Four-Wheeling in the Desert - Stepdads Last Day in Egypt

For my stepdads last day in Egypt, we decided to do something fun to send him off in style. 

Four-Wheeling in the Desert

We already took ATVs on a ride into the desert to a Bedouin camp, but one of my mom's friends' sons just arrived and she wanted him to try it out. 

We were told that we were going to take a different route than the last time, so we hopped on the bikes and got ready for a wild ride ;)

It was seriously the funnest ride of all time. 

We went off close to dusk, and already knew the leader guys so we were able to convince them to let us go fast. 

And they actually let us go SO FAST! It was ridiculously fun just givin'er through the desert dust. 

I was completely covered in dust by the end, but it was totally worth it! 

Actually, I have to admit something slightly embarrassing. I had my phone in my pocket to take pictures as we were riding, but we went way later than I expected and started to go through this awesome area with bumps that we were jumping over - in the dark - when all of a sudden I noticed that my phone had fallen out of my pocket. 

Disastrous. 

I got everyone to stop and had pretty much given up hope of getting it back as one of our guides went off to search for it in the dark. When he got back, he said that he was super sorry but didn't find it...joking!! I pretty much freaked out and have him the biggest hug ever and started dancing around. So good! 

Lesson learned: don't leave your phone in your pocket when on an ATV. Because it will fall out. And you will probably lose it. 

Stepdads Last Day in Egypt 

As our last hurrah for my stepdad, we went out for a big family dinner at a restaurant that met all of our new standards: to have good ambience, an open fire pit, free sheesha and appetizers ;) 

The appetizers here are out of control delicious - fresh pita bread, hummus, tahini, eggplant and babaganoush. 

So good. 

We will definitely miss having him around for our adventures, and hope he doesn't turn into a Popsicle back in Canada!

Christmas Day: Four-wheeling in the Egyptian Desert to a Bedouin Camp

You might think that spending a sleepless night freezing cold on the top of a mountain would be enough excitement for your first day in a new country, but turns out my family does not agree.

After returning to our hotel in Dahab, we had a couple hours of sleep and then we were back at it: four-wheeling through the desert to a Bedouin camp for a traditional native Egyptian chicken dinner (in the place of turkey) under the stars.

We got all wrapped up with scarves and headed out on our ATVs for an awesome ride through the desert – our leaders were pretty adamant about staying in a straight line (we were reprimanded a few times for straying from this rule) but rewarded us by going SUPER fast :)

Our ride was about an hour, after which we ended up at an awesome Bedouin camp – which are the native people of Egypt – where we sat around the campfire and enjoyed some sheesha and cocktails (smuggled in ourselves since the Bedouins do not drink).

Since we were having dinner on Egypt time, where ‘dinner at 7pm’really turns into 9pm, we sang some Christmas carols for our guides and they sang us some traditional Egyptian songs accompanied by a drum. It was amazing to see the energy that they get from the drum while they sing.

Our guides made the most amazing dinner ever – fresh babaganoush (they roasted the eggplant themselves), rice with some sort of noodle cooked into the mix (turns out they do this everywhere – I’m not sure what type of noodle it is, it tastes like an egg noodle, but it is the tastiest thing EVER), salad, and chicken cooked to perfection with amazing spices. So yummy.

We chilled out under the stars for a bit, and then packed up and four-wheeled back to our hotel. All-in-all, a wonderful evening, with the deepest sleep of my life that night.