Rafiki Dahabibi

I’ve probably slept in over 500 hostels in my life. Here in Dahab I’m taking my master’s exam: a whole month in the Rafiki Oasis Hostel Dorm. With a wife and child, hostels were no longer an option in recent years. This trip will be “back to the roots”: lots of fun and relaxation with little money and full minimalism.

Rafiki Dahab is more than just a hostel. There are at least three. Or even four. Nobody knows for sure. The guests are a colourful international mix, but the majority are young Cairo students. I’m sure everyone heard about the Rafiki leisure programme before they booked here. Including me. Everyone will probably expect a little something.

Dahab 24/25

In reality, the Rafiki hostels are a complete fairground. There really are several organised programmes every day. In the morning there is a good breakfast together. You can tell that cook Rahman’s job is her vocation. There is often a family dinner in the evening. The Rafiki WhatsApp group will keep you busy with events such as karaoke, beach barbecues, yoga, hiking, diving, freediving and snorkelling, excursions to the Blue Hole and Blue Lagoon. Mountain climbing on the 2,300 m high Mount Mose, off into the wadi, quad biking or concerts on Shaman Mountain. With around 60 guests on site, there are currently over 1,000 people in the WhatsApp group. This is by far the most ingenious social media marketing I have seen in over 25 years as a web designer. Only the autoplay video on the homepage simply doesn’t work at all with the data rates here.

My parents used to drag me to 5-star all-inclusive resorts. Every entertainment programme there was a joke compared to what is on offer here. Who knows the Club Robinson entertainment programme? If you didn’t take part in the programme, you got poison in your food. Or at least deadly looks and a guilty conscience. The shark attack in Hurghada a few years ago was also guaranteed to have been the result of the boisterous reanimation programme.

Here in Rafiki, everyone can do what they want. I usually go to bed early so that I can be at the lagoon on my bike in the morning before the soul kiters. Dahab offers the best winds in the morning. The dorm is quiet, the guests are rarely drunk, good and full of interesting stories. After just one week of air conditioning wars (20! 26? 21? 24!) at 34° outside temperature and the resulting AC cold, the last problem is solved.

The wifi is constantly wobbling. From time to time it is completely on holiday. An Esim can only be legally purchased by Egyptians, but hey: “they live in Egypt” says my Esim. I work every day and am very grateful to my customers that I still have enough time for kiting, travelling and lots of interesting conversations. I look forward to talking to the little one on the phone every day.

I often felt more at home in hostels than at home. The opinions and people are different. That also makes me almost “the same”. People with less money often have the best stories. This is also the case here at Rafiki Dahab. Every evening, the Egyptian guests tell me stories from a thousand and one nights: about the expulsion of the Jews after the “allied” invasion of 1956, how their fathers united Saudi Arabia and contributed to its foundation – and why the Saudis today patronisingly refer to Egyptians as “falafel eaters”. I enjoy every day to the full. If the input gets too much for me, I quickly switch off in bed and while kiting.

The first free wash after ten days is cancelled. All the washing machines in the hostel are broken. The nearest laundry is a €12 cut-throat operation. One restaurant is called “Sharks”. Others behave in exactly the same way. The air conditioners run with the windows open. This is compensatory justice, as most of the electricity comes from fossil fuelled power stations. The air conditioning systems are therefore fighting against global warming. The electricity often comes from prepaid cards. Rumour has it that closed windows at night mutate into a deadly trap when the electricity card is empty.

The reefs are so numerous, colourful and lively that Egyptians dance the salsa all over them. You can read the average Egyptian size to the nearest centimetre from the reefs that have been trampled to death. The water comes from seawater desalination plants, and seawater is practically endless. That’s why you can shower endlessly in the desert. But hey: who’s perfect?