Dahab Gold

When I first decided that I wanted to travel to the Sinai, Dahab was the destination I wanted to hit. I planned to head down there, meet some other travellers, and then go on to Cairo with them.
I decided that I wasn't comfortable going through the Sinai alone, on account of travel warnings and the general stress of border crossings (especially a crossing from a country that's more or less an American colony into one of the wildest regions of a country that's more or less a third-world nation). Fortunately, I met Mark and Jay in Eilat. But they didn't want to go to Dahab- they wanted to go to Nuweiba, on account of its proximity to Mt. Sinai. I was a little disappointed.
But I'm so glad I saved Dahab for last. It's an awesome place that is as awesome as it is partially because of what a great transition it is from the rest of Egypt.
I took the midnight bus here last night. I almost didn't make the bus. After being misled to the wrong station by the Rough Guide as well as a cab driver, I figured out which bus station was correct. I got off at the nearest Metro stop and asked people how to get there. They all pointed me in a general direction but I saw no sign of the station. I saw many scattered buses. I walked under dark overpasses with garbage burning under them. The only other pedestrians were alone and the cars were even more vicious than in the rest of Cairo. I was more worried about mugging and/or getting run over than I'd been in a long time- in Egypt, usually I'm just worried about annoying people approaching me to sell me something and ask stupid questions.
I asked a few stray strangers how to get to the buses and they pointed me toward a parking garage with a deserted parking lot in front of it. There were two security guards and a small fire outside, and the security guards were neither minding the fire nor trying to put it out.
I walked into the garage and I found it full of buses. A guard pointed me in the direction of a ramp that looked like it wasn't made for pedestrians. I knew that if a car came down it, I'd probably have no warning, but I walked up it, and sure enough, at the top was a fancy bus terminal. I bought the ticket to Dahab at 12:10. The bus departed at 12:15 and it took the teller about five minutes to get my ticket and then get me change. Because this is Egypt, he didn't give me change until I stood there for several minutes. I'm not sure if money-handlers enjoy taking a long time giving money to foreigners, can not count, hope that foreigners will leave without change, or a combination of the three.
But I made the bus. Ten sleepless hours, ten checkpoints, and one Mubarak-encrusted "welcome to Dahab" billboard later, I was in a magical, low-key hybrid of Buzios and Eilat. This place is blowing my mind so far. There are so many foreign tourists and so many restaurants here, but somehow there aren't too many. I'm going to get out of this internet cafe and enjoy it. I think I'm going to dive.