Everyday

Many of my posts now seem to be the more glamorous moments of my life, when I get to travel to another city or town, or attend an event in the desert.

When I started the blog I wrote more regularly and about every day happenings and discoveries. This was because most of the time I stayed in Siwa Oasis and did not travel much, and because the first year in Egypt was a process of settling in, marked by many discoveries and some intense and completely unanticipated events.

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Now my life has a different pace, and I have noticed that I don’t often document the everyday in Nuweiba, what happens between escapes and adventures. So today I am sharing some photos of things I have come to take for granted as I walk through town, but which may be interesting or curious to those who don’t live here.

I am still shy about taking photos of the local people, the Bedouin, except when invited to special events. But I will try to ask their permission and take more photos of them to share with you in future, because the animals and scenery are only part of the story of Nuweiba.

These photos above are only from the past month, you can see more photos of Nuweiba at https://www.facebook.com/MindseyeWritingAndPhotography
and in the book http://www.blurb.com/b/3924550-nuweiba
ebook http://store.blurb.com/ebooks/349559-nuweiba

* camels which roam the streets night and day, sometimes with, often without riders. They raid the bins for food, as do the goats and cats. In one photo you can see a camel biting a goat. Initially just the camel and its baby were eating the scraps, and the big camel kept nipping the baby to stop it taking the orange peels. Then the goats arrived, and big camel turned its attention to biting them instead. A difficult photo to take because the camel swung its long neck down and in so swiftly each time, and I did not want to be the one getting bitten.

* dogs roam the beaches, and are friendly and like to walk with me, and play in the water on hot days. Cats come to catch the crabs that burrow at water’s edge; this kitten found a washed up fish, which after a quick investigation it decided wasn’t good to eat.

* there is not much art in Nuweiba, so I enjoy it when I see it; just not sure what happened to the other two tentacles of this octopus.

* most days reach 30 degrees now, and animals and people look for any shade they can find. These goats shading under the remains of a boat looked ready to set sail on the Red Sea, which is the thin line of blue in the distance.

* humans continue to amaze me – how high can you pack on top of a van?

Dahab Bedouin Festival

The third Bedouin Festival in Dahab gave the community and visitors many opportunities to learn about Bedouin life and law, including herbal remedies from St Katherine.

Dahab offered its usual good winds for the kitesurfers and windsurfers enjoying the start of summer (it is now 30 degrees most days, we are in for a hotter summer than last 2 years). A magnificent full moon over the Red Sea drew people out of the cafes to find quieter spots along the shore and take in its beauty.

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Underwater paradise

Some more photos of the semi-submarine trip, for video and another slideshow see previous post https://siwasoul.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/underwater-love/

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Underwater love

Today I am mentally singing Underwater Love, by Smoke City. Yesterday I had the wonderful experience of over an hour on the semi-submarine, viewing Ras Katy reef in Sharm el Sheikh.

I snorkel at Ras Katy beach, but I do not have an underwater housing for my camera, so this was a chance to photograph and video and share with you a little of what I see. Also a chance for me to enjoy the beautiful underwater world while I am dry and do not have to concentrate on breathing and expelling water from my snorkel.

video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sioRM7NXNJU

slideshow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7WUr-MwAYQ&feature=youtu.be

Submarines are not permitted in the Red Sea, so this is a semi-sub. The deck stays above water, the hull has large windows for you to watch from, and you can move from one side of the sub to the other as more interesting marine life presents on each side. This is a much more immersed experience than a glass-bottom boat.

Banks of corals, schools of fish, and the simple pleasure of sunlight filtering through the water, were accompanied by exclamations in Italian, Russian, German, English and a few other languages from the tourists around us. A guide drew our attention to different species of fish and coral as they passed us, or we passed them.

Enjoy this video and photos and multiply the beauty by 5, and you will get some idea of the experience. Neither the video or photos can capture the colors or the depth of perspective of what you actually see, because the camera draws in the interior light of the submarine and changes the vibrancy and depth of what you are looking at directly through the windows. The fish appear suddenly and move fast, making it not so easy to photograph them and giving you no time to focus or zoom in, and you miss some of the best shots as a fish darts close or flashes below or above the windows. “Keep still for just one minute so I can catch you!” I said to the fish. The challenge of photographing with the movement of sub and the movements of the fish is part of the fun, or you can just sit and take everything in.

