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HOTEL IN THE PALM FOREST
July 12.2017. Wednesday
Dreams on the Eve of Paradise Delight
Painfully, I frequented the Red Sea. I didn’t have time to fly after a five-day tour to the prestigious Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort hotel and write a report on a “creative business trip”, when the Soul ached and asked again to embrace the resort of Sharm El Sheikh, to the Red Sea, where the flow of creative hypocrisy so it hits the key. And my physical body yearns irresistibly for hotel service and comfort, as well as for gluttony and enjoyment of food and drink in hotel restaurants and bars. And with such a heavenly, carefree life, the Soul seeks to throw out on paper the emotions that are born in an uncontrollable mass inside me.
I rejoice at this productivity of creative life on the Red Sea, as never before and nowhere to be found.
And all this is due to the fact that the Sunerise Arabian hotel took all the care of my mortal body (albeit for my money, but it doesn’t matter anymore), giving the Soul 100% freedom for creativity.
And involuntarily I had a question: “Maybe this is how an artist should live? Maybe society is obliged to provide any creative person with similar, and even better, living conditions? Then, I understand, everyone who wants to taste the “freebie” will rush into this cohort of the chosen ones with an unstoppable crowd ...Therefore, to provide this incentive for creativity - to everyone for a while and in stages, and not justified hopes to be written down in debt, with interest! (With our "freeloader" there is no other way to fight).
July 13.2017. Thursday
My unmet need
Exactly a week ago I flew from Egypt, where I was at the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 *, unfortunately, only 5 days.
And during this week, I almost finished writing a “report” on a creative trip, posting materials on Facebook and LiveJournal with hundreds of photographs illustrating posts. In general, I was satisfied with the creative business trip: more than fifty pages of typewritten text on the impressions of the five days of my stay in a corner of the earthly Paradise are proof of this. In a word, I did not go in vain. In addition, he added essential materials to my future book on hotels in Egypt.
Nevertheless, when I took out pictures of the earthly Paradise from my memory, I was seized by such nostalgia that it was right to tears ...So it was already with me last and the year before last: as then, now the Soul also desperately ached and asked, like a small child, to go there where she felt so good! But what adult, with such suffering of a child, will not tremble in the heart and he will not meet halfway? After all, the heart is not a stone! I went to meet my Soul.
And he began to “flip through” the sites in search of the most acceptable option, so that the price would not “bite” much and the level of the hotel would not be lower than the previous “Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort”. Of course, I shot at VIP hotels. After all, it was one of them that I lacked to complete my new book "The Red Sea - a corner of the earthly Paradise": "Four seasons" 5 *, "Royal Savoy" 5 *, or "Rixos Sarm El Sheikh" 5 *. Unfortunately, psychologically, but, basically, financially, I was not ready to conquer such heights of Egypt, and therefore, as an adaptation to VIP hotels, I chose an approximate option - the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa 5 * hotel. In addition, on the 13th of this month, and this is a couple of days before departure, there was a price drop eight days cheaper than seven! (It happens). And therefore, without hesitation, even without a preliminary call, I rushed to the travel agency, where, as a regular customer, I was also guaranteed a five percent discount ...
As a result, I am flying to Sharm El Sheikh, to the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa 5 * hotel for eight whole days!
The only thing I remember on the eve of departure was the nervous tension caused by the fear of being late for check-in, which gave rise to the aphorism: “Nowhere does time speed up its run like that of a latecomer on the way to the airport. ” But everything worked out, despite my neglect of the time factor in connection with the process of air travel that is already common for me ...
Three hour flight. Sharm El Sheikh Airport
For a very long time, about twenty minutes, in a continuous gray haze, we are gaining altitude. It is still only six o'clock in the evening, it is still far from the beginning of the night, but because of the dense clouds that do not let in the sun's rays, it seems that it will soon get dark. After all, the land over the Kiev region was shrouded in solid clouds and it has been raining for three hours now, with short breaks. And these dark and dense clouds all these twenty minutes guaranteed us, at least moderate, but still "chatter" on air holes and bumps. And only by gaining a cruising altitude of 10.
000 meters or so, our airliner calmed down and stopped responding to external stimuli, which are practically non-existent at such a height, and evenly, peacefully hummed, slowly crushing hundreds of kilometers under it. But it was imperceptible, since the Earth, in the thawed patches between the clouds, was slowly, very slowly moving towards the plane under its belly.
Rainy clouds have already remained far below - there, above Kyiv, and wonderful pictures of various figures and unearthly creatures from snow-white, like cotton candy, clouds have opened before our eyes. I only had time to photograph this or that view. Fortunately, at the registration the girl went to meet me and kindly provided a seat by the window.
The middle of July and this leaves an imprint on the pictures from the surface of the Ukrainian land. Wherever a site free from forests, lakes or rivers is possible, it is colored with the yellowness of ripened wheat.
If I had a little sharper eyesight, like a dove or an eagle, I could see the combines making their way through the grain field. And I thought - this is the real and everlasting wealth of my country - fruit-bearing black soil and bread on it! And soon this wealth will leave far behind the oil and gas resources that some people boast so endlessly ...
Barbarian
The uniqueness of a person flying in an airplane at an altitude of 10.000 meters above the ground lies in the fact that he also has thoughts at the same ten thousandth distance from the vain problems of life on earth. And man looks down on his world. During the flight, somewhere such thoughts appeared in my mind. Perhaps at first glance they may seem absurd.
From a height of 10.000m I look at the Earth.
From under the belly of the aircraft and far beyond the limits of visibility, dissolving in the milky haze, the vast expanses of the Earth spread with specific signs of human presence: either squares of residential quarters of cities or giant factories, then squares of plowed or sown fertile plots, or cut down forests, and if sea, then traces of numerous boats. In any case, where there are more or less suitable conditions for life, a person is always present there, traces of his habitation are visible, most often negative ones. And so it seemed to me that man barbarously occupied the Earth! But who gave man the right to occupation? Who gave him the right, relatively recently, having appeared on Earth, self-proclaimed to present himself as its owner? There are also wiser patriarchs on Earth who have lived for billions of years more and preserved, moreover, turned the Earth into the perfection that we see today.
For example, it can be mountains, or rocks along the steep banks of rivers or lakes. Yes, all living things. They are silent, but I still hear their indignant voices because of the barbaric act of man. But it seems to me that a person is at the last line of his barbarism. And Nature, for many millions of years, which has developed in itself the iron laws of self-preservation from external influences and its own internal harmony of development according to the principle of the greatest rationality and expediency, in the end, sadly, will kill its destroyer - man. I do not exclude that most of it with signs of barbarism, violence and destruction. And it will leave and will contribute to the violent growth and prosperity of only that small part of humanity that is in harmony with Nature and lives in accordance with its "iron" laws.
For example, such a weapon for the destruction of most of humanity (its barbarian part) in Nature can be incurable diseases, which, of course, appear only due to the barbaric way of life of a person ...
We fly on the usual route. A little below us, at high speed (double), oncoming planes rush by - such silver cigars. Legalized and strictly enforced air corridor…
And below the bottom is already the Black Sea, Odessa and its environs. A spit stretching for tens of kilometers is clearly visible. Cruise ships are visible on the Black Sea with a long whitish trail on the water. After a while - Turkey, its major cities, possibly Istanbul. And then, already in the dark - the Mediterranean Sea and the lights of cities and large settlements in Egypt.
The treat of tea or coffee with water on board the aircraft went unnoticed and was soon forgotten.
But I remember the greed of the Azurair airline, along with Anextour, I remember, until recently, they treated them to delicious sandwiches with a soft airy bun ...
calmness
Late evening. We are flying south. My gaze is constantly riveted to the porthole and to the paintings behind it. On the right side of the plane is the pink sky, which I admired last time and captured it on camera. And now in my window - solid darkness with a dark purple tint. And inside the huge, almost two hundred seats, cabin of the aircraft, there is a bright light. Only one thing never ceases to amaze: how could such a colossus of tens of tons be lifted into the air to such a height and moved at high speed ...And therefore such ignorance in the laws of physics and chemistry causes unreasonable anxiety for one's safety and even life. The only thing that soothes is the uniform, without any interruptions and failures, the powerful hum of the aircraft's engines.
He acts as a guarantor of security. Therefore, this uniform rumble evokes a feeling of calm.
The uniform hum of the aircraft engines fills the entire space inside the aircraft. Through it, you can barely hear individual basses and low timbres of male voices and higher ones - female ones, sometimes their laughter. Children, and there are quite a few of them on board, after an hour of flight, they quieted down after their frisky games at first, and, apparently, many fell asleep.
But this uniform rumble fills not only the cabin of the aircraft, but also far beyond its borders, even further than one might expect. For example, you look at the night through the window - and this rumble is there, at the entire width and depth of space, even further and deeper than the eye can penetrate, and rushes after your thought. You're thinking about a future vacation, a hotel on the Red Sea - and it's there too!
Surprisingly, despite the not very pleasant timbre and note of this hum, it does not irritate and does not even interfere with thinking and creating.
Under its sound, I calmly write these impressions of my flight. And what's more, it's soothing. Under his lullaby “song”, I calmly, like a baby, fell asleep for a short while, for about fifteen minutes. I do not rule out that I even snored with pleasure - I love this business. And, unlike a railway car, a reserved seat or a compartment - it makes no difference, the neighbors did not kick me in the side!
Considering the importance of the calmness of a person on board the aircraft and in conjunction with the roar of the aircraft engines, I thought in more detail and analyzed this phenomenon and came to this conclusion. This even and monotonous rumble, I note, quite powerful, is a sign of the normal operation of the aircraft engines, and, therefore, of our safety. And human safety is above all! And any phenomenon, accompanied by security, is perceived as a blessing, with love.
And any violation of this hum, and there was such a case when the engines suddenly began to work more powerfully, a nascent anxiety crept into me. But everything quickly returned to normal, and I calmed down. It would be worse, God forbid, if the intensity of the hum would fall ...
Here is such a paradox: by all indications, an unpleasant phenomenon causes us bliss and tranquility, and its disappearance - wild horror!
In the meantime, the darkness of the night was thickening behind the plane. To the left of the board - blackness already without signs of blue, and to the right - there was only a narrow pink stripe on the horizon - where the Sun disappeared half an hour ago. Even the night swallowed her uncontrollably.
The plane, emitting the same monotonous soothing rumble, crashed into the darkness with its nose - there, outside of which, more precisely, in a small bay of which, the resort of Sharm El-Sheikh was playing with lights.
And with every minute of the flight, as we approached this cherished Shark Bay, each of the two hundred passengers of our airliner, ahead of time, already felt like a resort visitor in his “according to the price list” hotel and splashed in the waters of the Red Sea! God forbid that this is true!
Under the monotonous rumble of aircraft engines, it’s not a sin to take a nap, even on an empty stomach. I woke up already over Egypt, when the plane began to make U-turns from the mainland towards the Red Sea. They flew in an arc to avoid the notorious area in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, where a Russian plane was shot down in the fall of 2015. Below us are the lights of the resorts of El Gouna or Hurghada, and maybe Ras Shukeir, then the Red Sea, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gulf of Aqaba. But for some reason the sea is black! I know it's an optical illusion, it's actually Red! We are going down. The engines, dropping thrust, lowered their rumble.
