El Andalous - Current Situation

Spinneys - Shelves Stocked and Safe Shopping!

I’m not going out much, for obvious reasons. The situation regarding coronavirus and regulations changes at a fast rate, so it’s possible that this blog will already be out of date by the time you are reading it. On 25th April, the official statistics were 307 total deaths (including 13 new deaths on that day) in all of Egypt.

Until very recently, our local shopping mall has been open only Sunday to Thursday from 10am to 5pm (it used to be something like 1am) and only the supermarket and the pharmacy have been open. Since last Sunday, all shops (but not cafes or restaurants) opened again in Senzo Mall. Although I’m out only for food shopping, it’s a relief to have Etisalat and Vodafone (two of the major internet providers) open again in the Mall, so that I will be able to top up my internet when I need it. Otherwise, I would have to go right into Hurghada.

Ramadan has just started here (on Friday). To my surprise, the rules were relaxed a little. Our curfew was shortened, changing from 7pm-6am to 8pm-6am. Restaurants and cafes were allowed to re-open but for deliveries and take-away only and shopping malls (including Senzo) are now allowed to be open seven days a week. Public gatherings for Ramadan are not allowed.

As I mentioned in my last blog, they recently prohibited any use of the beach whatsoever. No walking on the beach, no crossing the beach to swim. No boats are allowed. This has been strictly enforced. People can still walk on the promenade by the beach, but they cannot stand on the sand. The police have been round to resorts to check that the regulations are being enforced. Penalty can be imprisonment.

In Sahl Hasheesh itself, entrance to the resort is allowed only to long-term tenants and owners showing a residents' card. Sahl Hasheesh has been thoroughly sanitized since the closure of the hotels with no cases of coronavirus since the sanitization. Residents were not allowed visitors on Easter Monday (Coptic). All the hotels are closed and no holiday lets are allowed. The resort is basically closed to everyone apart from owners.

The El Andalous minibus to the shopping mall is still running (but at 10am until noon, instead of the evening). It arrives at Senzo pretty much as it’s opening. Spinneys (the supermarket) has just cleansed everything at that time of day and it’s almost empty (see photo). It’s been pretty impressive here. There has been no panic buying. The shelves have always been fully stocked, both at Spinneys and in our local supermarket, BestWay. BestWay offer hand sanitiser as you come in (and you can ask for it again on your way out); the staff wears masks and gloves. You can phone in and have your order delivered, but I still prefer to shop and choose my items (and then have it delivered).

I’ve actually only been with the El Andalous minibus once recently (there must have been about six of us); normally I go in with Safi when she’s going in her car, as I feel it’s safer. Of course, those of us at El Andalous all know each other and we know that we are all careful, but when I last went on the minibus, the driver for some inexplicable reason gave a friend a lift into Sahl Hasheesh on the way back and security didn’t check the extra passenger.

Anyway, I feel relatively safe (at least compared with being in Europe). A draft bill to enforce the wearing of face masks in public has been passed, but I’m not sure if that means the full bill still has to go through.

So, that’s the current situation here!

El Andalous - Easter

A Failed Hot Cross Bun

I hope you are all safe and well and keeping to whatever regulations your respective governments have set.

Here, we don’t yet have total lockdown. We have curfew between 8pm-6am; social distancing is advised, as is staying at home unless you have essential shopping. However, shops remain open. Shopping malls are closed Fridays and Saturdays and are open only from 10am-5pm. All the normal recommendations (hand sanitization, wearing of masks, social distancing) are strongly recommended if you do go out.

Anyway, for Easter last weekend I had Safi round for a meal. She also lives in Sahl Hasheesh (where all hotels are closed, and visitors from outside Sahl Hasheesh allowed only with prior notice). She really likes Thai food, so I cooked satay chicken and we ate outside on my balcony (at a bit of a distance). We ate at 4pm, so that there would be enough time to eat and for Safi to get back before curfew (at that point curfew was 7pm). For the first time, I bought some corn on the cob and I have to say, it was quite delicious. I’ll definitely buy that again.

I had tried to bake some hot cross buns, but they were a bit of a disaster. It was a shame as I’d spent ages over it. I’m not too sure what went wrong, but they came out more like scones or rock cakes. Maybe I didn’t knead them enough or maybe I didn’t leave them long enough to rise (but I thought I had, obviously). They are just about edible and I’m going through them slowly as my lunch each day, but I would never impose them on anyone else!

