Here I Go Again (On My Own)
Posted January 5, 2007Man, that song is awesome.
It's a new year! I spent New Year's Eve in a place called Dahab, a small resort and diving town on the Sinai Peninsula. Several people I know had been there, and all had encouraged me to go. I traveled with Sabira and Melissa, my neighbors in the building. We caught an overnight bus from Cairo to Dahab, which was a nine hour ride on terribly maintained road. Sabira and Melissa had been before, and their hotel, the Nirvana Dive Center, is run by a friend of theirs, Anil. Anil and his cousin, Sanjay, are Indian nationals who have moved to Dahab for an indefinite period of time, and Anil was kind enough to find me a hotel in the completely-booked up town. When we arrived, we were tired as hell from the unrestful ride, but Dahab's atmosphere reinvigorated us, so we stayed up until that night.
Sabira, I, and Melissa pose for the first picture of the new year.
Sabira on the Dahab waterfront.
Melissa with her huge bag. She left from Dahab to the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Lebanon, Israel, and who knows where else. We'll see her in February.
Dahab is not the kind of town I expected to find in Egypt. According to rumor, it began as a sort of hippie hangout, where tie-dyed-clad tourists would go to get away from the much busier, expensive, and touristy Sharm El-Sheik, another resort town about an hour from Dahab. Keep in mind that these are not true hippies, and not even exactly the kind of hippies we have in Santa Cruz, but they certainly count as the closest thing to hippies you'll find in Egypt. Dahab's shore is lined with establishments, sometimes right on the water, such as restaurants, hotels, and shops. Every storefront and restaurant has a man standing outside whose only job is to get people into the shop or restaurant. They can be quite pushy, but living in Cairo trained me for dealing with them.
The main cove in Dahab, sheltered from most of the winds.
Looking at the other end of the cove.
Tourists on the beach in the evening.
This bridge was the site of a terrorist bombing a couple of years ago, which killed a handful of tourists, I believe.
The air was quite cool in our first days there, with a strong wind blowing off the water, especially outside the cove. We didn't really mind, since Dahab has almost no air pollution, and our lungs rejoiced at being able to breathe clean air again. By the end of my four-day stay, the air had warmed up considerably, and my friend Maryam tells me I returned to Cairo a shade darker than I left.
We ran into other ALI folk in Dahab! This is Sarah and Jonathan relaxing at a restaurant...
...and this is Lesley on the beach.
What's really interesting about Dahab is the population that it attracts. You can go to Dahab and never speak Arabic, a result of the tourist industry, which relies entirely on English. While there, I met "tourists" from Germany, Portugal, England, Bulgaria, Russia, and the United States, and everyone spoke English. The word "tourists" is in scare quotes because half the time they had come for a two week diving vacation that had turned into a six month or two year stay. Dahab does this to people: charms them with the promise of an idyllic life of diving, food, and pleasure on the Red Sea. They wake up late and go to bed late, then do it again the next day. Snorkeling, wind surfing, diving, kayaking, and tanning are the usual daytime activities, with drinking, partying, dancing, and eating filling up the night. Of course, they are great fun to hang out with.
I was fooling around with my camera and got this picture of the moon. Pretty cool, huh?
The new year brings with it my final term at the Arabic Language Institute. From there, I don't know where I go. I have come up with a number of options. In no particular order, they are:
- The academic route. I apply to my graduate schools in Germany, move to Germany, learn German, and become an Egyptologist proper. Applications to the schools I am considering are not due until the early spring. This would be a several year commitment, minimum.
- New York City. I love that town. If I moved to New York, I would try to be some sort of a musician or writer. I can't imagine not enjoying the experience.
- Philadelphia, temporarily. Why Philly? There is someone there I want to meet, for the purpose of writing a series of articles or interviews about. No names, because this writing project has a serious chance of happening. It would not take more than a few months, most likely.
- Mexico, for, oh, a year. I have family there that I haven't seen in far too long, and if I moved down to live with them for a year I would work my way into the music scene.
- California. My home is there, both Camarillo and Santa Cruz, and I miss the people. I'm certain that I'll be spending some time with them before any of the other plans make themselves manifest. In fact, that was my New Year's resolution.
- And, for kicks, Dahab. Would you believe there is no live music scene in Dahab? Not one band. Any restaurant that could boast live music would certainly be the draw of the waterfront that night. I think latin jazz, blues, old standards, or rock cover bands would all go over well. I'd just need to convince some other musicians to get in on the act and put together a band and show. I doubt, though, that playing for Dahab would be fulfilling for very long, if at all. But it's an option.
So, in six months, one of these options or another not yet on the list will be realized. It'll be as much a surprise to me as to anyone else. For now, I am back in Cairo, living in the new apartment, playing guitar and writing and cooking and seeing my friends here. It's rather nice not having school for a bit, though I'm sure the term will be here before I know it.
