Soft Beach, Hard Desert

After descending Mt. Sinai, we headed to an ecologically-minded place on the beach in Nuweiba which turned out to be much more expensive than we thought (and which we later learned doesn't allow Israelis to stay there, making us glad that we didn't either). The place we ended up was a "camp" called Soft Beach. Our accomodation was a reed hut with palm fronds for a roof and mats (with a few bed bugs) for a bed; although not the lap of luxury it worked out just fine. We spent days there enjoying the sandy beach, shaded areas with cushions, and good food from the restaurant (among the pictures is the "Egyptian breakfast" with falafel, fried eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes, soft cheese, flat bread and tea) which at dinner time we have to guard against the especially daring cats. For some dinners, we've received along with our order a fly swatter to keep at bay a lovable but bold and persistent black and white cat named Goldie (whom Rachel named Prince Charles, for being an adorable royal pain in the ass).

To break up our lazy days at the beach, we went for a two and a half day camel trip into the desert, loading all of our food, water, bedding and other supplies onto two camels. Our camels were around 10 and 15 years old (they can live to be 45 years old). They're pretty amazing creatures--they can go for 3 weeks in the desert without water, and drink 60 liters of water at a time. Their feet are flat and broad, perfectly suited to walking on sand without sinking in; the hairs around their nose, eyes, and lips looked equal to whales' baleen as powerful filters; and their gums are tough enough to withstand eating desert branches lined with thick inch-long spikes. They can also carry huge amounts of weight, including, of course, us. Along with the camels we had two Bedouin guides, Muhti (who spoke English) and Selim. We talked with Muhti about how the Bedouins are treated by the Egyptian government. Muhti, who is 26, has been married twice, to an American and an Australian woman, with a big part of the incentive for being that marriage to a foreigner made him exempt from the army. He said that until around 10 years ago, Bedouins were not allowed to serve in the army because they were considered to all be potential traitors. After Muslim fundamentalist bombings in the Sinai in recent years, the Egyptian government imprisoned and even killed random Bedouins in an attempt to intimidate them. Muhti told us that Bedouins preferred the Sinai under the control of the Israelis, who pretty much left them alone.

On our first day, as we had crossed over the highway and were just making our way past the huge power lines into the desert, we stopped while Muhti walked over to retrieve something from behind a rock, coming back with several large, dried stalks with green buds on them. Rachel asked "Are those for hitting the camels?" and Muhti answered that no, they were for smoking, which he did in copious amounts the remainder of the trip.

We rode on the camels some of the time, but often walked. The first day, one of the camels decided to take off on a run, so Selim had to mount the other camel, chase down the fugitive camel and bring it back, all of which took about 45 minutes. While we waited, Muhti made us some of our first "roasted marshmallow tea," black tea with a smoky flavor from being made directly in the fire and with a ton of sugar. We had worried about how hot the time in desert would be, but our pace was relaxed: we rested in the shade for about 3 hours each day at lunch time. At our camp the first night, Selim made the first yeastless bread, cooked directly in the ashes on top of hot sand, then beaten with a stick to get the sand out, while Muhti cooked a stew over the camp fire. After dinner we gazed at the incredible stars, and later during the night the moon rose and the whole sky was bright.

Day 2 began with us waking up around dawn; after breakfast we set off for the Colored Canyon on foot--there was one point the camels couldn't climb. The Canyon, with its stripes of color and patterned swirls, was interesting despite being marred by Russian graffiti. Later that day we passed a camel that had died two months ago; its bones were mostly picked clean and bleached white, except for some dried skin. We camped that night inside a short rock wall enclosure (which it took Muhti and several Swiss tourists two weeks to build) at a small oasis. After a short time of walking on Day 3, Muhti hid his weed behind some rocks, and we left the desert and rode the camels along the beach back to our camp.

The desert was very empty, and very quiet. But it wasn't completely empty of people: not counting the tourists in the Colored Canyon, we saw two pair of mother and daughter with a donkey and their sheep, and one friend of our guides', riding past on his camel with a boom box playing. It also wasn't homogonous in landscape. The sand could be soft and deep or hard packed like pavement; dust-fine, pebbly, or a field of rocks; wide-valleyed or mountainous, clay or granite. And despite being mostly rock and sand, it certainly wasn't empty of plant life. The most prominent vegetation was the only tree, the see-al (sp?), which can stay green for 20 years without water. Its large, spiky thorns were no deterrent to the camels, who loved to eat it (after the guides had gathered firewood, they had to keep it out of reach or the camels would eat it). And there were multiple varieties of small plants. Muhti told us about the Bedouin medicinal uses of these plants, and we tried some of a plant to calm the stomach. We also tried a "desert fruit," which looked a little like a fig but with a red skin with yellow pulp and black seeds inside. It tasted curiously of wasabi.

We knew we were starting to get old when the mattress in our hut left us with aches and pains after returning from the desert. Nonetheless, we relished our remaining couple days in the hammocks on the beach, before saying goodbye to Prince Charles, Muhti, and the rest and heading back to Cairo.