Melting Hail Stones

The Winter crept on me, and I found myself suddenly standing under heavy clouds blinking at a gray blanketed Winter day!

I am writing to you  with one hand while the other is reaching out collecting pearls of hail stones falling from the sky, soon melting away in my palms like those days spent on the shore of this land.

I have been loving my days of Dahab, It struck me today that it has been six month since I arrived to this beautiful Bedouin village. Here, I have been spending many early morning..

Strolling along a promenade, where rusty street lamps stood, mere shadows of their former selves,

wandering shores strewn with sea garlands

and sea shells full of  sea tales..

and bird feathers and curious sea treasures.

I have been climbing the summits of ancient mountains..

and I found solace in the echoing silence, between mountain peaks and boulders..

and ancient stories embedded on sharp-edged mountain stones.



I have been diving to the heart of a deep blue sea..

when a reach of sunlight fell through its surface..

a wondrous world was illuminated before me.

Dahab has  been brimming with joyful wonders, alas it's time now to pack and wind my way back, with heavy pockets full of cherished memories and sand, to the edge of the city, to a tiny nook that I call home.
Meeting Dahab was like meeting an old friend, warm and familiar, and so with  a promise to come back, I bed you dear old friend-land farewell.

"Traveling provides occasions for shaking oneself up but not, as people believe, freedom. Indeed it involves a kind of reduction: deprived of one’s usual setting, the customary routine stripped away like to much wrapping paper, the traveler finds himself reduced to more modest proportion – but also more open to curiosity, to intuition, to love at first sight." - Nicolas Bouvier, The Way of the World

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Cat Who Run With The Sheep

 From mother sheep's milk she was fed

and a among this herd she peacefully lived..

as one of their own.

Photos by Mitzi Buys

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Gold Dream

 I felt my soul soaring when the dawn breeze caressed the surface of the vast sea, I dipped my feet into salty cool water and met the winds with open arms. Here, where the sand and sea merge with the skies above, here where giant large mountains embrace a big blue sea

I will unpack and nestle here for a while, on the shore of  Dahab, a Bedouin fishing village by the sea.

Dahab is Arabic for gold,  Some locals attribute the name to the color of the sky, just after sunset. Another local story concerning the town's name is that it stems from the floods that wash through the town every five or six years. Larger than average seasonal storms in the mountains cause a great rush of water to surge down to the sea, dragging with it great amounts of sand. During this time, the town is cut in two by the flood, and the bay is stirred up and the sands turn it a golden yellow. It typically lasts a few days, and has caused damage and loss of life in the past as people were unaware of the sudden onset and the force the water moves at. Today, locals are ready when they see the clouds over the mountains, and anyone lucky enough to witness it will remember it for a long time.

I'm still amazed at the amount of good this land has shown me and how upon arrival it felt just like home, and so for now I shall rest my weary heart in the arms of the mountain and breath in the many colors of the sea and let it all shape my days. 

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