Gouna’s wild dogs

Did not see Sandy the cat last night (but she showed up eventually), and this morning at dawn I heard wild dogs barking.

I have talked about wanting to hike up the nearby mountains before I leave this part of Gouna. You can glimpse their low silhouette behind the houses in the pic I took of the dogs.

Turns out that would be a very bad idea indeed.

Here’s why:

1. the authorities could take me for some sort of drug smuggler
2. Bedouins could boing me on the head, steal my watch and money and leave me for dead
3. mosquitoes would suck me dry, and give me dengue fever as a bonus
4. scorpions
5. snakes
6. I could get lost or injured and die of thirst all alone in the desert where cell phones don’t work
7. a pack of wild dogs could make short work of me

So to heck with that.

I’m going to focus today on packing my bags, and getting ready for tomorrow’s move to the new villa.

Last night here was horrible; the mosquitoes are back, and impossible to kill (update: I finally murdered the sucker this morning with a plastic fly swatter, which you must have when in Gouna). Having to spray myself with OFF! has made my weak immune system react very badly, and plus which I was bitten anyway.

I feel like a peckerhead from constantly being attacked by these insects, as well as having to have all these nasty chemicals on my skin, and hope the windier conditions at the new place will mean fewer mosquitoes — although no doubt they will be hiding inside the house in the bathrooms.

I am really getting sick of the bugs here; even sitting outside is a drag because of biting flies and the lack of lanai screens in Gouna.

This means I have rarely been able to sit outside by the freezing cold pool (tip, if you rent a villa here in winter, make sure the pool has a heater) and simply enjoy the place without constantly having to deal with these bloody insects.

Pity, that.

I can’t wait to move to the new place.  It is 7am, and the ORASCOM pool guy just showed up.

I am also so sick of having these guys come onto this property every day unannounced and at random, and have never felt comfortable here for that reason — it’s like a daily invasion of privacy and it SUXXXXX.

Between the bugs, the loud Italians who own the place next door, the wild dogs, the annoying feral cats, the lack of anything other than relentlessly sportif things to do (assuming, man-bun habibi, you’re a twenty-something enjoying Daddy or Uncle’s free-ride allowance), such as  incessantly  kite boarding and scuba diving and renting buggies to flatten out some more dunes, or the hassle of having to constantly take the spine-busting bus (because the villa I am currently in is located in a far outpost of El Gouna), not to mench the general weirdness of the somewhat louche people who live here (or rather, the ones who have homes here, but are constantly flit gunning it in and out of Gouna like they’re on the run or can’t stand to be here for more than a few days or weeks at a time), as well as the creepy presence of these shadowy characters in the yard, I have just about had it with this place.

Despite the despicable nature of Republican politics in the US, I look forward to seeing Mum and my wife next month.

Don’t think I’ll be coming back right away, if, for no other reason, than to again start getting a normal night’s sleep every night, instead of  having suitcases under my eyes from constantly doing nocturnal battle in mosquito hell.

But I will miss the mahshi (which I was finally able to get) and bamia with meat at Caleo’s, which is absolutely the most fabu, unassuming, and reasonably priced restaurant to have good Egyptian food in all of  El Gouna.

And losing about 40 lbs from eating healthy (by sticking with eats from Kan Zaman, Zomba, and Caleo ) and walking about every day hasn’t been that shabby either.

And being 10,000 miles away from Florida’s geezer mudder duckers has done wonders. You try pulling any of that Stand Your Ground shit around here, pendejos, and you will either be hanged or spend the rest of your life in an Egyptian jail after the cell door goes click.

What else?

The gossip and titbits of inside info about El Gouna — which I have not talked about much in this blog — have been nothing less than priceless.

Plus, nobody’s gotten shot in Gouna since I’ve been here, which is not what you can say about Florida or New York, even though I have yet to see a single arrogant, looking-to-ruin-your-day cop — you know the type:  the crew-cut goons with the bulging biceps who look like all they do is pop steroids and hang out at Gold’s gym on their off hours — swaggering around Gouna with guns and a tazer and handcuffs hanging off his belt.

And in two days, as Gouna eases into the most pleasant part of the year, I will be staying for a month in a beautiful villa right by the sea (not on one of those artificial “lagoons” that are nothing but unattractive, shallow canals dug in the sand, like the situation in this place) for only a stack, plus utilities. Try pulling that off in the South of France or FLA.

Finally, jeez, in the six months I have been here, I’ve yet to see a single sign of a brown tide, or of fish flopping on the beaches from being poisoned by toxic runoff — unlike the situation on the Treasure Coast, where I live, and where the fabled intercostal waterway that is one of the reasons I stayed there for sixteen years is dying, and massive plumes of black sludge and flesh eating bacteria are now a regular feature of the once pristine litoral.

So I am not really dumping on El Gouna– just telling you, dear blog reader, the real deal about what is has been like for me to come to the Red Sea out of nowhere from America and proceed to live here for a longer stretch of continuous time than most people who own homes in this part of the world and don’t have a job that forces them to stay put in Gouna, but have the means to flit about, hither and yon, sort of like roaming packs of wild old dogs.