Moonrise

Well dear bloggers, I am sorry to say that Mount Sinai never happened. Not everything can go to plan though right?

We were very disappointed but our hotel cancelled the trip at last minute as not enough people were going on it and there was no other night to do it as the Monastery would be closed :( We may go visit it and possibly climb it tonight though for sunset but with the heat that is going to be much harder! We will see it anyway before we leave and pray for you all.

We missed our sunrise but what we did get to see was a moon rise. We have never seen a moon rise before! It gets dark about 8 here but the moon doesn't appear till 9. We were having dinner on the beach when the waiter told us to look over to the lights of Saudi and we saw this mass of red light grow bigger and bigger, I couldn't believe it. It rose up so quickly and was the most amazing shade of burnt orange like the desert and mountains surrounding it. It was completely hypnotic. It rose quickly into the sky like a giant balloon and eventually it lost its orange glow and became the full silver moon we had seen the night before. The moonlight from it is beautiful, it really illuminates the black sea below it. The sky here is a very powerful thing. Leo says he can see why the ancient Egyptians were so obsessed with star alignment and building temples to the Sun! I tried in vain to capture it with my camera which was near impossible but I played around with my new fancy digital SLR and managed with different shutter speeds to get it to come out on film (if a little shakily!).

We also indulged in some shisha last night while sitting on a restaurant's roof (literally the roof - i thought we were going to die) which was very relaxing and a nice strawberry flavour. It's very unladylike to smoke in Egypt, well everywhere probably, but Dahab is more relaxed they frown upon it a little less. It was mostly travellers trying it as opposed to the shisha street cafes you see in Cairo which you wouldn't feel comfortable entering unless you were a man missing some teeth unfortunatley. So I indulged here knowing I wouldn't again and let myself feel like the big caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland blowing smoke rings.

Today is our last full day here before we go to Jordan tommorow. We will either snorkel or Leo will persuade me onto a camel and then, I think, have a very similar evening before we re enter the madness of things again tommorow. We will probably have to cross into Israel to get into Jordan as the ferry is something ridiculous like 100 US dollars so we are going at an ungodly hour to try and avoid getting stuck behind a massive que of tour groups - Eliat is meant to be even hotter than Egypt at the minute! It sounds like a bit of an excursion but I'm exited to see Petra, the dead sea and experience a different type of people so everyone please pray we manage to pull it off!

On to do some shopping now - some lovely Bedouin shops here where they actually let you browse without hassling you to buy. Yesterday we walked over a bridge and found more shops but it was like re-entering Luxor. They had even heard of Asda and Primark and were assuring us their prices were cheaper! I will wait to try and do most of my shopping in the Khan al Khalili market in Cairo and around so I can maybe get a better deal but Leo is too stressed out by haggling and likes the Bedouin's fixed prices.

I hope you're all getting ready to celebrate the glorious 12th.. sorry to miss it ;)

lots of love xox

p.s Crazy Barbour is crazzzaayy ;)