Hays Travelogue

This legendary perfume, made from a blend of hundreds of flowers, is known by a couple of other names–Egyptian Viagra, Earthquake in Bed. Without going into all the details, I will now report on this week’s experiments. As usual, I put three drops on my pillow before I went to bed. This time, however, I couldn’t get to sleep. The stuff irritated my nose until every scent receptor in my nose was erect and over-stimulated. The fact that Mike was snoozing and snoring didn’t help. Finally, I had to turn the pillow over so that I could get some sleep, too.

The beginning of the week was full of technological breakdowns. Both of our Palm Pilots died and refused to be resuscitated. The lens on Mike’s camera got stuck. The DSL line was unstable, capriciously kicking us off our own network, shutting itself off, stalling, slowing down. Our cable decoder had to be rescanned. The school instituted even more censorship of the internet that curtailed almost every usable aspect of the web. Without the Palms, we didn’t have our calendars; we didn’t have Solitaire. Without cable television, we didn’t have reruns of CSI and Desperate Housewives. Without DSL, we didn’t have Flickr and Blogger. We had to return to our books and magazines. We had to take walks, practice music and yoga, write, cook. By the time we left for Dahab last Thursday, we were pretty unhooked.

Dahab is a Bedouin town on the Red Sea side of the Sinai Peninsula. It is known for its laid-back atmosphere, wind-surfing, snorkeling, and diving. Wealthy, upper-class people go to the resorts at Sharm El Sheik. The rest go to Dahab. We had two trips planned, one to the inland desert canyons and one to the coral reef at Ras Abu Gallum.

We made the trip to the canyons with six other people–a mother and son from Taos (!), a woman from England who worked in mysterious field of International Operations, a young Russian honeymoon couple, and a twenty-something Russian girl with cut marks on her left arm. Our guide explained that we would hike the Colored Canyon in the morning, have a Bedouin lunch, and then hike the White Canyon in the afternoon. We set out in a Land Cruiser fitted with benches for the eight passengers. The guide shouted back to us when we left the paved road, “Now you will have a massage!” Indeed, we were jiggled, jostled, bumped, and kneaded until we were as loose as marionettes. The Colored Canyon - pinks, greens, browns, yellows - was hot and the young Russian girl soon stripped to her bikini and hiked bare and barefooted until we got to the narrow and sometimes steep slot canyons. Using our arms and legs, we wedged, hoisted, and leveraged ourselves through the tight spaces until we finally tumbled out into the flat oasis where we would have lunch.

The next day began in much the same way, the rough going by Jeep and camel, the challenges to balance, flexibility and strength. Now, however, we were moving along the seacoast toward Ras Abu Gallum. On our left were barren mountains; on our right was the sea. The main sights were hidden beneath the water - a long coral reef, lush and colorful as a summer garden and schools of bright fish. We snorkeled until we were tired and then sat down to a long lunch of fresh fish and vegetables.

On the last day, we did nothing but sit on the beach and walk along the shore. We hadn’t checked our email or used the phone for three days. We were tired from all the hiking and swimming, not to mention the camel-riding and off-road driving. We were full of everything we had seen and heard and smelled and eaten. It was a wonderful weekend.

So here you have it, the Secret of the Desert. First, take the phone off the hook. Second, do something with your body. Move it, massage it, feed it through all of your senses. Finally, add water.