El Andalous - The Community

Ramadan Kareem!

As I said last week, I was quite surprised on coming back to El Andalous to find that I had rather a lot to do; my life seemed to be a hive of activity. This is in addition to my hardship of eating out on a number of occasions and spending days on end finding a place for my hard-earned cash.

First of all, I needed to do the newsletter for our residential block. I’ve managed to cut down the frequency over time – at first it was weekly, then it was monthly, then when I returned to Zurich, I promised to keep on doing it, but only quarterly. So, this was now the time for the quarterly newsletter. Since I was returning to El Andalous “fresh”, it was much more obvious than usual as to what was new since I last reported back (which was when I was over for Christmas). When I was in Sahl Hasheesh all the time, I tended to forget what happened when. So, although it was an easier one to write this time, it still had to be done.

Then, to my surprise, Ajaz and Xenia had got very active in finding out about how other apartment blocks were run so that we could have realistic expectations for our complex. Before I knew where I was, we were all going out to meetings with owners of properties in other places and discussing all sorts of things (so quite interesting to get to know some other people).

Nicole had become determined to get more television channels, so before I’d had time to blink, I was trying to get our manager to sign an agreement that we could proceed with a new satellite if need be, and I had a man in my flat (well, two men, with one of them watching the other) setting up a new internet connection to get me more channels. Sadly, it appears that the Astra satellite which used to give UK TV in Egypt is no longer available at all, so I didn’t get any of the UK channels that I really wanted.

In addition, I found myself volunteering to speak to the management on behalf of the owners about putting in back-up lighting for when we have power cuts and to clean up all the disused shop fronts along our building façade. I need to follow up on both of these, but it’s Ramadan at the moment, so you can’t generally expect much to get done during this period. Also, for my own selfish needs, I complained about the bus not running to the local supermarket as often as they'd promised.

Asking for things to be done in Egypt is always quite exhausting because they rarely get done on your first request, and sometimes there are misunderstandings, and at other times you just haven’t got a clue what’s going on. In this case, cleaning up the shops required discussion among several people (that should set warning bells off!) and I don’t think I successfully conveyed why the safety lighting was important, because I was a bit astonished that this needed to be explained (they seemed to think if they did it for my floor only, this would be OK; I said no, all floors, and now they still haven't done anything).

Before I moved over to Egypt, Julian warned me not to get involved with residents’ associations (or the like), since nobody ever agrees and it’s just a lot of aggravation. This is very true and in El Andalous, it’s particularly difficult because the owners are from several different cultures, all of which negotiate in completely different ways, and we're negotiating with Egyptians, which is then different again. And all of this is prone to misunderstandings and misinterpretations of intent. And, of course, for different people, and for different cultures, priorities are also different. However, this diversity makes it all interesting and although it is stressful sometimes, it’s also been a great way for me to integrate. In fact, it's been a great way, too, for all of us to come together and create a mutual ground between us all, regardless of our backgrounds.

Hurghada - Eating

Il Gusto VIP Lounge - Our Table in Bar Area. Photo (c) Nicole

I arrived back in El Andalous really expecting to sit back in peace and quiet and to have a lot of time on my own. It was not to be (but that isn’t a bad thing!). Somehow, I found myself immediately embroiled in a whirl of activity. As I’ve reported, first of all there was all the hassle of sorting out my savings. Another thing that whisked me into sociability was eating out. There were hello meals for me, goodbye meals as others left, “let’s try somewhere different now that you’re back” meals…. There was always a reason to eat out. It can be a hard life sometimes.

So, today’s blog will be a review of some restaurants in the Hurghada region. If anyone wants to pay me to do this, I’m open to offers!

Maybe one of the most bizarre places I went to was a German restaurant in Hurghada called Zeitlos. It’s on a fairly busy street, just coming off Sheraton Road, so you won’t get sea views or anything like that. The décor is also not fussy and very practical.

The food however was really good and very German. It was honestly like I was in Germany. I’m sure Germans who are missing their home food would love this place. I had something fairly close to Zuerigeschnetzeltes (veal strips in mushroom cream sauce, usually served with Roesti which are huge rounds of fried potato formed into a big circle) – it was beef in a mushroom cream sauce with pasta. I think maybe it originally came with dumplings (very German!), which I don’t like, so I asked for the pasta and they kindly obliged. The portion was huge and it tasted wonderful. The people serving were German. It was like I hadn’t arrived back in Hurghada at all, except that it was April and pretty warm so we were sitting outside and opposite us were shops lit up with Arabic signs, so it couldn’t possibly be Germany. All I can say is that it felt very strange.

About 18 months ago, Il Gusto in Sahl Hasheesh opened up its “VIP Lounge”. I’d heard it was supposed to be upmarket, but I hadn’t really believed it (this is Egypt, after all). Anyway, curiosity finally got the better of me, and so off I went.