I won’t try it again until next year (maybe, if I can bear the thought of trying again), but I do miss hot cross buns. I haven’t had one in years (they don’t have them in Switzerland either). I also like Easter Eggs, but they don’t have those here either. Sometimes I miss being in the UK/Europe!

I’d also tried to provide some cupcakes for dessert (I’ve never eaten so many cupcakes in my life, but I can’t seem to stop myself from baking and eating them…). However, even those went wrong. I wasn’t having a very good baking day. At least I know why my cupcakes went wrong. I’d failed to remember that I’d switched my little electric oven to grill (it’s one of those small, almost portable ones, so nothing fancy at all and I cook everything at the same temperature). Consequently, instead of baking my cupcakes, I grilled them. Whoops. I tried grilling them from the bottom to compensate, but they still ended up a little soggy in the middle. Again, they were edible (and I even enjoyed them), but they weren’t fit for public viewing.

This weekend, it's Coptic Easter weekend, so everything’s been tightened up to stop people from gathering (which is a good thing). All the beaches are totally closed – it’s not allowed even to walk on them or to cross them to have a swim in the sea. All public transport is being stopped on Monday and Senzo Mall will be closed. No visitors will be permitted in Sahl Hasheesh. It’s strange time indeed. But Happy Easter to anyone who celebrates or who has celebrated!

El Andalous - Discord

El Andalous - As Seen From the Beach

I am feeling very with it and part of the coronavirus generation since I had a social video conference with my friends in Scotland for a couple of hours last week. How very 2020.

We used Discord, which is a strange name for an app that effectively helps sustain cordiality, but I guess that’s some kind of modern jokey twist that I don’t get.

It didn’t have a server for Egypt, so I ended up in Russia; it was a truly globe-trotting meeting. We were supposed to be meeting up for drinks, but in the end only one of us remembered to bring one. When I saw Rachel drinking, I was really kicking myself for having forgotten (at the time, I was more concerned with whether my internet would work, whether the program would work, whether I could get it to work, etc).

Rachel set it up, so I still have no idea if it’s easy enough to set up your own meeting. Unlike WebEx (a paid-for service, rather than free, which Discord is), you don’t just follow a link to join the meeting, you actually have to download the Discord app on your phone or software onto your laptop. I think we were all on our laptops as it’s a bigger screen to see four people with.

Rachel suggested we all create three slides for discussion. I sweated a bit over this, a bit worried that my topic would be too lame, too personal, too intellectual, or just plain wrong in some other way. I think I prepared one in the end, although it turned out that we never used them. I needn’t have sweated.

At first, I was able to see only Kerstin, and no-one could see me, but I think that was because I’d done it wrong. My screen said that no-one was online, but I could hear everyone and see Kerstin, so the screen was clearly telling porkies. Apparently (doh!), I was supposed to press the meeting name to join the meeting.

As with most online meetings, the first fifteen minutes was taken up with people trying to work out how to connect properly, or at least I was. By the time I had all four videos up on my screen, my audio conked out. My internet was feeling the strain and seemed unable to process everything at once. I contemplated moving to my bedroom (my internet is sometimes better from there), but it was too difficult in mid-flow.

In the end, my internet limitations meant that just one person had their video running (and we all had audio) and we switched round from person to person as the focal point. It worked pretty well and somehow we did have a decent enough conversation. It was good to see my friends; I haven’t even seen Kerstin or Alastair’s flats, so I also got a little peak at where they were living.

Rachel had pointed out beforehand that leaving the conversation might be difficult. You can’t exactly say, oh sorry, I’ve got another appointment, or I’m going out now, because everyone knows that you are only at home. However, she managed it well (very bravely, I thought). I just closed down as soon as she suggested rather than go through any awkward and eternal rounds of goodbye. Maybe I was rude, or maybe everyone else did the same. I have no idea.

It was enjoyable enough for us to agree to do it again in a fortnight’s time. It used up around 1.3 GB for the two hours. These online things are always a bit nerve-wracking for me as I’m never sure how much of my internet allowance it’s eating up. I don’t have unlimited broadband over here.

Anyway, I’m pleased to have had the experience, to have seen my friends, and am slightly less nervous about the prospect of a second meeting!

El Andalous - New Swimming Watch (Garmin Swim 2)

My Swimming Route

After my last Garmin watch stopped working after about two years, I hadn’t really wanted to buy another Garmin, but, as I said, I ended up with the newly-released Garmin Swim 2. It arrived a bit later than indicated by Amazon (this was before the coronavirus), but it arrived, which is pretty impressive in Egypt.

