If I am honest I was hoping this would be a little piece of quiet and luxury for me. I expected a large hotel in the middle of nowhere and an amazing spot to kite, so when I arrived and saw the very large hotel I was not surprised! From the outside the hotel looked weathered but hey, appearances are not everything right? So the friendly driver and his colleague drop me off and help me inside with my baggage. On the journey up Milad had joked that I would be the only person in the hotel and I just thought he was messing around with me, he was however not far wrong. I walk in to the reception area, which I imagine when it was first built would have been astounding and there is no one there apart from what looked like 4 german guys with a beer who were leaving and a particularly rude man behind the desk. As expected they didn’t know who I was and they didn’t seem to be expecting me, I wasn’t surprised if I am honest. So I eventually check in to find that they have no wireless and what seemed to be no guests either! I started to cry. Poor Milad had done his bests to keep me in good spirits after leaving my surrogate family behind in Safaga and now he had a crying English female on his hands. The thought of having to spend a further 8 days in this strange place scared the hell out of me and also didn’t seem to be the point of the trip. If there was any wind I guess it would have maybe been a different story but with none forecasted till at least Tuesday I was not holding out much hope. I agreed with Milad to take his phone number and I would give it the night to see if a few guests emerged from the deeps of this massive complex after dinner.
I parked my bags in the room, yet another shock if I am honest. I opened the balcony door to take a look at the swimming pool and pool bar, hey if i cannot kite at least I could swim, well I would be able to if the pool was not dirtier than my mum’s pond! So still trying to find something good here I decided to have a look around maybe everyone was still at the beach as the sun was still shining and there was a little wind left in the air. So i wonder off with my camera to the beach. Well I was say one thing they were not lying about the spot, the clear water and immense lagoon is a kiting paradise, however there was no one at the kite centre and all i passed was 4 people with all their kiting kit (turns out these were English people who had journeyed up for 2 days kiting from a windless El Gouna. The spot was truly awesome and I can imagine on a windy day there would no better place but the fact that there was no one there and no wind was breaking my heart. I had no wireless so I couldn’t even whittle my days away on writing my blog and job hunting or anything internet based. I also only have about half a book left which would have disappeared in about 4 hours there!
I was shocked and for the first time in my life I really couldn’t see the bright side of this situation. My instinctive reaction was call Yann and Amr and ask if I could come back to Safaga, so I did and yes my room was still free. So I organised to be picked up the next morning after breakfast. This has ofcourse cost me an additional 400 Euros in total but I think I would have gone mad if I had stayed there for any longer.
Now don’t get me wrong, I think in the summer months when there are more people there this place would be sweet and I will go back again with a group of friends to kite and drink, but definitely not a spot for a lone traveller.
Anyway I can safely say that I was very happy to see the familiar smile of the regular driver I have gotten used to in Safaga first thing this morning and I am now back in Safaga till Friday night and I will kite it around here! Happy days!!
No comments:
Post a Comment