But the story’s outcome was so obvious, it seemed to me, that I didn’t really think I was actually leaving anybody hanging.
Here it is: Despite all my values and intents to travel as close to the authentic local lifestyles as possible, I ended up staying in an Egyptian resort. The kind of resort I’d never go to in good conscience. All gleaming marble and polished glass surrounded by a man-made oasis of green in the otherwise barren and bleak eastern Sinai landscape. The kind of resort that has three separate security gates to, I was told, “keep the locals out.”
I’ll link here to a flickr photo album as soon as the pics are uploaded to which illustrate just what kind of obnoxiously luxurious, humongous-carbon-footprint kind of resort it is.
What led me to such a place? Searching several sites like Orbitz for the cheapest hotel in Eilat, Israel. This was the cheapest, even cheaper than hostels. And I didn’t really pay attention to anything other than the price; if I’d have realized what kind of place it was I’d have opted for something else, even something that cost more.
So that’s how I ended up in resort in Taba Heights, Egypt. May Allah have mercy on my soul… (and please don’t let the Earth-friendly folks at Bustan Qaraaca find out!)
