The Calamara Golden Beach Hotel in Hurghada
This was our room...gorgeous!
The hotel swimming pool
Gardens in the hotel grounds
Hotel beach on the Red Sea
This man was giving camel rides on the beach. Look at how cute the camel is, wearing a hat and a smile
Katie W. out for an early morning swim
Catchin' some rays! Ahhh...the sun!!!
Mhairi
Sarah B. and I having early morning coffee
On the way to snorkel!!
Sarahs at sea
Katie & Mhairi. This was the closest she came to smiling all day
Underworld. Little lovelies
Beautiful tree next to the patio of our hotel room
Tartin' it up. Getting ready to go out our last night in Hurghada
Creepy painting in the hotel lobby. Look at him with his human-looking mouth and giant paw. Shudder
Imy grading papers in the hotel lobby our last night of vacation. WTF??
Katie W. reading another novel
The Sara(h)s. After having to dress extremely conservatively in Cairo during the month of Ramadan, a lot of skin was shown during this trip. Sarah B. preferred to show cleavage. This is her "Is it too much?" look
On our way to find the hotel beach party, we stopped for some chocolate cake
This is our 'ode to the twilight zone' photo. After following music around the hotel that seemed to appear and disappear at will, we began to realize we were in some kind of an Egyptian style Hotel California
Ode to the twilight zone, take 2. Joelle looks as if she's waiting for the mother ship to take her home.
Imy trying to flirt with a hotel waiter
Katie W. totally not appreciating the fact that the best head-twirler in the world is sitting right next to her
Kids at the hotel disco who wanted to have their picture taken with me
Mhairi looking visibly upset, as she was for most of the trip
~
In the beginning of October, we had our first vacation from the school. October 6th is Armed Forces Day, a National Holiday in Egypt that celebrates the crossing of the Egyptian army into Sinai in 1973. In 1973, the Arab-Israeli War was going on, which was a war between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria. The war began with a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Egypt and Syria crossed the cease-fire lines in the Sinai area, which had been captured by Israel in 1967. So, this was seen as a victory for Egypt. Soon after this happened, the Camp David Accords were signed, which led to normalized relations between Egypt and Israel. This was very important because it was the first time any Arab country had recognized the Israeli State. This war was also important for Egypt because it ended the Soviet Union's reign of influence over Egypt.
What this all meant for me and the other teachers thirty some years later was a few days off from work. We had 4 days of blissful freedom from responsibility, so we decided to take our first trip out of Cairo. There is a city about 7 hours from Cairo on the Red Sea called Sharm al Sheikh that is world renown for it’s coral reefs and snorkeling. It is the second best place on the planet to see underwater life besides the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Since I am a huge fan of the marine world and I love to snorkel, I suggested to the girls that we go to Sharm al Sheikh for our holiday. However, we ended up going to another city called Hurghada instead. Hurghada is also on the Red Sea and is about an hour from Sharm al Sheikh by boat. Hurghada is where Hot Egyptian, (Mahmoud, Mhairi’s boyfriend), has his main house, so he invited us all to stay there with him. As I said before, Hot Egyptian is from a very wealthy family, and not only does he have a beautiful house in Hurghada, he also has a yacht and access to all of the best hotels and clubs there.
We were all excited about going, but Mhairi decided that she didn’t want to stay at his house because there were other girls who were going to be staying there that she didn’t like. So, if Mhairi didn’t stay at Hot Egyptian’s house, then we couldn’t stay there either. Hot Egyptian is friends with a bunch of foreign girls and guys who he went to college with in Cairo. One of the girls is named Priscilla, and she is from Venezuela. Priscilla is overly-friendly with Hot Egyptian whenever they are out, which pisses Mhairi off and causes her and Mahmoud to fight, so she decided if Priscilla was going to stay there, she didn’t want to stay there too. Mahmoud and his mother were disappointed that we weren’t going to stay with them at their house in Hurghada, but they still offered for us to come over while we were there to have dinner with them and to use their swimming pool and boats. So, we made a reservation at a hotel instead, and planned on just meeting up with Mahmoud and his friends while we were in Hurghada. There are no trains from Cairo to Hurghada, which meant that we had to take a bus. Mohamed was nice enough to go to the bus station downtown for us to pick up our tickets on Thursday after we had finished work. We all went to bed early that night and left for Hurghada at 6 am the next morning.
