El Andalous - Christmas 2014

My Christmas Tree and Flowers from Orbit

I hope you all had the most enjoyable Christmas ever!

Now that I’ve been here for more than a year, I’m starting to do things for the second time and that also includes Christmas. Last year I had Holger visiting and I was still recovering from my broken foot, although I was pretty much better.

This year, I was fully fit and spoilt for options, so I guess this means that I must have settled in. I ended up with a total of three celebrations (so far). It’s actually not so easy to celebrate a British Christmas over here since the relevant populations are either Europeans, who celebrate on 24th December, or Russians (Orthodox Christians) and Coptic Christians, who celebrate on 7th January.

I put up a small Christmas tree in my flat (shipped over by Geraldine from Switzerland to the UK and then by me from the UK to Egypt!) and this year I bought some extra tinsel for it and some lights, which were available in Spinneys.

My first celebration was the “European” one on Christmas Eve. Joke (pronounced Yoka – yes, I was also surprised when I first saw the name written down!) had organised a celebration at her home for a group here called the Lotus Ladies. As Sheila pointed out, this all sounds fairly exotic, but actually the group was set up for foreign women married to Egyptian men as a support and social group, but now includes any women who wish to join. Various classes and activities are organised via this group as well as a range of discounts in and around Hurghada.

Anyway, Nicole offered me a lift, so I went along with her to celebrate on the 24th. It was a “bring your own” affair, so I took along cupcakes and shortbread. Joke lives in a place called The View in Hurghada and it has stunning views of the Red Sea. The apartment was huge (there were fifteen of us, with one table for ten and one table for five, and we hadn’t even taken up any of the lounge area or the balcony). Really, it was a privilege just to be able to go in and see the view. The block has a swimming pool, a gym, and a beach across the road.

We were a variety of nationalities. There are quite a few Ukrainians here these days escaping from the violence in their home country; the Russians are struggling due to the plummeting rouble. So, for those who think that Egypt is a problem country, perhaps think again!

Anyway, we had a lot of delicious food available to us and it was really a great event (after I’d got over the stress of having to bake! I ran out of butter while cooking my shortbread so I made half with margarine, and I ended up having to throw that half away, they tasted so bad!).

On Christmas day, Nicole, Ajay and I met on the beach as usual for our Arabic session. I can’t remember if I said, but we’re now working our way through a set of 8 CDs and meeting up each day to practice what we’ve learned. I’m coining this as (Egyptian) Arabic on the Beach and it’s really working out quite well.

Because it was Christmas Day, we’d agreed to celebrate by bringing some items to the beach with us. Ajay made a completely wonderful smoothie (it turns out he’s a qualified raw food chef), Nicole made some great pizzas and was kind enough to do some without cheese especially for me (I am so spoilt), and I brought along, yes, you guessed it, cupcakes.

I went for a swim afterwards – it was a beautifully warm day with little wind – and so all in all it was perfect.

In the evening, Safi and I dressed ourselves up and went to the Premier Romance for their buffet dinner, starting off with a drink beforehand and then moving on to the food. We’d discussed and booked with the hotel beforehand, agreeing a price and having our local discount cards photocopied. These were supposed to be at the buffet reception when we arrived, along with a note of the agreed price, so that it would be trouble-free when we were there.

We had a fantastic meal – they had roast chicken and I also had some steak with pepper sauce, fish and chips (mistranslated in reality into crisps in UK English), a curry dish, a kebab... and I can’t remember what else, but also mushroom soup and a selection of desserts.

As you might have guessed, by the time we came to pay, it turned out that the bits of paper with the agreed price had gone missing and we were charged 170 LE instead of 150 LE each (discounted from 220 LE without the residents’ card). It took us almost an hour to get it sorted as they couldn’t work out which manager we’d spoken to who had given us this price and it was, of course, 11pm on Christmas Day. We got there in the end, but even now I don’t know if the manager quoted us the wrong price or whether the guys at the till got it wrong.

In a way, I’ve also had a fourth celebration, because Safi and I followed it up with a buffet breakfast at Premier Romance on Sunday. Again, this was super and included all the things you’d usually expect from an upmarket hotel at breakfast (beef bacon, eggs, beef and turkey sausages, fresh doughnuts, cereal, fried aubergine, juices, various breads, fresh fruit, cheeses, meats, etc). We’d never received a quote for the price, but we got the standard residential discount without any fuss. It’s been ages since I’ve had one of those breakfasts, so it was a great thing to do (it almost made me miss my days at Novo Nordisk!).

All in all, I have to say that I’ve had the most enjoyable time!

Hurghada - All Change!

Hurghada - Carrefour Supermarket (It's Bigger Than it Looks!)

Not only are there improvements afoot in El Andalous, even Hurghada is undergoing quite a few changes of late.

We’ve got two new supermarkets in Hurghada now – Best Way and Carrefour. Carrefour (yes, that’s right, the French supermarket chain) has been rumoured to be opening for about six years. I’d been following all the rumours on the internet before I moved over here – people couldn’t even agree where it was supposed to be, so it was quite hard to get people to believe it was opening. This wasn’t helped by the precise date changing each time the so-called opening day approached. Nevertheless, crowds of people stormed the supermarket on the first day. A Carrefour hypermarket is still rumoured to be planned further north of Hurghada.

The current store is a pretty decent size with a fresh fish counter and bakery and it sells some non-food items, too (eg, kitchen utensils, televisions, etc). Price-wise it is comparable to Spinneys with some different items in store, but less of them, than in Spinneys. Still, it gives residents a bigger choice of things to buy, which is great. Spinneys is still by far the largest supermarket in Hurghada and has the convenience of being situated in a mall.

Best Way is also a reasonable size and sells a wider variety of non-food items than Carrefour and possibly a wider selection of European items, for a cost. You can even buy a bicycle there and it has its own in-house cafe where Safi and I had coffee and cake (well, only I had the cake). I keep on thinking about buying a bicycle, but each time I come to the conclusion that I don’t need it and won’t use it.

Anything that increases the amount of choice is a good thing and both openings have been greeted with much enthusiasm, particularly since many of the Abu Ashara supermarkets have closed.

What’s maybe even more exciting is that the much-rumoured new airport terminal has also opened and is now operational. Hopefully, this will bring lots of people to Hurghada and improve the economy. I guess it will take a while for it to be fully operational with shops and everything and I’ve yet to find out whether it’s now one terminal for International flights and one terminal for local flights or whether it’s one is Arrivals and the other is Departures.

President Sisi even came to open it; all the roads were cleaned and long-outstanding repairs hastily completed so that Hurghada could look good for his arrival. I believe they even removed the speed bumps for when he was here and then put them back as soon as he left!

In Sahl Hasheesh, we now have a wonderful new restaurant called Chez Paul. I had a steak there and it was delicious; I’ve booked a table there with Safi for their New Year’s Eve celebrations as they are charging a reasonable 290 LE (vs 600 LE at El Gusto and 1200+ LE at Premier Romance). I’m looking forward to tomato soup, waldorf salad with shrimps (could have had smoked salmon and caviar), a T-bone steak (could have chosen roast turkey), banana flambé, and an Irish coffee! There’s also seasonal entertainment such as belly dancers.

In addition, El Andalous now has its own small fruit and vegetable store, also selling fresh juices to take away. I believe the prices are quite high, but I guess that’s for the convenience of not having to go all the way to Spinneys in a taxi. We also now have our own pharmacy attached to El Andalous with a doctor available; another valuable service, even if we all hope we won’t need it!

I’m curious to see what the new year will bring. One big rumour on my list to watch is the opening of the Hurghada aquarium in January; going by the artist’s pictures, it looks as if it also contains something like a mini Eden project with a tropical forest in the building as well. We shall see!

El Andalous - Intermediate Egyptian Arabic, Module 1

Fossilised Rock in Sahl Hasheesh

I’m not quite sure how I end up being too busy to do my Arabic on a regular basis; I think it’s partly because I can dictate my own timetable over here and so I’m not obliged to do anything at any particular time if I decide that’s for the best. At the moment, I’m feeling motivated to work on my second novel (Space Shapes; no you didn’t miss it, my first one isn’t out yet!), so I’ve used any spare time to do that rather than my Arabic while the mood takes me.

Anyway, it’s not as if I’m not progressing at all. I finally managed to read all the dialogues in my first book in Arabic script and so I’ve moved on to the first chapter of my Intermediate book. As I said in an earlier blog, this Intermediate book is all in Arabic script; the last time I looked at it, I wasn’t able to read a thing. By the time I started it this time round, I managed to read the first dialogue with hardly any difficulty. Progress!