The real world of the Earth began to take us from the fairy-tale world. And, having made a circle over the Gulf of Aqaba, we fly up already at a low altitude to the long-awaited and cherished Sharm El Sheikh. How close Egypt turned out to be - just a three-plus hour flight ...
Further - after landing, always disturbing and exciting, but at the end with thunderous applause, the usual procedures for passport control, customs inspection, and then - transfer to the hotel. Fortunately, the hotel is near the airport and it takes only fifteen minutes.
"Security" and security in the hotel
The first thing that distinguishes the Grand Rotana hotel from other hotels where I have been is that when the bus with tourists arrives at the hotel, it is checked in the most thorough way. They check the bottom of the bus for the presence of explosive devices using a mirror, as well as a specially trained dog that is sensitive to explosives. It's at the first entrance gate.
There is not even a barrier here, but metal barrier posts automatically pulled out from under the asphalt over the entire width of the carriageway, which, probably, can hold back a tank.
Next is the second “line of defense”, which is more subtle: here, just like at the airport, there is a magnetic metal detector frame that you have to go through and a real X-ray diagnostic conveyor with checking all luggage for any weapons and other prohibited items. And this is after the same procedure at the airport! Only after that, leaving the luggage under the supervision of a hotel employee, you head light to the main building - to the reception for registration.
This whole procedure of inspections and checks causes some psychological discomfort, but, at the same time, it reassures and rejoices that you are safe, like “In Christ's bosom! » This hotel has a high level of security.
And therefore, even if you hear or see cases of sabotage or terrorism in the news, and warnings from the authorities to be careful and vigilant, you can not be afraid of all this behind the gates of the Grand Rotana Hotel: numerous Security, who carry out their service with the utmost care. I determined this back in January of this year, when on the way to the airport we used a transfer bus to pick up departing guests from the Grand Rotana Hotel. And I saw how at the entrance to the territory of this Security hotel with dogs and mirrors they checked our bus so that, God forbid, no one brought explosives into the hotel territory. At the same level, security, and not only at check-in, has remained to the present, which I already felt now, living in this hotel.
I even admit that it is not just us, mere mortals, who are so guarded at the Security Hotel, but the fact that princes and princesses of royal blood can rest in the royal villas on the territory of this hotel. And we are already at the same time with them fall under an increased level of security and safety.
And only after passing the last conveyor of checks, you notice that beauty opens before you and countless tall palm trees growing directly from the water of the pools, as well as a whole alley of fountains spouting from under the asphalt. You did not notice all this while "Security" most carefully ensured your safety and diverted your attention to this.
We arrived at the hotel late in the evening - after ten. And therefore, the illumination of fountains and palm trees, as well as blue water in small pools from which palm trees grew, created a festive and cheerful mood, despite fatigue and nervous tension during the flight.
Porter service (reception) and oriental hospitality
What particularly appeals to them is the mental predisposition that radiates from the face and eyes when you first approach the counter. And this magical action continues until you are satisfied with your problem or your question is resolved. So only a person of the East, who inherited the high culture and hospitality of his people, can hospitably meet you and pay attention to you in an oriental way. And these few seconds of communication at the reception inspire you with so much goodness that when you leave, you still feel its beneficialness for a long time, as if you are under its pleasant impression.
Lobby
I immediately remembered that the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa 5 * hotel is part of a chain of hotels owned by one of the sheikhs of the United Arab Emirates. And therefore the hall, and everything around the hotel, is made in the Arabic style.
Surprisingly soft carpets are laid out under sofas, armchairs and tables throughout the area. When you step on them, the impression is that you are walking on short-cut grass ...This creates additional home comfort. Outside the carpets, there is a light-colored mirrored marble floor. The walls are beige, made, it seems to me, with ordinary sandless plaster and do not make much of an impression. But the ceiling is supported by huge cylindrical cabinets with purple lighting near the ceiling - they are impressive ...
In the rectangular part of the lobby, where, as I already noted, there is a seating area with numerous sofas, armchairs, tables and tables. To the left is the lobby bar. In front of him is a round recreation room with a fountain in the center. It is very pleasant to sit and relax here to the sound of water murmuring as it flows in a continuous continuous and thin stream from the huge bowl of the fountain.
Here, around and on the second floor, there are shops of oriental tea, souvenirs and other trifles. On the right is a marvel of architecture and design, at the level of grandeur it is a four-level escalator with a huge height of a spherical ceiling, against a blue background of which, like in the sky, stars are depicted. For me, this building caused a special impression due to the fact that I first saw all this grandiosity under fifteen meters in height from below (and I advise you), when, after the settlement, I went up the escalator ...
Here and in many other places on the territory of the Grand Rotana hotel, you feel the generous scope of the implementation of architectural ideas in real objects. Sometimes such masterpieces are opened that from them, as from a height, takes your breath away.
I saw similar grandiose forms of implementation of architectural ideas in the ministerial sanatoriums of the "Working Corner" in Alushta, and also when I lived in the royal mansions of the Higher School of Higher Schools in Moscow for almost a year - while studying in graduate school and defending my Ph. D. thesis ...Therefore, despite the fact that such things are not unusual for me, nevertheless, I admired them all the time of my stay at the Grand Rotana hotel.
Here, on the territory of the Grand Rotana Hotel, as in a small quiet bay, around which the storm and bad weather of the economic and tourist crisis rage, you feel the presence of almost the sheikh of the United Arab Emirates, for whom these fluctuations of crises and economic downturns are indifferent. He is above them. Also, the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa hotel, once in which, you go into a completely different world, in which the stunted hand of reality does not reach. Hotel "Grand Rotana" is a real place of relaxation from the negativity of modern life.
As there is an oasis of Nature in the desert, so the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa is an oasis for Soul and body in our difficult life.
Number
After registering at the reception, which takes just a few minutes, you are given an electronic key in two or three copies, a card for a beach towel and other familiarization instructions with the opening hours of restaurants, bars, as well as a color map of the hotel where all this is located. And together with the things they take them in an electric car to the building where your number is. The driver, who is also a porter, brings your things to your room and wishes you a pleasant stay.
Room with an area of .43 sq. m. corresponds to the high level of the hotel "Grand Rotana Resort & Spa" 5 *. It is impeccable, both in cleanliness and in the configuration and quality of everything you need.
The bed - in my room - is a double powerful wooden one with a high mattress. Five or six pillows, the purpose of each is even hard to guess. The bedding is immaculately clean and white.
Together with the towels you used, they change every day. I counted eight such towels: three bath towels, two for feet, two mini for the face and one under the feet when they exit the shower. Pleasantly pleased with the mohair bathrobe and room slippers. Although there is a small carpet near the bed, the floor in the room is still cool - tiled.
Plasma TV, one meter in diagonal - when turned on, regardless of the program, shows a commercial about the hotel. I advise you to definitely look and take it as a guide to the hotel. Showing not only the best places to stay in the hotel, but also the opening hours of each restaurant and bar.
Minibar-refrigerator filled with various drinks and sweets, you can see the prices here - the price list is on top of the minibar.
Upon check-in, a one-time razor, shaving paste and gel, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and even a washcloth are supplied once. All excellent quality! So you should not take all this from home, making your already heavy suitcase heavier. (By the way, its weight should not exceed 20kg, along with hand luggage. )
I was given a room on the second floor, so there was a balcony with an armchair and a coffee table, as well as a small sofa with two pillows: it is very convenient to drink tea or coffee in the evenings or early in the morning, the set of which is replenished daily. There is an electric kettle for cooking.
The room has a powerful (very fast cooling), but quiet air conditioner. From the experience of previous hotels, I know that if you sleep with the air conditioner running, then in two or three days cold symptoms will definitely appear.
Therefore, I would recommend that you, leaving the room, leave one card at the receiver-switch and turn on the air conditioner. When you enter your room, turn off the air conditioner. I would like to point out that the walls of the buildings at the Grand Rotana Hotel are thick, and made, I think, of a special material that allows you to keep the room cool all night. But in August it is even hotter, so at night you still have to turn on the air conditioner for a while.
In general, the room is convenient for a comfortable stay.
Room categories
CLASSIC GARDEN VIEW ROOM - area: 28-42 sq. m. , rooms overlooking the garden in buildings 7.8, 9, which are located at the entrance to the hotel. (+$00)
DELUXE SEA VIEW ROOM - area: 28-42 sq. m. , rooms with side sea view in buildings 3.4. (+$70)
GRAND DELUXE POOL & SEA VIEW ROOM - area: 28-42 sq. m. , rooms with panoramic views of the sea and the pool in building 6 (main building (+ $ 150)
PREMIUM BEACH FRONT ROOM - area: 28-42 sq. m. , rooms on the first line from the sea with a direct sea view in buildings 1 or 2, (+ $200)
CLUB ROTANA ROOM - area: 28-42 sq. m.
, rooms on the first line from the sea with a direct sea view in buildings 1 or 2, (+ $500)
(I do not list the rest of the room categories due to exorbitant prices)
It will also be interesting to know the preference to relax in one or another building (and this, of course, is associated with the prices of the tour, since in each building there are only certain categories of rooms):
1 building - 35 rooms; PREMIUM BEACH FRONT ROOM $1070.
P building - 50 rooms; PREMIUM BEACH FRONT ROOM - $1070
W building - 29 rooms; DELUXE SEA VIEW ROOM - $936
1U building - 0 rooms; DELUXE SEA VIEW ROOM.
U1 building - 54 rooms; GRAND DELUXE POOL & SEA VIEW ROOM - $1003
UP-USH-1X building - 42 rooms; CLASSIC GARDEN VIEW ROOM - $878.
CLUB ROTANA ROOM - $1403.
Villas - 0- GRAND SUITE / SGL - $3803
July 14.2017. Friday
Red Sea fish
On the first day, in the morning - I'm at sea! And the first of the marine abodes that I saw, having entered the pontoon and not yet diving, was a large slope, a black spot floating along the reef. This tailed miracle of the Red Sea, more than a meter long (with a tail), slowly and confidently, with signs of the owner of the Red Sea, paying no attention to anyone, imposingly floated past me.
For the next eight days, I never saw him again.
And during that day, I did not see particularly large fish. But small multi-colored fish and medium ones, up to forty centimeters in length, near the reef of the Grand Rotana Hotel, I counted more than thirty varieties. I even sketched each variety, as best I could, noting the distinctive features and giving each one its own special name, in accordance with these distinctive features.
The most numerous fish are striped (stripes across the back), I called them “Ward No. 6”, they keep in a flock and constantly sit under the pontoon stairs. The pontoon itself in this hotel is built high above the water - up to three meters, and therefore is not a shelter for fish, as in other hotels with a lower or generally plastic pontoon floating on the water. These fish are the laziest, they are too lazy to pinch food from corals, as all fish do, and are already accustomed to feeding by vacationers.
Even despite the fact that there is a fine for feeding the fish of the Red Sea, as well as walking on corals.
The second, as for me, an interesting species of fish is quite large in size at 25-35cm and swimming in shallow water above the corals, this is the "Purple Striped Handsome". This fish feels like the mistress of shallow water, and therefore I often noticed how it chases smaller fish, which, without asking permission, invade their possessions and, apparently, buzz there, for which they receive scolding from them. This type of fish is constantly hungry and therefore they constantly pinch corals, removing some kind of food from them. But not only hunger makes them constantly eat, but also their decent size: after all, to maintain shape, so much food is needed!
