Sahl Hasheesh - Returning at Night

The Foyer at El Andalous

When Lena first arrived, there were mountains across the bay and a moon in the sky at night. As time progressed, the mountains disappeared (sand storm / heat haze?), as did the moon (total mystery!). The mountains did gradually reappear, but we barely saw the moon again. It became a bit of a nightly mission to try and find it.

Anyway, we mentioned the mystery of the disappearing moon to Esmat on our way back from Hurghada and he gave some kind of explanation, which neither of us caught, so I’m still just as clueless (please contribute to the blog, if you have an answer!). One evening, towards the end of Lena’s stay, we saw the new moon on its back, holding the shadow of the rest of the moon. Two hours later, the moon had disappeared again. It was truly bizarre!

Esmat drove slowly as we entered Sahl Hasheesh and commented that if he had some waiting time in the evening, he would often come to this spot as the stars were so much more visible there. It was true! Thousands of stars were above our heads. Occasionally, as we drove along at night returning from a day out, we would see a fox running across the sands, eyes gleaming.

As we drove towards the Entrance Piazza, Esmat remarked that he could see a ship in the distance and that it wasn’t normally there. It took me a while to latch on to what he was talking about. He drives the route often and so he knows what looks normal and what doesn’t – me, I don’t pay much attention to anything, and wouldn’t have a clue what is usually there.

Eventually, I saw something large and bright in front of us; it appeared to be above the Entrance Piazza, and I couldn’t really see that it could possibly be a ship and I wasn’t convinced that it wasn’t a shop or something that was there all the time. Lena then pointed it out to me to confirm that this was what Esmat was talking about. At first, I was convinced that Esmat was joking. It didn’t look anything like a ship; surely it was a shop that’s always there and he was having us on? However, he was right and I was wrong. It was a huge passenger ship docked at Sahl Hasheesh across the bay from El Andalous. It was bizarre to see its shape floating in the air as we sat in the car. It didn’t seem quite right.

After arriving at El Andalous and paying Esmat, Lena and I walked along the pier to take a closer look. The liner seemed twice its actual size because it was reflected in the water. As we turned back to return to El Andalous, I noticed that the glass-bottomed boat still had staff around, so I took the opportunity to ask when they sailed and how much it cost. After giving us the information, the guy invited us on board to take a look at what it was like.

I would have hesitated to accept the invitation, but to my surprise Lena agreed, and so we both stepped onto the boat. Lena said afterwards that she felt completely safe in so doing; my worry had been more that we would be charged or I would feel obliged to pay a baksheesh (and how much?). Anyway, I was very glad that Lena agreed and this taught me that I must take more opportunities when they are given and stop worrying!

We went down inside to the glass-bottomed viewing room and even though it was night (around 10pm), plenty of fish were swimming round the boat. We sat down with a full view of everything in the sea around us and the guy pointed out squid, tuna (?), and other sea life. The fish swam right up to the windows. Weirdly, you could hear the fish whoosh around outside as there were whole shoals of them. It was an amazing experience. The guy told us that the fish that appear at night were different from the ones seen during the day; apparently the boat goes up towards Makadi Bay every morning. I was never really very convinced about these glass-bottomed boats before, but now I think they must be great and will join every visitor that wishes to go!

We thanked him and left. Before we knew it, that was another day gone.