Wedding at the bedoeins

The sixth of January of the new year 2003 we fly back to Jordan. The month we spent in the Netherlands was extremely cold and distressingly wet. Luckily the warm and loving welcome made up for the weather.
Peter needed this time to completely recuperate from his operation. The horrid memory slowly ebbs away and both of us really look forward to cycling again.

After a last restless night in our noisy hotel in Aqaba (Jordan) we travel with the Pella to Egypt. The Pella is the fast slow ferry, which means of the two cheaper ferries this is the fastest one. For 16 US dollar per person the boat, that's fully packed with Egyptians and Jordanians, takes us in three hours to the harbour south of Nuweiba. Obviously everybody feels at home on the boat; there are extensive picnics on deck, people pray to Allah, play backgammon and sleep in a cacophony of noise.
South of the harbour we find a place to spend the night at Camp Delfin. For ten Egyptian Pounds (approx. two euro) Mohamed shows us a reed-hut for the night. Whilst lying on mattresses and cushions with view on the Red Sea we meet the deaf and dumb Abdallah. In 1994 he rescued a dolphin out of some fishing-nets. Since that day they have become friends and she returns regularly to swim with Abdallah. Twice in the last years she showed him her baby when she visited him. He hasn't seen her for quite a while now.

The next morning we decide to take Mohamed's advice and cycle alongside the coast on an unpaved road, instead of following the main road to Dahab. We leave the impoverished Musena on our way to our first goal in the Sinai: Dahab. Under a hard blue sky without any wind at all we bump over broken stones, earth, loose sand and washboard on the beautiful and very quiet 'road'. The surroundings are great: on the left the deep blue sea, behind the sea the mountains of Saudi Arabia, to our right the mountains of the Sinai-desert. We are the only humans on this piece of earth, until after ten kilometres our first police-post emerges. We baksheesh our way through with real Dutch liquorice. Then we're alone on the world again. The only sounds we hear are the sea and the stones beneath our tires. Our speed is lower then ever, but we don't mind. The thousands of ridges of the washboard road force our odometers under the ten kilometres per hour and we have to walk and push through the sand.
The second checkpoint threatens to become a problem; controls are stricter, we have to open a bag, passports are being checked thorough and we have to go to the camp-commander. He resides a few hundred metres further on a delimited terrain. The soldiers that accompany us are very severe, it seems like there are problems. The commander, responsible for the border along the eastern Sinai, only wants to chat and has sent for us for that reason alone. After having chatted for a while we cycle on. We pass the beach with its numerous treasures in the shape of coral, shells and fish. With 31 kilometres on our counter we put up our tent on a dead quiet beach, bath in the sea and have the sun do her benevolent work on our pale Dutch skins.

The next morning we cycle a mere eight kilometres when we stop to drink tea with a Bedouin-family. We watch how they wave the coal on their small stove to a glowing heat. They are local fishermen, who originally live in the coastal area of the Sinai that has been declared a protected area now. Today's stretch turns out to be very short, because nine kilometres further we reach Ras Abu Galum, a picturesque Bedouin village at a bay with magnificent coral reefs. The owner of an insignificant store proposes us to stay here and witness a real Bedouin wedding that's being held today. It's a rare occasion, because there will be a Fantasia as well: a camel race. The wedding is not a tourist attraction, but an authentic wedding. Peter and I decide to stay, we're not in a hurry anyway and it's always nice to witness the life of the people in the countries we travel in.

At eleven in the morning we settle down in a reed hut with bright coloured mattresses and carpets. Tea is served and we watch out over reefs and sea. When we swim in the lukewarm sea we see caravans of beautifully decorated camels arrive over a narrow rock-path, with wedding guests on their backs.
In the afternoon we enjoy ourselves immensely while watching the camel race that's a part of this traditional wedding.

The male riders are dressed up very smart, so are a lot of the camels as well. On a staked out course two camels run side by side to reach the finish first. Their necks are stretched and their lips swab as their drivers hit them with their reeds to make them run as fast as they can.
The actual wedding feast takes places at night, in the dark at the beach. In the light of the half moon some two hundred Bedouin-men, -women and -children dance and sing between jeeps and camels. Not far apart the men form four half circles and sing Bedouin-songs, dressed in their most beautiful garments. One and sometimes two women, dressed in black fluttering shawls with silver- or gold-embroidery, dance for the men, singing, yelling and work up the men more and more. The only instruments are tambourine and oil-drums. We witness rituals that are carried out full of dedication. Between the dancing groups of adults the children walk and play.

The next day we push and pull our bicycles another eighteen kilometres over rocks, stones and sand, alternated with more level stretches where we can use the bicycles for their original purpose: cycling. It's a beautiful path where we're quite regularly overtaken by camels, that we overtake again when we're cycling instead of walking. The sun colours our white skins dark and we feel happy. We're back, back in the reality. The world lies open for us again.

We're going to take her.