Egypt Day Trip III

Egypt Day Trip I , Egypt Day Trip II

And that’s why I decided to become a vegetarian” were my last words after seeing that bull being slaughtered.

But only for 12 hours. When it was lunch time, I couldn’t resist the temptation to eat from its meat. Everybody kept complimenting how good the meat was and that it was almost fat-free. Considering the hyper activitiy of the bull after that chase, I won’t be surprised by the high metabolism it has for burning fats.

We spent the next 3 days of Eid in Ain El-Sokhna; A small village with a great potential to become one of the greatest touristic sites in Egypt. You can tell by the amount of real-estate construction going on there. We stayed in different resorts owned by our family friends. “Venezia Resort” was the one where we spent most of our time in. We call it the adults resort because it was too quiet and peaceful. It is one of those resorts where you’d go to relax and stay away from people; or at least hang out with people who are coming here to relax. The other resort that we guys used to go to at night was called “STELLA” resort. It was mostly occupied by Christians and especially the youth generation. And by youth, I am referring to university students who spend their weekends or their mid-semester vacations there. Our timing was good as there were alot of partying going on. Most of them were Christmas-spirited parties.

In general, we enjoyed our time in Ain El-Sokhna. BBQ, soccer games, racket games and one hell of a boat trip under mild weather conditions. The chilling wind and the violent tides that were rocking our boat rendered half of us to sea sickness. We couldn’t cope up with the frequency of people who were puking all over the place.

After finishing our Eid days there, our next stop was Hurgada. We’d reach there through a 4 hour road trip. Considering the crappy taste of the driver in music, I was thankful for bringing my novel with me (Love in the time of cholera) and my cellphone/mp3 player. However, my familys’ misfortunes were in fact signs of joy in discovering that we were the only arabs in a Russian-populated hotel. Oh how great it was to stay away from an arab-dominating culture for a while.

But as usual, my parents and family friends never fail to exploit the situation, the fact that were were the only arabs there, especially when it came to the food quality. Since most of the cuisine was very Russian-oriented and could not cater the desires of our Arabic taste buds, my dad utilized his talents in demotivating the hotel staff by bashing their biased service. By our last day, the master chef got used to us walking to his kitchen and making special traditional Arabic requests: wara2 dawali (stuffed vine leaves), Fatteh, Kuskusi (traditional morroccoan dish), custom-made grilled dishes.

Although it was sunny, the weather was a bit windy making it extremely challenging to consider the idea of swimming. I overcame the temptation and swam ONCE in the sea. It was the biggest mistake. I managed to survive for only 10 minutes as each stroke I took felt like 1000 knives were cutting me. Even after I left the water, I remained shivering for one hour.

One of the interesting tours we took was the one hour glassboat tour ride that explores the underwater life of fishes and corals. I took over 100 snapshots and video files for this memorable journey.

One of the other secret tips about entertainment life in Egypt in general is to go to the worst chaotic places out there where you can play by no rules. We applied this theory when we went for our carting session. No rules, no flags, not even a safety driving suit. The only thing we wore were the dusty safety helmets that look like they were scavenged from the October war in the 70s. As I was negotiating with the owner of the house, I heard the echo of a barking dog that kept getting louder. The loose dog was running straight for us..straight for me.

20 meters....I am reminding myself to stay calm...15 meters...don’t show any sign of fear....10 meters.....damn he is not slowing down.....5 meters... RUN HAMZA RUUUUUUUUUN. He chased me for merely 10 seconds before his owner called him off. That was a close call

There was so much adrenaline in me that I vowed to myself that I’ll avenge to this incident. I was harmless in my first two laps as I was orienting myself to the arena. By the third lap, my destructive evil side started taking control. On the 4^th lap, my brother’s cart was in front of me. He saw me and was stepping aside to give me room to pass...but NOOOO...I wanna crash to him. With a sharp turn to the left I sent his cart skidding off road making two 360 degree turns. Nothing happened to my cart and what a great overwhelming evil feeling it was. I can never do this in real life.

