Site Report: Sinai Peninsula, Egypt

Visits

• 2011-01-28: Just prior to boarding our flight from Addis Ababa to Cairo, Barbara decided that she wanted to go to the beach, so we bought a ticket from Cairo to Sharm El Sheikh. We spent a little extra to fly business class as otherwise we would have had to wait all day for a regular flight. Upon arrival in the business class lounge at the Cairo airport, I was surprised to read on the cover story of an international newspaper that demonstrations had started in Cairo and several other Egyptian cities. We didn't worry too much about it, though, as we got on our plane. The plane landed at sunrise, and the first thing that I saw out of the window was a fox running around near the runway. We knew next to nothing about Sharm El Sheikh, but the brochures in the airport looked pretty tacky. After a long negotiation, we arranged a taxi to a nearby town called Dahab. The scuba diving was especially overrated in Dahab, but the main point of interest was news that the demonstrations had escalated. We bought our return tickets to Cairo, and a few hours later, the government shut down the internet. Moving on from Dahab, we returned to Sharm El Sheikh and the Western World. After some slightly better scuba diving off a boat captained by Hosni Mubarek (but not THE Hosni Mubarek), we heard the news that the police force had been disbanded. The rumors continued to escalate, and we started to realize that we might be delayed in our departure from Egypt. We arrived at the airport a bit early for our departure to find out that all flights to Cairo had been cancelled. We ended up having to buy a ticket on a charter flight going into Birmingham, England.

Species Seen

Lifelists

• Africa
• World

Trips

• Africa: Egypt and Ethiopia