E-heap-it - that's how you pronounce Egypt in Russian. That's where we were on our vacation with Doug and Marcie for the last week, getting suntanned (or reddened) snorkeling and stuffing ourselves Ukrainian all inclusive style. Most of the guests at the hotel were from Ukraine or Egypt, there were supposed to be some Germans and us Canadians, of course. We confused the hotel staff, tour people and  airport staff with our nationality (I never told anyone I was American, unless they were checking passports- it would be even more confusing).

When we went to Sharm El Shiehk three or four years ago, most of the tourists enjoying the beaches were from Russia, England and Ukraine, we met a few Dutch and German tourists, too. This year if another guest spoke English they were Egyptian or Ukrainian.

Anyway, we booked the trip back in February and we left last Friday afternoon after buying Garry a swimsuit since his has disappeared since he went to the sauna in December for Steve's birthday celebration. It is a very nice swimsuit, although he rejected the first one I found for sale at the sports store. I think he would have looked so Ukrainian in a speedo.

The resort was not super great, the place could use a little maintenance; there was some peeling paint and Garry wanted to weed the flower beds. Our rooms were decent but not 4 star- neither in room mini fridge could get cold, and only one room had a queen/king bed as requested (twins for the other) but the food buffet was good every time (except maybe the night we all accidentally took the liver), and the cleaner liked to make towel sculptures on the beds besides cleaning up your room.

However,everything was fine when we went to the beach the first morning when we found out that the snorkeling right off the dock really was terrific as promised and that was what we came for, we'd go back again if we can.

It was great that Garry had fellow snorkelers Doug and Marcie to go out into the Red Sea a couple times a day with, since on previous trips I'd worry about his long swims alone.  I am more "cool looking fish" for maybe 20 minutes  once a day and then I'm ready to go back to the beach.

Monday I started coughing, just my luck, on vacation in the sun and sick!

Garry's foot did not look good after not wearing shoes all week, it is really swollen (today he's wearing a compression sock again). He couldn't swim with two flippers on. He was walking through the airport with one sandal and one barefoot yesterday.








The two of us stayed at the the resort all week, but Doug and Marcie signed up for a tour of Cairo Saturday morning which was scheduled for Tuesday, but was moved to Monday morning. Since the bombing at the churches in northern Egypt happened on Sunday morning and we were all offline, they arrived at the airport very early Monday morning (they had to be in the lobby at 4 am) to fly to Cairo and discovered that they had a pile of emails when they connected to the free wifi from people worried about them. They said there was a lot of security and checks before the flight. However, they had a great day seeing the pyramids and the museum (we went in May 2010 with our two sons by bus so we stayed at the resort and took it easy) and were in bed by 9:30 that night.

We did not view the evening entertainment feature but once all week, it started at 9:30 every night. Every evening we played card or board games in the lobby, drinking Pepsi with ice (the ice confused everyone) until dinner at seven and then after dinner until we got tired.

Wednesday evening we decided to watch the show since we were up and it was the spinning dance guy. The show was just outside the doors and Doug went to get his camera while we sat down and there was thunder and lightning around. We have always heard it only rains a couple times a year there, and everyone seemed to ignore the first drops fell. Then they tried to hurry the show and get the main act going. As the rain got going, people started to move inside  the doors- including us- but the dancer continued to spin.  Then it really started coming down and they halted the show; the entertainment staff tried to cover the electronics the guests ran in,  and the waiters ran out, grabbing hookah pipes and cushions off the chairs as the rain came down so hard it was bouncing back off the stonework six inches high.

We waited until the rain slowed, since our rooms were reached via a very long walk along a veranda on the second floor with no roof for most of the trip. There was a  good covering of water on the tile floors making them slippery and it had come in under some of the doors, Garry and I had a puddle on our floor toward the bathroom that we mopped up with our towels before going to bed. There was a little more thunder and rain before we went to sleep. and the next day there were more waves than we's seen before and the water was a little murkier when we snorkeled.

Friday morning the guys went for one more snorkel and they were hoping to play a little beach volleyball before we had to pack up but the ball was missing. However, they weren't too disappointed because while we were sitting in our beach chairs waiting Garry spotted a pair of dolphins swimming near the end of the dock for the perfect ending of our trip...

well except for the nine hours of bus, airport, plane and car ride back to the village.

PS If you are wondering- it was 919 US dollars per couple for the plane flights, room and food for the week. Cairo trip extra.