They eat little and constantly stand motionless smaller flat fish - "Swordsmen" (they have a long fin in the form of a sword on their backs). And they are always in pairs. It's like they're in mating season all the time...
Always in pairs, and sometimes in fours (what do they have - French love? ) other, larger (up to 40 cm long) and thick dark gray fish walk. "Pockmarked" on the back, as if their scales are peeling ...But they usually live at a depth of up to 6m. And just like the rest of the fish of the Red Sea, they ignore all bathers and divers.
Interesting "Fish-Chameleon" with white spots on the back against the background of a protective color all over the body, like our ATO fighters. The indestructible thirst for life pushed this fish to mimicry - protective coloring. The fact is that most of the Red Sea corals at the end (at the point of growth) are white, while the corals themselves are of an indefinite gray or marsh color. And this fish, as if knowing the identity of its color with the color of this coral, lays down on it and stops all movement. And on the general background becomes indistinguishable.
Confident in this, she does not try to slip away even when you reach out to her with your hand, even very close. And, moreover, it becomes even more immobile. Only two eyes in the form of black dots on the top of the head run in different directions from fear ...
"Fish in the form of ATO" - similar in protective coloration to the "Chameleon Fish", only not with whitish dots on the back, but with dark stripes.
Small, palm-sized, flat and round fish of bright yellow color are striking and impressive. I named them "Yellow Lanterns". They are so bright that they seem to burn from the inside ...
But among the corals appears "Purple miracle with a yellow tail. " Yellow color, like yellow - normal. But purple is so delicate with internal tints that you even wonder how such an amazing color can appear in Nature! I look at this fish with both eyes, I almost open my mouth in surprise - but I can’t, I know that I can choke ...
The fish is the same in shape and size, but "Brown, with overflows. " Its color, of course, is less impressive, but for a change it will do. Moreover, I remember about her, how she was chased for harm by a large striped purple fish - the mistress of shallow water (see above).
Fearfully shows itself out of the corals and again hides in them a round, flat, like a pancake, white fish with stripes in the form of an angle, like a road sign. That's why I called it that: "Fish is a road sign. " With such a bright white color against a gray background of corals, she should hide fearfully - it is painfully noticeable, and any predator will probably try to have breakfast or lunch with her, it doesn’t matter!
I noticed that here, in the Red Sea, in particular in Sharm El Sheikh, in the area of the Grand Rotana hotel, there are a lot of flat fish, like pancakes, round in shape. Only the color and sometimes the shape of the beak differ. But I paid little attention to the beak, that is, the nose.
In addition to those that I have already named, here I often saw a yellow fish with black transverse stripes from under the belly of the same “pancake” shape, but with a “Bright white stripe” above the eyes.
The same shape fish, but orange and stripes across - I called it "Striped orange-blue disk. "
A whitish round fish with a uniform color throughout the pancake shape, without any striped or dotted inclusions: I called it “Whitish Moon”.
"Beetroot disk with a tide" - also from the same variety of flat pancake fish.
As well as flat round fish of small, smaller than a palm, sizes: “Black Night” and “Maroon”.
Among the large fish in the corals of the Grand Rotana Hotel there are "Leopard fish" with a pockmarked yellow coloring like a leopard on the back. They walk in corals in several copies together.
As well as a decent-sized fish with "Emerald Stars" on a brown back and with stripes at the tail.
The small fish and big fish listed above are common. But there are also isolated instances. Near the reef of the hotel "Grand Rotana" is found alone "Porcupine Fish" with needles in different directions, as well as a similar "Magpie Fish" with white spots at the end of the wings-fins. One of them is Lionfish (official name) - a genus of marine fish of the scorpionfish order. They got their name because of the numerous rays-feathers in which the poisonous glands are located. The poison in these glands remains for a long time.
Only a few specimens of the unusual Beer Keg fish are dirty gray with black ripples. In shape, it is so swollen that it seems that it might just burst at the seams ...And from fat laziness, it doesn’t even work with its tail, but waves its fins from under its belly and from the side.
The main array of fish "hang out", mainly near the reef and at a shallow depth of up to two meters.
And when I got out of the water, I did not forget to sketch it and put it in the general catalogue. Such, almost childish game to give their names to the fish, allowed me to systematize and remember each fish by its appearance and external distinguishing features.
On the other hand, for me, the process of learning about the fish of the Red Sea and surprising each already forgotten fish was coming to an end, which is not the best option for a creative person. Because surprise, admiration and other sensory perception of the surrounding reality is the best reason and stimulus for creativity.
And so I switched my main attention to more mysterious creatures - corals.
flock effect
Swimming in the Red Sea and watching the fish, I had to see, most often, separately swimming fish, sometimes in pairs, but there is a whole flock or even a school of them, hundreds and thousands of them swimming by.
It would seem that this is a common occurrence for fish and understandable to everyone: fish gather in flocks, first of all, for security purposes. Having decided on this, they put an end to the solution of this phenomenon. I was satisfied with these until today. But when I saw with my own eyes individual fish and a flock, I came to a deeper conclusion and expanded it to a human herd - society. Yes, and a flock of any animals or birds has the same principles as fish.
So, I conditionally singled out one individual from the pack, not very frail and painful, but so, average. And if she is released into free swimming outside the pack, then her chances of surviving are reduced to zero. Since any predator that meets on its way and is also hungry will definitely devour it, regardless of the agility and physical qualities of this fish. That's why he is a predator, to be stronger, more agile, etc. And there is not a single law or pattern - it's all a matter of chance.
By the way, the same thing, with a high probability, will happen to the largest and healthiest fish from the school if it swims separately. Thus, the best of the best can be destroyed, while at the same time, by chance, the most frail and unhealthy of the given species remains. As a result, there is a risk of extinction of all life on Earth, and not only.
I do not rule out that Nature, for many billions of years of its existence, has gone through this path of development, ending its existence with complete collapse and destruction. But nevertheless, she found a promising way of development - this is a flock.
Now consider a flock of fish, where there are healthy and strong fish, but also frail and unhealthy ones. And if a predator approaches the flock and tries to profit, then it snatches the weakest and most painful fish from the flock. Which, in comparison with healthy and strong fish, does not run away from a predator so briskly. At the same time, the life of other fish is guaranteed!
The quality of food for a predator is not very different (maybe one healthy fish is tastier than two small ones), and a predator is not a special gourmet to refuse an almost “free” weak fish and, moreover, several, in order to pretty straining, gobble up a large and healthy , and then, even the grandmother said in two, maybe stay hungry. Therefore, the predator feeds on the weakest of the pack, leaving the strongest and healthiest "to the factory. " And only the largest and strongest individuals (the same adult fish from a flock) that can repel any predator live separately, they do not need a flock. This is how natural selection is carried out in living Nature. In a flock, any weak and sickly individual, like a sacrificial lamb, is doomed to be eaten by a predator in the name of the life of stronger and healthier brethren.
But what about in human society? Yes the same!!!
The only difference is that the predators themselves are among the "brothers" within each pack - a collective, society, public and party association. But no one thought about it and did not strain in order to analyze it in more detail and draw the appropriate conclusion.
The main goal of the human pack, as such, - safety in the pack, as that is in Nature, no longer plays any role. Although a person outside the built-in system can be imprisoned or deported from the country (like I. Brodsky). But the main goal is to control the masses, to subjugate them to some, perhaps even unacceptable idea for them, to the interests of one or a group of people, to the State and the Power, and also to force them to work on those conditions and with the pay for their work, as the Power wants ( read - Shark).
As in a flock in Nature, in human society the weakest individuals (people) are doomed to death and destruction (I repeat: humanely, slowly), which are used in the most difficult and unhealthy work. And there are billions of them. They provide a normal life for hundreds of millions of the middle layer and hundreds of thousands of Sharks - their fattening.
Thus, there is violence against a person, over his individuality. Actually, this is the same as slavery, that is, there is a global world New slavery, but even worse than in antiquity; not so much physical as moral and psychological-spiritual. It is more terrible and worse because a person is now different and has stepped into his new phase of development: an intellectual and spiritual one, which, in its significance, has left his physical priorities far behind.
The current slaveholding is realized through: enterprises, organizations and similar production formations; political parties that, after seizing power, reach the highest level of slavery - the state. And already at birth, a person is guaranteed the stigma of a slave, the status of which is confirmed by the passport of a “citizen” (read: “slave”) of one or another state issued to him at the age of 16.
Imagine any collective, society, state, association of states or the world community as a whole. Everywhere inside there are predators that "humanely" slowly, not immediately in one sitting, eat their weaker counterparts. And this happens with the submissive inaction of the victims, because the predators are endowed with the power of Power!
Having acquired the Power (in what way - this is a separate conversation, maybe for money, by inheritance, by nepotism, matchmaking, or through elections), this quite ordinary person turns from a shark in the smallest and lowest teams, to a bloodthirsty Shark at the top of the Power . Although the bloodthirstiness of a shark, who fights with a fellow to the fullest, in reality is much less than the bloodthirstiness of a big Shark, which builds a mansion in overseas lands with the “world by thread”. Lined up a whole clan of predators of different strengths, depending on the height of power. At the very bottom is a foreman or petty manager, at the very top (if it is a state) is the President, if the union of states is the Secretary General of the ruling political party-power (for example, the USSR) or a similar elected person.
For the world as a whole, the Shark is the most powerful state with its President at the head (now it is the USA), which has all the other states under its heel, no matter how they wander. And by the power of superior weapons and their currency, they force them to do whatever this world Shark wants, of course, in the interests of their state and their citizens.
There is a planned rotation of Sharks (during false democratic elections) and unplanned (during revolutions). The world Shark is also changing, but only over a longer period and obviously not in a democratic way, but, which is especially scary, as a result of a world, most likely, nuclear war.
So, you can reach the world nuclear war by watching the fish in the Red Sea while relaxing in the prestigious Grand Rotana Resort & Spa 5 * Sharm El Sheikh. Or maybe it's easier to cancel the "All inclusive" system with its unlimited consumption of locally produced hard liquor? ..
Red Sea corals
I decided to conduct the same experiment as with fish, and with corals. But in order not to drive my creative essence into the framework of an already known system and to maximize the flow of insight, I decided for a while to simply admire the corals, even without knowing their essence.
This unusually long (almost half a kilometer! ), as for a hotel, coral reef delighted me not only with its length, but also with its quality side. I see such a reef for the first time in two years of my twelve visits to hotels in Egypt.
What is unusual about it?
This is, first of all, the boundary line of the coral reef: it is not in the form of a solid sheer wall, as in other hotels, but, meandering, makes such pretzels that you never cease to be surprised and admired. For example, to the right of the middle (main) pontoon, over many hundreds of centuries, Nature has created a fabulous underwater lagoon with a narrow entrance and a wide exit from it.
And, importantly, in this lagoon, as in most of the foothills of the coral reef, and this is at a depth of up to six meters, the bottom is flat, and not steep and sharply leaving to a depth of twenty or more meters. That's where the freedom of marine life! Here, surrounded by corals, they feel safe and at home. Although, the Red Sea as a whole eats their home ...