The bus was nice, comfortable, and air conditioned, and I passed most of the 6 hour bus ride reading and enjoying the scenery. It felt so good just to be able to relax and unwind from the first month of teaching and adjusting to life in Cairo. I was reading the Poisonwood Bible, a book by Barbara Kingslover that I had borrowed from Katie. As I read, I blissfully lost myself in the world the author was creating for me. This is what I love the most about books, the opportunity they present to travel to another place and time. The Poisonwood Bible is told from the point of view of 4 sisters who are living as missionaries in Kenya. I thought of my own sisters as I was reading the book, my two sisters by blood and the four other sisters I have had since childhood. I missed them all very much at that moment, but I smiled to myself despite this, because thinking of them always makes me happy. I have such amazing people in my life, both here in Egypt, and back home as well. I felt very happy and fortunate at that moment as I thought about how blessed my life has been.
After about an hour or so of reading, Helen nudged me with her elbow and said, “Look, the sea.” I looked past her out the window and there, way off in the distance, I could make out the faintest slip of water. It was my first glimpse of the Red Sea. We kept driving on, twisting and turning up and down various roads and after another hour or so had passed, I looked up from my book again, and there it was, right beside us. The Red Sea. It was beautiful, twinkling and sparkling under the bright October sun. Bright turquoise mixed with deep sapphire. I was amazed looking at it, and I wondered to myself why it isn’t named the Blue Sea, for I have never seen water so bright blue in color.
The rest of the trip passed by quickly, and we arrived at the bus station in Hurghada at about 2:00 that afternoon. Mahmoud and his friend Karim were waiting there to pick us up and take us to our hotel. Sarah B. had made us a reservation at a hotel in downtown Hurghada that was right on the beach and close to all of the action in town as well. After a month of dressing and living modestly, we were all ready to let our hair down and have some fun. We made plans to meet Mahmoud at his house later that evening for dinner, and then we headed into the hotel to check in and get our rooms.
We soon found out that we actually did not have a reservation, which was a huge problem. Sarah had made the reservation through Expedia.com, but she hadn't bothered to call the hotel to confirm the reservation. The hotel had NO record of the reservation what so ever, and they couldn’t give us any rooms because they were fully booked. It was the weekend of a National holiday, and everyone was travelling. When the hotel clerk told us that we didn’t have a reservation and there was nothing he could do to help us, Sarah just answered him, “Um, ok, thanks anyway.” What??? It was time for me to take over. “NO, Sarah, it’s NOT ok,” I told her. We have 9 girls here who don’t have any place to stay. What are we going to do, sleep on the streets? Where is the confirmation number for the reservation? Give it to the guy and have him check again!” I told her. “Um, I forgot the confirmation number,” she answered. “Well, do you have the phone number for Expedia so we can call and talk to them?” I asked. “Um, no, I don’t have that either.” I couldn’t fricken believe it. How dumb can you get? Seriously, I love Sarah, but how dumb can you get?
Chaos erupted and all of the girls started flipping out. I told them to just go and sit in the lobby and I would take care of it. Nothing gets accomplished by 9 hens cackling and screaming at the same time. They reluctantly agreed, and Sarah and I went back to the counter and I asked to speak to a manager. The manager was off in another room behind the check in area, and Sarah and I were taken back to see him. He was a really nice man named Karim, who asked us to sit down and then offered us some juice or coffee. Karim asked what the problem was and I explained that Sarah had made a reservation online but the hotel had no record of it. He checked the system again, and he didn’t see the reservation either. He explained to us that when people make reservations using American-based travel websites like Expedia and Cheap Tickets, the reservations usually don’t work in Egypt. It was going to be difficult to call Expedia and get them to vouch for the reservation because a toll-free number in the States is NOT a toll free number in Egypt; it’s an extremely expensive call. However, Karim looked up Expedia’s number online for us, and I tried to call them, but we were never able to get through to anyone in customer service to get anything accomplished. They kept putting me on hold, and the call was so expensive that it used up all of my cell phone credit in less than 10 minutes.