Fortunately, the Intermediate books starts with very basic vocabulary that I’ve already learned, for the most part (what’s your name, where are you from, the verb “to have”). It’s more thorough than my other book, so rather than just the basic “I’m from England”, you also learn, eg, I’m from North America, South West America, the capital of America (the book is by the American University in Cairo) and the names of a whole bunch of countries focusing on those closest to Egypt for the most part. For me, this is good, because the grammar is familiar and yet I still get to learn a few new words while practicing my reading.

The difficulty now in this first chapter is working out what all the exercises are since they are explained in Arabic script as well and I don’t know the vocabulary for “repeat”, “fill in the missing word”, “answers are on the recording”, “grammar”, “pronunciation”, “vocabulary” etc.

It’s easy to think that I could just look the words up in a dictionary, but it’s a skill I haven’t yet developed. I can’t remember the order of the alphabet and, because the shape of a letter changes depending on where it is in a word, I have to work out what that letter in the middle is like when it’s written at the beginning of a word in order to identify it in the alphabetic list. Even then, it's not so easy, because I can never remember which letters come before and after my target letter and when I'm looking through the dictionary when I've got to the middle of a word, I have to work out for each letter what it looks like at the beginning, and where it is.

In addition, there are a few letters with similar sounds, for example, a hard D and a soft d, and a d that sounds a bit like "th", and I have to remember which is which and, again, where they are in the alphabet, which is completely different from the position the similar letters are in my mother-tongue alphabet. It's complicated!

I started to look the words up in a dictionary thinking it would be good practice, but it took me several hours to look up one word and sometimes the word didn’t appear to be there. I was never very sure if it was because I had looked it up wrongly or if it really wasn’t in my small dictionary. Or maybe the word I was looking up was part of a verb and I needed the infinitive? Or maybe it was the plural, so I needed to look it up under the singular, but if it’s a new word, I don’t know what the singular is (since in Arabic the plural can be quite different from the singular). Alternatively, maybe it’s an Egyptian word that’s not listed in my strictly Arabic dictionary. Really, using dictionaries is a pretty advanced skill, I now realise. It’s amazing that we ever manage it.

My next technique was to use my little Egyptian Arabic to English dictionary which has Egyptian Arabic words transliterated into the English alphabet. Unfortunately, this is closer to a phrase book, really, so terms like “basic vocabulary” aren’t in there.

It wasn’t possible for me to enter the words into google translate, since my book is in hard copy and I didn’t know – or think how to fathom out – how to write the Arabic letters on my computer. As it is, google translate for Arabic is a joke. You can pretty much pick any sentence in Arabic and when you put it into google translate, it comes out as gobbledegook. Here are two comments that I saw on facebook on Esmat’s page, “translated” into English:

Any fresh mashy ya am murdoch senior wekoltli dollar on cam

Any sweet Dee I love you red mesh hataadi taking account of their path and purify your health workers Anta



Then I suddenly remembered that I’d downloaded an Egyptian Arabic / English dictionary that was online. It took me a bit of experimenting to learn how they represented the various Arabic letters in the transliteration, but once I’d got the hang of that, it worked not too badly. There are still lots of words that I am unable to find, but I did manage to get quite a few (“words”, “the basics”, “repeat”, “colleague”, “pronunciation”, “map”, “chart”, etc). It’s a super dictionary actually as it also has sound with it so that you can hear a real Egyptian speaking the words for pronunciation, and, of course, it has the word written in Arabic script so that you can check it letter for letter against your target word. Moreover, it even tells you if it’s an Egyptian word or a Modern Standard Arabic word. I couldn’t get the sound files to download at first, so I emailed the creator, and he fixed it for me the next day, which was absolutely brilliant. It turned out that he lives in Hurghada!

Another good thing about the online / electronic dictionary is that you can store words in your “learn” file and then test yourself. It’s quite addictive because as you look for the word you want, you come across other words that you feel are useful, and before you know it, you have tons of words in your “to learn” list.

Consequently, this first chapter of the new book is taking me forever and I’m still in the process of looking up the vocabulary. However, I’m persevering and taking it slowly, because I reckon all these words in the first chapter will be repeated throughout subsequent chapters; after all, the exercises ("pronunciation exercise", "fill in the gaps", "find the word that corresponds to the verb") will probably be similar throughout the book, so it should be a one-off task and things should go a lot faster after that.

In the mean time, I’m now spending half an hour a day with Ajay, who is also learning Arabic, so that the two of us can practice speaking with our limited vocabulary. Slowly, slowly….

El Andalous - All Change!

El Andalous - Rooftop Pool in Use

El Andalous is really more than a block of flats; it’s a small community. At least, in my time here, it’s been a small community, although I think this partly came about due to the water and electricity being cut off (see blog 2013, September, Flashback - What Could Go Wrong?). This action brought all the owners together to discuss how to proceed and we’ve stayed together ever since. I’ve been lucky, because I haven’t known it to be any other way.

It’s all a bit of a long story, but many owners weren’t paying maintenance because they felt the standards here were unsatisfactory given the amount charged for upkeep. Finally, we got together as a group, and tried to negotiate in a friendly manner, and to date this has achieved some success. I’m not a negotiator and I’m also not someone who really notices dirt or who worries about noise (although the rats were a problem!), so I let others handle that aspect of things while I report back to everyone as to what’s happening via the newsletter. It’s always best to play to your strengths!

We also meet every week to get to know each other and to let people voice any issues that they have. This has had the bonus effect of people now feeling they belong here more and that it’s a community of friends rather than of strangers. We are now also the envy of the other two beachfront apartment blocks who are not so organised (yet).

Of course, we are in a way just a random bunch of people thrown together and, of course, there are differences of opinion and differences of culture (predominantly UK and Russia, but some other Europeans and some Egyptians, too). We’ve learned how to communicate with each other, hunted out the few people who can speak both English and Russian (all Russians or Eastern bloc, of course, thus confirming the prejudice that the British are lazy with languages!), and come to understand why others have the concerns they do.

This time of year is always a bit sensitive because the next year’s maintenance is approaching and there’s usually growing unrest about how satisfactory the services are. This then calls for a new set of negotiations about what should be achieved.

Anyway, thanks to our negotiators, we’ve now got several improvements at El Andalous. We now have a gold and silver membership system, allowing benefits such as discounts at our local restaurant, use of an additional beach, etc. The hope is that the benefits will grow over time; getting the membership system started was a major hurdle overcome.

We also got agreement to have the use of the heated rooftop pool. The pool had already been there for a while, but we weren’t allowed to use it and it was rumoured to be earmarked for the use of the building company’s benefit only. Anyway, loungers were provided, we’re now in, and people have been using it. We still need additional furniture (bins, parasols, etc) and it turned out not to be heated yet due to a missing part (the heater?), so we continue to push for this.

Another huge benefit was a weekly bus to the shopping mall for a fee of 5 LE return per person. It’s a little minibus that holds 9 people plus shopping, leaves at 7pm on Monday and returns at 9pm. Given that a taxi is 60 LE return, it’s a great plus.

We were also supposed to be having a security gate installed, but this seems to have got a bit lost in translation somewhere, but we’re still pushing at the moment.

In addition, we were provided the services of a professional trainer to bring the cleaning standards at the complex up to scratch and to train the management here. This is still in progress, but we have high hopes.

In some ways, it all seems a bit surreal to me, as if I’m playing a part in some kind of reality-TV show where they thrust people together and they have to organise themselves; a TV set where some people will find one thing a huge issue that others just don’t understand, and vice versa. But, at the end of the day, surprisingly, we actually do all get on pretty well and manage to reach a pretty broad agreement.

Certainly, since I’ve been here, there have been many new things that have improved my life here (the beach being the main one, and I wasn’t even particularly fussed about having our own private beach originally!). Bit by bit, we really are moving forward.

Hurghada - SubZero

Geraldine and Fiona in SubZero. Photo (c) Geraldine Thompson

One new thing (for me) that Geraldine and I did while she was over was to try out SubZero – the new bar totally made out of ice that has opened up by South Beach in Hurghada.

I’d read a bit about it online and I’d heard that your feet can get uncomfortably cold, so we took socks along with us. This turned out to be one of the wisest things I’ve done in a while (it doesn’t happen often!).

We arrived and were the only people there. I negotiated a discount for being a resident, showing them my Sahl Hasheesh resident’s card, and they let Geraldine have the discount too, so that was a good start.

They explained that the entrance fee included the price of a shot and one cocktail (at first I thought they were saying a shot and a Coke too!). Both drinks were alcoholic, so I’m not sure what happens to people who don’t drink alcohol. Anyway, for us this was fine!

We were then taken into the next room, where they handed out heavy capes with hoods and some gloves for you to put on. The staff was suitably impressed when we both whipped out our socks. Apparently, they plan to provide socks at some point and my guess would be that it would be quite a good merchandising trick as well. The capes and gloves weren’t really the sort of things you’d want to buy as they were very heavy duty!

They ushered us into the ice bar; there’s a time limit of 25 minutes. As you might expect, the bar isn’t huge, but there are a few ice sculptures to look at and ice benches covered with white fur for you to sit on.

To my surprise, the shots weren’t schnapps, but flavoured alcohol and you could choose your flavour. I can’t quite remember the options, but they were quite interesting – perhaps caramel, parma violet, and blackberry were among them.

Apparently, the guy at the bar downed his in one so Geraldine did the same. I was focusing too hard on trying to pick the glass up, which was made of ice. I don’t know how the other two managed to do it with one hand while wearing those huge gloves (I now see from the photo that maybe Geraldine didn’t wear hers!), but I had to use both hands to ensure a firm grip (I wasn’t going to lose my alcohol!). Consequently, I was lost for a while in my own little world and just took a sip of the stuff, only to look up and find that the other two were watching me with empty glasses and waiting.

The man serving us was very personable and told us that the ice was brought in from Dubai (isn’t that weird!) as it was a special ice that was transparent. The temperature was maintained at -5 degrees celcius. They’d had quite a bit of trade in the summer when temperatures outside were in the 40s and really it’s probably best to go when you can get the optimal contrast between heat and cold. We went in the evening in November, when temperatures had already cooled quite a bit outside (relatively, of course! For those of you in Europe or the USA, it was still fairly hot). 

It must have been a bit of a shock for the owners of SubZero when they opened only to find that almost immediately afterwards the government decided to increase electricity costs by something like 100% over five years, starting immediately. I did ask them about this but I can't remember their reply now, other than I think he gave me an example of an astronomical electricity bill!

We had our delicious cocktail next, picking from a list provided to us. As Geraldine pointed out, the cocktails were all premixed and in plastic containers behind the bar, presumably because it wouldn’t have been too easy for the barman to mix them in sub zero temperatures. It felt a bit strange not seeing them being mixed in front of you, but they were really good, so no complaints from me!

Maybe because we were the only two, and maybe because Geraldine drank quickly (ha, ha), we were even given an extra shot for free. The guy pointed out that although the drinks looked colored, they were actually transparent – they just took on whatever the current hue was of the alternating lamps shining through the ice bar counter.

It was hard to know how to pace yourself as we had no idea how much time was passing or how much time we had left. When we came out, there was a group of six people just putting on their cloaks, so I was pleased to see that they had a stream of business, as I would like to see the place thrive. We chatted with the new group for a while as they dressed and we returned our cloaks.

All in all, it’s a great place to go in Hurghada; I can’t praise the staff enough. And it’s just next to South Beach, which means you can stay on afterwards for a well-priced meal and even listen to the live band at 10pm and make a night of it.

I guess writing this blog in December doesn’t make the concept of an ice bar very tempting to those shivering in Europe or the USA just now, but over here, it’s all quite a novelty!

El Andalous - No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

El Andalous - Walkway by Shops

I had this great idea to visit my brother in New Zealand next February – I felt it would be a good use of some of the inheritance money from my parents and also I’d amassed quite a few airmiles (216k to be precise) that I’d been half-saving for a NZ trip in order to fly business class. I am now not limited by time either, so I can go at my leisure. It all sounds good, doesn’t it?

Ha! Well, it just wasn’t so easy.

First of all, as already reported, the guy at EgyptAir hadn’t heard of New Zealand and I discovered that, although EgyptAir was part of the Star Alliance, they wouldn’t let me book a flight with my Star Alliance miles because my card was with Swiss and not EgyptAir.

I wasn’t too sure at this stage whether this meant that I could book flights only with Swiss or whether I just had to book through a Swiss office. I looked online and the Swiss booking system didn’t allow award flights as far as New Zealand since online booking was limited to only some airlines in the Star Alliance.

Anyway, after a bit of searching, I discovered that I needed to phone the Swiss Star Alliance office in Cairo. I was not keen on this idea since even simple phone calls are fraught with problems over here and my query was pretty complex (what are my options to get to New Zealand using my air miles, were there flights available that I could use my airmiles with, could I book using any Star Alliance partner; indeed, how did I book?).

I emailed the office instead and waited for a reply. After four or five days, I got an email from Lufthansa in Germany (phew!) asking me for my Swiss PIN and they would see which flights were available. I replied straight away and got no reply.

Meanwhile, my brother pointed me to a NZ website which allowed me to find alternative routes myself and filter results by Star Alliance only.

After getting no reply, I simplified my query by suggesting a route and asking which dates flights would be available for me to book with my airmiles. Again, no reply.

I simplified my query further and asked them to book me a specific flight. Again, no reply.

In the end, I decided I would have to phone. I dialled but got a message saying the number was wrong. I tried a few other permutations but only one got a response and it was a recorded message in Arabic with music in the background. It didn’t sound like Miles and More.

I gave up and asked my brother in New Zealand to book it for me. Unfortunately, it turned out that he was off on holiday in a few days’ time. However, he did his best before he left. He looked at the first leg of my journey (well, second leg, to be honest) and found the times and availability for that and dug up another website that I could try.

Unfortunately, whatever the website, it still held that there were only limited Star Alliance partners that permitted online booking of award flights and I was reluctant to book the first (second) leg without knowing whether the next leg of the flight would also be possible.

I was stuck. How on earth could I book this flight?

I returned once more to the Swiss website and found an online form I could fill out. This, at least, got me the helpful reply that booking via email was not allowed and that I had to phone the Cairo office to book my flight award. The reply was from one of those addresses where you’re not allowed to reply back. So, back I went to the online form to explain that the Cairo number they provided did not work. They replied that it was the correct number.

Are these award flights a myth?

In the end I decided I’d just book the leg of the flight that I could do online and then pay for the other flights myself. I had an itinerary all worked out. 

I went online, picked my times, only to find that when I clicked on the link, I could only book on a route that used an extra change of planes. This wasn’t what I was expecting. Moreover, my return date that I was allowed differed from the one I had planned.

Consequently, I had to find out if it was easier for me to fly direct to the place where I changed planes or go to my original point of departure. And I had to check that my connecting flight still flew on the new date. It was all so complicated.

Finally, I booked this one return leg of the journey. It wasn’t even free as it still cost me GBP 500 in fees and taxes. Moreover, I didn’t have enough miles left to book the next part of the journey, even if I could. At least paying for myself makes the options a lot easier.

All done, finally? No!

My next step was to ensure I had a place on the tour we wanted to go on. I emailed the agent to ask, not really expecting a problem, but she informed me that the dates I wanted in early March next year weren’t guaranteed and she strongly recommended booking the tour before or the tour after. Argh!

Never mind, I thought, I’ll just change my flight booking online. However, when I went to do this, the options of eligible flights had changed and a date that was available earlier was no longer free. So, once more, I sat there working out various new itineraries.

Eventually, I changed my flight. All was good. Or was it?

No, I had an email from Swiss saying that I needed to pay a fee for changing my ticket (not much and I expected this, but was surprised my online booking hadn’t requested it) and could I ring Cairo to pay it? Again, this email from Swiss was from a no-reply address, so I couldn’t explain that the Cairo number didn’t work. Anyway, that’s one of my “let’s just leave that to hang” strategy items, so let’s see what disaster awaits.

I still have to book Singapore-Auckland, but I’m hoping this will be less traumatic than the rest, since I’m paying proper money for it. I’m beginning to think the airmiles are a bit of a con as it is is so difficult to use them and the fees are so high. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t booked with airmiles and had saved them up for a special deal instead for maximum benefit, but it’s all too late now. Maybe someone out there can learn from my experience. It would have been easier if I weren’t in Egypt, as well.

Hurghada - A Trip to El Gouna

El Gouna - Egyptian Luxury

We managed to fit in quite a lot while Geraldine was here. I’ve already blogged about a few of the suggested itinerary items before, but one thing I haven’t mentioned much is El Gouna. I stayed there when originally looking for a property to buy in Egypt (see September 2013: Flashback - Flat Hunting), but I haven’t been back since.