I’m slowly getting used to it and have stopped sulking in a corner because I didn’t want to get a Garmin again. It was nice to return to the Garmin groups that I’d been part of before and it’s good to have a functioning watch.

The battery doesn’t seem to last as long as on my previous watch, but it may be because I’ve got Bluetooth switched on (hark at me, how modern am I?) and I’m often downloading my data via my phone rather than via my laptop now. This is mostly because my laptop is really very slow. I did think about getting a new one, but it’s working fine apart from being slow, so I thought I’d be environmentally friendly and persevere with it. I’m just explaining this because I don’t want anyone getting the idea that I actually like my phone (although my phone isn’t too bad – I still hanker after my old one, sometimes).

I was a bit disappointed to find that my longer distance was only about 1600m and not 1800m. I have started to swim without stopping now, but my swimming speed has decreased. I just can’t seem to improve. It’s very frustrating.

I stop for maybe one minute half-way through as I prepare to turn round (pull my swimming cap back down, see where I’m heading, etc) and I notice that even though I’m not moving, the metres are still clocking up on my watch. I’m never very sure if I should wait until the watch has caught up to me (maybe I’m not so slow, maybe the GPS just can’t keep up!) or whether waiting would just reduce my average speed. I’m not sure it recognizes it as a stop. The reviews said it was the most accurate GPS there is, but I’m not so sure.

I’m also a bit disappointed in the available watch faces that come with the watch. It’s digital, so you can change what the digital display looks like. I’ve chosen one that shows how much battery you have left, but the icon is so small, it’s hard to see. It was larger on my last watch and also gave a percentage; that was much better. Also, it shows seconds ticking by. That’s not a bad thing, but apparently the clock faces that don’t show seconds save your battery life, but if I want to see how much battery I have left on the display, I have to have the seconds showing.

Even though it’s a swimming watch, it doesn’t show your personal records for open water swimming; only for lap swimming. I find that completely daft.

On the other hand, I’m enjoying being able to program workouts on the watch for my pool swims (still experimenting a bit there). The watch works fine as a watch, it’s good to know how far I’m swimming and to have all the data.

The watch also has additional alerts, so in the pool I could set an alert for pace to see if I’m swimming at a consistent speed. However, I think a Finis Tempo Trainer will be better for that. But I like the 500m alert when I’m doing open water swimming.

I’m also delighted to see that OceanMan is coming to Sahl Hasheesh in October. Strangely, the route they are swimming is the very route that I do every day. I wonder if I served as inspiration?! There’s a 1.5km route (my route) or you can do double. I might train myself up for the 3km race (although I won’t be treating it as a race, I’ll be doing it for fun and for the challenge). I’m pretty sure there’s a much longer route as well, but that’s beyond me. Swimming in the sea always takes longer than in the lake, and I also find it harder to do (more exhausting).

The sea is getting warmer now, and I’m almost looking forward to getting in (but not quite there yet). I’m lucky to be able to swim at all during these times of coronavirus (it’s not allowed for you to gather in groups in the sea and all beaches are closed; my interpretation is that swimming alone in the sea is OK [I have my swimming buoy for safety]) and am keeping my fingers crossed that it will remain OK. But rules change with alarming speed (unlike my swimming!)….

El Andalous - Still Here (Showers)

All Peaceful Here

Well, surprise, surprise, my trip got cancelled due to the coronavirus. It was already cancelled a few weeks ago, but I wrote last week’s blog in advance, thinking I’d be away at that point, but I wasn’t!

I don’t want to talk too much about the coronavirus as it’s all that I see everywhere (news, facebook, messenger, etc), but I feel I should say something about the state of play here. I think as of today, Egypt reports something like 576 cases and 36 deaths in total, although, as anywhere, it’s hard to know how accurate the figures are. Thankfully, it’s currently way below the 900 deaths a day in Italy or the horrifying increase in cases in the UK.

Hurghada is not allowing people in or out, although they’ve started having empty planes coming in to take tourists back home. The beaches have been closed. We have curfew from 7pm to 6am; the Egyptians are a night people, so those are busy times here. Shops are closed Friday and Saturday. Entertainment (from cafes and restaurants to cinemas and gyms), education centres, mosques, should not be visited at any time. Only essential shopping is allowed and shops close at 5pm.. No social gatherings. In Sahl Hasheesh, entry is open only to residents, services, and deliveries, and visitors of residents when notified in advance. It's like it's own little quarantined area. Let's hope we can keep it virus-free!

