6 Week Gap Year

Monday 14 January
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A new day in a new country destination. As Ludy said yesterday, “I can’t believe I’m in Egypt!”
Looking out of the balcony doors it ‘s a bright sunny day but awful windy. I venture out on to the balcony and return inside immediately - it’s freezing out there! We have a 10 am briefing from the Olympic rep so we shower and go to breakfast first. The breakfast is in the same restaurant with a wide selection on offer. Rice, tomatoes, hash browns, cold meats and cheeses eggs in all their forms and fresh cooked omelettes. Sausages which are the small frankfurter type and were pretty disgusting, toast, bread, rolls, fruit, cereals, orange or pineapple juice and coffee or tea.
We meet our rep Jenny in an upstairs room which is also the Mongolian Barbecue restaurant. She is very very professional and knowledgeable and a joy to listen to. In her own words she would rather give us the facts, good and bad and let us make up our own minds. She has been in Sharm for 7 years knows what’s what, and in her experience clients prefer the truth not the sales patter. We immediately booked the trip to Cairo and the Pyramids for Tuesday and also one to St Katherines Monastery in the mountains of the Sinai Peninsular for Thursday. The choice for Cairo was by coach for a 300 plus mile journey for 6 to 8 hours leaving at 1.30 am and returning approx 24 hours later or by plane leaving at 4.30am and taking an hour and returning at 9pm! Hmmmm let me see. Also the price difference was less than £50 extra each. By the time we’d finished it was nearly midday so we decided to try and brave the wind and find a place around the pool to relax and sunbathe. Even round the pool there are staff to attend your every whim, collect your towels, find the best remaining sun beds in the most advantageous place for the sun and talk to you about their country and their hopes and ambitions. All for baksheesh of course. We found a reasonably sheltered spot and immediately repaired to the restaurant in search of lunch (well we are on All Inclusive you know) Next to the restaurant there is a little wooden hut containing the Creperie which I have to admit we couldn’t resist. Lunch is very much a smaller version of dinner and whilst we could not fault the quantity some of the quality with all services, breakfast, lunch and dinner, fell a little short.
The hotel has a Spa resort which offers sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi, massage, various body treatments and mud and seaweed wraps and a hairdresser and beauty salon. We decided to avail ourselves of the Cleopatra treatment for EG£210 which included unlimited sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi & full body massage & booked for Saturday.
That evening we decided to try the Mongolian Barbecue only to find that it is a reservation only affair. However with Ludy fluttering eyelashes and saying we had only just arrived Muhammed Ali ( I kid you not ) squeezed us into a little table by the window. We then are shown out on to the first floor balcony and are given a small side plate to fill with our selection of ingredients from a chiller unit. Shredded chicken or beef, shredded cabbage, red cabbage, onion, grated carrot and sliced green peppers. You hand your selection to chef with your order of normal medium or hot spicey preparation and he puts it on the hotplate and adds soy sauce, sesame oils and a pot pourrie of spices and herbs. We return to our table inside which is a great deal warmer than outside and await the result. It takes about 10 or so minutes and we collect our food and are shown to the side table where you can add fried rice or flat noodles (or both!) to your meal. This meal was seriously tasty and cooked just right. We will return. Any way early to bed tonight as we have to up at 3.30 for a pick up at 4.20am for Cairo. We can’t wait to see Pyramids, the only remaining wonder of the original 7 wonders of the world.