Dahab

What a cool town.
I checked into the Penguin, which was just as relaxing and awesome as that picture in my last post made it look, and after an afternoon of running unproductive errands (I will never ever find an open post office....sigh), I returned to find that my Aussie compadres were, in fact, still around! Good news!
We had a really delicious dinner up on the roof. I learned that I am really, really bad at disassembling whole fish, but it was so delicious that I didn't care about how spazzy I looked eating it. The fish was fresh out of the water, and it was one of the best things I ever ate.
The next day the guys had originally intended to head out for Jordan, but they decided to stick around an extra day and enjoy the mellow vibe of the place, so we went snorkling. I'd never been, and the guys are experienced deep-water divers (living on the reefs and all), but they were really great sports and taught me all the basics, including the fact that you should spit in the lenses of your goggles to keep them from fogging up (ew). It took me a while to get the hang of things but once I got my bearings, the reef was really gorgeous. I saw some amazing fish (I wish I could have taken my camera under), and the coral was really funky - very psychedleic colors.
I had thought that that would be the end of our hanging out, since the guys were headed to Jordan in the morning and I still had to climb Sinai, but I mentioned my dilemma to the guy at the front desk and he said "why didn't you say so? You can climb tonight, and on the way back, the shuttle bus to the Jordan ferry can pick you up at the junction. You don't have to spend another night here just to get to Jordan!" So I suddenly had the best of all worlds - my climb and my travel buddies! I love it when I get what I want...