Corals here grow wildly along the entire height of the reef to the same extent, and this, in all likelihood, is due to the fact that the reef is located on an underwater plateau platform and the depth here is no more than 5-6 meters. Only in some areas the bottom abruptly, about twenty meters, goes deeper.
For the rest of the length, the coral reef has the most bizarre forms created by growing corals for thousands of years: either it goes two or three meters towards the open sea, then it deepens the same way towards the coast.
From above, it is ordinary - flat, and a little deeper it is so diverse in shape that it seems that you are in a fairy tale. Not a reef, but a coral fairy tale, with many unusual fairy tale plots and scenery, which are difficult for a person to invent and, moreover, depict on a theater stage. And Nature here makes it easy and simple.
Swimming along the reef and swimming in the original coral lagoons, you feel that just about, against the backdrop of this fabulous scenery, the same fabulous characters will appear. It may seem so, because fairy tales were also written by people capable of penetrating beyond the limits of this World into another World...
Having been in one fairy tale, after a meter or two you swim into another fairy tale ...And so on the entire extension of the coral reef! This can be imagined and seen even by an ordinary person, without special talents of fantasy. And there is no need to talk about a person of a creative mindset - but only to expect great creations from him ...
More precisely, I met Nature, unusually violently bursting into our World, as if from other worlds. And here, in this unusual place, a dacha rebuilt by diplomats from Japan ...People of the East know the price of fertile places on Earth ...
I do not rule out that here, on the Red Sea, which in itself is already fertile (that's why it is Red, and not Dead), especially in Sharm El-Sheikh, where only recently, just a few decades ago, a harmful the human foot (together with the hand), still preserved, in some places, the virginity of Nature and places strong by grace. Here, in the Grand Rotana Hotel, I felt one of the most fertile places on Earth. And this is not an exaggeration. And this is confirmed by these lines, as a result of the disclosure of the Soul in its creative impulses.
Here it is appropriate to sketch the general state of the corals off the coast of the Grand Rotana Hotel. When viewed from a three-meter height of the pontoon, it is not difficult to determine.
So, along the entire coral reef, which is not far from here, about thirty meters from the shore, live corals grow, go in a continuous array towards the coast, regardless of the line of bends, bulges, at a distance of three to five meters. And in their total mass, they have a dark brown color. This, as I understand it, is their common color of life. Further, about ten to fifteen meters, there is a wide strip with live brown corals breaking through here and there in the form of small bush islands against the background of extinct light beige corals. This color, as for corals, is the color of death ...Further along the entire coast, a light beige strip of extinct corals stretches, without any hope of life. Only sometimes a large purple-striped fish swims here, in shallow water - the mistress of these shallows, or a flock of fry.
And already quite close to the shore, up to five meters wide - a sandbank with a cheerful and lively variety of grains of sand, mixed with various remains of shells and shells of the inhabitants of the Red Sea - the color ripples from light brown to gray-yellow hues. In this area, where there is not a single living coral, two children's beaches are arranged to the left and right of the main pontoon, fenced with buoys. Unfortunately, a small depth - up to half a meter, is comfortable only for the smallest children. Older children prefer the children's pool on site.
Now I will try to describe in words the main types of corals off the coast of the Grand Rotana hotel, in my personal interpretation, by analogy with how I described the species of fish. But here everything is much more complicated. I want to say right away that there are no two absolutely identical corals, even of the same species. Just like there are no absolutely identical trees or bushes on Earth.
"Petrified bush" - well, certainly our shrunken and petrified bush. And he has the same gloomy look and dull color - brown.
"Shell massif" - as if the turtle threw off its shell, and it remained lying among other corals. The size is large, up to one meter.
"Boulder" - in the form of a huge boulder stone, up to one or more meters in diameter. Even sometimes you can’t imagine that a coral has such a look.
“Sheep Fleece”, of course, you can’t say by color that it is the Golden Fleece, but outwardly in shape it is the same.
"Purple rock" - separately lying small "stones" of a bright and unusual color, like for corals - like pieces of rock dug out of the bowels of the Earth!
“Filigree” and Openwork Fans” are similar in structure patterns of interweaving of thin corals in the form of filigree.
The Grand Rotana Hotel has its own sandy beach 450 meters long - I have not seen such a long coastline in any hotel in Egypt. There are 3 pontoons, which distinguishes this hotel from others, as well as two small sandy entries with a beach for children.
The shore in Shark Bay, where the Grand Rotana Hotel is located, is rocky, as elsewhere in Sharm El Sheikh. Along the entire length of the coastline, the beaches in this hotel are located on average, at a height of two to three meters above sea level. Only in three places: at the exit to three pontoons and in two - to children's beaches, there is access to water. All the rest, about ten mini-beaches, are on the rocks - at a height above the sea. It should be noted that every meter of the 450 meters of the beach is rationally used - wherever there is a suitable platform on the rocky coast, it is used for the benefit of vacationers - umbrellas are installed, and under them - sun loungers with mattresses.
Thus, these about a dozen beaches are arranged here - small individual, for several vacationers, with some privacy, so as not to interfere with each other. As a result, we got several individual islands for a beach holiday. The same function is performed by Romantic boars on the south side of the beach, but only for VIPs. For safety reasons, over each cliff there are meter-high fences in the form of thick marine ropes threaded through the holes of wooden posts, firmly walled into the rock. Such a design and technical solution of the fences is a distinctive feature of the beach of the Grand Rotana hotel. In other hotels of the same high level, as, for example, in the Sunerise Arabian hotel, which is nearby, the same fencing functions are performed by ropes threaded through the holes of rectangular lamps - the solution, of course, from the point of view of landscape design, is more impressive ...
The principle of individuality, the desire to get away from the public "noise" for self-contemplation and other manifestations of individual aspirations, is characteristic of the entire Arab culture and philosophy, and I have already noted this when describing individual semi-closed niches in the hotel lobby. There is something in this...
And therefore, I think there should be no problems with places on the beach, even with the maximum load of the hotel by vacationers. But still, among others, there are always the best places, which, basically, are closest to the sea, and which you will determine already on the second day of your vacation, so from early morning you will strive to take them.
The peculiarity of the Grand Rotana hotel beach is that if you look at it from the side, and especially from below, from the sea, it will seem that the beach is in the forest ...in the forest of densely planted palm trees! This is not in any hotel in Egypt! And this is something in the 40-degree heat in August!
And therefore, on the entire 450-meter beach area there are as many as five (? ! ) exits to the sea: three to pontoons and two to children's beaches. I understand your surprise at such limited access to the sea, but other hotels have even less: one, maybe two. Everything is correct! Make the sea accessible everywhere, as in the hotels of Hurghada, in ten years there will be a Dead Sea, not the Red Sea, as in Hurghada ...Do we need this? That is why the strict environmental legislation in Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula: for walking on corals, as well as for feeding fish - a fine of € 500! And this is spelled out in the living conditions of some hotels in Sharm El Sheikh!
Speaking of pontoons in this hotel. Two wooden pontoons - whole grandiose structures on piles of thick metal pipes, like helipads, fifteen meters in diameter, at a height of three meters above the water.
A thick board "sixties" (60 mm thick) can withstand even a two-centre "elephant"-resting (and such are found here). Fences and a staircase to the water, made of pipes and stainless steel structures shining in the sun (a trifle, but nice! ), emphasize the solidity of not only the pontoon, but also the institution as a whole. You feel reliability, beauty and durability when you stand on this wide platform, like on the deck of a ship, and look and admire the sea, corals, and fish. You can even use this building as a convenient observation deck and see from a height all the delights of the Red Sea, without even diving into it with a mask.
On the sides of the ladder, which is wide four meters wide, there are spotlights for illumination, the purpose of which has remained a mystery to me. Like a ladder edge marker so that a drunken guest does not fall into the sea during a night swim? - so night swimming in the Red Sea (and even in the pools) is prohibited.
Show the beauty of the building at night, so that it can be seen even from the landing plane (a kind of hotel advertisement)? - so these lamps do not burn at night ...
On the “helipad” itself, ten meter thick glass windows are mounted in the floor for contemplation of the underwater kingdom. True, it is too high above the water and therefore the fish and corals are poorly visible.
And what else I liked and remembered was the smell of fresh natural wood, which is especially evident when it is wetted during morning cleaning.
A lifeguard sits on each of the three pontoons and vigilantly watches that no one steps on the corals or swims behind the buoys. If anything, he whistles and waves his arms incredibly excitedly: they are probably very strict with this. He does not have to save anyone, since the water is so salty and dense that it itself pushes those floating in it.
But to measure and fix the temperature of water and air at the stand (right there, at the entrance to the pontoon) would not hurt him. As I noticed this information: air temperature 30? , sea depth - six meters, water temperature - 24? hasn't been updated for several days. It's good that the depth of the sea is there - it changes slightly, depending on the tides and does not affect swimmers as much as the temperature of the water. And for anyone entering the sea, it is not only interesting, but also useful to know its temperature in order to plan the duration of swimming. And the reaction to the air temperature will be no less pragmatic. And so this information about the temperature of water and air, for sure, has been hanging since May ...I remember that in the old days I also worked on the beach in one of the boarding houses in Alushta. So I regularly, four times a day, measured the temperature of the water at the breakwater at a depth of exactly 1m, as well as the air, and wrote it all down with chalk on a black board at the entrance to the beach!
And I liked the middle pontoon, first of all, as central and surrounded by the entire beach infrastructure of the hotel. True, soon I changed all its surrounding civilization with stuffiness between the rocks to a calm “grassy” beach with natural ventilation near a distant wooden pontoon. And to create, describing my impressions of the sea and the hotel, it was already more “camelfo”.
Beach in the green relaxation area
Today, after a sleepless night in connection with the first acquaintance with the Grand Rotana Hotel (and the first glance is the most true and impressive), I spent the whole day on the main beach of the hotel, near the main, central pontoon. In the breaks between sleep and wakefulness, I still managed to dive several times into the depths of the Red Sea in a mask and snorkel, noted the extraordinary beauty of the underwater world and wrote some impressions about the sea and the beach.
Here, under a canopy of a sun umbrella, at the very pontoon (I advise you to take places here, ahead of the beach worker, who from the very morning scatters towels on the best sun loungers, so that then for such a service to charge $ 1 - $ 2 from vacationers), I lay all day. I will only note that, surrounded by rocks around, like in a bowl, it is somewhat stuffy here, a fresh breeze is a rare guest, and therefore you have to plunge into the sea more often. But still, despite the increased amenities, there is an excellent beach restaurant "Palms Bar & Grill", where you can dine from 12.30 to 15.30 without going upstairs to the main restaurant "Ramses", as well as play beach volleyball and other games organized nearby. hotel animators, and dive from the pontoon and see the best section of the coral reef in the hotel, however, on the second day I decided to explore the green relaxation beach area near the left wooden pontoon.
I went through a lot of hotels in these two years - more than ten.
An inner voice prompted me something: urgently undermine your lazy body, stop it vegetating in a dreary routine, nourishing your Soul with the same, and fly! . . I intuitively felt, just by looking at the laptop screen, where there was information and a photo of the Grand Rotana hotel, that this was what my rebellious Soul was looking for. And in reality, I did not realize it right away, but only today, on the second day of my stay in this hotel. Did you feel it when you were languishing from the heat under 40?