Karim felt very bad that we were going to be stranded without a place to stay, and started phoning other hotels for us to see if they had any rooms. There weren’t any available. Not a single one. “Karim, I don’t care if we’re staying at the roach motel,” I told him, “we will take a room anywhere.” I wasn’t going to let this ruin our vacation. “What is roach motel?” he asked me. “A hotel that is so bad it’s full of cockroaches,” I answered him. He laughed out loud at this and said, "Sarah, I like you. No worries. I will help you find someplace to stay, and it won't be roach motel, eh?" Then he told me that he knew a few people who owned condos in the area and that he would try to phone a few of them and see if they had anything available. While he was doing that, I went back out to the lobby to tell the rest of the girls what was going on, and Sarah stayed there with Karim.
They were all upset when I told them we really didn’t have a reservation and that none of the other hotels had any rooms available. We had one option left. “Mhairi,” I said, “I know you don’t want to stay with Hot Egyptian, but we really don’t have any other choice at this point. Why don’t you phone him and let him no what’s going on.” “NO way!” she answered, “There is NO way I’m staying at that house with that fucking bitch Priscilla!” Mhairi is so incredibly stubborn sometimes. “Mhairi, for fuck’s sake!” I yelled, “We don’t have any place to stay! We are going to be sleeping in the street! Call him!” “NOOO! Absolutely NOT!” she yelled back. “We aren’t staying there, and that’s that! If any of you try to phone him, I’ll kill you! I’ll never talk to you again!” With that, she stormed off, leaving the rest of us looking at her open mouthed with amazement. How selfish and petty can a person be? “Don’t worry girls,” I said, “I will figure something out. We are not letting this ruin our vacation.”
I went back in to the manager’s area and Karim told me that he had found someone who rented apartments who had something available for a few nights if we wanted it. He told us the apartment only had one bedroom, and it was outside of town, but if we wanted we could check it out first to see if we liked it and then make a decision. We really didn’t have any other options, so Sarah and I decided to go with him to look at the apartment. Karim phoned his wife and had her bring their car to the hotel, and then the two of them drove us out to the apartment. I was amazed once again by the kindness of people in this country. We were strangers to them, but they were going out of their way to help us.
~
As we drove, I saw that most of the apartments we passed by were located in developmental areas outside of the city that had many nice, newer looking apartment buildings. Ok, I thought, this won’t be too bad. It’s a little ways outside of town, but it looks like it’s a nice area. I was wrong. After about 15 minutes of driving, we pulled up alongside another cluster of apartment buildings, and I saw that the apartment that was actually available for us was in one of the few dilapidated old buildings that were left in the area. As we walked up the trash ridden steps and Karim opened the door to the apartment, my heart sank when I finally saw the inside. The apartment was disgusting. There was one ratty looking couch in a tiny living room, 1 bathroom without a shower, and the bedroom had two single beds with soggy, stained mattresses on them. No blankets, no sheets, no towels, and the place looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years. It was covered in dirt and filth.
“What do you think?” Karim asked. I tried to keep the disappointment and panic from reaching my face. There was no way I was spending my vacation in this dump. However, I didn’t want to offend him because he had been so kind and helpful to us. “Well,” I answered him, “It’s a little small. I don’t know if 9 of us could fit in here. And, there are no sheets or blankets. I don’t know how we would sleep.” “Yes, I know,” he said, “but I can have the owner clean it up a little before you arrive, and my wife and I can give you some blankets and sheets from our house.” He was so sweet. “I am going to have to talk it over with the other girls,” I told him, “I can’t make a decision without talking to them first.”
Karim and his wife drove us back to the hotel, and I filled the girls in on what had happened. None of them wanted to stay there. I was very angry with Mhairi at that moment because I knew this entire nightmare of a situation could be over with a phone call to Mahmoud. He would be very upset if he knew we didn’t have a place to stay. We sat there discussing our options for a few minutes, which were few, when Mhairi came sauntering back into the hotel. “Hey, I just had some dinner,” she announced. “I feel better now. Sorry I was a bitch before.” I told her about what had happened while we were gone and that if she didn’t call Mahmoud, we were going to be sleeping in ratville. She finally agreed to phone him.
Mahmoud couldn’t believe what had happened and was upset that we hadn’t called him and told him about it right away. “Right,” Mhairi told him, “but I didn’t want to interrupt your dinner,” she told him. Mhairi loves to play games. His mother had invited us to dinner. By this time it was almost 7:00 at night. Mahmoud cursed her out, made one phone call, and the ordeal was over. A friend of his owns an all-inclusive resort 5 minutes outside of Hurghada, and he got us 3 rooms there for an amazing rate. This guy has connections like you wouldn’t believe.
