When I was just passing through Dahab, Egypt for the first time last June I didn’t have time to discover of one the most popular local dishes. This is probably because this meal is not commonly served at the scores of restaurants where travelers head along its main street. Once I settled into the heart [...]

Note: The area in Cairo that is the subject of this post was an anomaly, as it was directly in the center of the recent protests. The rest of Cairo was its normal wonderfully chaotically calm self. After months of media reports on the Egyptian Revolution and its aftermath, it may seem as if violent [...]

Last week I traveled overland from the very bottom of Egypt to almost its very top and back again when I took a cross-country private van trip from Dahab to Cairo, courtesy of my favorite tour company in the world, King Safari Dahab and then a bus trip back to Dahab. When I climbed in [...]

I had no intention of going into Tahrir Square yesterday. I’d been through the area once before when I visited the Egyptian Museum in October of 2009 during my first trip to Cairo. Back then, long before the January 2011 revolution during which thousands of people were injured and hundreds killed, I hadn’t even realized [...]

People are calling off vacations and airlines are canceling flights because there is rioting in Cairo, once again. Reminiscent of the revolution which began on January 25th of this year, the media is in Tahrir Square, filming thousands of angry people and reporting on injuries and deaths. With the country’s first election in over 30 [...]

The Blue Hole isn’t the most enticing of place names, yet this is the title given to the most popular diving spot in the Sinai and probably all of Egypt. What it lacks in poetry it makes up for in accuracy. This is indeed a deep ocean hole that is the most gorgeous hue of [...]

This morning I was awakened at 6:30 by the sound of children playing outside my window and the salat, or worship service, broadcasting on loudspeakers from the mosques near my apartment deep inside the Bedouin village of Dahab, Egypt. I had known the start of the Muslim holiday Eid al Adha was on the horizon [...]

I’m pretty familiar with the Middle East by now, having traveled and lived in this region on and off for almost four years. Please believe me when I tell you that Dahab, Egypt, where I sit and write this, is the most comfortable Arab culture in which I’ve ever landed. Dahab is a Bedouin village [...]