered in the '60s by hippies from Australia and Europe who surf and scuba dive: It's laid-back, desert-Californian, anti-capitalist, generous and respectful. No one seems in a hurry to do anything or be anywhere. Nothing opens early (at least not enough for me, who likes her coffee with her sunrise), and no one worries about the packs of dogs and cats that roam and breed freely being more or less cared for communally. The sun is brilliant even in January and the air can be cold with the wind coming in from Saudi Arabia. You never know whether to wear a wool coat or a t-shirt on a given day, so it's best to carry both.

I took scuba lessons last fall intending to complete my open water dives in the Red Sea, but since I flunked the last two dives before coming, it would have taken me FIVE dives and most of my time here to catch up. I decided no one should have to work that hard here (Moses notwithstanding), so I decided to forget about it and just enjoy the beach.

But when I went to the dive shop in Dahab intending to tell them I was bagging it, out came the tea and the Bedouin cushions and I knew I was in for a long night. By the time the three master divers were done with me, I was nauseous with nicotine, sloshing with tea, and had agreed to review three chapters of the scuba course I'd already done back home—overnight—and be back at 9 a.m. the next day, ready to dive.

It was a GORGEOUS, warm, sunny morning that day, and the sea was several shades of a blue you only see in movies. I arrived on time and Richard my teacher started me reviewing the three hours of DVDs I'd already bored myself catatonic with last fall. Then there were HOURS more reviewing the tanks, the regulator, the BCD, etc., etc., before it was time to don the wet suit. (Think full-body girdle five sizes too small.) After all this—the tanks and everything and we were ready to go—I changed my mind AGAIN and told them I didn't want to go through with it. They tried kindness, gentle prodding, and hugs, but I was sticking to my guns: This girl was NOT putting that stuff on her face and going 40 meters down. So they suggested I just snorkel in the bay for awhile since I'd already gone to the trouble of putting on that flipping wet suit.

So ok. I felt bad and they felt bad, so I walked off the beach right at the dive shop, put my face in the water, and there I was: the Little Mermaid.

The most astonishing fish and coral are right beneath the surface on this shore of the Red Sea. The coral is so shallow you have to be careful not to bump into it and damage it; the suit is so buoyant I didn't have to swim at all, just let the current take me along with the fish. When I found a school of particularly brilliant neon-type fish, I followed them into the coral and watched them feed. The coral is alive and very fragile, and it's pristine here with almost no damage. Commercial fishing has been outlawed so fish and humans alike are free of the dangers of gear tangles. I kind of adopted a solitary needle-nosed cobalt-blue guy about the length of my hand that seemed lonesome with no school of its own.

On the way back to my hotel down a promenade of open-air restaurants—now practically empty because tourism in Egypt is practically zero—I was snagged by a particularly persuasive chef and had the most amazing tagine (crock thingy) of different kinds of vegetables roasted in a spicy sauce—with rice, puffy Bedouin bread and several kinds of dips. OOOF!


Then I rolled myself the rest of the way to my hotel intending to just lie on the beach and watch the sunset, when the owner there told me they were roasting a goat that night Bedouin-style (buried in the sand surrounded by coals and cooked for hours) and to be sure not to eat dinner. Oh my, roasted goat. I've never tasted anything so good.






After dinner we sat up on cushions in a tent on the beach, and while I listened to about six languages around me (Swiss-German, Italian, Swedish, French, Arabic, and Bedouin), the owner brought out an Apple laptop and speakers, put them on a low table, and inserted Lawrence of Arabia Part II for us to watch! The breeze off the sea was intoxicating; candles flickered from plastic water bottles filled with sand. Most of the Europeans discreetly drank beer and spoke softly. The Egyptians were drinking tea and smoking shisha pipes. Meanwhile, I translated some weird British expressions to the north-Sinai Bedouin who was sitting next to me. (A lot of English—particularly spoken BY the English—just can't be understood. We had a good laugh anyway.)

When the movie was over I got into a great conversation with a British couple my age who live in France and Egypt and know a lot about religious and Middle Eastern history. (We're having dinner together tonight.) A VERY drunk Chinese-looking woman with a London accent kept butting into the conversation, yelling about that FUCKING Lawrence and what a FUCKING "knob" he was (I had to ask my British friends to define "knob" for me) at the top of her lungs in this tranquil, international atmosphere of peace and harmony (not to mention toleration of western drinking). Man, humans can be buttheads (another word for "knobs"). The British man gently suggested she tone it down. She did.


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Location:SOUTH SINAI PENINSULA