Dreambelly: January 2008

December 31, 2007: Kul Sana Wenta Taeb!

What can I say, it was a New Year's party. I came, I saw, I drank, and I paid dearly for my sins the next day -- I nearly puked off the jetty after my housereef dive, which I wanted desperately to end from the moment it started. But I learned my lesson. I'm off the booze now for sure. Definitely never doing that again. Until next time, anyway.

This was us at the beginning of the evening, looking all wide-eyed and innocent with some hotel big-wig.

Ooh, party favours! I like party favours!

Steffi broke out her pinstripes for the occasion:

Meanwhile, her brother Dennis made a special trip down from Germany because he knew just how rockin' our New Year's was gonna be.

Seriously, you can't hand out frilly metallic party hats and not expect this to happen.

Cat, enjoying her ice cream.

Letizia insists on taking full advantage of the buffet dessert table. That'll go straight to your hips, girl!

Tanya 2 still looks largely innocent at this stage, but you can just see the glimmer of tequila in her eyes.

Ingrid and Jorg, (that's a Movenpick "o," you know, the weird one with two dots over it. Crazy Germans.) the dive centre managers. (I'm happy to report that they looked as bad as I felt the next day.)

Waaaait a minute... did somebody say "tequila"?

Yup, I definitely heard "tequila."

Nuh unnhh, says Letizia, they distinctly said "mojito."

Definitely "mojito."

And it was all a slip-slidey alcohol-lubricated slope downhill from there.

Mercifully, none of us remembered to bring our cameras onto the dance floor. But this photo was sent to me later by a couple of dive centre guests...

Like I said, I'm not doing that again for a Very Long Time.

December 21, 2007: Lets go divin now, everybody's learnin how, come on now safari with me

Every couple of days or so, the dive centre runs a full-day "jeep safari" trip down to Marsa Abu Dabbab, an hour and a half south of El Quseir. The beautiful, protected bay hosts a beautiful reef, a dozen or so green sea turtles that can be seen by divers and snorkellers alike, and is home to the elusive dugong (the Pacific sister of the manatee, which I have yet to see).

I'm fresh out of witty commentary for photos today, so this'll have to do:

View of the beach. Note the red flag: it's flippin' windy in winter!

The lifeguard chair sits empty most of the winter while the red flag flies.

As do the sun beds:

Hamada and Adbu, two of the Egptian staff who come with us on all dives to help with the equipment.

Francis, the bus driver (despite the jeep safari, there are no actual jeeps involved, only buses and passenger vans):

Mansour, the pick-up driver:

View from the bus of the long and empty desert road home. No dugong today... maybe next time.

December 19, 2007: Eid

There are two Muslim feasts, or Eids, in the year -- the big one at the end of Ramadan, to celebrate the close of the month of fasting, which straddled September-October this year, and the one that closes the annual Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, which was only a few days before Christmas this year.

Momen, our staff-bus driver, invited my the two office girls, Steffi and Tanya, and me to his parents' place in Safaga for an Eid feast. Why he chose the three of us I'll never know -- he speaks no English (despite ongoing attempts to teach him, but it's all in one ear and out the other so much that I've given up) and my command of Arabic isn't strong enough to really ask him why. Anyway, it was a nice evening in his humble home, with some nice traditional Egyptian food.

Momen reaches for an Egyptian cabbage roll ("chrom," though I'm not sure if this is the word for cabbage or a cabbage roll). Not as good as Brian's, but pretty tasty nonetheless: