Our friends Mel and Thomas had been in Dahab for 6 months, and we were excited to slow down and see what it was about this place that made them not want to leave. So after arriving in Egypt from Jordan, we spent a couple of weeks doing exactly that.

Dahab is a small town with a string of incredibly cheap restaurants overlooking stunningly blue water. The weather is wonderful, the food is delicious, the apartments are cheap, there’s good snorkeling and diving right off the beach, and we had friends there. It was definitely a great place to stay for a while. We didn’t initially fully commit to that idea, as the visa extension we would need was quite complicated and expensive to get, but we were strongly considering that it was worth the effort. We had dinner dates and movie nights with Mel and Thomas, and celebrated Mel’s birthday. We did a little snorkeling, and participated in a clean up scuba dive because unfortunately there are sections of the town where locals tend to throw all their plastic into the sea. We came second in the pub quiz, and found some great spots for some laptop work with a view.

We kept extending our stay by one more week, because every time the week was up we didn’t want to leave yet, so we didn’t. Cheap restaurants by the sea, thriving corals to snorkel just off the coast, sunshine all day every day – it was idyllic. Without committing to staying long term, though, we never really settled into a proper routine. We ate at weird times, slept at weird times, and didn’t get into a work rhythm that felt good. But we were still kinda productive, and the food was good, and being lazy is enjoyable. We didn’t end up doing any more scuba diving, partly because we discovered the shipwreck dive that we were most interested in cost €210, more than anywhere else I’ve ever dived, and more than month’s rent out there. Instead, we got in some freediving practice with Thomas, and some sunrise hiking with Mel, and many games nights with all four of us. We came second in the pub quiz twice, both times losing to a team that had more than twice the number of people than the second biggest team, which wasn’t particularly fair, but the quizzes were fun all the same. We did a sauna and an ice bath and an excellent massage. We went to a salsa night and a birthday night in the desert. We had many weird flavours of ice cream, and discovered that the more neon the colour, the better the taste. I had a mango juice almost every day. We discovered the best shrimp macaroni in town, and the best shisha, and found what might have become one of our favourite restaurants on our very last night before heading to Cairo and travelling more of the country.

During our travels around the rest of Egypt we were deciding between leaving and heading to Asia, or just staying for a bit longer where we had friends and a cheap lifestyle, and in the end Dahab won out. So we went back, and rented a cute little studio apartment for the month for just $320. It had a great shaded balcony for doing some work during the day and eating dinner at night. We had an oven this time so did a full Sunday roast and made lots of brownies. We made a list of all the restaurants we missed last time to work through, and planned to visit a few more spots outside of town for snorkeling and hiking.

Life in Dahab was enjoyably slow. We found a few new restaurants we like, with slightly different menus to the usual western fare – slow cooked duck a l’orange, sausage curry, Indonesian style fried noodles, and various delicious juices and teas. As usual, time somehow went by very fast without us getting around to the many things we said we were going to do – we didn’t go to a salsa class, and we didn’t make it to Blue Hole, the famous out of town snorkeling spot. We did finally make it to the Island, another snorkeling spot with pristine reefs, where we were super lucky to see an eagle ray, a turtle and a sardine ball, amongst many other colourful fish. We enjoyed spending time with Mel and Thomas, playing video games and going for lunchtime swims to cool off as the heat got a little unbearable. It was 40 degrees most days by this point, so we spent a lot of time in our cozy air-conditioned apartment working on personal projects, and ventured out mostly in the evenings for the weekly pub quiz and the occasional gym session. We joined a gym right on the beach but have had embarrassingly low attendance despite the epic views.

One big adventure was a 3 day hike in the Sinai Mountains. Mel had a connection with a local living in the mountain town of St Catherine, who was able to organise a trek with a local guide away from the normal tourists routes, staying at local Bedouin camps, sleeping under the stars, and mostly not seeing a soul for 72 hours. The days were longer than expected, with some tough scrambles up very large rocks, but the views from the top were absolutely incredible. Scrambling down was equally tricky and occasionally included abseiling through holes in the rocks and taking breaks in caves along the way. It was a great weekend and nice to disconnect for a couple of days, although the flies were a menace. We ended the hike with a stop at St Catherine monastery, built into the rock face on the spot where Moses saw the burning bush. The monastery itself was sadly closed, but the building was impressive enough from the outside. We got home very tired and very dusty, to find that we had no running water and couldn’t shower. Unfortunately this lasted a few days, which was not ideal, though we were able to shower at our landlord’s apartment to at least recover from the hike. 

We hadn’t intended to spend three months in Egypt, but our Dahab apartment was incredibly nice, the sea was crystal clear and always refreshing, the friends were fun and life was easy. But before too long our friends were leaving, it was getting incredibly hot, and we’d eaten everything worth trying. So it was time to move on, but a few last experiences were needed first. We finally booked a couple of scuba dives, having not dived in a very long time. We’d been recommended the Canyon dive site, where you can descend into a crack in the ground and swim along for a few hundred meters, down to a depth of around 40m. We also got to explore some of the red sea’s beautiful coral reefs, which are absolutely teeming with fish of all kinds. We found some very interesting creatures that I’d never seen before, and I wish I’d had a video camera. The dives were very reasonably priced at $27 a dive, but the equipment hire was an extra $18 a day, so we made the most of this by adding on a third dive at night time. This was done at the reef right by the main boardwalk, which we’d snorkeled many times in the light, but in the dark we found many different species, including an octopus, a couple of cuttle fish, and the most enormous scorpion fish with patterns and adornments to make it look like lichen on a rock. Again, I wish I had pictures so you’d know what on earth I was talking about. The main takeaway is it was awesome, and I’m glad we didn’t leave Dahab without finally fitting in a dive day.

Our last day with Thomas (Mel had already left) involved snorkeling our favourite spots in water so warm it felt like a bath, goodbye drinks on the balcony, and a meal at our favourite restaurant. Then, we headed to the airport, and took a quick overnight flight to Istanbul.

Thanks for following along on my crazy adventures!

 Ros ♥

If you’re interested in how I got here, or where I went next, check out the rest of the story!