Customized Itinerary: Doug & Sally - Seattle

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Doug and Sally embarked on a 25 day customized itinerary with Backpacker Concierge during the Ramadan 2008 season. They covered a lot of ground, including all of the Western Desert Oases, Lake Nasser and its amazing temples, and even enjoyed a 2-night excursion with the Bedouins in the Sinai Peninsula.

To commemorate Sally's experience with the Bedouins, she wrote a short story and forwarded it to us. Enjoy an excerpt:

We immediately leave the little village of [St. Katherine] and head directly off the highway into the mountains of Sinai [towards the ecolodge]. The road became sand, the ruts big enough to swallow a wild boar and dust flying everywhere. An hour of that ride and it dawned on me that the Bedouins weren’t coming into civilization with an Ecolodge along the highway, but rather we were going to them and we’d be on their turf! What an epiphany that was!

The EcoLodge consists of a compound of small round rock buildings which were clustered together and each held several, separate guest rooms. The rooms were adequate in size, stuccoed on the inside with grass mats covering sand floors. There were thin pads on the floor atop the mats. A hard pillow and a blanket made of goat or camel hair was also provided. The room had one piece of furniture, a low, round table with 2 candles laying on it for the two nights we’d be staying. This didn’t look even remotely like the Metropole Hotel in Alexandria where we’d just slept the night before. But hey, that's why we travel, right?....

As we sat at the big outdoor wooden table watching our guide leave in a trail of sand dust, the five Bedouin men tried to make us feel welcomed. They were friendly and smiling and speaking in their tribal dialect. If only we knew that language, or even Arabic would have helped. Just then, a man with a Scottish accent came round the corner of the patio and introduced himself! He looked like a vision'; a real travel angel perhaps? We quickly introduced ourselves and wondered how he had arrived and why? He told us Eric Monkaba, our Travel Planner had arranged for him to come and share an evening of astronomy with us. Can you believe that?....

[That evening,] on my mat on the floor I could see the star studded sky from an open, screened, window above me. The sky was friendly and brilliant, the room felt safe, and slowly I sank into the isolated beauty of this wondrous desert. This had been a remarkable evening and I was ever so grateful to have been included.