For anyone who does not swim, snorkel or dive, this trip is an excellent way to experience the Red Sea underwater world, and it will have you not wanting to return to land.

I am a little claustrophobic and I was unsure how I would feel in the sub, but it is spacious and I was surrounded by many other people including children, so I did not feel even a second of discomfort. It actually made me more determined to learn to dive, either scuba dive or free-diving (deeper than snorkeling, diving using only your breath, no equipment), because I feel I can and must overcome my fear to get the out-of-the-boat underwater experience and really begin to see the Red Sea I am blessed to live beside.

Special thanks to Samir of Real Egypt http://www.realegypt.net/, and to Australian visitors Megan and Matthew who shared their experience with me.

“This must be underwater love,
The way I feel it slipping all over me.
This must be underwater love,
The way I feel it.

This is it: underwater love.
It is so deep, so beautifully liquid.

After the rain comes sun,
After the sun comes rain again.

Follow me now
To a place you only dreamt of,
Before I came along.

When I first saw you, I was deep in clear blue water.
The sun was shining, calling me to come and see you.
I touched your soft skin and you jumped in
with your eyes closed and a smile upon your face.”

Underwater Love, the song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUz3fLncTTs

Sexy issue of Magnificent magazine, Egypt, online now

Especially in the current political climate, putting out an issue of an Egyptian magazine with the theme “Sexy” is a brave move.

I have four stories in this issue of Magnificent – Hot Spots (not what it sounds like, the Destinations / Holidays page is called this in every issue) on page 20, Ageless Attraction page 28, Aphrodite and Adonis page 30 and Living with Adonis page 54.

You can see the entire issue at http://www.scribd.com/doc/133779525/Magnificent-Sexy-Issue-2013

There are some excellent articles by the team of writers, and this magazine will open your eyes to what Egypt is like for the middle to upper classes in Egypt now, or at least what they aspire to.

Beach walks

My daily restorer of peace of mind is a swim and walk on the beach before or after work. This dog walks with me most days, and we are sometimes joined by other dogs. They are all wild, not somebody’s pets, but friendly and gentle. This day I sat for some moments to dry my hair in the sun, and he came to sit close beside me and share the view.

Snorkeling I get to see the amazing variety of fish and other marine life of the Red Sea, but I don’t have a waterproof housing for my camera so no underwater photos to share with you yet (but if you want to see some beauties, check out Sherif’s work at http://www.facebook.com/RedSeaScubaLifestyle )

Sometimes fish get washed to shore, usually already dead like this one. If they are still alive I throw them back into the water, and if they are not self-stranders (because they are sick), give them a longer life. I found this kitten sniffing around a fish, but it decided this one really wasn’t good for eating.

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Om El-Sayed gets a makeover

My favourite statue in Sharm, the woman on the road that runs from Peace Road up to the cliff top, has been painted. And I am not sure I like it.

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In the slideshow you see her before and after. Om El-Sayed in her raw state had a power and a touch of mystery. There are more daytime photos of her taken before the makeover at http://siwasoul.wordpress.com/2013/01/26/sharmian-her-real-name-revealed/

She now looks like most of the statues in Sharm which I have never liked, they are too kitsch and some seem completely out of place even in Sharm’s strange cultural mix. But as she now looks more like a cartoon character than an emotive symbol, my idea of using her as the main character for a book for children might work better. It should be simple to make an illustration based on her new look. Capturing the more subtle play of light and shadow of her unpainted would have been more difficult, and possibly would have produced a figure too colorless to appeal to anyone, a ghost or shadow figure.

I suspect that in time I will get used to her colored up, as I will walk past her many, many times on my way to swim. But I am glad I was able to see her before the paint, and now really pleased that I took the series of photos that show her from the day she was being installed until now.