We took a cab to our new hotel, the Calamara Hotel and Resort, and when we got the keys to our rooms and saw how beautiful they were, I felt like getting down on my knees and kissing the ground there. It was amazing. The hotel had an enormous restaurant with buffets and all types of food, both Western and Egyptian, it had a bar, a disco, beautiful outdoor patios and cafes, a large swimming pool, and it had a gorgeous beach right on the Red Sea.
We went to our rooms, (I ended up sharing a room with Sarah B. and Mhairi), changed our clothes for the evening, and then headed to the hotel bar to have a drink before dinner. After 2 drinks each we were incredibly relaxed, and all of the tension from that afternoon disappeared. We all forgave Sarah for her stupidity and Mhairi for her stubbornness, and we laughed and talked and had a great time. The dinner was amazing. The Calamara is owned and run by Germans, so they had a lot of delicious German-style food like potatoes, meatballs, sausage, and gravy. Ohhhhh, it was so good! We ate until we felt like we were going to burst.
After dinner we had another drink at the hotel bar and then took a cab to meet Mahmoud and his friends. The first place that we went to was an incredibly beautiful little place called Papas Beach Club that was right on the beach. The bar area was indoors, but the dance floor was outside under the stars and there were little couches and chairs everywhere where you could just sit and relax and enjoy the view of the sea. We danced and had a great time, but after a couple of hours most of the girls decided to go back to the hotel and get some sleep. It was only midnight at this time, and I wasn’t ready to go home yet, so me, Mhairi, Sarah B., and Joelle stayed out with Mahmoud and his friends.
We left Papas and went to another place in Hurghada called Ministry of Sound. This is a huge disco in Hurghada that is entirely outdoors, on the beach, and fits 1500 people. World-renown DJs are often there, and it is very hard to get in, (unless you know Mahmoud). Normally there is a 150 pound cover charge, ($30), but Mahmoud got us in for free and got us a great table with couches to sit on right next to the main dance stage. Ministry of Sound also has shisha, so we ordered some shisha and spent our time alternating between dancing and smoking. We had a great time that night dancing under the stars. Around 5 in the morning things were still going strong, (people in Egypt love to stay out all night), but most of us were ready for bed. Since we were right on the beach, we stayed a while longer to watch the sun come up over the water and took in the beauty of the Red Sea at dawn. It was absolutely stunning. Ocean sunrises are one of the most wondrous and amazing things to see in life.
After the sun had risen, Joelle, Sarah and I were ready to leave, so we said goodbye to Mahmoud and his friends and we thanked Mahmoud for everything he had done for us. Mhairi was off dancing somewhere, and we didn't know where she was, but Mahmoud promised us he would look after her and get her back to the hotel safely. We got in a cab, went back to our rooms, and collapsed into sleep.
Around noon Sarah and I woke up, changed into our beach gear, and then got something to eat and made our way to the Sea. Mhairi was still passed out on her bed, so we decided to let her sleep. The German breakfast was just as good as the dinner had been and after we ate, we headed to the beach. It was a 10 minute walk from the restaurant area of the hotel to the beach and as we walked, I breathed in the fresh air and reveled in the beauty around me. The air was clean and pure, the sun was shining, butterflies floated gracefully through the air, and beautiful flowers blossomed everywhere. I felt like I was in paradise.
Sarah and I found some of the other girls relaxing on the beach, so we pulled some chairs up next to them, soaked in the sun, and told them about how the rest of our night went. “Is Mhairi still sleeping?” Helen asked. As I went to answer her, I looked down the beach and saw that Mhairi was heading towards us. “She was, but that looks like her there,” I said. A few minutes later Mhairi was standing in front of us with an unpleasant look on her face. “Thanks for waiting, losers,” she said to Sarah and I. “Sorry, but we thought you might want to sleep in. How did it go with Mahmoud last night?” I asked her. “Terrible. We got in a huge fight and broke up,” she said. Again? I thought to myself, but didn’t say anything. Mhairi went on to explain that Mahmoud had gotten upset before they left because she was drunk and talking to some guys and had given one of them her phone number, which she didn’t remember doing. Then, as he was driving her home, Mhairi got in a fight with one of the girls who Mahmoud is friends with. Mhairi threw a huge tantrum, demanded that Mahmoud let her out of the car, and then started to walk down the road towards the hotel. Of course Mahmoud didn’t let her walk down the road alone, convinced her to get back into the car, and then told her he was tired of her behavior when he dropped her off at the hotel and left.
