El Andalous - Trip to Sand City

Sinbad at Sand City, Hurghada

So, after Aida, the trip to Siwa, and the boat trips, it was time to pay a visit to Idette who was over here on vacation with her husband and his brother. When I say “over here”, I mean in Hurghada rather than in Sahl Hasheesh itself, although her hotel was not far from Sahl Hasheesh.

They were staying in the Titanic Palace; there are several “Titanic” hotels in Hurghada. I’m not sure what the point is of calling a hotel in the desert after a boat that sank after hitting an iceberg. Where’s the connection and what are they trying to say – that your luxury hotel is going to be a total failure? I have similar thoughts on the many occasions when I hear Hotel California playing in hotels – I think they’ve heard only the lyrics “such a lovely place” and not listened to the rest. It’s a great song; however, as a reflection on the hotel...

But I digress.

Idette, George and Thon had already done a few excursions by the time I met them, so in the end we decided to go to Sand City. I’ve written about this briefly in the blog before as I visited it when it first opened (see blog of 3rd November 2014). However, five years have passed since then, so it was interesting also for me to see what it was like now, all that time later.

It hadn’t actually changed that much. It still had all the sand statues of Egyptian and other historical / religious figures (eg, Cleopatra, Isis and Osiris, Shiva) and a section for children containing sand representations of cartoon figures (Lily Longstocking, Donald Duck, etc). We were lucky in that one of the sand artists was there, so we were able to ask him questions.

Since it was new when I first saw it, renovation work wasn’t yet necessary and nor were there new works in progress. This time, there were blocks of sand in places waiting to be sculpted as well as some of the sculptures being renovated by the sand artist. I was pretty impressed, actually, that they were taking care to repair and maintain it.

They now have a camel there for you to photograph and also a small, but decent café. We had a bit of a mix up with the bill for our drinks, but nothing serious. The funniest thing was that they said they were going to be introducing a sound and light show soon. They said exactly the same thing five years ago!

There weren’t many people there, which was good for us. I assume they must get more business if they’ve managed to keep on going for five years; that’s pretty good for Hurghada, so I’m pleased for them. I’m sure they get bus loads of tourists from the various tour companies, so that’s probably their bread and butter money.

Anyway, it was lovely to see Idette, George, and Thon. I was so happy that they enjoyed Egypt/Hurghada enough the previous occasion to come back again this year (now last year). And they’d even managed to do some snorkeling this time so were able to see for themselves the wonders of my main hobby over here.

Come on over and try it out!