Listening to: The sound of bongos and the ocean
Here at last in the Gulf of Aqaba. Heaven! Our room is right at the ocean's door - quite literally. What a view, the ocean an emerald green and indigo blue with the stark beauty of barren, pinkish mountains that surround the Red Sea coast as the backdrop. And what a sound listening to the ocean - perfect to fall asleep and wake up to.
We're staying in Assalah at the far end of this Bedouin village. It's extremely quiet, peaceful and relaxing. Masbat is the hub, quite busy and very different from my last visit with clubs, live music, hassle to buy and massive amount of dive shops. Aah, everything must change hey? Mashraba is further south and was once non-existent which is home to very upmarket hotels and resorts for richer people than us :)
What was once a huge stretch of sand, basic camps with mattresses on cement floors, no power or hot water and camels lazing on the beach alongside travellers on deck chairs is now home to a paved boardwalk, better class hotels, a severe lack of camels due to them being prohibited on the beach, and a fairly large absence of Bedouins who have been pushed out by tourism development and the Nile Valley people. There are some local establishments such as Sheikh Salem House (where we are staying) that only employ Bedouins to help support the local community.
Despite the changes it's still a fantastic place to be and the perfect place to chill and I think if we did this at the beginning of our trip the rest of our itinerary would be cancelled LOL.
The one thing that hasn't changed is the abundance of cats!! Cats and more cats!! CATS RULE quite literally LOL.
Midnight rambler looking for a decent cup of coffee...
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