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El Gouna - Chillin' on the Red SeaSep 24, 2006
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Life's a beach
Not your average backpacker accommodation
Catching the breeze
From lawless territories, corrupt governments, extreme poverty and related petty crime to daredevil mountain bike adventures, kayaks in Antarctica, kamikaze bus drivers and dubious light planes, we've survived over 11 months of Loges' Goes Global and are pretty keen on keeping it that way. So when the Barton's received a warning via Richard's company about travelling to the Sinai Peninsula, we grew all sensible and decided to stick to the mainland Red Sea coastline and hence ended up at the resort town of El Gouna, just north of the original tourist hot-spot, Hurghada.
It meant giving up Mt Sinai and St Katherine's Monastery and any chance of meeting Moses at the Burning Bush for some divine inspiration - but it was better than the risk of crossing paths in a tourist area with a suicide bomber, hell-bent on unhinging even further any chance of peace in the crazy ideological divide in this part of the world.
Pristine sandy beaches, deep blue seas, gorgeous sunsets and a swanky new resort hotel, the Movenpick Resort and Spa would be our home for the next 4 nights. El Gouna, a purpose built resort town barely 15 years old, was designed by an Italian architect and features uniform, rendered ochre, yellow and white resort hotels and holiday homes dotted with lagoons and palm trees - not really authentic Egypt, but a lovely wind down to an adventurous year.
The highlight of our jaunt on the coast was snorkeling in the Red Sea. A full day onboard a dive boat (good incentive for us to learn one day) took us to three dive/snorkeling sites where we swam amongst vibrant coral and colourful marine life.
When we weren't sleeping in, swimming, dining in one of the many restaurants or sipping Egyptian drinks as we lazed by the pool, we were planning our last week in Cairo and our homebound journey to the other side of the world.