We went into the tourist agency in the Old Town in Sahl Hasheesh and one of the many things they offered was a trip by boat to El Gouna. After discussing, we returned to buy the tickets, but they insisted on giving us the whole sales pitch again. Somehow the trip details differed on the second telling and, in addition, the chances of sighting a dolphin dropped from 95% to 80%. Never mind, this is Egypt.

I haggled on the price as a resident and got a small discount (see, I am settling in after all!). Even though El Gouna is the Venice of Egypt (every country has at least one), the trip still had a certain Egyptian flair.

We were told to wait outside the office at 8.15am on the day, which we dutifully did, but nobody was there to meet us. A security guard came up to us and asked if we were there for the tourist agency, so we nodded and he started to phone them. At this point, the bus arrived, so all was well.

After 45 minutes, we arrived at a marina off a hotel in the middle of nowhere towards the North of Hurghada and it was like a bus station for boats. About 7-8 boats were moored there taking on passengers and, as each ship left, other boats were already hanging around waiting to dock. The ships varied in quality, so it got to be a bit of a guessing game as to which of them would be ours. Even our guide was on the phone trying to find out which one it was. It turned out that ours was one that we hadn’t even spotted because it was parked behind another boat and we had to climb over the first boat to get to ours.

Similar to the boat for Jac’s birthday (March 2014: Hurghada - Jac's Birthday), getting on felt quite scary and when we mentioned that the waves were rough, we were informed it would all be OK by the afternoon. This seems to be the standard patter. As is always the case, we had to remove our shoes (even though they were only swimming shoes) while on the boat.

We’d originally been advised to go on the Wednesday trip as that was the English-speaking tour, but when they realised that for us it was Tuesday or nothing, since Geraldine was leaving on Wednesday, they magically made a phone call and ascertained that the Russian trip on Tuesday would also have English. This turned out not to be true. There were four other Brits on board, but all the commentary was in Russian (and all other passengers were Russian-speaking).

Consequently, it was maybe just as well we had two explanations of the trip, because we didn’t have much of a clue what was happening from whatever was said on board. It also pretty much set the tone for the day, which was that the aim for the company was to make as much money as possible from the tourists rather than to ensure the tourists had the best possible experience. This is (a struggling) Egypt.

The tour guide counted everyone on the boat, but it seemed to be a bit haphazard, due to the numbers of people and everyone wandering about as she counted. Indeed, the ship and all subsequent travel arrangements were over-full. We couldn’t get seats on the top deck, so had to sit on the food deck (what a hardship). In the end we sat right at the front of the boat, which was actually pretty good and it ended up being the spot where male Russians would pose for macho photographs showing their bravado as they stood dangerously on the bow. We spotted some dolphins en route and had a good view from down the front end.

Fortunately, the guide for the snorkel stop introduced himself to me and Geraldine in English, which made him easier to identify and helped us to know what was happening. He had bread to attract the fish, which I found annoying as I really just wanted to search for fish that I hadn’t seen before, but I guess for the tourists it’s great to see the huge shoals, or swarms, of fish coming to eat it.

For me, it was a delicate balance of keeping my eye on the snorkelling guide and doing my own thing, but it all worked out. As a joke, one of the Russians kept on diving down in front of me and waving each time I tried to take an underwater photograph. I’m not sure I appreciated it at the time, but I can see the funny side now!

As the ship approached El Gouna, we saw at least 60 kite boarders scooting along the coastline and performing some impressive jumps; another one appeared to be crossing the sea. Either that, or he was lost. Finally, we docked.

The bus waiting at El Gouna to drive us to the boat for our lagoon trip did not have enough seats for everyone (some stood), but it was only a two minute drive. Then we struggled to squeeze onto the lagoon boat; at one point I wondered if we would all fit on. When I looked round at other boats, though, they too were full. The Russian-speakers sitting by us complained that they couldn’t hear what the guide was saying and for us it was redundant since not a word of explanation was provided in English.

Still, the lagoons were a beautiful turquoise colour and the flowers all around made El Gouna appear very Mediterranean. The expensive villas looked like show houses, although many seemed unoccupied. We stopped off at the aquarium, but the fish in the sea looked healthier and happier, I thought. Following this, we had a half hour’s coffee stop in a cafe; Geraldine and I decided to wander and explore the old town instead.

We made our way back to the cafe at what we thought was the appointed time, but when we got there, it was empty. Everyone had already left. We dashed back to the long boat only to see it pulling away from the dock. I shouted, and the boat stopped, hovering by a boat tied up at the dock, while we leapt over it to get to ours. Apparently, the guide had counted twice, thinking she’d miscounted the first time. So much for the counting technique is all I can say! It’s obviously a matter of counting until you decide you’ve counted the number of people you think you should have, regardless of what actually holds.

Being the last on the boat, it was a struggle to find somewhere to sit, but everyone huddled along and the girl next to me sat on her boyfriend’s lap so that I could have room. Off we went. However, water washed over the front of the boat and flooded the front seats as soon as we picked up speed. People leapt up, much shouting occurred, and the guy steering the boat slowed the engine down. A number of people ended up having to stand. I had a wet bum by the end of it as the water gradually filtered down the boat.

Then we got off the boat. Geraldine and I eagerly got on the first bus with a load of other people, keen to secure a seat. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the wrong bus. However, at least we were pulled off it before either of the buses departed, although I ended up having to stand after all that.

Back on our sea-faring ship, the next item on the agenda was fishing. It wasn’t with proper rods, but just with a hook attached to wire wound round a wooden holder. I’ve seen people using these on El Andalous beach as well, so they must be pretty common. It was quiet as everyone stood looking down at the water where they’d thrown their lines. Suddenly, we heard a yell, and I thought someone had caught something huge in the first few minutes, but it turned out that we had a man overboard. The boat was a diving boat and wasn’t secured at the end at all where the divers usually jump off. I would say that we’d had no safety instructions during the trip, but we may have had them in Russian for all I know!

But all’s well that ends well. We arrived safely back in Hurghada.

Now, however, none of the Brits could remember the name of the company we’d booked with; the Russians were OK because they had their guide. There were loads of empty buses sitting and waiting for people. Anyway, the first bus we asked claimed it was going to Sahl Hasheesh, although I was not entirely convinced. The Russians also appeared to be confused and, before we knew it, some of them joined our bus. They hadn’t been there when we came! Then, after some debate in Russian outside, these people were moved from our bus to another bus and we were joined by another person going somewhere else. Meanwhile, we checked with the driver, and he still claimed he was going to Sahl Hasheesh. To my surprise, it did end up at Sahl Hasheesh, so we did OK.

Despite the various mishaps and the overcrowding, the boat journey was beautiful, the water was warm, the snorkelling was great, and El Gouna was enchanting. I don’t regret the trip and would recommend it, but do insist that you go on a day where your language is pre-planned! Nevertheless, the Russians were a friendly bunch and even though we couldn’t speak the same language, they made an effort to converse with us with good humour and much hilarity. I just hope that the guides weren’t relying on us catching fish to eat in the evening because I think only one person caught a tiny fish and that was it.

Hurghada - A Visitor's Impressions

Mosque from the Marina

One of the good things about having a visitor is that you get to see some of the things that you’ve already taken for granted in your new setting. Although I try to capture most of the differences between here and Europe in this blog, sometimes I just don’t get round to mentioning some things if they don’t fall within topic and, to be honest, at other times I simply overlook them.

Geraldine was surprised at how large El Andalous was when she arrived (she described it as a palace, but given all the complaints from owners here, I think she was maybe being rather polite!) and also at the size of Sahl Hasheesh as a resort. Sahl Hasheesh spreads over something like 12km of coastline, I think, so it’s perfectly possible to stay in a hotel here and be nowhere near where I’m living, even though not all of it is developed yet.

It’s the same with Hurghada. Hurghada is spread out along the coast (but unfortunately is built up so that it’s not always easy to see the coastline, which is a shame), so if you stay in a hotel in North Hurghada, you can be quite a way from South Hurghada. And Sahl Hasheesh is itself yet further South (El Gouna is to the North of Hurghada). Anyone holidaying in Hurghada would need a taxi to visit me and would need to set aside pretty much at least a half hour drive.

As I think I’ve said in earlier blogs, there are many half-built buildings just waiting for the economy here to pick up before being re-started or sold to a developer. For now, they are just a sad testament to the problems that Egypt has had over the last years.

