Crossing the Red Sea

The four of us (we are travelling with Vera and Marianne who are from Holland) have ourselves tightly wedged in our seats, eyes tight shut with two of us trying to be distracted with our mp3 players. We are hurtling across the Red Sea in a small catamaran from Sharm el Sheikh to Hurgarda on the African side of the Sea. Having left just before sunset in the calm waters of Sharm we are now in mid channel, in the complete darkness, bucking and rocking, careering from swell to swell, shuddering with the engines roaring. Things have fallen off the table, some people have staggered to the toilets at the rear, some have not made it, one woman is stretched out on the seats tended by some crew and other passengers, one large woman is stretched out on the cabin floor. Our advertised ninety minute glide across is turning into a three hour marathon, we are all just hoping for this to end, we know people pay money for this sort of thing at Alton Towers but we feel like we have been shot from Sharm, aimed at the African coast to skim over the heavy seas - it feels far from safe, no wonder there was so much doubt about the ferry running today (we thought we were going to have to divert via Cairo), clearly bad weather and plenty of it!

But worse was to come.

Arriving at Hurghada the four of us pile into a taxi, with the Dutch girls large packs I am squahed in the front seat with my pack the other three in the back, the suspension bottoms over every bump. We get to the bus office for Luxor and Aswan only to discover its not the right place, the taxi has disappeared and it is then that we realise that my small black day bag I had with me in the boat was not unloaded from the taxi's boot - no doubt not seen by the driver in the darkness. It has my camera in it, our guide book, my diary and a few other items including my prescription sunglasses.

A moment of despondency but quickly recovering phlegmatic mode we ask another taxi what to do - no problem if we had the taxi number which we don't. I ask him to take us to the Tourist Police which he does regaling us of tales as his days as a professional footballer, the police HQ is in fact a long way away (this place stretches for 30km along the coast!) near the airport. So we are dropped, enter a small side door, explain to the guy on the desk our problem and he takes us through to an office. There Office Agmad listens carefully to what has happened;
'Are you accusing the driver of anything?
'No, it was an accident we are sure, it was dark, he would not see the small black bag'
'What was he like? A black man like me?'
A bit difficult to answer this, I just say 'an Egyptian from Luxor'

A lot of form filling and further details later (we have Officer Agmad, another officer dealing with my passport and a younger civilian on the job) we have our carefully stamped report form. Both Officers had a lugubrious and world weary air (they had seen it all before and far worse of course) but we were dealt with quickly and with politeness. We left with Officer Agmad's phone number promising to let him know where we were staying - we decided we had to stay to at least give an outside chance of the bag being returned via the Tourist Police.

So out in the street, wide and empty, no guide book or map or any idea of where we were! As ever a taxi driver drew up and we asked to be taken 'to the town centre and to an inexpensive hotel'. Another long drive along big highways with short cuts, once down an umade road but eventually we get to lights, hotels and restaurants. The taxi driver has phoned a friend and he stops to pick him up to show us to the hotel. So to the Hotel Snafer, we knew nothing of it, where it was but the room was a reasonable price, it was clean and the disco down the road stopped around 11pm.

Down to the lobby in the morning, no news of the bag of course, our first task to consult the wall map and ask the hotel guy to show us where we are - we had in fact realised from our rather wonderful balcony view of an intensely aquamarine sea that we were right on the coast - and in fact our taxi driver has got us to a good spot.

Then a minor miracle - there on the lobby desk in a pile of book swops (mostly German) is a copy of the Lonely Planet Guide to Egypt! Liberated originally from the San Francisco Public Library, resold via a second hand bookshop ('stained throughout' it says in the front) we really don't care what state it is in - we have a guide book again - eyes for the traveller!