C, was lying on a plastic deck chair, with the same artificial leather mattress, constantly moving this structure after the shadow from the sun umbrella, which constantly went somewhere to the side ...And after taking a refreshing shower, I suddenly seemed to wake up from sleep and at home under my feet, just three meters away I saw what I was looking for: the delicate beauty of dense, rich green and soft as a feather bed, grass on a small slope under the canopy of spreading palm leaves ...And, violating any etiquette and conditionally established rules, I immediately fell on this featherbed, created for me by Nature. I, spreading my arms to the sides, clung to the Earth with my whole body, inhaling the freshness of its smells to the full chest. I showed her genuine love and tenderness, and she responded to me in return.
In addition to sun loungers, the third green area has hammocks, round and rectangular sofas with soft high mattresses and pillows - under sunshades made of translucent fabric material stretched between palm trees. And all this is available to any vacationer, regardless of the chosen category of food or accommodation. I tried them all on myself and I will say that everything is very comfortable, compared to the beach where I was yesterday. Only near the sea on the right are "Romantic Cabanas" for VIP vacationers. And just imagine, you are lying on one of these sofas, or, in a hammock or just on a deck chair, and in front of you and under you is green short-cut grass saturated with moisture (watered abundantly every early morning, and cut as it grows). And this green natural grassy carpet turns into a blue-turquoise sea...And above you, in the gusts of a fresh breeze, palm leaves quietly rustle.
And it seems to me that they communicate with each other in this way ...And I regret that I am deprived of the opportunity to understand their language. In front of you, a little to the left, the pale beige island of Tiran hovered over the sea. And above it all, blue skies. True, not as bright blue as we have over Ukraine, here it is a little hazy. Such is the burning air here in the skies, without any hope even for a drop of rain ...Quiet classical music unobtrusively flows from the C Lido bar, which is nearby. And, surprisingly, there is not a single living soul around. Except for three people: me, a lifeguard on a pontoon and a bartender. The latter was always running somewhere: either with a tray of drinks and snacks, or collecting towels, reserved seats on sofas for regular customers, or carrying a smoking hookah somewhere. And I was surprised that such a comfortable recreation area on the grass, when in the shade of palm trees a fresh breeze blows over the bodies, despite the heat, there is no one outside this fertile zone.
Although in the following days there were more people here, especially hookah smokers. And my heart ached from the current hopelessness that the fate of the hotel business in Egypt, in fact, created an artificial crisis. Besides, which I am sure of, just like in Ukraine, this “fate” has a specific human face… But let’s not touch on politics here. And so everything is clear to everyone.
Sea
I first met the Sea too late - already after thirty. And it didn't take long for me to see it. Honestly, I have not lost my sudden and strong love for the Sea. And gradually, with each summer visit to the Black Sea in Alushta, it penetrated me and eventually took possession of me everything, “to the marrow of my bones” and even more - my whole essence. And how can I now live flawedly, without the main component of my essence? Therefore, having just flown away from Egypt, from the Red Sea to my place in Kyiv, already on the second day I suffer immeasurably without him.
And I live only for them, while for a week or two I write my impressions of those 5-7 days of happiness on the shores of my beloved Sea. I probably have never loved a single woman in my life as much as I love the Sea now ...
And now, just three days since I arrived from Egypt, I remember the Red Sea, when in the early morning on the beach of the prestigious Grand Rotana Hotel in Sharm El Sheikh I met the dawn, enjoyed the view of Tiran Island in the predawn haze and absorbed The sea is everything and without a trace. And all my thoughts were about him and in him ...
The Sea has its own life, not connected with me, unlike my life. The sea has its own movement and its own laws. And where are we, with our sometimes obsessive claims to him? And the conclusions based on visual and even sensory observations are very primitive. After all, the Sea is billions of times older than us, and therefore smarter and wiser. And therefore, a person is unlikely to ever be able to fully comprehend it.
Although outwardly it is quite ordinary and, as the Chukchi would say, simply “Big Water”. But how many secrets does it keep inside? How deep and boundless is its inner content! I will not go into its esoteric essence now, but I will only say that it is enough to dive into its waters with a mask to see just a crumb of these secrets - in colorful fish and, especially, in corals. And one can only imagine what a huge array of secrets the Sea has accumulated over billions of years of its life! But never in life will it open them to the pernicious, barbaric essence of man...
Pools
Special attention is paid to the pool at the Grand Rotana Hotel, since the majority of vacationers during the day are either in it (splashing, playing water polo or volleyball, doing aerobics, riding water slides ... ), or near it (sunbathing on a deck chair under a canopy, sits in a bar, or lies in a boar).
And those who prefer swimming in the pool to the sea from one hundred to one hundred and fifty guests of the hotel. And, constantly and every day. After all, on the beach, I specifically calculated - the smallest of them - at most twenty people. I tried to understand this incident. It would seem that the Red Sea is unique in the world, and its medicinal usefulness is obvious, and corals with fish are unique ...But still, people are more attracted to the pool ...In my opinion, there is one main and only reason why the Egyptians choose the pool, and not sea. An Egyptian, like any other Arab, cannot be near water and out of water - this is beyond his strength! The Red Sea cannot accommodate so many Egyptians and all the Arabs in one hotel at the same time, and this is about two hundred! After all, there are only three pontoons, each of which can accommodate only 10-15 people. What else is there to do on the beach? Sunbathe? - So they are already tanned to the limit, already at birth.
By the way, I have not seen a single Arab sunbathing in direct sunlight, and our European does this all the time. But in the water, in the pool, they can be at least a whole day, especially children. I remember last year in January, while relaxing at the Poinciana Sharm Resort 4 *, I saw a 5-6 year old Egyptian boy blue from the cold. who was in the 15-degree water of an unheated pool for a long time ...The question still torments me: did he survive after such a “love” for water at the level of self-sacrifice? This is an example of how the Egyptians, the people of the desert, love water. If Allah allowed paganism among Muslims, they would worship Water, not the Sun, like our ancestors.
In Egypt, 90% desert, there is a shortage of water and reservoirs, and many Egyptians do not see open reservoirs in which you can swim for years. And I saw with what lust and for a long time they splash in the water, whether in the sea from a pontoon (almost everyone, both an adult and a child, in a life jacket) or in a pool.
The second reason why the Arabs choose the pool, and not the sea, is the water itself, its idolization, like the elements, and it doesn’t matter if it is sea or chlorinated in the pool. And this ease of access (and not from a pontoon), different depths from half a meter in the children's pool (and there is also a pool for kids), to two meters (and not ten meters right behind the reef, as in the sea), various games and entertainment, including water slides, which are not found in the sea, comfort and service - you can drink sprite or cola right in the water - all this and much more ensures that the pool is one hundred percent preferred to the sea. It’s just us, Europeans, for whom water often brings grief and devastation (spring floods, summer heavy rains, flooding and flooding) “sorting through grubs”: we choose only sea and medicinal water, and we have plenty of chlorinated water from the tap!
In particular, I just sat for hours in the sea, listening to the beauty of the underwater world, and for all the time I never swam in the main pool. True, the only time I enjoyed it was sitting in the pool above the cliff (there is such a unique pool above the SPA center - I recommend it) and taking a massage in this jacuzzi pool ...
In addition to these two pools - the main one and the jacuzzi, there are nine more small pools in the VIP area, near the royal villas. But I won’t dispute their advantage over the sea - I haven’t tried it ...
July 16.2017. Sunday
The territory of the Grand Rotana hotel.
“The hotel is located on the first coastline in the Sharks Bay area (Sharks Bay), 7 km from the airport of Sharm El Sheikh. The total area of the territory is 12.5 hectares. This dry standard information, which I gave at the beginning, says practically nothing.
And so I will try to expand and embellish it with epithets and metaphors (which this hotel deserves), within the level of its knowledge that I could achieve in eight days and nights of staying in this territory.
The territory of the hotel "Grand Rotana" has the shape of a trapezoid with a long side by the sea. This form of territory allows you to use the main advantage of the hotel on the first coastline - the coast and the coral reef of the Red Sea. After all, the more this natural gift at the hotel, the more valuable the hotel is. And such a natural gift at the Grand Rotana hotel is as much as 450 meters, which is twice as much as in neighboring hotels! In general, in Sharm El Sheikh, each hotel is allocated an average of 200-250 meters of coastline, and deep into the peninsula - with the limitation of Sharm El Sheikh infrastructure (mainly highways and roads). And this is clearly visible on the map of the city. But everything is in order, starting from the main gate.
Having set myself the problem of describing the territory of the Grand Rotana hotel, I, to my surprise, found that it consists mainly of two completely different territories in terms of landscape and park and even, to some extent, architectural style: to the main building, as would be "entrance" and the main - "seaside" - behind the main building, to the sea. If you look at the essence, then in my view on this territory there are two hotels of different categories and locations, in relation to the sea.
The hotel behind the main building is of the highest category with all the relevant infrastructure and, most importantly, on the first coastline. It is located on the rocky coast of the Red Sea and has several terraces. Three of the most elite "Royal Villas" and "Club Rotana" rooms were built here - on the very seashore, and a little higher and further away from the sea there are six more "Royal Villas", but, judging by the distance from the sea, they are less prestigious. All these buildings and villas are located on the right side of the hotel.
Prestigious in this area are buildings with rooms on the embankment - this is the first and second buildings. They are stretched along the entire coast for four hundred meters and the balconies in the rooms of these buildings overlook the sea and beaches. (By the way, the “Club Rotana” category rooms are located on the right side of the first building). I also like the rooms in buildings 4 and 6 - all with views of the main pool and the sea, as well as slightly worse views from rooms in building 3.
The second (“conditional”) hotel is located, as it were, on the second coastline with a significant distance of more than 700 meters from the sea and the beach. And it is located on a plateau - the main plateau, like the whole of Sharm El Sheikh. Here buildings 7.8 and 9 are also located in a well-groomed green area with many tall palm trees and are decorated with flower bushes.
But, since they are remote from the sea, the beach and from the main infrastructure of the hotel: swimming pools, bars, restaurants, SPA-center, and, moreover, they are located, as it were, outside the main territory of the hotel (from the main entrance gate to the main building), then the category of their rooms (“Classic Garden View Room” - area: 28-42 sq. m. , overlooking the garden), as well as the prices for the tour, are much lower. This territory, and, of course, buildings 7.8, 9 are decorated with tall old palm trees, judging by the date of commissioning of the Grand Rotana hotel (2005), they are at least twelve years old. From the entrance gate, past buildings 7 and 8, a long "walk of fame" stretches with a dense row of palm trees on the sides, and in the middle - a lot of low, but powerful fountains, beating as if from underground. This parade of fountains and palm trees ends with two small pools, straight from the blue water of which tall palm trees grow.
Describing this beauty of the territory, as I called it, parts of the hotel on the second coastline (building 7.
The largest of the beaches is at the middle (main) pontoon under the canopy of twenty-nine huge palm trees.
Architectural forms and landscape design
The highlight of the hotel's architectural symphony is, of course, the grandiose construction of a four-tiered escalator, which rises, almost from the sea, to the highest point of the hotel - to the lobby and to the porter service (reception). But it is not the technical design itself that arouses my surprise and admiration, although I, as an inventor, can evaluate it according to the highest category of technical progress, but its architectural execution.