So, not so different from the rest of the world really. I’m hoping that Egypt has taken action promptly and so it will not spread so quickly here, but let’s see. There are definitely worse places to be during lock down!

Anyway, it will no doubt get increasingly difficult for me to write my blog as I won’t be out and about. I’m focusing (or trying to focus) on my writing. I’ve decided to start my third novel, as I’m still waiting for teenage feedback on the one that’s almost ready to start submitting to agents; the second novel probably won’t require that much more work and I’d rather refine that once I’ve started submitting the first one. In the mean time, I’d like a third one in first draft version so that I’m not faced at some stage with my only option being a blank sheet.

For my third novel, I’ve decided to try to write a bit more out of my comfort zone and go for a character that’s experiencing things way different from my own life. So, it’s a male 17 year old who is working, into football, has an accident and has his leg amputated. I don’t have much of a plot in my head yet, other than that he will have psychokinetic experiences that reflect the emotions he goes through as he comes to terms with the changes in his life. I’m hoping that ideas will suggest themselves to me as I write. I used this “pantser” methodology for one of my second novel (which was actually my first, originally). It’s exciting to find out what I come up with as I go along; a bit like reading the novel, but I feel nervous that I will discover it's unworkable. But at the moment, my imagination isn’t working, so I’m going with the flow.

It’s been a bit depressing as I'm spending a lot of time in front of my screen thinking I haven’t a clue what to write. For example, just to get my character from the football changing room to the showers took a lot of googling. What I was really wanting to know was whether a male 17 year old guy would put a towel round him to go to the shower, but in the end I had to ask a friend (who said not).

I did come across this interesting thread of guys discussing group showers. Apparently, most young adolescent boys have to use communal showers at school and they are nervous the first few times, but after that find it’s no big deal. The older boys, who are totally used to it, chat quite normally in the shower. Indeed, some said it was the best place after football to catch up and make plans.

To my amusement, they also speculated about whether girls found it embarrassing at first like the boys did (the guys are all worried about others sizing up their appendages). They decided it would be less of a problem for girls because they didn’t have the whole issue about appendages. Whereas, the truth of it is that women are way more body conscious than men, well in the UK, at any rate. 

Feedback on my novel was that I shouldn’t have teenage girls going into communal (unisex) showers at the gym because they just wouldn’t do it. It was so obvious when it was pointed out to me, but I’ve got so used to Continental Europe, where nudity is more normalized, that I’d completely forgotten. Also, girls, who are renowned for being so chatty, don’t generally chat in the showers. And a fair proportion would wear a towel even before going to the communal showers. So, completely different from the men.

Anyway, it was all very interesting, but it was a lot of work just to write “he went to the shower” in my novel. At this rate, it’ll take decades to finish even the first draft!

El Andalous - Hurghada Museum

Me Outside Hurghada Museum

A very exciting development over here was the opening of Hurghada’s first museum. It was badly needed, as tourists come to Egypt wanting to see something of the history. Hurghada may be a beach resort, but it doesn’t mean it has to be a cultural desert.

Land is relatively cheap over here, so the museum is on quite a spacious area. There’s a huge entrance (hopefully they’ll add items into that space, such as a museum shop or something), then you walk through a lane in the open air which will be lined with shops (most were not yet open). After this, you enter and there’s a corridor of shops. These were mostly open. There weren’t any cafes or restaurants open yet, which I thought was a bit of a missed opportunity on their side. The museum is on the first floor (ie, the floor above ground floor, for avoidance of doubt).

The museum itself was quite a surprise. I was expecting it to be pretty much just the usual Pharaonic history, going through the various dynasties; instead it took you through life not only during Pharaonic times, but also through the Greco-Roman eras. It covered Christianity and Judaism as well, so it was admirably inclusive. I think my favorite piece was an amazing book, illustrated with such fine detail, it was incredible. Of course, there were amazing items from Pharaonic times, too; it’s so hard to imagine that such detail could be carved all those millennia ago.

I think it’s not quite finished yet, as there were some empty spaces, and not all items had been labeled yet. But it’s still more than worth the visit. Do go!

There was someone making a film of it who was an Egyptologist from the museum – maybe they are going to put that on their facebook site. He was willing to answer any questions, but I don’t think that was why he was there (I think he was there just to do the filming).

