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Red Sea Profile
By Jeremy Cuff
A Red Sea round-up featuring sun, sea and history...
The Red Sea invokes images of the distant and exotic. And yet it’s only 5 hours flying time away.
Surrounded by some of the world’s richest and most important history, the Red Sea basks in sunshine and contains stunning coral reefs and marine life. You can visit Egyptian resorts such as Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh for as little as £300 or even less.
The Sinai peninsula is a fascinating area – rich in history and mystery, legend and mystique. Popular belief tells of the prophet Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Gebel Musa, thought to be the biblical Mount Sinai.
At the foot of “Mount Sinai” is the fabled construction site of the Ark of the Covenant, in which the Ten Commandments were placed. Also, the “burning bush” can be seen inside the Monastery of St.Catherine, close to the foot of Gebel Musa. The Sinai resorts of Sharm El Sheikh, Dahab, Nuweiba and Taba make excellent bases to explore this region.
Cairo, the bustling and vibrant Egyptian capital is a five hour drive from Hurghada and reasons to visit are too numerous to list. Among the top five are the Pyramids and Sphinx of Giza, the stepped pyramid of Saqqara, the ancient city of Memphis, the Kan El Khalily bazaar and the Egyptian Museum featuring treasures and artefacts from the Pharaonic dynasties including Tutankhamun’s burial mask.
Hurghada can be used to reach the ancient city of Thebes, now present day Luxor. Situated on the Nile, Luxor’s antiquities are known the world over and include the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Karnak and the Temple of Luxor. A day trip from Hurghada is possible but several days are preferable.
The Israeli resort town of Eilat and nearby Aqaba in Jordan make a good base to explore the Ancient City of Petra. The Dead Sea, Masada and the holy lands of the Judean Desert, Jericho and Jerusalem are also within a day’s travel.
The incredible complexity of the Red Sea reef system supports a diversity of marine life and makes for spectacular scuba diving and snorkelling. The gentle currents, good visibility and numerous dive centres make the area an excellent place to learn scuba diving. Dive sites such as the Wreck of the Thistlegorm and the Ras Mohammed Marine National Park are meccas to underwater enthusiasts, attracting divers from around the world.
More adventurous and experienced divers often choose liveaboards visiting remote and inaccessible areas in the southern Red Sea, sometimes venturing into Sudanese and Eritrean waters. Here, the reefs are pristine and seldom visited, increasing the chances of encounters with dolphins, manta rays and s harks. It’s even possible to visit the remnants of Jacques Cousteau’s “Pre-Continent” experiment, a kind of “underwater space station.”
Countries such as Yemen, Sudan and Eritrea are rarely visited due to political instability but Saudi Arabia is beginning to open its doors to tourism.
Whether it’s sun, sea, scuba diving, adventure, history or culture that you crave, the Red Sea really does have it all.
Winter 1999
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