Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Sunday 13th – Tuesday 15th September
Sunday was spent cruising through the Suez. Just like sailing through the desert with an occasional village or oasis along the south bank and desolate sand and rock to the north along with some vacated (or appeared to be) military posts. We sailed through the Red Sea and arrived in Safaga on Monday Morning. There were tours to the Valley of the Kings from this port but after Cairo I didn’t take the tour. The GD had already been there many years ago. There is little – nothing to see in Safaga so we spent the day on board watching the comings and goings of the port activities. There was big line ups of the locals coming back from Aman with trolleys laden with their purchases, including air conditioners, lounges, bikes, carpets, enclosed bundles etc., etc., going through customs in ordered chaos. They then proceed to old trucks and busses and loaded them up to head for Cairo with the owners clinging to the top or on the back of the trucks. To our amazement, they didn’t have any stalls set up to sell their merchandise here. Cruise ships do not use this port too often. It is still Ramadan so after sunset the town was full of glitter and feasting. We headed for the Princess Theatre at 6.30pm to see some of the locals doing some folk dancing. One of their performers did a twirling dance which was rather spectacular. It went on for about 5 minutes and he did not get giddy. Tuesday – Today is a full sea day so it’s back to normal, except we will be having a Piracy drill in about 10 minutes. Bare in mind we are now approaching the area where the Somali pirates have been a problem of recent times. We will now be at sea till the 20th when we arrive in Mina Qaboos in Oman.



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