Above each of these four escalators, to a height of at least twelve meters, rises a dome of a blue vault, symbolizing the sky with many golden stars. And on the sides there is a bright illumination in long rectangular niches.
A person only needs to water and trim the plants more often, giving them nice-looking shapes.
In order to see not the front, but the reverse side of the medal, I walked along the bypass road to the right of the main building - behind the third building. Frankly speaking, the impression does not cause admiration, in comparison with the grand view. Nothing special in terms of park landscape. Common low growing trees and shrubs. Compared to the rest of the territory, this area causes a certain despondency: everything is known and evaluated in comparison. Having seen and got used to masterpieces in some places, there is a natural desire to see them everywhere...But in front of the third building there is an excellent view of the sea and a green grassy carpet, which is especially pleasantly felt by the residents of the rooms on the first floor. And, of course, flowers… The same is at the sixth building, but with a panoramic view of the main pool with a waterfall, water slides and the sea…
I did not notice any other unusual refinements of architectural and landscape design, as such, for example, in the SunConnect SUNRISE Diamond Resort 5 * hotel.
Palm trees at the Grand Rotana Hotel. Flowers
Maple is famous in Canada. And the maple leaf even became a symbol of Canada, entered the coat of arms and honorably ascended the national flag. In the Grand Rotana hotel, Her Majesty the Palm tree has become the same remarkable tree and symbol! The image of a fan of palm leaves is everywhere and everywhere: on napkins, cups, toiletries (packages of soap, shampoos, pastes), on beach towels ... , up to business cards and official representative letterheads. And it's not in vain. There are countless palm trees in the hotel! Why countless? Checked on myself. I tried to refute the statement that 2000 palm trees grow in the hotel - at first glance, the figure seemed too unrealistic, and my crested nature - to treat everything with distrust: “I won’t believe until I touch it!
» But after counting the palm trees on the beach (! ) - four hundred and thirty-three, and then around the main pool - one hundred and twenty-five, I didn’t have the courage to do more. Yes, and three times I started counting at the entrance to the hotel - after the first hundred I lost my way. And, surprisingly, he was sober ...
Sometimes you even begin to suspect about excessive mockery of the palm tree. For example, take and plant it in the middle of the pool, like some kind of rice seedling in China, and make it grow! Yes, in such a constant abundance of water, any root, except for rice and reed, will rot! But no, the palm tree is growing! True, it is suspicious, especially in the pool at the entrance to the main building: the barrel is up to the entire five-meter height, as if in a concrete shell, and at the very top - as in a green plastic pipe. Only leaves in height seem natural. And you can’t feel it: next to “Security”, you won’t get into the water!
If you look at the Grand Rotana hotel from the side, it will seem that it is built in a forest of palm trees.
And their age is not infantile, as in some, no less respectable neighboring hotels, but decent, like for palm trees, - at least twelve years old! True, paying increased attention to palm trees, there is still not enough time left for other exquisite solutions of the hotel's landscape and park design. Except flowers. Flowers and palm trees are everywhere and down there, where there are bare palm trees. They fill the space with their beauty and delight the eye.
A forest of palm trees, fountains and illuminated pools in the evening in front of the entrance to the main building is an excellent live advertisement for potential guests - those who stop by on the way to their hotel or to the airport, when vacationers are picked up or brought by transfer bus. I myself, under the impression of palm trees and fountains since January of this year, thus learned about this hotel and dreamed about it, until now I got into it.
So I would advise the hotel administration to bring all new arrivals to the airport first to the Grand Rotana Hotel, on the way to their hotel, and the last ones before the airport. And it is not difficult to negotiate with representatives of tour operators. But the number of those wishing to buy a tour to this hotel will increase.
Restaurants and bars. Nutrition
The Grand Rotana Hotel, one of the few in Egypt, has abandoned the bracelet system for recognizing the food category of holidaymakers. I stayed in this hotel for eight days, but I did not understand what the advantage of this system is. But I experienced inconvenience. First of all, on any occasion, anyone can ask what number you have. Even to determine whether you are yours or someone else's? Or maybe some, God forbid, a terrorist?
And you know what’s on his mind: he’s just doing his duty, or he wants, doing the same duty, to write you some account for a service not provided or a fine for some kind of violation, for example, he stepped on a coral, fed the fish, or swam over the buoy. Then sort it out half an hour before leaving the hotel. Fortunately, nothing like this happened to me. But in principle, it could be. In recent days, I have already secured myself so as not to tell the number, I carried a voucher with me, where there was all the information about me, the hotel and the terms of stay, as well as an electronic key. By showing these two items, almost everyone, except for those cases when it was necessary to fix a drink or other order, no longer had any questions for me. In addition, for safety and security reasons, as was warned in all previous hotels, you can not tell anyone your room number.
More specifically about food at the Grand Rotana Hotel.
The price of the tour depends not only on the category of the room (I gave a comparative analysis of prices in the chapter “The Room”), but to the same, to a large extent, on the concept of food. Therefore, here I present the difference in the prices of the tour according to the Anex tour price list, depending on the category of food for the tour for 7 nights from 27.07. 2017 :
BB +$00$
HB +$180$
All +$300$
All +$500$
Seeing this picture with prices, I involuntarily remembered the review of the hotel by one lady with advice: "Better take UAll. " Who would argue! In this case, if there are opportunities like this lady, then it's better to take Miami! And as for me, given that I "suddenly" became on a diet, but more - my worker-peasant origin, I chose the BB food system - only breakfasts. And he was pleased. Moreover, taking into account the recommendation of the doctors: “Eat breakfast yourself, share lunch with a friend, and give dinner to the enemy, ” I went to meet the doctor and decided not only to give dinner, but also to give lunch to the enemy. But how is he after my gifts? - I have never seen him (the enemy).
It would seem that ordinary dishes, but the smile and friendly attitude of the juggler-cook who prepares a dish especially for you and serves it directly from the fire, makes its taste and impressions unforgettable. Further - everything is usual, but in such an assortment that you can’t try everything at once, not to mention eating enough of each dish in one sitting.
What distinguishes the breakfast restaurant of the Grand Rotana Hotel from other hotels is, first of all, delicious natural beef sausages - just right for the place - with scrambled eggs and fried eggs. They are of two types: boiled and fried - I liked the boiled ones more. At first I took one at a time for testing, but when I tasted them, and even more so when I saw how one little Arab boy was carrying a whole plate of sausages with a mountain, I could not hold it and dropped it on the floor, which once again confirmed their naturalness and deliciousness, I started taking more of them. And I recommend you.
Next, in importance - hard cheeses. Four types.
And all natural, and not from chemistry, as in hotels of a low category. I liked the cheese in the black shell the most - Edem cheese.
A very original dish with a memorable taste - "Ful madames", and even with various seasonings - right there on the counter: ground pepper, olive oil, lemon (lime), finely chopped tomatoes, onion, sweet pepper, etc. For me, it fulfilled functions of the first course.
I won't list the rest, at least two dozen kinds of dishes...I just wanted to make a special mention of natural juices - five types: mango, orange, apple, a mixture of different juices and guava.
And all that I have listed and more - a buffet! No receipts in the checks and issuing additional bills upon eviction!
There are also three more a-la-carte restaurants: Italian, Asian and Seafood Restaurant.
Guests staying at the hotel for 7 nights or more have the option of one free dinner, either at Mezzaluna Italian Restaurant, Silk Road Asian Restaurant or Palms Bar and Grill Restaurant. In the UAI food system, you can choose any of the four restaurants: the main restaurant or three a-la-carte restaurants
.
Bars.
The hotel has six bars: Duke's Bar, C-Lido; pool bar; Bar on Palms beach; Lounge bar Sky; Lobby bar Isis.
Late in the evening, after I went to the Sky Lounge bar - entrance through the Ramses restaurant, to see and copy my impressions of it on paper, and at the same time listen to the live music of the violin virtuoso (I love violin music! ) Live music , especially performed by a celebrity - this is already something! . . It is always crowded here, and the music reaches the most remote corners of the hotel. It’s nice to sit in the evening and relax, especially since it’s comfortable and not so hot here: powerful fans surround you with a mist of the smallest splashes of water…
Snacks and ice cream
Mezzaluna terrace; Palms (hot and cold appetizers on the menu);
Children's cafe and Mesaluna terrace (Ice cream in stock).
The drinks
The Grand Rotana hotel has a fairly large assortment of drinks: wine, beer, as well as strong alcoholic drinks, cocktails, tea, coffee, soft drinks and packaged juices. All carbonated drinks, beer and mineral water are served in cans/bottles; all juices, wine, cocktails and spirits are served in glassware. Premium drinks, as well as bottled spirits, are sold for a fee.
Evening at the Grand Rotana Hotel
About nine o'clock in the evening. From the chilled, almost to the point of trembling in the body, room (and this is in the month of July! ), I go out to bask in the Egyptian night. In a long stone corridor, you feel closeness. But not from the heat that filled the stone building on a hot day, but from the stuffiness of the stone crypt and the long corridor.
But, having stepped out into the expanse of the immense Egyptian night, you immediately feel how the Soul blossoms like a rosebud. Where did the feeling of the oppressive stuffiness that you experienced in the stone catacombs go! You are free and unite with the southern night. Ahead is the sea, dark and a little menacingly scary. Above you are billions of sparkling stars against a black sky. In the east, the moon gnawed by someone begins to rise timidly. And around you on Earth - a holiday! The lights of lanterns, searchlights, lights and illuminations on a huge 450 meters long coastal area. I open my eyes wider and try to absorb all this, not missing even the smallest things. Even at the subconscious level, because at the level of consciousness it is impossible to perceive and remember all this.
From below, from the sea, where an amphitheater is built on a steep slope, exciting music is heard, and the voice of the host talks about something with excitement in Arabic (after all, now, after Ramadan, most of the guests in the hotel are Arabs). The amphitheater during animation and performances by guest artists is one of the most crowded places in the hotel in the evening hours: according to my calculations, up to a hundred people gather here, mostly with children, since a “children's” animation is always organized before the “adult” animation.
But before the performance in the amphitheater began, I decided to check the “posts” - what and how is now on the territory of the hotel, where and how vacationers have fun and spend time.
A short climb up a wide, light marbled staircase with railings - a stainless steel pipe construction - and I'm on a wide plateau with a huge multifunctional pool.
But in the evening it is now completely gloomy and quiet, in contrast to the life that is in full swing: from the noise, din, voices, laughter, exclamations of children on the slides and in the children's pool, which are usually heard here during the day. The twilight, the lanterns of the blue water in the pools are burning sadly, from which this place has a special attraction for those who want to sit in contemplative silence and, if desired, meditate. But in the evenings it is usually deserted here - the contingent of vacationers is such that everyone strives for active recreation and entertainment, even at night. Moreover, the bar in the middle of the pool "Pull Bar", with drinks - only in the daytime - from 10.00 to 17.00. And for many vacationers, this is a significant stimulating factor in order to enjoy the rest at the bar or at a table nearby.
Immediately behind the pool, at the foot of a multi-tiered building with a four-tiered escalator, there is a whole complex of various restaurants and bars, with the main building at the very top with a hall, a reception and also an empty Duke's Pub bar, which, by the way, unlike the Pull Bar ”, starts working from 17-00, as if continuing the baton “Pull Bar” until one in the morning. Maybe it’s still early and he’ll still “walk around” by night? But I hoped in vain...
