“You aren’t going to have a life this summer” said my boss.

“Wait, what?”

“Well the project will finally start next month and it has been delayed so long that there is a big push to start getting things done so I’m not sure you will be able to take any vacation. If you want to go anywhere, you better go now.”

Prague was still in lockdown and few countries were allowing inbound flights from abroad, so I literally sat at my desk and googled “which countries allow tourists coming in from the Czech Republic” and I got three answers: Canary Islands, Spain, and Egypt. I felt like Spain was close enough to go another time, Canary Islands didn’t seem like an interesting place to go alone (though I have since been told I am wrong), and so that left me with Egypt. I went online to check the requirements, filled a form on a Friday, got my e-visa the following Saturday, booked a low-cost flight on Sunday, and scheduled a PCR test on Monday. Two weeks later I was wearing a bulging backpack, and sipping whisky, about to board a 5 hour flight to Hurghada (it’s okay if you’ve never heard of it, I hadn’t). 

The Red Sea is an amazing place and absolutely worth seeing. The magical world that sits just below the surface is something I couldn’t describe with words. I’m not a big fan of beaches or the sea, but Hurghada is a popular tourist destination for Czechs and my friends told me that if I go I HAVE to go snorkeling, and so I did, and it was worth every second.

The air in the town smells dry and dusty, which was in contrast to every other beach city I had ever been to, they were always noticeably more humid than my birthplace of the Arizona desert. Hurghada’s climate reminded me of home but with a hint of diesel exhaust, as opposed to creosote and mesquite leaves. People there were fine, hardly anyone was bothered by me or my camera, which was good. In fact, I was worried most people would be suspicious of me taking pictures, as I had experienced somewhat in the US, but Egyptians were like the opposite, when they saw me snaping pictures they would almost immediately pose. Sometimes solemnly, sometimes smiling. People who didn’t speak English were not necessarily friendly but those who did speak English were almost exaggeratedly friendly and ended every conversation with “come to my family’s gift shop / come to my brothers spice shop / my friend will give you a really good deal on a boat tour” which as you can imagine, does start to get real old. One thing I learned is that thanks to my dark curly hair and long dark beard I actually look Egyptian (locals told this to me many times), so in the bazaar I could just point and nod and I was perceived as a lazy Arab which resulted in normal (phenomenally low) prices on food stuffs, but if I was wearing shorts (only tourists wear shorts) or spoke a word of English, prices immediately went up.  Not double, not triple, but quadruple.

As my dad once told me, those who say say a lot, know little. Those who say little, know a lot.