Eid Al Fitr and Dahab (our lodgings)

It was in this middle class area where we stayed. Our hotel/hostel, for I don’t make a clear distinction because I still don’t know what to call it, was named Penguin Village (my descriptions won’t do the place justice so I recommend looking at the gallery on their website at http://www.penguindahab.com/ . It had a beach side restaurant-complete with a wooden/bamboo upper deck for tanning, cushioned chairs for reading under the deck or looking out toward the ocean, seating areas consisting of rugs, lounge pillows, and a center table; and of course very decent food for very decent prices. Even though the restaurant was right on the beach, we were warned not go swimming because of the inherit risk of stepping on sand sharks. We therefore had to walk about a mile down the coast to the fancy European resort area if we wanted safe swimming. However, the water next to our hotel and restaurant was absolutely an absolutely beautiful shade of both Caribbean and sapphire blue, and the view of Saudi Arabia right across the gulf was, for me, awe inspiring. Penguin Village also had it own internet café which provided slow but decent internet quality for about $1.60. Its rooms for the most part surrounded a center courtyard that was right in front of the restaurant. The room I stayed in had four beds, each provided with two sheets, a blanket and a pillow; a bureau and two bedside tables, a working bathroom, though the water had a salty, iron taste to it and the pressure was minimal; and a broken down air conditioner complemented by two working fans. We stayed in this room all for the low price of about $6.00 per night. But my overall favorite resource that this hotel/hostel had to offer was, of course, the front desk. It was also because of this front desk that I cannot decide if this establishment fits under the hostel or hotel category. All around this front desk are signs displaying all the services and trips offered by Penguin Village. These services and trips include transportation to ports up and down the coast, guided hikes up Mt. Sinai, over day trips to Petra in Jordan, camel safaris, dinner with local Bedouins, as well as snorkeling and diving trips to national parks and secluded diving spots in the area. Unfortunately, as I quickly discovered, there were really only one or two employees of a team of about seven who knew anything about these services and trips. But I could even with them that they did indeed offer this services and trips, or at least some of them, I first had to find them because they were only stationed at the front desk during short, sporadic intervals during the day. This isn’t to say that they weren’t working because they certainly were. They were just running back and forth and from room to room looking like they were struggling to hold the place together while they left the front desk completely deserted. I didn’t mind waiting at the front desk for someone to stop by and answer my questions but I did mind that they were leaving spare room keys, money, and in some cases passports without anyone to keep an eye on them. Granted the passports were usually kept in drawers, but the room keys were hanging in plain sight. Our passports, luckily, were only kept here for about an hour on the first day so that the front desk could photo copy them and fax these copies to the American Embassy in Cairo; I was certainly impressed by this.