In the Italian restaurant "Mezzaluna", which is on the first floor, today, unlike last night, there are already visitors - one table is occupied by an Arab family with children. It is possible that these are vacationers on the “All inclusive” food system for at least seven days and who have free visits to one of the a-la-carte restaurants, including this one. Well, what can you do, because the hotel is less than half occupied: out of 526 rooms - only 213!
In this small, brightly lit hall of the Silk Road restaurant, through the glass wall, you could see how the waiters were running, bustling about, hoping that at least someone would look into them. I looked in, but didn’t go in and didn’t order anything, which obviously upset the waiters, but just to take a couple of pictures,
But on the third, penultimate tier, where the Ramses restaurant is located in the evening hours of its work (dinner: from 18.30 to 22.00), it is always noisy and crowded, because this is the only restaurant in the hotel that is included in the All inclusive food system. Here, unlike other restaurants of the hotel, waiters, cleaners, cooks, managers and other restaurant workers obviously do not get bored.
) stabbed to death four women relaxing on the beach and wounded several. And therefore, the relevant Ukrainian services did not recommend vacationers in the resorts of Egypt to leave the territory of their hotels ...
And after eleven in the evening, the bulk of vacationers disperse to their rooms. Only the Sky Lounge bar continues to “rage” with music and songs throughout the entire district, the entrance to which is from the third tier through the Ramses restaurant. Everything is explained simply: live music, guest artists and the fact that this is the only night (from 17.00 to 00.00) bar that is included in the all-inclusive and ultra all-inclusive food system, that is, practically free (but in fact already paid in advance and included in the price of the tour according to the “All inclusive” system).
Putting aside some infringement of my status (for the first time I rest on the “BB” system, and not on the “All” or “UAll”), I, as a blogger and journalist, confidently and boldly go to the Sky Lounge bar, slowly walk around the hall .
Getting acquainted with the interior, and, having found a free sofa, I sit down comfortably. I listen to the live voice of the soloist. Around in the hall, designed for at least fifty visitors, there are only ten vacationers ...
Somehow, all these empty restaurants and half-empty bars of the hotel sadly remind me of Crimea, Alushta of the early 90s of the last century. The same empty halls of cafes and bars on the embankment, in particular, above the beach of the Yunost boarding house, where the owner of the cafe prepared drinks and snacks all summer long, waited for visitors to recoup the costs of opening a cafe, without waiting, either at the end of June, not at the beginning of August - the high season for Crimea, went bankrupt ...Same here, in Egypt and, in particular, at the Grand Rotana hotel, everyone is waiting for guests from Russia ...But so far Turkey has intercepted all of them ...Again politics? Well, where are you going to get away from her?
After all, why hide, hotels in Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia, each without fail in the form of a "freebie" with the "All inclusive" system, were built by the hundreds for a multimillion-dollar vacationer from Russia, who at that time was "fat" thanks to the sale of expensive energy resources - oil and gas. And with these petrodollars, he ensured the prosperity of the tourism business in these resorts. But, alas, the "lafa" for the Russians ended with the fall in world oil prices. In addition, all sorts of different political misunderstandings, including with the Mistral. And the tourist business of Egypt fell almost to the bottom ...And what bright prospects opened up in the summer of 2015! I remember that during my vacation in July of that year, even Medvedev himself flew to the opening of the second channel of the Suez Canal ...But that was in the past.
And now I'm at the Grand Rotana Hotel, which, surprisingly, stands firmly on the slopes of Sharm El Sheikh on the Red Sea coast - literally and figuratively, and provides its guests with a comfortable and high-level vacation!
A moderately noisy and cheerful evening gradually turns into a peacefully quiet southern night. And after midnight there is no one else on the territory of the hotel, except for the lonely Poet, whose restless and rebellious Soul is looking for more and more reasons for creative inspiration. As well as a whole army of night “Securities” in blue shirts and dark trousers (they have such a dress code), who, after clarifying the status (there are no bracelets), understand the soul of the Poet and kindly allow you to even sit down on a sun lounger by the sea, and get as necessary as air, inspiration ...
Yes, another important, as for fans of the Internet, moment of the service of the Grand Rotana hotel is round-the-clock and high-quality Internet throughout the hotel.
Fortunately, I am free from this psychological addiction and therefore I devoted myself completely to comprehending the beauty of the Red Sea, corals, colorful fish and the man-made beauty of the territory of the Grand Rotana Hotel.
I described a standard evening with the opportunity to give myself to certain evening activities to increase my emotional tone after a sultry day on the beach. I can’t describe and disclose much higher levels of service, because I only had a “BB” level.
Evening animation
In addition to the daytime beach by the sea and by the main pool, where various games and entertainment events are organized, animated performances are held every evening after 21-00 by hotel animators, as well as by the talent of invited professional artists.
The program is varied and has a weekly cycle of original performances: it's a fire dance, a belly dance, a fakir show, the Miss Hotel and Mister Hotel competitions, and many others. All of them, as for the viewer watching them for the first time, seem original and interesting. But for me, who visited the resorts of Egypt more than ten times, unfortunately, these programs did not represent any originality, since I had already seen them dozens of times each.
July 17.2017. Monday
Fourth day or half term
Three days are enough to get used to the hotel. And on the fourth day, you are already your own, and within the framework of Egyptian resorts, you are even an old-timer of the hotel. But the whole process of adaptation is reduced three times, that is, up to one day, if on the very first day of your arrival at the hotel, an old-timer guide appears and will tell and show you everything.
In practice, this can be implemented as follows: on the first day of arrival, you come, for example, to the beach or to another public place where you can easily start an acquaintance with a casual conversation. And then in plain text ask to bring you up to date and tell the features of this hotel. Moreover, the interlocutor will gladly provide you with such a service, with the awareness of his own importance as an experienced and experienced resort visitor (there is such a human weakness of his own increased significance). But you subdue your pride and accept such voluntary and free help. Indeed, in every hotel there are such subtleties, sometimes even very significant ones, that only in such a conversation can one learn about them. And such advice and recommendations can be expensive - they will save you time and money, and will also allow you to make the most of the entire resource of the services provided by the hotel.
The restaurant has a children's buffet, children's chairs are provided, you can visit the paid "Kid's Cafe".
And, importantly for a holiday on the Red Sea, these are two children's sandy beaches in shallow water - for young children.
July 18.2017. Tuesday
Dawn over the Red Sea
Well, what is the Red Sea without dawn? And without not meeting him, and repeatedly, even after a sleepless holiday night? And not just to meet and put a tick on the fulfillment of the duty to Nature, which is trying so hard, but to fully enjoy this process. And I, in eight days, received such pleasure three times. Perhaps this is partly because I am a lark by nature ...
I wake up early, it's not yet four. I don’t know what alarm clock, but I don’t exclude that it’s internal. While from the balcony of my room I listen and listen to the night, I notice that the sky in the east is somehow, as if by magic, glowing.
And therefore, everything that is on earth: residential buildings, trees, bushes, flowers and everything else, as if manifesting itself from the darkness of the night, where they were barely noticeable, into their natural appearance, shape and color. So once I had images in the photo during their development in a developer solution ...
After some time, the East began to flood the pink color, which intensified in brightness and more and more coverage of the sky, until a bright fiery point, the size of a pea, appeared in the center of this fiery array. And it began, rising from the horizon, to slowly grow, turning into a huge flaming disk...
Six o'clock in the morning. The sun is already high and irresistibly striving towards its zenith, towards the zenith of its glory. The mountainous island of Tiran, from the beginning of sunrise all the time lay on the horizon as a sadly dark giant, suddenly from its foot began to be covered with a dense white veil, as if flying over the sea. He began to change his color to a cheerful light gray.
It is better with a camera, and if you are also writing, then do not forget to grab a pen and paper ...Unfortunately, do not set yourself up to see some kind of miracle at sunset. Sunset in Egypt is easier than Sunrise. And even more so than our evening Dawns in Ukraine. However, there is something to admire.
During the day, the Sun has worked hard, giving all of itself to the Earth and everything that is on it. And its excess is especially felt here in Egypt in the middle of summer. And in the evening, as if having exhausted its strength, the tired Sun slowly begins to roll to the West, to its nightly haven, where it will rest and gain strength in order to start its daytime charity tomorrow morning. And so every day.
And today, in the halo of its glory, it is approaching the top of the mountain. I catch myself thinking about the great power of the mountains, which I felt back in the Crimea and even devoted a whole cycle of my poems to this.
And at the same time, a thought arises that comes from a sound Mind: “But didn’t my purest and, it would seem, immaculate creative (read - spiritual) essence sell out to diabolical material temptations and with such excitement, like a prostitute, wave at her? I felt ashamed of her...
I understand that, of course, I am too categorical and, due to the inferiority of the mind (not only my own, but in general), I may not know all the intricacies of philosophy and the relationship between the Soul and the body, God and the Devil, and there is some rational explanation for all this , which, perhaps, someday the Most High (or, God forbid, the Devil) will open to me. But now this situation is driving me, or rather my mind, into a dead end. But I will leave this problem as an unsolved axiom by me, and I will try to open the next layer of problems.
I wondered why places like this VIP hotel, with its high potential for activating the creative process (which I feel for myself), are not accessible to those who need it most? Namely, creators, creative individuals. Here, people who are tired of making capital do not create (with the rarest exception), but carry out physical and psychological rehabilitation. And large capitals, as usual, are made not on virtue and philanthropy, but, on the contrary, on hidden or obvious tears and even the blood of many thousands of fellows ...Such is the psychology of business in modern conditions. And in order to get into this or a similar VIP hotel, for example, for ten days, having easily laid out a couple of thousand dollars, you need to use part of this bloody or “tearful”, if not “bloody” money. So, where is justice - from the point of view of not gangster, but highly spiritual concepts? ..
And with regard to the hotel - everything is correct and logical. After all, the hotel is part of the business and, of course, should work for profit, not for loss. But at the same time, I remember the good old (I don’t say “Soviet” anymore, since now, according to the criminal legislation of Ukraine, as for propaganda and the revival of communist-Soviet ideas, you can get a prison term) times when there were Houses of Writers, Artists and composers from the Unions of the same name. And even on the southern coast of Crimea. They obviously did not exist on the meager funds of membership dues, but were also abundantly subsidized by the state. Where is that state now? I know that the Ukrainian state will say: “Crisis! War! » And what will the American, British, German or Japanese state say?
I confess that I slept soundly amid the lush greenery for several hours in a row. My body could not resist, so as not to restore its strength after a sleepless night. Is it really possible to fall asleep before two in the morning, when there are so many interesting things going on here, from the evening until late at night? And not only hotel animators are guilty of this. Southern Nature itself creates more and more new ideas every night - you just have time to listen to them in yourself, opening your eyes wide, and, most importantly, your Soul ...And therefore today I fell asleep only at five in the morning, when the Sun was already trying to break through the bluish haze east. The soul raped the body until five in the morning, preventing it from falling asleep.
Yes, the body gets tired of an excess of beauty, but does the Soul get tired? I don’t know if he gets tired, but he constantly longs for beauty. And in anticipation of it, it contracts, and, having received what is expected, it straightens out like a powerful spring that nothing can hold it.
