3rd to 7th of June, 2019.
At the train station in Luxor, I decide to wait until the day starts to shine to go outside and check the bus companies. I really believe they will be open that early. Pff.
When I am finally going, a nice old man asks if I need any help and I tell him that I am going outside but I wish I could leave my backpack safe inside. He asks then to the guys who clean the station to keep an eye on my backpack. They are nice and say it is fine.
Talking here and there and checking the prices, I figure that the best way to going to Sharm El-Sheikh is crossing through Cairo (apparently going through NAME is longer) but the bus leaves just at 5.p.m. No shit! Luxor has its own ways to fuck me beautifully! I buy the ticket, leave my things at the office and decide to go for a walk.
A young guy approach me at some point and offers help. We talk a bit and I explain to him what happen to me last time I was in Luxor. He try then to make this time better. Well, at the beginning everything it was fine and he seems nice. He try to help me to find the earrings of Anubis or Orus’ eye I had been looking for, I buy the Indian pants with elephants that I wanted for so long, and we come to his house. His mother is lovely! But then after a very stupid conversation about religion, even that I tried to avoid because I know how 98% of this conversations are finished, he starts to act different. We decide that he must to sleep (since he was feasting and awake since last night) and middle time I will wait at the local market, in his friend’s shop. He supposed to come around 4 but he didn’t so I just leave without see him again. Luckily, his friend at the shop was really nice, we talk, I help him with the shop, and the guy from the spice shop just in front is also such a nice person. I even got a very cheap pair of sandals (since I had just the flip flops and I will volunteer in a hot place in Israel) and fennel seed tea from the spice shop (and I win a free mix of relaxing tea for that).
Before take the bus, I go back to the train station to wash up and change, since I will spend so many hours in a bus (around 14), with other people, so I want to smell nice. The lady who was taking care of the bathroom watches me the whole time. I think she never saw any thing like that from a white person in her whole life. I even give her 5 EGP when I am leaving.
I have some snacks, I buy a water and I am ready to go!
We arrive in Sharm El-Sheikh around 10 o’clock in the morning. Again, the bus station is far from town. I share a taxi with two tourists and a local guide. I say the name of the place where I want to go wrongly, so I am dropped also far of the centre. No problem, because when I walk into this fancy hotel to ask to use their wi-fi, I even get a “welcome” drink for free! Laugh. I have a plan of walking in a beach for the day and at the evening leave to the road where I am going to make camping and hitchhike next morning. With the right information in hand I wait for the right micro-bus and I take it.
In the centre, I leave my backpack in another fancy hotel / resort and start to walk in direction of a beach. Luckily, I decide to ask for directions in this diving centre. The really nice manager / owner tells me how there are no public beaches in there. I was already so pissed with Egypt that it is the water’s drop for me and I just want to leave. (Later of course, I will be told that in another towns, closer to the border with Israel, there are amazing public beaches).
He also advises me to not camping anywhere there and how cheap it will be the bus to Dahab and from there to Taba, so I decide to follow his advice. He then offers me a place to stay for the night. They have these apartments for the clients who dive with them so since there was no one using he let me stay. Wonderful!
Next morning I tried to get at the bus station around 7 o’clock, time that the buses leave to Dahab, but I couldn’t. No micro-buses going there after 6 a.m. Apparently. So I come back to the apartment and wait in there until somebody show up. Around 11 o’clock the guy who clean shows up so I ask him to call my friend and I explain the situation to him. He is fine, of course, being so nice, and he even get concerned about what I will do during the day then. He offers for us to go to dive but I just cannot accepted after all he is already doing for me. So at night we go for a coffee and watch a movie. Next morning I get up super early and take the bus to Dahab.
In Dahab, in a empty bus station, with not very helpful employees, I figure that there is no bus going to Taba that day and might not even be in the next day. I am planning to spend the two days around there because the prices for the taxis are 800 EGP and the buses are 100 EGP. Suddenly a group of four backpackers and volunteers arrive, plus a Israeli and a Slovenian guys. So I start to looking for a micro-bus that we can all share and pay less than the taxi. We got one for a price of 150 EGP each but at least we will be crossing the border earlier and I still can get to the Kibbutz where I will do volunteer in Israel, Revadim.
All the people are very nice and we have a lot of fun in the way. When we all cross the border they help me to take a bus to the central bus station and also help me to contact Neta, Eran’s daughter. Her friends are in Eilat and they can give me a lift. Unbelievable! The lift is not exactly to Revadim but to the kibbutz where Neta is staying, and I can spend the night at her place. She is a very lovely young girl, strong and independent, and I admire her a lot even that I don’t get to know her that much. We even go to swim in the public pool of the Kibbutz. A friend of hers come with us and he is very friendly too. At night she goes for a meeting with her friends but I decide to stay. I buy some vegetables and make me a dinner, watch half of Hitch and then go to sleep. Next morning she drives me to the intersection from where I can hitchhike to the place where I will finally meet her father, Eran, and discover that I would actually not volunteer at his place.
