Hey! Camels are taller than you think!

Today started with speeding off-road through the desert in the back of a jeep. It was a pretty crazy ride, bouncing over big ruts and racing alongside the jagged red rock peaks. We stopped for a tea break and learned some things about the Bedouins and the history of the Sinai Peninsula.

Next we met the camels. There was not a lot in the way of instructions for correct camel riding procedure. We got on, they stood up, and then they took off! Somehow I ended up on the lead camel. The guy gave me the rope, made some sort of noise at the camel, and we charged right into the group in front of us. The camel did not care that my legs were hanging down on either side and we did not fit between the camels in front of us! I guess I was lucky, my camel seemed to have a more padded "saddle" than the others (or maybe I just have more padding) because at the end of the ride I didn't seem to be quite as sore as the others The camels were actually a blast.

After a 30 minute ride we were at the very deep and eerie Blue Hole diving area. It was like swimming right off the edge of a sheer cliff. The water just went down into a blue abyss...wonder what was out there looking back at us. The coral was amazing, but we had been warned repeatedly that most of it was fire coral, so we kept our distance. At one point we could see the coast of Saudi Arabia across the water, which Shawn thought was very cool.

Lunch was good, but the very little girls trying to sell us bracelets were brutal sales people. We got away pretty lucky with only one.

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