Our time away

 

We went on our trip to Sharm el Sheikh (Red Sea, Egypt) last week Sunday. As I said before, we went now, mostly because we'd booked it way back in February because we were going to go with the Rempels after the spring build. On the flight there, we were talking about when we'd been on vacation last, just the two of us, and decided it was our trip to Rome, six years ago, before Garry's ankle got so bad he couldn't walk much.   

The trip got off to an exciting start when Max arrived to take us to the airport and we discovered that time had changed overnight, luckily falling back, so we were at the airport in plenty of time. We even had exit row seats on the plane (a real bonus compared to the the four hour flight back to Dnepro yesterday, Garry got a sore back squished into a regular window seat.)

The first day was a bit of a disappointment after our quick ride to the hotel. That was the last place we had masks on until our return to the airport. The staff wore masks, and there was a lot of hand sanitizer available, but the guests did not, although I saw a few guests wearing them. All the guests were Egyptian or from former Soviet countries for the most part. 

 It took forever, nearly two hours to get checked into a room, although we went for lunch (turned out the food was excellent) and returned to find we had to wait longer and the Wi-Fi wasn't working in the lobby while we waited. Of course, all Garry wanted was to check in and go snorkeling.

We finally got taken to our room and discovered twin beds, and had to return to the lobby. Just until tomorrow, we were told. Garry went to find the beach with the snorkeling gear, while I laid down and waited for housekeeping to come push the beds together, as we'd been told. The first time the guy showed up, I requested towels, as there weren't any in the room.

Around four thirty, I tried to follow the signage to find the beach unsuccessfully, and decided to wait so I didn't miss Garry returning. By five o'clock it was starting to get dark and still no sign of Garry returning. It turned out after snorkeling, he'd found the beach volleyball court. He played everyday for a couple hours. He showered, we went to dinner, it was also hard to find our way to the dining room and back, and we were both tired.

After breakfast and an early morning swim, we did get moved to a better room, one where we had a queen bed as ordered and an easier path to the beach and dinner. Although some nights the flight of stairs up seemed longer. It turned out the free Wi-Fi worked most of the time, even in our room and on the beach. 

So I did a little snorkeling, and Garry did a lot. He even saw what might have been  several small sharks (we still aren't sure) and a couple large spotted eagle rays. We managed to turn brown and not red, the temperature was really warm the first week, up to 92 F, 38 C. (i did not check the conversion, just what I remember my phone telling me.) The last days, it was only 28 C for the high, but still felt quite hot by eleven am. 

 I crocheted and did some drawing and watercolors on the beach, including this one of the crows eating Garry's apple he left on the beach while we went snorkeling. I hadn't brought my phone that morning.

 I always got out of the water earlier than Garry, although we discovered the water temperature is much warmer in October compared to March. We would return to the air conditioned room before or after lunch, returning between two and three for more snorkeling and volleyball until dark around five thirty.

We had such a good time, we talked about how ten days would have been better, and on Friday Garry surprised me with an extension until Thursday morning. We had to get Victor to drop cash off at the travel agent in Dnepro to do it. After all, it was efficient, if we went again, we'd need another covid test!