Animation Team

The sunscreen and snorkels were already packed, the kids were charged, and the van was chartered. I came home from work, ready for a week of relaxation at the beachfront town of Dahab. I was checking my email when a blurb online caught my eye - something about a missile being fired into Israel from the Sinai Peninsula. The Sinai Peninsula is in Egypt, in case you don't know. And Dahab is in the Sinai Peninsula. Damn it! The Sinai has been a bit sketchy for a while. There have been road closures, even kidnappings. Some people had hinted that it might not be the best vacation destination. Of course it is questionable if Egypt is really the best residential destination in these strange times. And yet here we are.

I freaked out as I am increasingly prone to do. I ran around the corner to the travel agent raving about world war and the implications of infuriating the Israelis. The travel agents looked at me as though I were insane at first. But I think they understood. They have been suffering significantly since the revolution. I am not the first jumpy tourist to cancel a trip this year. They agreed to help me reroute the van and find another hotel in another town, closer. They would find us a place in Al Gouna, Hurgada, or someplace safe and close on mainland Egypt far from Bedoin malcontents and land disputes - far from Israel and the little piece of paradise that we had spent the last month reading about, far from Dahab.

You see Egypt, for all its desert, has no shortage of coast. Much of it is along the gorgeous Red Sea. The thing is that in Egypt there are two types of beaches. There are ones built up with huge, expensive, overbearing, manicured, all inclusive, artificial, package deal resorts. And then there is Dahab. Dahab is an old Bedoin village that has been a haven for divers, independent travelers, lost souls, hippies, and misfits for decades. If you know Mexico, think Maruata. Think Puerto Escondido. Dahab is the place that has avoided becoming a soulless resort despite all odds. It is a perfect strip of coast where small hotels line a rocky beach. You can see where the reef begins from any of the perfect sit on the floor lounges that line the boardwalk. It is a place where you can fill your days diving, kite boarding, taking excursions to oases in the desert, swimming, sipping tea in shoeless waterside lounges, or you can do nothing. And that is OK too. Sure there are T-shirt shops and pushy vendors. This is Egypt. The food is almost as terrible as it is everywhere else in Egypt, but not quite. The view is always stunning, rugged mountains collapsing into turquoise water. It is not easy to get there (seven hours in a van from Cairo). But when you arrive, you may never want to leave.

With the trip temporarily on hold, I went back to the apartment to talk with Jenn and hammer out a workable Plan B. We poured over our Lonely Planet guide, reading in dejected tones about all the other possibilities. About each place, the authors had written some variation of, "Well, this place is OK... if you absolutely can't go to Dahab." It was depressing. We didn't want a fancy resort. We had already booked a pleasant small hotel. I'm not talking about hammocks. This place has a restaurant with an omelet chef. The room we booked has a balcony over the pool with a clear view of the Red Sea. We weren't planning on roughing it. We just didn't want the resort.

So we decided to try to start with finding a good hotel and went to my favorite website, Tripadvisor. We looked up some of the towns that had been mentioned, Ain Suhkna, Hurgada, Al Gouna, and started reading reviews of resorts. They were expensive and our trip would have to be shorter. But maybe being pampered would be a nice break from Cairo. At this point, anything would be a nice break from Cairo. The reviews were curious. The resorts were all expensive, but nobody really seemed to enjoy their stay in them. While the humblest backpacker camps in Dahab had legions of fans posting rave reviews, these five star hotels received chilly comments.

But there was one thing that they all had in common. Everybody had something to say about the 'animation teams'. They either hated them or loved them. My first thought was, what the hell is an animation team. My next thought was, no really, what the hell is an animation team? Was this a group of cartoonists? I might enjoy that. Or maybe it is those creepy people who dress up in animal costumes and give you balloons. Jenn didn't know either. We speculated for a while and then did what everybody does in this post-speculation era, we looked up 'animation team' online. For the next hour we watched Youtube videos of animation teams in action.

You may have seen these folk before. You may have eaten felafel before. But if you haven't done either in Egypt, you haven't exactly seen what we are talking about. I have learned that animation teams are huge in modern Egypt in the way papyrus art and human sacrifice were in pharaonic times. Animation teams are essentially resort cheerleaders. They are the people that go around the hotel haranguing guests into having fun. They might make you do the Macarena in the pool or playfully chase your kids around the lobby with a fake crocodile. They do floor shows with dancing and magic in the evenings. They are mostly imported young people, sort of like outgoing ski lift operators with decent singing voices. They are perky and they don't take no for an answer. As much as I love all people, I hate these types of people most of all. I will have fun when I choose. Goading me will only bring out my inner hostility.

We grimaced through one video clip after another of singing buffoons and giggling Egyptian tourists. There were balloon animals and poolside talent shows, belly flop contests and endless line dances. After an hour or so it became abundantly clear that this was not going to be the answer to our situation. And so I meekly called up our guide and apologized for my rash behavior. We would venture across the Sinai, taking our chances with angry insurgents. We reasoned that most of the tourists who had been kidnapped of lately had ended up spending the afternoon drinking tea with Bedoins while their state departments negotiated their release. We were planning on a Bedoin tea trip anyway. We had thought to pay for it ourselves. Would it be that different?

So we went. And yes, Dahab was heavenly.