I'm not sure what happened to the 2nd of October. I took one
photo, so I must have been resting. On the 3rd we took off for
Suez at 3:00 am,
a drive I had made not long ago, and which I knew to be a fairly
boring drive. Even though we left the
Hotel Longchamps at 3:00
am, it takes a while to exit Cairo, and with the drive to Suez
lasting a bit more than an hour, the sun was up by the time we
arrived. Of course, while Port Said hosts the northern mouth of the
Suez Canal, Suez
itself contains its southern extreme. Nevertheless, it did not seem
as busy as Port
Said, I suppose, because of Port Said's status as a
Mediterranean port. Not all the ships that harbor their go through
the canal.
Photography is not really allowed of the Suez Canal at Suez, and there are signs to this affect, but we had the proper permits and fired away. We also got some good shots of some of the housing where the engineers who built the Suez Canal lived. I was also surprised to see a number of carnivals all around Suez, something that I had not seen elsewhere. Suez is clearly a tourist destination, as we also found a number of cruise ships docked along the coast.
Our real destination on this leg of the Survey of Egypt was the
Sinai, but we intended
to move up along the western side of the Canal, past the Bitter
Lakes to Qantir before entering the Sinai. We could have taken the
tunnel at Suez
under the canal and into the Sinai, but we planned on crossing over
at Qantir on the bridge. There is also a tunnel around the same
location, but I thought the bridge would provide some good
photographs of the canal. Unfortunately, I was wrong on several
counts. In order to skirt the western side of the Canal north, we
had to travel through a large military base.
Once again, we actually
had the permits to do this. However, that ended up being a tedious
journey with checkpoints seemingly every few yards. About halfway
through, some sort of military ship coming down the canal forced us
off the base and further east. We basically missed the Bitter Lakes.
Then at Qantir, we managed to get up on this towing bridge and
take photographs, but at the end of the bridge we were made to
delete those. Nevertheless, I did get some decent photos of the
canal at the bottom of the bridge. Our mistake was stopping on top
of the bridge to take the photos. Had I been a good spy, I would
have simply taken them out the window, or even better, used Google
Earth, but in all fairness to the Egyptian government, this is a
sensitive area and I understood their concern. My intent was really
not to go about ruffling any feathers, and by now I had a good
collection of shots made along the
Suez Canal. Our
next stop would be Pelusium, an ancient fortress and gateway to
Egypt at the northwestern extreme of the
Sinai, now known as
Tell el-Farama.
This is certainly an interesting site, though not really any sort
of tourist destination. In fact, I don't think that it is even open
to tourists, and one must look about to find it, north of the main
road to El-Arish. It
contains a number of structures that are apparently being restored,
so that one day it perhaps will be open to tourists. There are also
scattered about various columns and obelisks, though really the
fortress itself is the main attraction. Regrettably though, the
fortress was actively being restored and we had somewhat limited
access. Here, there is the ruins of an amphitheater, which we did
photograph in some detail, and nearby that of a Byzantine church.
Indeed, there are various structures all about the place and work at
uncovering them appears to be ongoing. Pelusium was certainly one of
the more remote sites that we visited on this journey, though there
would be a few others even more so.
We spent an hour or so at Pelusium but we soon headed back to the highway and our final destination of the day, El-Arish. Once again, we found ourselves on an extended beach, with sand all about. Here and there were palm groves. Its not entirely barren. We skirted the southern side of Lake Zaranik along the way and soon enough found ourselves arriving in El-Arish, Egypt and the Sinai's most northeastern resort.
A view of the defensive walls at Pelusium
I must mention that this area is well known as a migratory bird
sanctuary. It is well known for that, and these days that is the
main reason western tourists venture to this locale. That's
unfortunate because El-Arish
is really a very pleasant destination with its own airport. That
actually makes it the closest Egyptian beach resort for many
Europeans. I remember some years ago when El-Arish was an up and
coming resort city and it was being actively promoted as such. Then
came problems in the Gaza strip, and El-Arish was simply too close
to the border for large numbers of tourists to feel comfortable. It
has since become, for the most part, a destination for locals, and
for the most
part, it has settled into and acclimated itself to that
role.
That's really rather unfortunate. Though we had traveled all the
way from Cairo to El-Arish
with no police escorts, the security here was very good and I never
felt threatened. Here, the beaches are beautiful, and the ones that
we visited were clean, set against an unspoiled sea. Things have
changed here. The first stop we made was to what once was the Oberoi
Hotel, but is no longer. These days its a Swiss Inn, but it remains
a five star hotel with 221 rooms. It is perhaps the finest hotel in
El-Arish, with several pools and a
wonderful beach. We ate lunch
there in the bar, which was mostly deserted, as was the hotel
itself.
Actually, the distinction as the most active, somewhat upscale
resort in El-Arish
seems to belong to the Sama El-Arish Tourist Village. Though not a
five star facility, and though we did not stay there, it appears to
be a very nice resort with some considerable activity. In fact, we
might have stayed at the Sama but there were no rooms available. We
did explore the property for a time. We actually ended up settling
into a
facility run by the Egyptian government to train hotel
employees, mostly because it was cheap (once again I could have
stayed at the Swiss Inn, but I chose to remain with my team).
After refreshing ourselves for a bit, my assistant Tamer Ibrahim
and I climbed into our car and headed back to the Swiss Inn to see
if we could find a beer. No such luck, which speaks volumes for how
localized El-Arish
has become. Five star hotels throughout Egypt usually function as
usual during Ramadan,
but this one, even though they normally serve
alcohol, apparently did not during
Ramadan. I suppose it was all for the best considering that we
would make another 3:00 am morning of it the next day.
I drove to the Swiss Inn but now Tamer took over, as we decided to head downtown for some food. We actually got lost for a few minutes before finding our way back to our hotel. It had been a long day, and as usual I had the duty of downloading the day's photographs and charging batteries before finally getting to sleep.
A Pharmacist in El-Arish
Someday, El-Arish may be more of a foreign tourist destination. It certainly has some facilities for that, including the international airport. But for now and for the immediate future, it will probably remain only a destination for locals. Still, I enjoyed my stay there, and the city itself, and I never felt as though I was in any sort of danger. In fact, the people that I got to know best were very pleasant, and I must say, particularly the guards at the hotel where we stayed, who offered to share their dinner (actually fitar) with me.
The beaches of El-Arish
See Also:
- Survey to Egypt: Part I: Safety in Egypt
- Survey of Egypt, Part II: Ramadan Kareem
- Survey of Egypt, Part III: Wadi el-Natrun to Tanta
- Survey of Egypt, Part IV: Tanta to Alexandria
- Survey of Egypt, Part V: Alexandria
- Survey of Egypt, Part VI: Alexandria Continued
- Survey of Egypt, Part VII: Alexandria to Port Said
- Survey of Egypt, Part VIII: Port Said to Cairo
- Survey of Egypt, Part X: El-Arish to Dahab
- Survey of Egypt, Part XI: The Southern Sinai Interior
- Survey of Egypt, Part XII: Mount Sinai and Sharm el-Sheikh
- Survey of Egypt, Part XIII: The Sinai West Coast
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Last Updated: 11/01/2006