We spent about 90 minutes going round. Afterwards, we took a taxi to the marina. It’s not so stressful getting a taxi these days, because they’re obliged to use the metre (but I did have to ask him). We went to Heaven, which is one of my favorite restaurants in Hurghada. I always have steak, but this time I branched out and had duck. It was also very good, even though when it first arrived I thought the duck was just a bread roll and that they’d forgotten the meat. Things don’t always look quite how you expect over here!

This didn’t happen here, but it did in the KFC the other week, and I thought I may as well mention it; in Egypt they quite often say “bon appétit” after you’ve finished your meal rather than before it. It takes me aback each time it happens (and that’s even for me, as a Brit, and Brits don’t say anything before a meal these days; we just get stuck in. Not sure if there are still families that say grace before meals!).

We didn’t bother ordering a taxi back as it seemed more convenient just to hail one, since we knew what the going price should be. The first taxi was a bit dodgy. First of all he didn’t want to use the metre. Then he wanted us to pay upfront (I’m sure that’s a standard scam, so don’t do it!). I foolishly complied and then I think they tried to say I’d paid 20 LE and not 200 LE (I was wanting 100 LE change). I said we’d get out and find the police at which point they gave me my money back, saying they couldn’t do the trip for the fare we wanted.

We went to another taxi, who accepted our suggested fare, but wouldn’t use the metre. I am wondering if the metre doesn’t hold for as far as Sahl Hasheesh. The driver wasn’t any problem and was also not making any fuss about giving us change.

No blog next week as I’m still on a trip round Egypt. I’ll put in a placeholder.

El Andalous - Coronavirus

El Andalous Beach - Flooded

While the world is in turmoil over COVID-19, my life is going on pretty much as usual.

At BestWay (local supermarket in Sahl Hasheesh), the people serving are wearing plastic gloves and the delivery people wear masks. In El Andalous, housekeeping were wearing masks, but they seem to have stopped that now. Maybe they’ll start again as I saw one person in reception wearing one, but he laughed when he saw me looking at him, so perhaps he was just mucking about. That kind of sums up the atmosphere. There’s no sense of panic whatsoever, which is hugely refreshing, in my opinion. They’ve put sterilizing handwash in the toilets in El Andalous.

The airport is being thoroughly cleaned (regularly, one would hope) and passengers are undergoing a health check as they enter the country. The threat is more from tourists than anything else. Other than that, it’s pretty much the same as usual here. There’s no panic buying (although there was a huge queue at etisalat, which is where I get my phone and internet, but that’s fairly usual), people aren’t generally wearing masks, the atmosphere is relaxed. And it’s not as if there are masses of people in Sahl Hasheesh anyway. I’d probably find it quite hard to get within 1m of someone.

It actually feels a bit bizarre when I see all the news about panic buying, establishments closing, flights being cancelled, borders being closed, people asked to stay at home, businesses going down the pan, stockmarket spiraling down, etc. It seems like a world away, as if I’m just watching some kind of horror film. I’m only saying that it seems surreal when you’re looking at it from the outside; I’m not being blasé.

I have been wondering why they don’t just tell everyone who is feeling okay to go in the sauna every day for 30 minutes as a precautionary measure. I looked it up and apparently there’s not enough evidence that the sauna would have the desired effect (as in not enough studies; not that the evidence is controversial), but theoretically it should help as long as it isn’t in your lungs. It’s surely better than lockdown for 14 days just to see if you develop anything and cheaper. I guess the 14-day quarantine must be the better proven strategy.

Here, the bigger news has been the weather. It’s been fairly hot for the time of year (so hopefully that’s also killing the virus), but we had sandstorms, rain, high winds and electricity cuts. The wind is always really dramatic through the palm trees; their branches wave about like cheerleaders’ pom poms. The sea came up really high and covered one of the piers. The water – not sure if it was rain or sea or a bit of both – went past the beach area and onto the grass just before the beach. The sand, of course, just dumped itself all over my furniture. I cleaned, but by the time I had someone over in the afternoon, she was already able to draw me a diagram on the accumulated sand on the table. There were a couple of power cuts in the evening, but after I’d eaten, so it wasn’t too bad (just a bit eerie, with the wind). In Sahl Hasheesh, we got off lightly compared with Cairo. And compared with all the floods in the UK. So, I guess I’m saying that compared with the rest of the world, my big news and woes are miniscule.

Today, the storms seem to have gone. It was a beautiful day by the beach, the water was calm, and I got too hot reading as I lay in the sun, so that was me rid of any virus, I reckon, even if the two Brits I welcomed with a hug were carrying it. I am feeling blessed!