A tail from the desert..

„I have to stop here for five minutes, is ok for you?“ said Abrahim, my Egyptian taxi driver, while we were racing through the mountains in Sinai, Egypt.

„I have to make pray.“ He said when I just stared at him in my out-most confusion. „What do you have to do here?“ I asked him while looking at my surroundings, red mountains, sandy roads and a man, a few meters from the road, who seemed to me at my first glance to be just stumbling over there doing nothing in particular.
„I have to pray, you know Muslim-time, I will be just five minutes, you can go out the car if you like.“ He said and then parked the car on the side of the road next to the wanderer and jumped out. I stayed in the car and watched Amrahim approach this man and exchanging some words before the man handed him a bottle of water which he used to clean his feet and hands properly before embracing the earth with his hands. I snacked on his chips and realized that this was a very strange situation; I‘m on my way to Habiba farm near Nuwaibe north in the Sinai, my driver, is an Egyptian man wearing a white dress and a withe and red, long headpiece who's praying in the middle of nowhere and I´m eating chips, which I normally don´t even enjoy at all. But I figured it was a weird enough situation and I was quite hungry. „Salam aleikum,“ said Ambrahim when he returned to the car chewing leaf with a grin on his face. He offered me one and I reluctantly accepted it and quietly watched him stuff himself with more of those before I decided that if he‘s eating it, it must not be very poisonous. They tasted quite nice actually, kind of spicy but strangely nice.

„It‘s from his farm“ he said to me looking towards the stumbling man with the praying water. I look around  the fields of sand and rocky mountains, there didn't seem to be anything resembling a farm in any way. Then I noticed some wires in some very non-obvious way and I guess that´s where he grows his treasures leafs. Supposedly he has some aubergine and tomatoes as well, but I would never have guessed it in a million years when we drove away.

He brought me to Habiba Farm safe and sound right before sunset  where I met with the other volunteers where they were finishing their working day on their dirty feet with a wild tan on their faces.  

So here I am. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere I guess, trying to settle in a place without a roof and look forward to farming tomorrow.

The adventure has begun

I sit with a smelly blanked in my borther's and his girlfriend's (Kristmann and Arena) chilly apartment. Granada in Spain does indeed get cold during the winter, although surely not as deadly cold as in Iceland. I came here to visit them and started my next long travel last Tuesday. This time I intend to practice diving and dive around Asia with my good friend Unnur who will be joining me in January. But for now I'm on my own once again and can already feel the thrilling sensation of being alive and free to go wherever I want. I've had a lovely time with Kristmann and Arena. We've walked the hills of Granada, eaten Tapas, talked for hours, watched Aladdin and so on. Tomorrow Arena and myself will be going to Morocco and we plan to be there for one week, staying in a guesthouse where we'll learn different kind of things from the locals.

The adventure has begun and I will share my experience with those who care to read this silly blog.

Enjoy!