The beaches were rather empty but the sunset over the Sinai mountains was breathtaking
Dahab has all the goodies Sharm El Sheikh has but without the soaring prices and extravagant luxury. It is town full of budget hotels and cozy restaurants and bars. Most of its sights are under water and it has rightfully grown into a reputable diving hub. Find out what places we discovered and how we spent our last days in Egypt relaxing in a true backpackers paradise.
Sharm El Sheikh is a name most people are familiar with, even if they never actually went to Egypt. This once tiny fishermen village grew into a strategic port for the Egyptian Naval Forces due to it’s location at the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba. It lies at the tip of the Sinai peninsula and has become a popular tourist destination once the region got more stable. After the revolutions in Egypt tourism declined but the city was one of the first to rebound.
Unfortunately, since then, the city itself was targeted in some terrorist attacks and lately the Sinai region (especially the North) has become unstable again with the presence of ISIS and other extremist organizations. Despite of all this turmoil (and because of it) Sharm-El-Sheikh is a very secure place, unless for the risk of overspending. You can’t get near without passing elaborate military checkpoints, since Egypt simply can’t afford tourist to stay away. Find out why our backpacking trip included this resort destination in this post and how you can add a touch of luxury.
We woke up to our alarm in our Junior Suite of the Hilton Pyramids Golf Hotel. Even though it was 8 AM I got up immediately when I realized this would be the day we would visit the Pyramids of Giza. I had seen pictures of them all my life, seen them in movies, heard and read about them many times. Today would be the day I could actually stand next to them, touch them, climb them, go inside. It is one of the highlights of every trip to Egypt, but being an independent backpacker/traveler did make it a bit more complicated. This is our pyramid story.
We literally left him biting of his nails when he realized his mistake
We had started preparing and packing already some days before our flight. Since I was still working that week and Daisy still had school we used our nights. It was going to be a three-week trip after all. Although Egypt is not the end of the world, we did want to avoid having to buy a lot over there for financial reasons. Our flights from Madrid to Cairo and back were cheap. As a result the timing was also rather bad. We were scheduled to take off in Madrid at 1:30 AM. So we left our apartment late in the evening around 10 PM, said bye-bye to our homicidal fish: Mad Max, and hoisted our backpacks (which ended up to heavy anyway) on our backs.
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