To my surprise, the place was huge. I’d heard it was a bit like a British bar, so I was expecting a small place with maybe a few bookshelves and armchairs and a good selection of drinks behind the counter. Instead, you enter a hallway adorned with a collection of original art from local artists and several rooms went off on either side. One room on the right was set up as a high-end restaurant – round tables were impressively laid for six with very grand silverware and full service. One area could be sectioned off entirely (in its own room) if you wanted a private function. It looked completely amazing.

Another room was a billiards room with some chairs and bookshelves, and art on the walls. It was more like a smokers’ lounge, I guess.

The final room, almost two rooms, was the bar and a more casual, but still upmarket, lounge area where you could also eat if you wished. The windows overlook the sea and a lady played very tasteful music (quite a lot of it French) on the piano next to the bar. The bar did have an impressive set of bottles behind it and a bar tender ready to serve. There were sofas and armchairs with coffee tables for you to sit back, relax, and enjoy your drink. By the windows, there were some higher tables for you to sit at. In front of the bar (where we sat) one circular table was set up with the full dinner service. Behind the bar was another room full of sofas and armchairs where you could sit and chill out. It was a tourist attraction in itself!

I had duck a l’orange and I think Nicole took the salmon; both meals were presented very thoughtfully. It made for a great evening and it made me wish I had an occasion where I could invite people to come along and see it. I feel quite proud that something like this is in Sahl Hasheesh and I can only pray that it manages to survive. We were the only customers all evening when we were there.

Another place I went to, that maybe I haven’t mentioned before in this blog, is Heaven (great name, huh!). It’s situated in the marina in Hurghada, so it’s a great location. I’ve been there a few times and at the moment it’s my favorite place for steak – truly delicious. Like many Egyptian places, it has some TVs playing, but they aren’t too obtrusive and the tables are set up with tablecloths so it’s semi-formal but still relaxed. As you would expect with it being in the marina, the boats and sea are just opposite.

I ended up with a bit of a hangover after that meal because Nicole unexpectedly ordered us another round of drinks and then our waiter decided that we must know our wines, so before we knew it, they were offering us free glasses of a new wine that they wanted to test out in the restaurant. They tried to get us to guess the underlying taste, but none of us got it, so I don’t think we passed the test. It turned out to be pineapple (“oh yes, of course!” we all said, once we knew).

I’ve also been back to some of my old favorites (eg, Chez Paul [Paul will be glad to hear!], Thai Garden), and there are some other new ones that I will report back on in a later blog.

El Andalous - The Beach

Beach Now Sectioned Off!

A not so good surprise on my return was that part of our private beach had been sectioned off and given to another apartment block up the road from where I live. It doesn’t really matter just now, because there are days when I’m the only person on the beach, but it may be a problem when tourism picks up again. In fact, I will resent it when tourists come back and I don’t have the place to myself any more. It’s pretty perfect just now!

As I may have mentioned before, it’s nice having a private beach because it means that a lot of the time you know other people there and it’s like a little community. And, in any case, people just start talking to you. I took my Arabic book to learn Arabic while I was on my sun lounger and an Egyptian lady came up to me and started speaking to me in Arabic – we ended up speaking on many occasions after that, but my vocabulary is so limited, it was a bit difficult, and I gave up in the end. But it’s an example of how friendly it all is.

I was surprised on my first couple of swims that I’d forgotten how to see fish. This might sound a bit daft, but actually, you get used to spotting fish and maybe even to looking through swimming goggles. At first, I just couldn’t focus properly. I guess it’s like when you go on a safari and the safari guides always spot the animals so much faster than you do – their eyes are attuned and they also know what to expect where. In fact, I now think of my little snorkeling escapades as fish safaris. I could even maybe set myself up as a fish safari guide. But I digress….

For the first month or so back at El Andalous, I surprised myself by not actually doing that much snorkeling. I think I got a bit put off by my lack of ability to focus. Also, I can’t remember if I mentioned this in any of my Zurich blogs, but I’ve been trying to learn to do the front crawl, so I’ve been concentrating more on that.

I’ve used my Suunto Ambit3 Sport watch which has GPS to find out how far I’ve swum. It’s a bit off-putting swimming in the open water because you lose track of where you are when your head is stuck in the water most of the time. I’ve often found myself careering off into the middle of the sea instead of swimming along the coastline or, conversely, suddenly touching the ground because I’ve veered off back onto the beach.

I finally discovered that using the pause button would make the watch record your last bit of swimming as a lap and then you can have a rest or try a different technique for the next bit and still have a log of how you were doing before. Although I was pleased to have worked this out, the results have been a bit disappointing.

Initially, I was really proud of myself for building up my distance fairly quickly. It took me ages and ages to do 50m easily in Zurich and after that I had the occasional success at 100m and 150m, but they were not anything I could consistently do. Back in El Andalous, I’d swim my best and find I’d only done 90m. However, one day, something just “clicked”. It was almost like I decided not to get so uptight and just relax, and then I found myself doing 350m in one go, shortly after that I did around 500m, and then eventually 1km. I feel 1km is a fairly reasonable distance.