Taxis are always a good topic of conversation / provide room for adventure. Esmat drives well, is pleasant to talk to, and is reliable. Having warned of the dangers of other taxi drivers, we ended up having to get a random taxi at one point for a short trip within town and actually ended up with someone who was very good. The car was of good quality, the driver was quiet, and did not argue over how much we should pay. If only it were always like that!

Anyway, I think Geraldine was surprised to find that many cars in Hurghada don’t have safety belts. Well, they do, but there’s nothing you can click them into – no clunk click, just a band that slides and has nowhere to go. I don’t think twice about this now, but it’s really pretty common.

It used to be that no one in Hurghada used their headlights at night either because it was standard belief that if you used your lights, your battery would run low. Consequently, I’ve been told by many, you’d drive down roads in pitch black without knowing whether a car was approaching you in the opposite direction. This practice has now been made illegal, and everyone has to use lights at night, so fortunately it’s not something I’ve really had to experience.

Geraldine wondered why they thought that the lights took up battery energy but not the car horn, which Egyptians use liberally at every opportunity (it’s mostly taxis touting for business, or cars tooting to warn you that they are coming up behind you; Lena and Holger also commented on all the tooting here, but allegedly it’s a lot less than it used to be).

Esmat said that they’ve recently passed a law to ban people from driving if they get too many points on their license, similar to Europe. It will be interesting to see whether driving habits change at all.

Anyway, on one occasion Esmat couldn’t make it to take us back home one evening, so he sent a friend of his to fetch us. In Egypt, “friends” are invariably also relatives (as are spouses, come to that), so he was also Esmat’s cousin. He was an extremely pleasant guy, but he seemed to think that speed bumps were there as a challenge to speed and then break in quick succession and he spent rather a lot of our journey turning round to us in the back and showing us pictures on his mobile phone of all the huge fish he’d caught at various points in his life rather than focusing on the road. It was a very Egyptian experience.

Another difference that Geraldine picked up on was the ring pulls on diet coke cans. Here, a bit like the toothpaste that dries up as soon as you squeeze it out the tiny hole at the top of the tube, it’s a return to the 1970’s. The ring pulls are those that you pull right off; they don’t bend back and stay on the can. This probably also fits in with the generous, free use of plastic bags that I’ve mentioned before at the supermarket. There’s not much consciousness of keeping the environment clean here, although that is allegedly also something that may be marked for improvement over the next few years. Let’s see!

El Andalous - Visitor

Bird Wading on El Andalous Beach

Sorry, I've got a bit busy while my friend Geraldine is visiting, so I won't manage to write this week's blog until Thursday. Next blog after that will be the following Monday, as usual!

Hurghada - Things to Do

Sand City - King Kong

I have Geraldine visiting for a week as from Wednesday, so I’ve been thinking up some things to do with a view to not all of them being swimming and snorkelling related (which would be my desire!).

I thought I may as well share my thoughts here in case anyone stumbles across this blog wondering what to do while they are in Hurghada.

To my surprise, I’m finding it hard to fit everything in within one week, but maybe it’s good for someone to leave with more to do for another visit. Anyway, here are some suggestions to you random people out there!

1. Wednesday night is Marina night. There’s a festival at the Marina every Wednesday. I can’t remember if I reported back on this blog when I went with Nicole. There are special (reduced price) menus at the restaurants and out on the walkway there are bands playing, men on stilts, close-up magicians, etc. It’s surprising how many Egyptians go, so it’s not even just foreign tourists.
2. I definitely reported on South Beach before – decent food at good prices (now with specials each evening at reduced rates, eg, curry night, pizza night, etc) with live music most evenings and karaoke on Fridays (I’ll be avoiding Fridays!). During the day (and night too, I guess), you can lounge on the beach while having your cafe latte or eating your cheesecake.
3. Believe it or not, the SubZero bar next door to South Beach did actually open. It’s a bar made out of ice, so you step from 35 degrees natural heat outside into subzero temperatures! Where else in the world can you do that? I’ve not been yet, and the entrance fee is fairly steep, but includes a few drinks and use of warm clothes that are provided. I believe you are allowed to stay inside only for 30 minutes.
4. Senzo Mall. OK, so not the most exciting of places for tourists maybe, but foreign supermarkets are always interesting as they give you a bit of insight into real life. Spinneys is in Senzo mall and is the largest supermarket in Hurghada (other chains are Abu Ashara and Metro). Senzo also houses KFC and McDonalds and some more local (and decent) restaurants too. There’s also the cinema, which we may try out since I haven’t been there yet; there’s even a 5D cinema (you can find one of these in the marina as well, I think). It’s a mall, so there are other shops too, of course. It’s a welcome relief here, since otherwise you have to traipse all round town to get to various shops; Senzo Mall is not really a typically Egyptian experience!
5. The mosque and the fish market. I’ve already blogged about these.
6. Glass-bottomed boat. I believe this goes over to Makadi Bay from Sahl Hasheesh. You sit in a part of the boat that’s underwater with glass all around you and you can see all the fish and coral without getting wet. It’s a 90-minute journey. There’s another one that goes from the Marina and I think form El Gouna as well.
7. Sand City. This is a new attraction in Hurghada and is conveniently situated close to Senzo Mall. It contains sculptures made out of sand created by various artists around the world. There’s a whole children’s section of cartoon characters (also fun for adults!) and then an adult section with the Sphinx, various Egyptian pharaonic figures, Neptune, Cleopatra, etc. The size and detail is impressive. They were promising a sound and light show from September, but it’s not on their website, so I assume that’s still a work in progress. Currently open from 8am to 6pm.
8. El Gouna. Created by the Sawaris with everyone mocking that it wouldn’t work but quickly became one of the prime locations in Egypt. A man-made town of lagoons with a hospital, a university, mini-golf, proper golf, a marina or two, and still expanding. There’s a boat trip round the lagoons that you can do and probably a lot of other stuff that I don’t know about.
9. Fruit and Vegetable market at the far end of El Nasr Street. I’ve never been as it’s rather a long way to go for fruit and vegetables, but I’ve heard it’s worth a visit and has more than just fruit and vegetables.
10. Dendera Temple complex. This is a day trip if you want to get a taste of Ancient Egypt but don't have the time to go to Luxor (you need three days, at least, in Luxor - one for travelling (allow 2 x 4 hours), one for Luxor temple and Karnak, and one for Valley of Kings/Queens). A well-preserved site. I haven't been there yet myself, so cannot comment much, but have heard many good reports about it.
11. Other places to eat are Thai Garden and the Lebanese restaurant in Mamsha. You may as well spend a little time walking up and down Mamsha while you’re there, but with few tourists around, it can seem a bit quiet (but all the more reason to give them your support). From here, you can also wander up and visit the El Kawser area, which is where the Egyptian hospital is (where I was treated for my broken foot). It’s not really easy to browse shops in Egypt as they are quite far apart and you risk your life each time you cross the road, but it’s part of the experience! Another good venue for an evening out is the Viking bar (already reported on in this blog) which has food and live music on Fridays. That’s just off Sheraton Road near Bombay restaurant (supposed to be good), which is signposted from Sheraton Road. So, if you go there, you can take the opportunity to explore Sheraton Road as well, but be warned during the day in the heat it is tiring and you may find shopkeepers inviting you in to look at their wares all the time. It’s part of the experience (although, to be honest, I don’t find it too bad). Heaven in the marina has been highly recommended; try B’s at the Marina for camel or buffalo. Actually, there are loads of places and I’ll go on all day at this rate.

So, even if you don’t like beach holidays or snorkelling much, there are still plenty of things to do. Jim went on a quad-bike while he was here and said it was fantastic. You can hire boats for the day. If you’re here for longer, Luxor is less than four hours away by taxi (you pay around 400-500 LE); Cairo is a plane ride away with one-way flights starting from 250 LE with a new airline that’s just started up.

On the other hand, you can have a great time just swimming, snorkelling and diving. The seascape continually changes, of course, because the fish move about.

Anyway, that's my sales pitch over. Have a safe journey, Geraldine!

El Andalous - Forgetfulness

Coral and Fish at Ramp in Sahl Hasheesh

Well, I had one of those days yesterday (Sunday) where my brain was like a sieve.

Unfortunately, life isn’t 100% fun, and so Saturday evening was spent filling out my UK tax return. I hadn’t realised that it had to be in by October 30th if I was submitting it on paper. I tried to see if they had changed it so that expats could also fill in the forms online, but in my move I’d thrown away my login details for the tax office. I’d had a pretty extensive clear out before I came here and I could have predicted that a few essential things would go missing.

