I have finally achieved one of my life ambitions and built a sandcastle in the Sahara! No mean feat I assure you as the sand is so fine and dry that you have to carry your own water with you to make it a little more cement like. When doing a tour of the Oases water is rather precious so with Rob watching over me with a wary eye I gathered together my Tupperware boxes, a drinking glass, a bottle of water and a terra nova spoon. What emerged was rather phallic and small but undoubtedly a castle all the same.

It was touch and go as to whether I would have been allowed to build such a castle. After a day of sightseeing in Luxor we headed to Al Khurga, the first oasis only to realise that we were being tailed by the police. Hurriedly reducing our speed down to the 90kph speed limit we decided to pull into a fuel station to see if we could lose them. Not only did they follow us in but they also came over to offer me a cigarette (!) in a fuel station! I politely enquired if they were indeed following us to which came a very cheerful ‘yes!’ Once in Al Khurga the police demanded to know what exactly we were doing there. We were really only driving through but seeing as it was lunch time we said we needed to eat. The police nodded, yelled something about Wimpy and motioned for us to follow them this time. All was well till Rob and I saw a sweet little kebab shop down a side street and tried to turn towards it. As we rounded the corner I saw and heard the screech of brakes and lights as they were slammed on and the police were soon once again hot on our tail. No kebab for us! Quite bizarrely just after lunch the police left us as silently as they had appeared.

We spent a lovely night bush camping at the base of a large sand dune from which we watched the sun go down before cooking risotto by the light of the moon. It’s all terribly romantic :) The next day we sped off to the White Desert for a little look around. This place is amazing. It is a mass of wind hewn structures created from chalk which gives the landscape the appearance of being covered in snow. Our guide from the Amboni Caves in Tanzania would have gone mad for all the titanic look-a-likes, mushroom rocks and ready made seats which we reverently sat in to drink our coffee.

Next stop was Cairo; the city of the pyramids, the most awful driving in the world and the continual stench of poo. It probably didn’t help that our campsite appeared to be situated next to the river of poo (read open sewer). Still Rob and I were on a mission in Cairo- to find and buy sheesha pipes. This necessitated a drive ‘down town’ to the bazaar. The bazaar itself is separated into two parts, the tourist part on one side of the road where you can find air-conditioned shops, Japanese photographers, touts, coffee shops and a whole lot of decorative junk. On the other side of the road is the Egyptian market and it was through this that our newly found friend Mohammed led us. After admiring the handy work of the men making boxes and mixing perfumes we turned our attention to the pipes. The sales persons were utter perfectionists and insisted that we sit with a cup of mint tea and try out each pipe in turn making sure that we approved of the seals, hoses etc. Two hours later two very satisfied customers were escorted to a taxi laden down with pipes, potatoes and grapes which the shop boys had helped me haggle for.

The next day was pyramid day. Now I have always wanted to see the pyramids and I am very glad that we went just to experience the sheer size of them but what a shame. The entire site is covered in litter dropped by unthinking tourists and not bothered to be picked up by the site managers. We arrived at 8AM and thankfully had a good couple of hours to pose by the sphinx and peer into the pyramids before the bus loads of package holiday tourists descended on the place. We then ran for it. I just can’t get used to this whole other tourist malarkey. A feeling only heightened when we visited St Katherine’s monastery on the Sinai Peninsular. In a fit of madness we set our alarm for 3:30AM in order to climb the mountain in the dark so as to witness the sunrise from the top – the place where Moses received the ten commandments from God. We were a little surprised when the security guard at the base of the mountain informed us that we were late, after all sunrise wasn’t till 6AM. Determined to make it Rob frog marched me up that ‘hill’ at a ridiculous pace for someone who hasn’t exercised in month. After an hour we overtook the fat Italians on their camels, an hour and fifteen minutes and we were overtaking more huffing and puffing Italians trying to walk up. An hour and a half and we were scaling rocks to try to get round the paraplegic state Italians who were all holding hands and blocking the steps. We reached the peak with half an hour to spare to be greeted by the sight of another 250 odd Italians perched on rocks waiting for the sunrise. The only cheering thought was that we had packed nutella sandwiches which we duly scoffed. The sunrise itself was pretty…but we’ve seen better from the tent and it kind of lost its magic being looked at by several hundred people. Shame. Still it was an experience and we raced back down the mountain before the paraplegics could even heave themselves to their feet again.

The town that has restored my love of this place is Dahab. Again a very touristy destination (this is Egypt after all) but in a much more independent traveller type of way rather than package tours. The town was once a Bedouin settlement and has retained its cultural charm. The entire sea front is covered in restaurants where the seating is on giant cushions and you haggle with the owners over prices for fish, prawns and calamari while they throw in free hummus, sheesha, tea and water melon. Add to that the stunning reef situated just off the shore and you’ve got a winner in my books.

Using the last of our dollars Rob and I went diving to the Canyon – an apparently well known site. After a dive brief seated once again in a large cushioned café we donned our gear and waddled out into the lagoon. This we swam through for some 30m at a depth of about 3m when suddenly beneath us appeared a large earthquake created crack in the ground. My Dad always says that glass bottom boats scare him because he thinks we’ll rise and fall with the gradients of the sea bed. Well thank goodness that didn’t happen because that would have been on large fall! Instead (using all by buoyancy skills) we slowly descended into the crack to a depth of 30m from where we could peer up at the fish above us and see our bubbles fight their way through the rocks. I always find diving is almost like an outer body experience anyway and this was certainly magical.

After a 3 hour break we once again donned our gear and waddled back into the sea for our first drift dive, hopefully the first of many. Because the water current is carrying you along there is no need to swim and you are therefore free to adopt cosmic jimmy poses, headstands or any other comfortable pose whilst you watch the fish, eels, rays and octopi going about their lives. The life on that reef was just astounding, so colourful and active. It really is another world.