Day 75
Sleeping location: Dahab Divers, Dahab, Egypt
Distance (km today/total): 72 / 6131
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1000 / 54700
How hot? TOO HOT
Day in three words: Sea desert sea
After a few hours of sleep we were woken up by a combination of sunrise and a pack of goats wandering around the beach. It was a nice spot made less nice by loads of litter, crumbling buildings and barbed wire. It was horribly hot and sticky, as it had been through the night, and the idea of cycling up a big hill was not appealing. Happily the only road round the coast went out of town up a big hill. Depending on your definition it might even have been a mountain, and we went from sea level up to 800m within the first 15km. As we climbed the sun got higher and it got hotter and hotter, and by the top it was baking. The landscape was utterly desolate, with only one semi-village in the 65km of rock and sand between Nuweiba and Dahab. I guess it was beautiful in a stark, desert-y way, but honestly I’m getting a bit deserted out and would really like to see a nice meadow or a forest where the trees can talk without shouting.
From the top the road gradually descended on a smooth road surface, and it would have been glorious but for a strong and persistent headwind, which instead turned it into a real slog. It was a struggle to reach 20kph on a downhill, and one point I turned around and found I could go back uphill as quickly as I’d been coming down. Because it was so hot it also felt like being in a giant hairdryer. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that the wind doubled the time it took to come down into Dahab, so I was very grumpy by the time we arrived at the military checkpoint on the outskirts of town, and didn’t give the chief the respect that he felt he deserved. In an attempt to reclaim some authority he confiscated our passports for five minutes for “checks”, even though Rebecca had already ridden past him with no issues. I am HIGHLY looking forward to another month of Egyptian checkpoints and questioning.
Luckily Dahab restored a lot of faith in the Sinai. It’s very touristy but in a fun, rough and ready way, it has a beautiful setting where the desert mountains meet the sea, the diving is meant to be excellent, and you can get a cheap beer on a terrace. We’re going to stay here for a couple of days in order to dive and watch the rugby world cup quarter final, before heading back into the desert. We checked into a dive centre and celebrated with some luxuries (Indian food! A table to play cards on! More beer!) before having an early night.
Distance (km today/total): 72 / 6131
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1000 / 54700
How hot? TOO HOT
Day in three words: Sea desert sea
After a few hours of sleep we were woken up by a combination of sunrise and a pack of goats wandering around the beach. It was a nice spot made less nice by loads of litter, crumbling buildings and barbed wire. It was horribly hot and sticky, as it had been through the night, and the idea of cycling up a big hill was not appealing. Happily the only road round the coast went out of town up a big hill. Depending on your definition it might even have been a mountain, and we went from sea level up to 800m within the first 15km. As we climbed the sun got higher and it got hotter and hotter, and by the top it was baking. The landscape was utterly desolate, with only one semi-village in the 65km of rock and sand between Nuweiba and Dahab. I guess it was beautiful in a stark, desert-y way, but honestly I’m getting a bit deserted out and would really like to see a nice meadow or a forest where the trees can talk without shouting.
From the top the road gradually descended on a smooth road surface, and it would have been glorious but for a strong and persistent headwind, which instead turned it into a real slog. It was a struggle to reach 20kph on a downhill, and one point I turned around and found I could go back uphill as quickly as I’d been coming down. Because it was so hot it also felt like being in a giant hairdryer. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that the wind doubled the time it took to come down into Dahab, so I was very grumpy by the time we arrived at the military checkpoint on the outskirts of town, and didn’t give the chief the respect that he felt he deserved. In an attempt to reclaim some authority he confiscated our passports for five minutes for “checks”, even though Rebecca had already ridden past him with no issues. I am HIGHLY looking forward to another month of Egyptian checkpoints and questioning.
Luckily Dahab restored a lot of faith in the Sinai. It’s very touristy but in a fun, rough and ready way, it has a beautiful setting where the desert mountains meet the sea, the diving is meant to be excellent, and you can get a cheap beer on a terrace. We’re going to stay here for a couple of days in order to dive and watch the rugby world cup quarter final, before heading back into the desert. We checked into a dive centre and celebrated with some luxuries (Indian food! A table to play cards on! More beer!) before having an early night.
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