Mhairi sat and bitched and complained about her night while the rest of us just ignored her and enjoyed the afternoon. No one was going to let her attitude ruin our vacation. That evening we changed and had dinner together and just sat in the hotel bar for a while. Mahmoud called to invite us out again, but Mhairi refused to talk to him. The rest of us were tired from the night before, so we just stayed in the hotel and had and early night.
The next day we were supposed to join Mahmoud and his family on their yacht because he was going to take us out fishing and snorkeling. However, Mhairi was still upset with him, and forbade us all to go again. By this time the girls and I were so sick of Mhairi and her drama that no one wanted anything to do with her. I really wanted to go snorkeling in the Red Sea because it was one of the main things that I wanted to do while I was in Egypt, so I made plans through the hotel tourism office to go on a snorkeling expedition that afternoon.
We ended up going on a charter boat with 3 Brazilian girls, and it was so much fun. The boat ride out to the coral reef area took about an hour, and once we were there, we swam and snorkeled the entire afternoon. I was amazed by how many different species of fish I saw while I was there; I saw clown fish, angel fish, blower fish, swordfish, tiny sharks, and many different species that I had never seen before. While I was swimming, there were three small black and white striped fish that kept following me everywhere I went. Every time I looked down, there they were, looking up at me as if they were thinking, “Hey, big fish…where are you going now?” It was one of the best days I’ve ever had. I felt so happy and at peace as I was floating in the water and admiring all of the amazing creatures that live in the reefs. If I could go back and do things differently, I think I would have become a Marine Biologist instead of a teacher. I am so happy when I am in nature and in the sea, and I am so intrigued by underwater life.
When we got back to the hotel, it was about 5 in the afternoon, so we changed clothes and then explored downtown Hurghada for a while and bought some souvenirs. Then we went back to the hotel and had dinner and enjoyed our last full night of vacation. Mahmoud had invited us to dinner and out with his friends again, but Mhairi still didn’t want us to go because they were broken up. So, we decided just to stay at the hotel and hang out there. There was a bonfire party on the beach that night that we wanted to go to, and then we planned on going dancing in the hotel disco after that. We kept asking people who worked at the hotel where the bonfire party was and they kept telling us to follow the music, which we did, but we never found it. It was strange because we could hear drums in the distance, but whenever we tried to locate where it was coming from, we got turned around and ended up back in the same place. After an hour of searching, we gave up and headed to the hotel disco.
The disco was kind of small, but there were a lot of people there and everyone had fun and danced. Well, everyone except for Mhairi, who bitched and moaned the entire time about Mahmoud and the fact that some people had their children out in the disco with them. There was a group of teenage girls in the hotel disco who liked how I danced, (the DJ was playing a lot of Arabic music), and they kept coming up to me and asking me to dance with them. When they asked me where I was from and I told them I was American they couldn’t believe it. “How does an American girl know Egyptian dance?” One of them asked me. Years of belly dance and lessons from the great Judy Fox, I thought to myself, but I didn’t say anything. They all complemented my dancing and started taking pictures of me like I was a celebrity or something. Anyway, they were great kids and they were really cute, but Mhairi was visibly upset by the fact that they were talking to me and couldn’t believe children were allowed in a disco at 11:30 at night. I tried to explain to her that it wasn’t a big deal, because it’s not like this was a night club where teenagers were out getting drunk. It was a hotel dance floor and a lot of families were there and brought their kids with them. It’s Egypt; it’s a different culture—deal with it Mhairi.
She drove me and the other girls absolutely crazy with her complaining and sulking that weekend, but we still had an amazing time. It was so nice to get out of Cairo for a few days and enjoy the sun, sea, and fresh air. We all went back to work the next week completely refreshed and relaxed.
For the record, Mhairi and Mahmoud stayed broken up for 3 weeks after our Hurghada trip, but they are back together once again.
