Kiting The Red Sea In The Sinai Desert

by Efrat Saar
(Israel, Tel Aviv)

Kiting the Red Sea in the Sinai desert details:

It's been over a year since I've visited my favorite place in the world. It's only a few hours ride away and a short border crossing but due to some tension in our crazy local Middle Eastern area it was hard to find serious partners to take this ride.

The day has arrived, I found some serious partners for a short visit in paradise.
My friends picked me up in Tel Aviv at 3 am and we started our drive towards the Israeli- Egyptian border crossing. We arrived in Elat, the Israeli border city and my home town at around 8 am. It's windy. Very windy, and we can't wait to cross the border and go kiting 40 minutes away. We could have just gone kiting in Elat, which is a very good spot in Israeli terms but when you know that 40 minutes away you can be in kiting paradise- nothing can stop you.

We pay unnecessarily high border tax, change currency and head to the taxi station. There's apparently high unemployment rate in Egypt... 20 taxi-vans and their drivers are just waiting for us tourists to come along. However, until the first cab is filled with no less than 14 people no one is getting anywhere. Thank God it took us only 45 minutes to get all these people in and on our way.

The Sinai desert is an amazing place. It's pretty unbelievable to see that a brand new golf course was built where it is so extremely dry. A few stops on the way and we finally arrive in our destination. A small camp before the village of Nuweiba where the wind comes in perfectly. After a quick cup of coffee and warm greetings to the local staff, my friend and I are pumping our kites in ecstasy.

We can't wait to be the only two kiters in the area, enjoying the perfect wind, the amazing view of the Sinai mountains and the the beautiful water of the Red Sea.

Our local friend comes running to help us launch the second kite and we are both in the water. In Israel our local kite beaches have become pretty populated, at times even over populated I'd have to say. our sport becomes extremely popular. Who wouldn't want to ride a kite in the water....? So being only two kiters in sight for the whole day is a pretty amazing experience for us. After a pretty long session we get out of the water for our favorite breakfast of eggs, salad, and excellent pita bread. 

Since we were very early in the weekend to get there we got a couple of huts in an excellent location (not more than 10 steps away from the water). Later that day, more of our friends came over. By the next day, since it was an Israeli holiday the whole beach was filled with Israelis many of which are kitesurfers. 

Four out of the five days we were there were windy. Our daily routine consisted of kiting, eating, drinking and sleeping. It was absolute heaven. Can't wait to be there again!