By the time I took two more laps, they finished fixing my brother and his cart. I did 3 more laps utilizing the adrenaline concentrated blood stream running in my veins. Fate brought me one more time with my brother’s cart. This time I fixated my mind on making the damage severe and...BHAAAAAM..I felt my body was about to be launched from the vehicle. This time my brother’s cart flew even further off-track till he was stopped by the walls surrounding the arena. He came out with a bruised leg and swore never to go back again.. By the smoke released from his cart, I concluded that it was damaged beyond redemption. Mine was a bit better. I drove it for a while before I realized that the brakes are no longer functioning and the steering wheel can no longer respond to turning left. When my cart finally stopped, the manager was approaching me and I could already see the flare in his fiery eyes. He scolded me and told me that i was done for the day, that i already damaged 2 of his carts.

“But I still got 2 more minutes”..I dunno how I dared to say that. It was the last thing I said before I got kicked out of there. Its ok. No hard feelings. He deserves it. That’s for setting the loose dog on me you jerk.

If there is something that I’ve learned about this whole trip, then it is the fact that Angels DO exist. There was this gorgeous girl who mesmerizes the eyes with her glowing beauty. If you know me well, you know that I rarely get enthralled unless it was an extremely exceptional situation. She was so stunning that staring at her for more than half a minute would overexpose my mind to incomprehensible level of beauty that might risk damaging it beyond repair. She was like those rare jewels that were existed for the sole purpose of being admired. It would be sinful to touch her, approach her or even communicate with her in fear of disgracing the holy aura circumventing her splendour. In the 3 days I stayed, I would occasionally let my soul be submitted to the enchanting of her prettiness by stealing a glance every once in a while at her; At breakfast, lunch, pool time, BINGO night, Dinner, Christmas night and many more. As I said, I never intended and wanted to talk to her and that’s why I was disappointed in my last day to know that the binding spell was breaking when she approached me holding a ping pong racket in her left hand and a ball in her right arm and in her Swedish accent said:

“you....play?”

Sure why not..I joined her and the kids she hang out with. The two hyper South African 9 year old boys and 2 korean/Chinese twin sisters that were almost 6 years old.

Meanwhile, my brother and his friend befriended one of the Egyptian ushers who help in organising events around the hotel. The Egyptian usher was delighted to finally see an arab group and hang out with them. As part of his job in guiding, he even befriended the Angel Girl and her accompanied kids.

So, all of us joined for quick ping pong matches. We played till the 5^th point. I demanded that my turn be the last. When it was finally my turn, I aroused my dormant ping-pong skills that I’ve picked back 7 years ago in my first university year when we used to play tournaments in the dormitories. I took the Egyptian usher down. I won the two boys with a merciless 5-0 score. I slacked a bit against the Korean girls and won them 5-2. Then it was the turn of my Angel Girl against me. As we played, the Egyptian usher was teasing me in Arabic on how I will slack out and let her win. When I was up 3-0, he remarked in Arabic sarcastically:
“allah yekhrebetek..kol dee bzaz wi 3andek 14 sanah...7ate3meli feena eih amma teb2ee 18?” (“oh boy..if this is the size of your boobs at the age of 14, then what’s its gonna be at the age of 18?”)

My world was shattering. 3-1...the beautiful image I preserved of her in my mind was slowly losing its glow. 3-2.. this was soo funny..but why did he have to mention her lustfully? 3-3

Wait a second....did he mention that......3-4...she is just FOURTEEEEEEEEEEN? FOURTEEEEEEEEEEEEEN? Damn..what was I thinking... 3-5

“woohoo” she was celebrating her achievement and clapping vigorously for beating the master that has eliminated her team-mates, the same master that felt the impact of the news like a meteor that cratered his fragile heart.

“bos 3aleihom benatnatoo il zay.. wana mosh batkalem 3al 3eyal...rakez ma3aya” (look at how they are bouncing...and I am not talking about the kids) winked the Egyptian usher..

“SHUT UP..ENOUGH”

and enough of this memorable vacation. Roadtrip back to Cairo, stayed one more day there before we headed home back to Jeddah after spending more than 16 hours in the airport for an unforeseen delay in the departure of the flights.