I’ve stopped going further than 1km at the moment and have been trying to improve my technique instead (but keeping to the 1km distance each day, plus or minus 10%). Although I feel theoretically my stroke must be getting better (I have fewer bubbles, I think I’m pulling harder), my speed is getting slower rather than faster, which is a bit depressing. I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong, or if it’s just a matter of needing practice. At the moment my breast stroke is still faster than my crawl and the whole point of learning crawl was to be able to do longer distance public swims that require you to do crawl in order to complete the distance in the time required. I’m not meeting that aim at this point in time!

I’m also still not good enough at the crawl to be able to say I really enjoy it, like I do breast stroke. With breast stroke, it’s like a gentle stroll in the park, whereas the crawl feels like running a marathon. I feel good afterwards, and I’m not absolutely dead at the end of it, but by the time I’ve completed the distance, I’m definitely glad to stop. I think it’s like how 50m used to feel, so I guess in time, I’ll get used to it and can then progress again.

El Andalous - The Weather (and Mosquitoes, Again)

One of my Nastier Bites!

We had a bit of a heat wave when I first got back. At first, I was surprised at how hot I felt and I wondered whether I needed to (or even could) adjust back to the heat, but then when I passed one of the Egyptians on the way to the beach, he commented that it was hot (I don’t think he was trying to be funny). That’s when I knew it really must be hot and it wasn’t just me.

By “hot”, I mean instead of low 30s, it was low 40s. It’s a dry heat here, so actually it could be worse. Moreover, since it was still only Spring at that point (this was in late April / early May), the evenings were cooler. It was manageable and it helped the sea to warm up nice and quickly. The water was noticeably warmer within a period of two weeks; everybody was commenting on it. Therefore, if you are thinking of coming over for sea activities, I’d say come in late April or May rather than early April. You can still swim all year round, though. I’m just being picky these days.

It is kind of strange, though, having a heatwave in Egypt. In Europe, a heatwave basically just means that we're having good weather for a change. One day, it's cloudy and rainy and not so warm. The next day, the sky is blue, it’s not raining, and it’s summer, so it’s hot. It’s all quite logical. In Egypt, you wake up and you look out of the window. You see the blue sky, watch the palm leaves sway in the breeze, observe the cacti standing upright in the bright sunshine. Everything is just how it always is. But you take one step outside and you're blanketed in air that is ten degrees hotter than the day before. Why? What’s changed? It's completely unexpected. There’s no obvious logic to it (obviously, there is, but it’s not something you can see as an ordinary person just getting up in the morning).

Anyway, it was still fine to be on the beach as long as I kept in the shade, where it’s considerably cooler. There’s often a gentle, barely noticeable breeze, which also helps. All I’m doing on the beach is reading, so I’m not exactly exerting myself, so no sweat (literally). But another thing that I found quite bizarre was that, although I spent all my time in the shade (apart from when swimming), my skin very quickly tanned again. Within a fortnight, it looked as if I’d never been away from Egypt.

I remember when I first arrived here, it took quite a while for my skin to change colour (I had the broken foot and was in the shade of my balcony most of the time) – when I returned to Europe, several people remarked at how white I still was. This time, I’m as brown now as I was when I left after 18 months. I don’t know if maybe my skin has adapted (clever skin!)?

I’d totally forgotten that this climate encourages mosquitoes. If I’d ever built up any tolerance (last blog on this was 25 May 2015: Sahl Hasheesh - Mosquitoes, so this must be mosquito season), it has certainly completely worn off now. Even my mosquito repellent (“Off” spray) is only able to do so much. I’ve been bitten on my lip, by the side of my eye, in the middle of my back where I can’t reach, on the top of my head, under the hair behind my ear, all across the neckline where my hair is. I’ve even been bitten in my nether region. You name it, if I can’t spray mosquito repellent there, that’s where I will be bitten.

I can’t even put antihistamine cream in these places! Well, I did try, but it gunged up my hair and my eye stung, which is all fairly predictable. The gunged-up hair was actually worth the relief in itching; whereas the stinging eye was worse than having it merely itch and I had to wash off the antihistamine straight away. But it was worth a go. And, sometimes, of course, I simply haven’t used the deterrent or have forgotten to reapply it and then it’s a free run for the mosquitoes.

I might try the vitamin B complex again, although I don’t think it worked last time.

However, I have been given a new and wonderful tip – apparently camel milk is supposed to deter mosquitoes. Yes, camel milk – how cool is that?! I’ve only used it twice so far, but I haven’t been bitten on either occasion. Coincidence? Maybe. If it works, it will be great. The camel milk that I have is scented with Lotus Flower (so the scent doesn’t seem to stop it from working; rose was another option). It’s a lovely smell and the essence of Lotus Flower is associated with eternal youth. In addition, camel milk is a great moisturizer and was allegedly at least in part responsible for Cleopatra’s legendary beauty. So, I may not only become bite-free, I may also transform into an Egyptian goddess. I live in eternal hope!