Tourism is down but this place seems to be doing better than many places in Egypt. The whole city of almost 250,000 people really didn't exist even 30 years ago. It was all built with local money and lots of Russians Rubles, I'd venture. Hey, they needed a cheap place for sun, don't they? I'm not quite sure what the real political story is now, but of course the Russians aren't here due to the downing of the jet last month. Obviously, money stopped sloshing around before that as there are literally kilometers and kilometers of unfinished apartment and retail buildings all along the coast.
Our hotel was one of the original developments in the old area close to Hurghada town. It is managing to keep busy. We are staying with a lot of UK, German, Ukrainian, as well as some Egyptian guests. As well some people pay to get at the main restaurant so we always get a chance to see others about.
We went to walked to the beach to see what fish we could spot from the pier. I think swimmers and snorkelers scared most things away save for a few black fish that'd be home in a tropical aquarium. Oh, and there were these slender knife like fish that weren't eels. The water was lovely and clear. We liked putting on bathing suits, getting the special cocktails for Christmas, and posing for pictures by the Red Sea.
Later in the afternoon we thought we'd go see Star Wars after lunch. The online information showed the Senzo Mall as having a six screen cinema. We knew from when we arrived here it was quite a long distance away, down past the airport. We walked across the road and caught a van bus and squeezed in with the locals for the half hour trip. We didn't see signage in the Mall. We did not see reference to any cinemas at the information kiosks. The place is a gigantic Spinny's Supermarket with dozens of medium and high-end shops around it, but no movie complex. The mall staff didn't explain to us that it had gone out of business when the company went bankrupt. It feels weird to have reality not match the available information online. We won't get to see the first showing of the movie that half the world will see this week.
Now Jay is starting to feel a little sick. It must be something he ate at the amazing buffets. The Christmas Eve one was pretty impressive but tonight's even better. Unfortunately, Jay had little appetite and ate almost nothing.
There's lightening happening somewhere over the Sinai or Saudi. The show is pretty nice with a full moon to boot.
