Dahab's Jewels

After our felucca journey, we got in a minibus and visited 2 temples - Kom Ombu and Edfu. Bailey and I enjoyed them from outside the gates cause our money is running out. It was OK though, you could see them really well and we're a bit templed out at this point anyway. We rode on to Luxor, said goodbye to our friends, ran a few errands and walked down dusty streets with our full backpacks to the train station. Our final destination - Dahab, on the Red Sea. We ended up riding a bus for 18 hours to get there, my legs and neck in pain from the cramped seats, but I managed to sleep a bit. We met Tom from England on the bus. He's 25 and looks like one of the Monty Python guys (not Terry or John clease - the other guy). Once we arrived, we shared a "taxi"(back of a pickup) to the BishiBishi hotel where we're staying for $5 a night (for a double room!). The shore is just across the road and the water looked so inviting that we decided to forego eating and go snorkeling. Bailey and I jumped into our swimsuits and met Tom in the palm tree courtyard. Walked a good 30 minutes to where the reef makes islands under water and headed into the sea. The water wasn't too cold. We walked out a bit before starting to swim over the shallow reef. Then, all of a sudden, the bottom dropped 50 feet and we were on the edge of the most amazing coral cliff! Fish were everywhere, just like in the documentaires. I followed a school of irridescent blue fish, then just explored the rainbow colored reef, occasionally shouting out to Bailey to look at some creature. At one point, I asked Bailey to just hover over an area with me and she nervously explained that she didn't want to look like an injured fish to a hungry shark that might come by! WE never saw any sharks, although small ones do comy by, but I realized then how shocking this all was to her. Later, Bailey admitted to freaking out somewhat, being surrounded by so much life, but it was so beautiful that she just pushed through the fear. Tom, who is an experienced diver, said it was better even than the Great Barrier reef or Thailand. So, we're just gonna stay right here till Saturday, with snorkel. Again, nature is being awesome! Stay tuned for underwater pictures.