Habibi Update

We've just sent out a newsletter telling the world about this Habibi Beach Blog so I ought to update it with the latest news - that being the point of it. So here goes: Helen (Oceansource El Tur Manager) took some guests up to Habibi yesterday and gave me a nice report of the conditions (nice 5.0 weather and small waves). However there wasn't a great deal of action going on with the building work, unless you count the security guard fast asleep in his little hut!

We're getting the hang of Egyptian building techniques now though and this is pretty normal. Things either happen incredibly quickly and chaotically one day, or they don't happen at all. When the beach bar in Moses Bay was built it was exactly the same. Nothing would be done all day and then half an hour before dark, 50 builders would turn up, dig foundations, lay cement, build a bar and then disappear again because they'd run out of rawl plugs. It's no real surprise it took hundreds of years - and the help of aliens - to build the pyramids. (And even then they looked nothing like the plans)

Anyway, hopefully Helen can go up again this weekend and see if anything exciting is going on. (The weekend in Egypt is Friday Saturday, so they should be getting on with it on Sunday). Of course 1st September is also the beginning of Ramadan, when all muslims don't eat or drink during the hours that the sun is in the sky. We suspect this might have a slight effect on enthusiasm for a few weeks! The latest date we have for completion of the whole project is now the 1st January 2009 - but we could well have the Oceansource centre up and running a little before that. We'll see...