There’s no way now that my tax return will get there by October 30th, but I’m hoping that if the postmark is before then, the tax office will offer me some leniency. Anyway, I thought it best to get it off as soon as possible.  In Egypt Sunday is a normal working day, so at least I had an extra day to play with from a UK perspective.

I’d already arranged to go snorkeling with Tom and Kath the next day, meeting at 11am, so that meant I would have to get to the post office for 10am, when it opened, if my social agenda was going to work out. This called for some organisation and at first it went well.

I prepared my boiled egg for my sandwiches the night before, did my tax return, put it into an envelope and addressed it, wrote a letter to UBS to request to close my account (finally all Swiss admin, apart from this, is completed!), put that in an envelope and addressed it. Everything was ready for me to post the next day.

The morning started off as planned – I made my sandwich and put it in the fridge ready. Then off I went to the post office. I was a bit worried it would be closed as Sisi had ordered three days of mourning for the deaths in the Sinai, but it was open on time and the guy cleaning the floors let me in.

It was a fairly typical Egyptian encounter. The guy serving me asked me if I wanted to send the mail by normal or express post. I was a bit surprised, since I hadn't been asked this before, but said I’d have one express and one normal, to which he said that they didn’t do express post. Ha! I didn’t bother arguing.

After handing the items over for posting, I went back. This was obviously enough efficiency for me for one day, because this is where it all started to go horribly wrong.

I packed my lunch – sandwiches, snickers, two cans of diet coke – in my cool bag. I packed my snorkeling gear. I checked that I had my camera and then realised I’d forgotten to recharge the battery. That was annoying because I’d thought about it the night before and it had promptly escaped my mind.

I only had five minutes left at this point, but decided that those five minutes would be better than nothing, since the battery was low, not dead.

I packed my towel, grabbed my sunglasses, then put the battery and memory card back in my camera and packed it in my bag.

I thought I was doing really well. I went to meet Kath and Tom, but as I got there, I realised I’d forgotten my swimming shoes. Back I went.

We made it to the beach, we put our towels down. I went to take my dress off and then realised with a shock that I had forgotten to put my swimming costume on. So, ten minutes walk back to the flat, a quick change, and then a ten minute walk back to the beach.

So, basically, I’d packed everything apart from what I needed to get in the water. Doh!

We had a great time snorkeling. When I got back home, I decided to cook myself fish (I did feel a bit bad about that, having just enjoyed watching all the underwater life).

I chopped the onion, left it to fry, but got too involved at looking at my photographs, so the onions burnt.

I added in the aubergine and put the pasta on to boil. I then got a bit sidetracked as to how exactly I was going to cook it all and decided on using some red wine (I know it should be white for fish, but I only had red available). The aubergines seemed to guzzle the wine up.

I was about to mix it all in with the pasta, which was now ready, when I spotted the fish sitting all nicely defrosted on my kitchen table. Doh!

So, I had to wait another 15 minutes for my fish to cook. The vegetables had all goodness sucked out of them by the end.

I hope today will be better.

El Andalous - Formatting

Finally Released!

My New Year’s Resolutions (NYR) series of books is somewhat time-dependent, so since I returned from my travels in August, I’ve been focusing fairly hard on getting NYR Cats! ready for release. I hope some of you managed to pick it up for free on Saturday.

The book itself doesn’t take that long to write, it’s all the other stuff that requires so much time.

Locating pictures that I can use is more difficult than writing the book. For NYR Cats! I got most of the photographs first and used them to give me ideas for the resolutions, whereas with NYR Dogs! I had the resolutions first and then got the photographs. The latter was the more difficult way as it’s sometimes hard to find a fitting picture for my preconceived idea.

However, I rarely learn from myself and as I write this blog, I realise that for NYR Fish! (next year’s book) I’ve got the resolutions in place before looking for the accompanying photographs and I can already sense that I’m going to run into trouble on NYR Fish! in that regard. The advantage of writing the resolutions first is that you start with the knowledge that you have the ideas in hand. If you search for photographs, you could end up with a wasted journey because you still don't get enough inspiration. So, each approach has its risks and benefits!

Another thing with the photographs is the cost. I don’t expect to make much money from the books and I look upon them as a fun project to do more than anything else (of course, it would be nice if they became a cult series and on everyone’s wish list each Christmas, but I’m being realistic instead). So, to keep costs down, I try to find photographs that are under the creative commons license. You can’t just pick any photo from the internet and publish it; you have to have permission to reuse it. Of course, this limits the pictures available to me. Many people post photos on the internet and then just disappear (there’s a brilliant photograph that I’d love to use for NYR Fish! but it was posted on a fish forum 8 years ago, so the chances of that person still posting there is close to zero).

Another option is to purchase a license to use a photograph commercially. It’s not a lot, but at ten GBP per picture for 25 resolutions, it could get expensive (in Egypt, 250 GBP can keep me alive for quite a while). This is why I try to find photographs under some kind of creative commons license that permit you commercial use for no fee.

Because I Iive in Egypt, looking for pictures also costs me in terms of internet usage, since I pay per month according to how much I download. My usage goes up a lot (and hence my internet costs increase) when I’m searching and downloading lots of images.

The photographs also make the book more difficult to format. Some pictures are vertical (portrait) and others are horizontal (landscape), but if you tweak the formatting to ensure that all pictures are sized correctly for each available device (eg, kindle paperwhite, ipad, kindle fire...), all the vertical pictures take up an entire page instead of one-third.

After a bit of searching, I discovered that I needed to put my vertical pictures on a transparent border (more research to find out how to do that) so that they would become horizontal. I won’t bore you with the details, but this then threw up other problems, which I also had to solve. They make self-publishing on kindle sound so easy, but really it’s not always so straightforward!

I write the text using Word, which is another thing that brings its own difficulties with it. The kindle instructions don’t tell you that you have to do strange workarounds to avoid having spaces inserted between paragraphs, that you need to use the Title heading for your title or it will appear wrong on the ipad, or that sometimes Word will do something strange. In NYR Cats! it took me a while to realise that my Acknowledgement heading was too far down the page because for some reason Word had added in an extra (invisible) heading command in the html that only the ipad and iphone seemed to pay any attention to.

Also, I tried to be clever (which is always a mistake, but, as I said, I never learn) and attempted to insert some code to get the “Beginning” hyperlink to start where I thought it was appropriate for readers to begin rather than where it was predetermined by kindle/amazon. However, each time my "cleverly" inserted link took readers to the second page of my Contents, which wasn’t what I wanted. Again, after some searching, I discovered that kindle has decided that if people try to define where the book should start, they will default it to the page after the Contents. So, for many people, this means the second page of Contents. There’s nothing you can do about this, so I had to abandon that idea in the end.

All this and I hadn’t even designed the cover yet. That’s another story altogether.

So, if you’re wondering what I’m doing with my time, that gives you a little taster!

El Andalous - Celebrations

Ocean Breeze, Sahl Hasheesh - Tom the Tortoise

The joy and sadness of living here as a permanent resident is that most people come over just for holidays, which means that you are just getting to know people when they go again. However, since people are owners, you tend to see them at regular intervals, so it’s a bit like a constant stream of friends coming (joy) and going (sadness).

Anyway, Mondays is a popular departures and arrivals day. I’d spent much of my last week exploring snorkelling areas in Sahl Hasheesh with Jack, Rosario, Jeff, and Nessi. Sometimes we were also joined by Kath and Tom or Ajay.

We finally made it back to the “dangerous” snorkelling area and this time I made it over the reef. It’s true, you have to breathe in and pray that you don’t scrape yourself on the corals and then suddenly it’s just a blue expanse of sea below you and a mountain of coral facing you. It is quite spectacular. Further exploration is required to see if there’s an easier way to get there.

We also went to the Tropitel pier, where I’d been last year. This is probably the best place for snorkelling. This time, before we went, we popped into Ocean Breeze to visit Tom, the resident tortoise of indeterminate age.

And then on another day we tried the “ramp” area where there are lots of bundles of coral just close to the shore. It’s a very easy swim and on low tide, you could probably see it all without even having to float on top of the water. I’m convinced I saw a barracuda.

Anyway, a week of this and then Jeff, Nessi, Jackster and Rosario all had to go home today. Consequently, I invited them and some other folk round for drinks and cupcakes (and burnt shortbread) on Sunday evening. It was partly because Jeff seemed to think I should have a year’s anniversary celebration (thank you Kathleen for the lovely card you made me!) and it was also, from my point of view, a chance to say goodbye / thank you / come and have a look at my flat to those about to leave. I'd had a meal with Safi on Friday to celebrate already (thank you, Safi!).

