On Laziness

Every once in a while it is nice to have what we long-term travelers (yes, we are a tight knit community) call an "admin week". During this week, one might catch up on emails, blogs and phone calls, manage finances, and plan future travel. When I arrived in Dahab I thought "what a perfect place for an admin week!". It was a nice relaxing place, with free WiFi everywhere (not at all common in Egypt), good food and beautiful scenery.

It was a perfect place to do everything that needed to be done, and also get in some relaxation time. While I did do most of what needed to be done (I planned my next six months of travel, I managed my finances, and I emailed a bunch of people) I did neglect a couple things - namely updating the blog.



Part of what makes Dahab a perfect place to catch up on things, also makes it a perfect place to sit around and do absolutely nothing except eat drink and snorkel. I originally planned on being there only three or four nights, but ended up staying eight nights. It is just too easy to lay around on the plush pillows and stare out over the gulf to Saudi Arabia, or to watch people snorkeling by or coming and going from days of scuba diving.

I did a few cool things while I was there. 1) I went snorkeling at the Blue Hole and saw an abundance of fish and colorful coral. I had been snorkeling before, but this was way better. That motivated me to take the next step! 2) I went scuba diving for the first time. It was an amazing, new world experience. It was like being in one of those crazy fish tanks that I always wanted but everything was bigger and all around me. After that experience I am tempted to take the course once I get to Thailand and get PADI certified; I hear it is cheaper there. :) 3) I went for a hike up Mt. Sinai, the mountain where Moses was believed to have received the Ten Commandments. I joined a small organized tour and was bussed from the hotel at 11:30pm and arrived at the base of the mountain around 1:30am. From there, we got a Bedouin guide who led us up the mountain along with the hundreds of other people. As we went up we passed countless camels and their owners calling out in the dark "Camel? Camel?". We arrived at the top at around 4:30 and waited patiently for the sunrise. The only drawback is that there were SO many people there. It is an extremely commercialized event so it detracts from any spiritual experience one may have. Nonetheless, it was pretty darn cool.

Apart from the activities, I did a lot of nothing. It has been a while since I just sat around and did nothing. It was kind of nice! It reminded me of the first weeks of summer break in middle school when you were so happy to be done with homework and getting up early that you slept late and lounged around all day doing nothing and it was great. However by midway through the summer you were tired of being lazy and were secretly anxious for school to start up again. That's about the point at which I left Dahab. :)