The airplane then soared above dunes buffeted against the lower slopes of the western Hijaz (Barrier) mountain range, which rise to 2,100 meters. All signs of civilization rapidly disappeared and were replaced by knife-sharp, volcanic crags that plunged dramatically into the depths of the Red Sea.
The exhilaration of the flight diminished somewhat once we had landed on Egyptian soil and news came through of an oceanic white-tip shark tearing limbs from a group of Russian snorkelers swimming off Sharm El-Sheikh. A resort of 35,000 people, Sharm El-Sheikh is the country’s foremost tourist haven, after the Pyramids and the Nile, with about two million visitors a year. It got worse a few days later when a 70-year-old German lady who was splashing around on the water’s surface and admiring the Red Sea’s famed coral and marine life, was attacked by the shark and died.
The Egyptian tourist season, one of the nation’s foremost industries and sources of foreign currency, begins in October and ends in spring.
These shark attacks were seriously bad news for business, especially when the local government was forced to close Sharm’s waters to divers, snorkelers and swimmers, while a joint American and Australian team of “shark hunters” flew in determined to catch it.
Various theories for the attacks were immediately raised and experts speculated that over-fishing in the Red Sea, mostly of tuna, might have driven sharks closer to shore in search of food. News also surfaced of a ship dumping sheep carcasses once it had left Egypt’s shores. Tourists were also to blame since they are causing sharks to associate humans with food. They do that as part of the diving experience of dropping bloody chunks of meat as bait to lure sharks so that they can film them as they feed.
A plan has now been mooted by authorities in Sharm to erect reinforced steel nets in the sea to block sharks from entering beach areas. Of course, the damage was already done as holiday packages on the Sinai Peninsular were cancelled and there was an immediate 25 percent drop in the number of reservations among Russian tour groups.
Various peace conferences over the years on searching for a solution to the Palestinian question have put Sharm El-Sheikh on the map, and sun-worshippers, coming mainly from Russia, Italy and Britain, have flocked in. The local population of the resort, all employed within the tourist industry, has mushroomed to 35,000. The kitsch English pubs, USSR cafes, globally branded nightclubs, Italian delicatessens galore, carpet emporiums, trinket shops, coffee shops and shisha bars are enough to keep the entire Egyptian population awake for a month.
My journey didn’t end in Sharm, however, as I boarded a minibus to take me to Dahab (Gold) on the southeast cost of the Sinai Peninsula and some 80 kilometers northeast of Sharm El-Sheikh.
Sleepy Dahab town is refreshingly low in traffic and more intrepid travelers make it here to escape the horde in Sharm. In fact, it is the kind of place where young men ride camels through the streets, while counterparts in the riding industry gallop horses up and down the beach, stopping by beachside cafes to drum up business: “Hey man! You want to ride the horse this afternoon?” With the shark attacks still hogging the TV and newspaper headlines, I decided to stick to the pool, as I wasn’t prepared to become an easy meal for the local fish.
Lonely Planet’s guide to the Middle East describes Dahab’s most popular activity as “loafing” and a recent poll awarded it the distinction of a place in the Top 10 worldwide locations to swing a hammock. Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd and Bob Marley drift over the incumbent nomads lounging horizontal on sofas, beady, dread-locked heads buried in books, dreams or beers.
Yet, when the wind gets up the lagoon on Dahab Bay, it becomes awash with windsurfers, kite surfers and the all-important lifeguards on its turquoise waters. I watch from the seat of my mountain bike, as the theme from “Jaws” thumps through my mind and the solidity of terra firma seems infinitely more preferable. It is the swimmers and snorkelers who need to worry because they are easy preys for the sharks, while the noise and bubbles produced by a diver’s aqua-lungs scare the sharks away.
Formerly a tiny Bedouin fishing encampment, Dahab was discovered by adventurous travelers and backpackers who were searching for that ever-elusive location off the beaten track. Today, it has grown to a small-scale tourist resort (far removed from the all-out tourism of Sharm El-Sheikh) lined by sandy beaches and edged by coral reefs. But, development is clearly evident and encroaching here with huge hotel complexes being constructed on the edges of the town.
It is interesting to note that the Bedouins, by all accounts, still hold sway. Hotel manager, Ismail Selim, told me an interesting story of an Egyptian who built a hotel on the beachfront and, according to the Bedouins, on Bedouin land. When the hotel was finished and the owner had got it up and running with tourists occupying the rooms, a Bedouin family moved in with about 20 relations and declared: “If you want guests, then we are the guests.”
The hotel owner resorted to violence, but the Bedouin men took him out to the desert and cut one half of his moustache off — the worst insult an Egyptian Bedouin can inflict. They then tied him to a tree for three days before making him walk back to town from his remote, improvised prison camp.
The Sinai Peninsular also holds religious significance as the 2,285 meter, red granite Mount Sinai (Jebel Musa) is reputed to be the location where God gave Moses the 10 Commandments at its summit. Drawn to this landmark, a kind of pilgrimage now takes place as thousands of tourists annually climb to the peak, especially at night to enjoy the morning sunrise. They then head back down to visit Saint Catherine’s monastery, which was built in 330 AD by order of the Byzantine Empress Helena as a refuge and shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The monastery’s library contains ancient manuscripts — second only in religious importance to those held by the Vatican. Also on the road are the Nawamis tombs, which date back over 5,500 years.
Sadly, “Thou shall not kill” was not on the minds of the terrorist cell which planted bombs in Taba in 2004, Sharm El-Sheikh in 2005 and Dahab in 2006, killing a total of 145 innocent tourists (the majority of them Egyptian) and injuring hundreds more. Yet, with much needed revenue coming into this barren desert region, Dahab remains resilient, and various police check-points on the roads in and out testify to the Egyptian government’s determination to prevent further acts of terrorism taking place.
Meanwhile, when the sun goes down and the town’s colony of cats wake up and stretch out of their daytime slumber, yoga classes start up next to the sea and waiters begin to dust down their tables while the cooks barter with fishermen before preparing delicious seafood meals. Dahab Bay offers a golden sunset for holidaymakers in search of a wonderfully relaxing vacation.