It was a lovely evening; Jac and Chris turned up and even Ajay popped his head in for a minute before he went for his Arabic lessons. Jackster, a professional musician, brought his guitar along and we were privileged to have him play a few of his songs for us as we all sat out on the balcony (it was a bit of a squeeze, but it worked out fine). I sat there counting my blessings thinking that this really is my ideal life (it was a shame Safi and Nicole didn’t come!). Thank you to everyone for making it work!

Although today is a sad day, with these four people leaving, there is also some joy because tonight Kathryn and Stephen arrive, so I can’t complain too loudly. It’s just nice to know that we have some great people here in El Andalous.

----

PS. On an unrelated note, 25 New Year's Resolutions--for Cats! should be available by the end of this week, all going well. I should be offering it for free download on amazon on Saturday 18th October, so save the date and get yourself a free copy! Also watch out for my article in Your Cat magazine in the next few months.

El Andalous - My First Year

Sahl Hasheesh at Sundown

Well, believe it or not, from tomorrow (10th Oct), I will have been here a year.

Each year goes past faster than the last one – I think it’s because the longer you live, the smaller a proportion of your life a year becomes. There’s always that sense of panic as a year goes by and you wonder what you’ve done with it, but actually, I’m pretty happy.

In some ways, those early days seem like a lifetime ago. I arrived with a frozen shoulder and added a broken foot to that within the space of two weeks. I was probably 8kg heavier at that point (I’d already lost a few kilos before moving over here) than I am now.

Then I had the rats to contend with, I had to barter with taxi drivers, including getting into unmarked taxis. We didn’t even have our own beach at El Andalous and I walked up to Palm Beach every day. In the early days, I didn’t even do this; I just wandered around finding the nearest bit of sand that I fancied using.

So, within the space of a year, quite a lot has changed. I am (for now, at any rate!) healthy, swim every day on the El Andalous beach, I regard Esmat as a friend and not just as a taxi driver, I’ve met and made friends with some wonderful people who live or own properties here who all show me such kindness. I’ve been writing weekly newsletters for the owners club so that I feel I am doing my bit.

I’ve completed two books (25 New Year’s Resolutions – for Dogs! and 25 New Year’s Resolutions – for Cats! (out next week)); I’ve worked on two novels and am fairly well progressed with both. Thanks to Geraldine, I now have an illustrator for my German False Friends book (still deciding on the title!) and he and I hope to release that next year.

I’ve learned a bit of Arabic – but a bit of a slap on the wrist there for me, since I’ve neglected it in recent times and my reading ability is probably diminishing. But I was making progress.

I don’t regret leaving work, and it’s just as well I’m of a calm disposition because the value of my shares has greatly reduced since I’ve been here and they are supposed to be funding my existence at some point. But I have faith that all will come good in the end. Or blind optimism. Or sheer foolhardiness. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

It’s been good to have had some visitors – Holger, Snejana, Lena – and am looking forward to more to come (hello Geraldine!).

So, for a quiet life, it’s been fairly busy. I’m by no means fully settled in and I’m sure I’ll have more adventures in the next year. However, I sometimes struggle to find something to write twice a week here on my blog, so I will now reduce the frequency to Mondays only. I’m not sure I can even fill that, but life is unpredictable. If I have nothing to write, I’ll just stick a photo up so that you all know I’m still alive.

I’ve also reduced my El Andalous newsletters from once a week to once a month – isn’t that ridiculous, you don’t work anymore and you still feel that you have too much to do!

Have a good weekend everyone and I’ll be back on Monday!

Sahl Hasheesh - Exploring

Chevron Butterflyfish

Now that it’s October, quite a few of the owners at El Andalous are returning for longish stays. This is nice for me, because it means it’s more sociable. It’s dark here now at 6pm, though, so the days are short.

Anyway, I hate to admit it, but I’m a bit of a creature of habit. Although I like travelling and experiencing new things, somehow I end up just doing the same things all the time. Possibly part of it is that I feel that once I’ve found something I like, I don’t want to risk trying anything else in case I’ve wasted time somewhere that’s not so good.

Once I’d settled here in El Andalous and got my bearings, I ended up only ever using two of the many beaches – the two that have free sunbeds for residents (ha! There’s one reason for my lack of adventure. I’m a cheapskate). Fortunately, having others around pushes me into broadening my horizons a bit.

I’d heard a few people talk about a really good place for snorkelling just past the Pyramisa hotel next door. However, I’d been told that you can’t really go on your own. It’s a shallow bay and then a huge drop, which is where you can view the reef. If the tide goes out, you can’t get back into the shallow bay and you’re trapped. Also, the sea can be quite rough. Consequently, you can only go in the short period of time when it’s full tide. All in all, that sounded too scary.

However, Jeff and Vanessa were here and they persuaded me to give it a go. They had a spare set of flippers (I was reluctant, but they insisted I would need them), so off we went. It was a bit of a failure.

First of all, my snorkelling gear broke as soon as I got in the water. I was also the complete novice out of the three of us; I was pretty clueless about what to do when wearing flippers. Jeff and Vanessa advised me just to push myself into the water and somehow this took me some time as I couldn’t work out how to manoeuvre myself properly with those huge things on my feet.

We were only knee high in the water, but the waves were too strong to get very far out. We tried standing up and walking, but I kept on getting knocked down by the waves each time I stood up. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I felt like a right plonker and must have guzzled gallons of sea water in the process.

In the end we gave up as none of us could make it out to the reef, even just in the shallow water. We sat by the water’s edge for a while hoping that the tide would turn and the waves would subside, but it just didn’t happen.

On the way back, we stopped off at another empty part of the beach where the water was calmer and very shallow. It was also very warm, so when winter comes, I may take myself off to this part of the bay for more manageable temperatures (I’m a wimp).

Anyway, although it was shallow for quite a distance (which makes me nervous as I swim because I don’t really want to scrape along the bottom), it was actually brilliant to experience a new area of water with some different fish from what I normally see. Apparently, there were seahorses, but I didn’t get to see them. I did see a different type of butterflyfish from what I usually see at El Andalous and quite a few other species that were new to me of various colours, shapes and patterns.

To my immense surprise when I got back to my flat and changed, a whole load of sand dropped out of my swimming costume as I took it off. Honestly, there was almost a whole beach full of the stuff. Even as I dried myself off after my shower, sand kept on dropping down into the shower as the towel dislodged the grains. I guess those strong waves just forced bits of sand everywhere on my body.

It was also painful to sit in the evening as my bum hurt after my many falls from trying to stand up against the waves.

However, despite the failure, I felt like an intrepid explorer and it was exhilarating to be somewhere different. I really don’t know why I haven’t explored more or tried out other parts of Sahl Hasheesh. We plan to go somewhere else later this week, but even if we don’t, I will have to kick myself into ensuring I do this anyway!

Hurghada - Communication Problems

Sand Sculpture of Isis at Sand City

I’ve been busy working on my books over the last month or so, so have temporarily dropped my learning of Egyptian Arabic. Anyway, my last trip into Hurghada reminded me that I do need to continue learning Arabic and, actually, I need to pluck up the courage to practice it a bit.

I went into town to get my hair cut – it was in a beauty salon run by a German woman, so for once I wasn’t sitting wondering what was going to happen and I could explain (in English) what I wanted done in some detail. There was a lot of chat in the background in German, so it almost felt like a kind of “home”.

But afterwards, I was out in the big wide world of Hurghada. The next stop was to EgyptAir to enquire about flights to New Zealand. I was a bit apprehensive as my request was a bit complicated – I wanted to know which routes were possible to get to New Zealand, whether I could have stopovers, and whether I could pay for it all in airmiles or whether only certain flights were available for me to use my airmiles. Anything less than straightforward is quite difficult over here, but people had told me that the staff spoke good English at EgyptAir.

The EgyptAir office was fairly busy, so I had to wait to be served, which wasn’t a problem. But you know things aren’t going to go well when you start off saying “I need to go to New Zealand...” and the person replies that they have never heard of New Zealand. I guess it’s not exactly a common destination for Egyptians.

I explained that it was near Australia and finally spelled out Auckland and Christchurch for him to locate on the computer. He then said I could fly Emirates, which I pointed out wasn’t Star Alliance and I needed a Star Alliance flight. Following this, he suggested another route, but said that there weren’t any partner airlines going to New Zealand. I was probably hugely irritating to him, as I informed him that I knew there were routes using Star Alliance members and listed one. He looked it up and I asked for the times of the planes (which I hadn’t found online).

Anyway, after all that faffing about, it ended up that I couldn’t book using my airmiles from the Swiss partner airline in the EgyptAir office; I would have to book the flight via the Swss office. That was a bit annoying! I guess I was probably a bit of an irritating know-it-all customer in my frustration and the conversation ended him with asking me if I needed anything else because he had a lot of customers waiting. I decided to take the hint and left, but without a lot more information than when I entered, really.

Wishing to make the most of my time, I did some shopping and thought I would go into a cafe while I waited for Esmat to come with the taxi. I tried ordering a chocolate milk shake (I’m a child at heart), but the waiter confused it for “milk tea”. This was understandable, since tea is shay in Arabic, so he’d obviously heard “milk shay”.

Anyway, at least the misunderstanding was caught before the drink arrived. I established that I wanted a chocolate milk shake and then he asked which flavour I wanted. I requested chocolate and then he informed me that they had only vanilla and chocolate. On saying chocolate for the fourth time, he understood me.

I’m not saying this to mock the guy, as I am aware that I should be speaking their language and not vice versa, but it’s an illustration of how difficult it can be sometimes when you aren’t making the effort to speak the language yourself.

I asked for the bill straight away, since I didn’t want Esmat to have to wait for me when he arrived. I made a little sign of writing to help explain what I wanted. I even said “Faktura” which is bill in Arabic. The waiter asked me if I wanted paper. I was a bit puzzled by this, but assumed he was asking if I wanted a written receipt or just to pay directly to him. I thought I may as well go for a written receipt to save any misunderstandings about what I owed.

But my assumption was wrong. He’d understood me as requesting a sheet of paper to write on, so he came up to me with a blank sheet of A4.

In the end, I did pay, and actually it was a reasonable price. Meanwhile, Esmat had phoned me to ask me where I was. It turned out that he’d understood me as saying I was in Sheraton Road rather than in El Kawser. Maybe I was mumbling the whole day or something?

Finally, I arrived back home, but it reminded me that every trip into Hurghada is a bit of an effort.

El Andalous - Fish

Arabian Picasso Fish

One of my main aims in coming over here was to swim every day and I’ve kept to it fairly religiously. I’ve had the occasional day “on” (the opposite to a day off) if there’s stuff that I’ve needed to get done (eg, Swiss admin or I want to speed up a bit on my writing projects), but otherwise I’m at the beach from around 2.30pm to 5.30pm. An hour of that is taken up with swimming. The rest of the time I read.

Ever since the water’s got warmer, I swim quite a lot with my head in the water gazing around for fish (I wear goggles, so I just hold my breath; not sure how good that is for my health!). I take my digital underwater camera with me each day to take photographs. It makes the swim more interesting, but I suspect in the winter I will just swim, and faster, to keep warm.

Taking my camera helps me to focus more on what I’m seeing. It gets quite easy to stick your head in the water and just think “oh yes, seen that fish before” and not look that carefully. I’ve invented the challenge for myself of taking the best picture possible of every fish that I see and to collect photos of as many different species as I can.

It’s great as I now look a lot more carefully as I go. There are so many tiny fish just hiding in among the coral. If I take photographs, I also get a better look at the fish, and at my leisure, afterwards (assuming the fish didn't swim away before I pressed the shutter).

And then there are fish that hide on the ground that I’m sure I must have missed before. For example, I saw a sea cucumber today. It just looked like a cucumber-shaped lump of rock covered with sand, but as I swam past I thought I could spot an eye peeking out at me. I swam round it for a while and then part of its body moved and I was suddenly sure it was a living thing.

The fish are amazing; many are beautiful, some are weird, others are just so well camouflaged that I find it hard to know whether I’m looking at a rock or a fish. I think I saw a bearded scorpionfish the other day. I would never have seen it had I not spotted it settling onto the coral. It immediately turned itself into the colour of the coral and even though I knew it was there, I couldn’t make it out at all. One of the fish kept on trying to feed off it and it suddenly changed its colour to match the dead grey coral beside it. Immediately, within a second, it had altered itself. I have a photograph, but it’s a bit pointless because it just looks like a random piece of coral, even when I zoom in.

I’m more aware now of what I have seen before and what’s new, so I get a sense of excitement each time I see something I hadn’t spotted before (and sometimes a sense of frustration if I can’t get a photo in time).

But, me being me, I can’t do this without some kind of end plan in mind. I’ve almost finished 25 New Year’s Resolutions – For Cats! (so look out for it on amazon in October!) and my next book in that series will be For Fish!  Apparently, collecting fish is the second-most popular hobby in the world. I found that quite astonishing. I guess stamp collecting is the number one? Anyway, by looking more carefully at the fish, I’m also getting more ideas for the book, so that’s further justification for my activities.

I’m additionally thinking that maybe I will write a snorkeling guide to Sahl Hasheesh showing all (well, many of) the fish that can definitely be seen if you go snorkeling within this small-defined area. I can expand it to Hurghada at a later date. I could then use my best photos as illustrations.

All in all, at the end of the day when I come off the beach, I always feel chilled and happy with life and that’s probably worth as much as anything!

El Andalous - Pictures

Il Gusto Beach

You know you must be getting settled when finally there’s nothing left to unpack.

For a long time, my pictures remained in the removal packaging, leaning up against the wall by my front door. I didn’t really want to put them up until I knew which additional furniture I would have and where.

Two of the items were mirrors still in the packaging from when I first moved to Switzerland, so after seven years I was rather curious to see what they would be. I hadn’t brought much over to Egypt (as advised by all), so anything that came across was definitely going to be used.

Unpacking them was a bit like Christmas as I found things I’d forgotten I had. The two mystery items turned out to be a huge mirror in a light wooden frame (now on my balcony) and a small circular mirror with cracked mirror pieces as decorative edging. I had a bit of a mirror phase many moons ago, so most of my “pictures” were in fact mirrors.

Putting them up would be another problem, though. I hate putting pictures up anyway. It seems such a simple task, but it’s a faff getting the hooks in the wall, making sure the hooks are strong enough, and then ensuring the pictures are straight. I’ve failed at each of those three tasks more than once in the past.

I searched for a long time over here for picture hooks, but they weren’t easy to find. First of all, they aren’t of the same shape as in the UK. They aren’t hooks as such, just an L-shape with one of the sides being a screw. The next problem was to locate hooks that were sufficiently strong. Here, I could only do my best; I was a bit sceptical that the biggest size I could find was really fit for purpose.

At this point, I took the easy option and asked the men here if they could put the pictures up for me. It was July, so it was hot, and although it’s not the most strenuous task, even the men were sweating as they worked. All I had to do was to follow them round and tell them where to put the pictures up.

It sounds really easy, doesn’t it? But somehow, it’s quite stressful having workers in your flat.

I was in inner turmoil about what tip I should give them. On top of that, I had the embarrassment of saying that I’d changed my mind as to where I wanted one of the pictures placed. I debated internally for ages over whether to say something, but in the end I decided this was my one and only chance to do this as I wasn’t doing it again nor was I ever going to do it myself. I watched and worried about the mirrors, because if they weren’t firmly in place, they’d break. The men did a good job, though, and asked me to turn on my fan in my bedroom to make sure that the mirrors were stable. I’m still scared to clean them, though, in case they fall down when I touch them. Oh, and the men provided stronger hooks for me. I have no idea where they got them from.

It took over two hours (I had nine or ten items), so really it isn’t such a small task. At the end of it all, the men did look rather frazzled. I did my usual clumsy attempt at giving them a tip, although one rushed out before I could do this, so I gave his to the other guy to give to him. 

This has resulted in a rather awkward situation as I think the guy genuinely didn’t want to accept the money. He mended my oven for me later and then gave me an invoice stating I’d already paid to the amount of the tip I’d given him before. I didn’t latch on to this, so promptly handed over the money at reception. It wasn’t until the guy at reception looked confused, jabbered away in Arabic, and the men started shaking their heads and laughing that I (believe I) realised what was happening. Anyway, the same guy (I think) came to mend my shower, so I just left that as it was. I’ve temporarily given up on giving tips in El Andalous as it’s causing me – and them – too much trauma.

The funny thing is, though, that I’d spent two hours just sitting there while I watched the men do all the work, but at the end of it, I felt utterly exhausted and in need of a reward for my achievement. I think that’s just how it is here – you complete the slightest task, even if only by (finally) getting someone else to do it for you, and it feels like you have just won an entire battle.