And every day and every night, from the first minutes of arrival in Sharm El Sheikh, I feel it here, on the Red Sea. And now, after the kind Soul gave the tired body a rest, after its awakening, it also demanded positive emotions for itself. And I, after taking a cool shower, just like a couple of days ago, fell into the shade on a carpet of thick grass and got such emotional (and physical) pleasure - at the level of an unearthly boundless good!
I clung with my whole body to this fertile Earth, spreading my arms wide to the sides, hugged her. And at that moment a miracle happened - a leap of my being. I felt the living breath of the Earth, the vibrations of her life. And I was no longer an outside observer (although even observing this is a great blessing of the rarest revelation), but here there was unity with the great creation of this World - with the Earth, communion with it, with its immense good.
And I caught myself thinking that I was unwittingly fulfilling the mission entrusted to me to connect with invisible threads two parts of one element - the waters of the Red Sea and the waters of the Dnieper, located on different continents and separated by thousands of kilometers. And this is done against my will, apart from my earthly (material) being. But this is done with the consent and with the active participation of that my second “I” from the subtle world, in which the Soul is the appearance of my other essence.
Maybe it's my fantasy? Or do I think too highly of myself? But everything is explained simply. I have heightened sensitivity to that other world. And I transfer all the emotions of that world to our world, trying to realize them in the form of words and phrases - the tools of our world. so that everything that I felt became the property of many. Although, I understand that this is ideally impossible. Is it possible to compare our flawed and impoverished language of writing with the language of feelings?
Fill even purely material obligatory procedures with spiritual content – to create.
These are the thoughts that appear when you swim in the Red Sea, and after that who will say that the Red Sea is not an incentive for the creative process and not a reason for thinking about the mortal and eternal?
In abbreviation. Full text: "Holidays in Egypt"
https://www. facebook. com/sashasim. Egypt/
And in the book: Sasha Sim. Red Sea: Corner of the earthly Paradise. Travel notes from Egypt. - Kyiv: SIM & HAM Publishing House, - 2017. - 535 p. , illus. ISBN 966-8802-17-9
© Sasha Sim (Alexander Golovko), 2017
July 12.2017. Wednesday
Dreams on the Eve of Paradise Delight
Painfully, I frequented the Red Sea. I didn’t have time to fly after a five-day tour to the prestigious Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort hotel and write a report on a “creative business trip”, when the Soul ached and asked again to embrace the resort of Sharm El Sheikh, to the Red Sea, where the flow of creative hypocrisy so it hits the key. And my physical body yearns irresistibly for hotel service and comfort, as well as for gluttony and enjoyment of food and drink in hotel restaurants and bars. And with such a heavenly, carefree life, the Soul seeks to throw out on paper the emotions that are born in an uncontrollable mass inside me.
I rejoice at this productivity of creative life on the Red Sea, as never before and nowhere to be found.
And all this is due to the fact that the Sunerise Arabian hotel took all the care of my mortal body (albeit for my money, but it doesn’t matter anymore), giving the Soul 100% freedom for creativity.
And involuntarily I had a question: “Maybe this is how an artist should live? Maybe society is obliged to provide any creative person with similar, and even better, living conditions? Then, I understand, everyone who wants to taste the “freebie” will rush into this cohort of the chosen ones with an unstoppable crowd ...Therefore, to provide this incentive for creativity - to everyone for a while and in stages, and not justified hopes to be written down in debt, with interest! (With our "freeloader" there is no other way to fight).
July 13.2017. Thursday
My unmet need
Exactly a week ago I flew from Egypt, where I was at the Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort (Grand Select) 5 *, unfortunately, only 5 days.
And during this week, I almost finished writing a “report” on a creative trip, posting materials on Facebook and LiveJournal with hundreds of photographs illustrating posts. In general, I was satisfied with the creative business trip: more than fifty pages of typewritten text on the impressions of the five days of my stay in a corner of the earthly Paradise are proof of this. In a word, I did not go in vain. In addition, he added essential materials to my future book on hotels in Egypt.
Nevertheless, when I took out pictures of the earthly Paradise from my memory, I was seized by such nostalgia that it was right to tears ...So it was already with me last and the year before last: as then, now the Soul also desperately ached and asked, like a small child, to go there where she felt so good! But what adult, with such suffering of a child, will not tremble in the heart and he will not meet halfway? After all, the heart is not a stone! I went to meet my Soul.
And he began to “flip through” the sites in search of the most acceptable option, so that the price would not “bite” much and the level of the hotel would not be lower than the previous “Sunerise Arabian Beach Resort”. Of course, I shot at VIP hotels. After all, it was one of them that I lacked to complete my new book "The Red Sea - a corner of the earthly Paradise": "Four seasons" 5 *, "Royal Savoy" 5 *, or "Rixos Sarm El Sheikh" 5 *. Unfortunately, psychologically, but, basically, financially, I was not ready to conquer such heights of Egypt, and therefore, as an adaptation to VIP hotels, I chose an approximate option - the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa 5 * hotel. In addition, on the 13th of this month, and this is a couple of days before departure, there was a price drop eight days cheaper than seven! (It happens). And therefore, without hesitation, even without a preliminary call, I rushed to the travel agency, where, as a regular customer, I was also guaranteed a five percent discount ...
As a result, I am flying to Sharm El Sheikh, to the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa 5 * hotel for eight whole days!
The only thing I remember on the eve of departure was the nervous tension caused by the fear of being late for check-in, which gave rise to the aphorism: “Nowhere does time speed up its run like that of a latecomer on the way to the airport. ” But everything worked out, despite my neglect of the time factor in connection with the process of air travel that is already common for me ...
Three hour flight. Sharm El Sheikh Airport
For a very long time, about twenty minutes, in a continuous gray haze, we are gaining altitude. It is still only six o'clock in the evening, it is still far from the beginning of the night, but because of the dense clouds that do not let in the sun's rays, it seems that it will soon get dark. After all, the land over the Kiev region was shrouded in solid clouds and it has been raining for three hours now, with short breaks. And these dark and dense clouds all these twenty minutes guaranteed us, at least moderate, but still "chatter" on air holes and bumps. And only by gaining a cruising altitude of 10.
000 meters or so, our airliner calmed down and stopped responding to external stimuli, which are practically non-existent at such a height, and evenly, peacefully hummed, slowly crushing hundreds of kilometers under it. But it was imperceptible, since the Earth, in the thawed patches between the clouds, was slowly, very slowly moving towards the plane under its belly.
Rainy clouds have already remained far below - there, above Kyiv, and wonderful pictures of various figures and unearthly creatures from snow-white, like cotton candy, clouds have opened before our eyes. I only had time to photograph this or that view. Fortunately, at the registration the girl went to meet me and kindly provided a seat by the window.
The middle of July and this leaves an imprint on the pictures from the surface of the Ukrainian land. Wherever a site free from forests, lakes or rivers is possible, it is colored with the yellowness of ripened wheat.
If I had a little sharper eyesight, like a dove or an eagle, I could see the combines making their way through the grain field. And I thought - this is the real and everlasting wealth of my country - fruit-bearing black soil and bread on it! And soon this wealth will leave far behind the oil and gas resources that some people boast so endlessly ...
Barbarian
The uniqueness of a person flying in an airplane at an altitude of 10.000 meters above the ground lies in the fact that he also has thoughts at the same ten thousandth distance from the vain problems of life on earth. And man looks down on his world. During the flight, somewhere such thoughts appeared in my mind. Perhaps at first glance they may seem absurd.
From a height of 10.000m I look at the Earth.
From under the belly of the aircraft and far beyond the limits of visibility, dissolving in the milky haze, the vast expanses of the Earth spread with specific signs of human presence: either squares of residential quarters of cities or giant factories, then squares of plowed or sown fertile plots, or cut down forests, and if sea, then traces of numerous boats. In any case, where there are more or less suitable conditions for life, a person is always present there, traces of his habitation are visible, most often negative ones. And so it seemed to me that man barbarously occupied the Earth! But who gave man the right to occupation? Who gave him the right, relatively recently, having appeared on Earth, self-proclaimed to present himself as its owner? There are also wiser patriarchs on Earth who have lived for billions of years more and preserved, moreover, turned the Earth into the perfection that we see today.
For example, it can be mountains, or rocks along the steep banks of rivers or lakes. Yes, all living things. They are silent, but I still hear their indignant voices because of the barbaric act of man. But it seems to me that a person is at the last line of his barbarism. And Nature, for many millions of years, which has developed in itself the iron laws of self-preservation from external influences and its own internal harmony of development according to the principle of the greatest rationality and expediency, in the end, sadly, will kill its destroyer - man. I do not exclude that most of it with signs of barbarism, violence and destruction. And it will leave and will contribute to the violent growth and prosperity of only that small part of humanity that is in harmony with Nature and lives in accordance with its "iron" laws.
For example, such a weapon for the destruction of most of humanity (its barbarian part) in Nature can be incurable diseases, which, of course, appear only due to the barbaric way of life of a person ...
We fly on the usual route. A little below us, at high speed (double), oncoming planes rush by - such silver cigars. Legalized and strictly enforced air corridor…
And below the bottom is already the Black Sea, Odessa and its environs. A spit stretching for tens of kilometers is clearly visible. Cruise ships are visible on the Black Sea with a long whitish trail on the water. After a while - Turkey, its major cities, possibly Istanbul. And then, already in the dark - the Mediterranean Sea and the lights of cities and large settlements in Egypt.
The treat of tea or coffee with water on board the aircraft went unnoticed and was soon forgotten.
But I remember the greed of the Azurair airline, along with Anextour, I remember, until recently, they treated them to delicious sandwiches with a soft airy bun ...
calmness
Late evening. We are flying south. My gaze is constantly riveted to the porthole and to the paintings behind it. On the right side of the plane is the pink sky, which I admired last time and captured it on camera. And now in my window - solid darkness with a dark purple tint. And inside the huge, almost two hundred seats, cabin of the aircraft, there is a bright light. Only one thing never ceases to amaze: how could such a colossus of tens of tons be lifted into the air to such a height and moved at high speed ...And therefore such ignorance in the laws of physics and chemistry causes unreasonable anxiety for one's safety and even life. The only thing that soothes is the uniform, without any interruptions and failures, the powerful hum of the aircraft's engines.
He acts as a guarantor of security. Therefore, this uniform rumble evokes a feeling of calm.
The uniform hum of the aircraft engines fills the entire space inside the aircraft. Through it, you can barely hear individual basses and low timbres of male voices and higher ones - female ones, sometimes their laughter. Children, and there are quite a few of them on board, after an hour of flight, they quieted down after their frisky games at first, and, apparently, many fell asleep.
But this uniform rumble fills not only the cabin of the aircraft, but also far beyond its borders, even further than one might expect. For example, you look at the night through the window - and this rumble is there, at the entire width and depth of space, even further and deeper than the eye can penetrate, and rushes after your thought. You're thinking about a future vacation, a hotel on the Red Sea - and it's there too!
Surprisingly, despite the not very pleasant timbre and note of this hum, it does not irritate and does not even interfere with thinking and creating.
Under its sound, I calmly write these impressions of my flight. And what's more, it's soothing. Under his lullaby “song”, I calmly, like a baby, fell asleep for a short while, for about fifteen minutes. I do not rule out that I even snored with pleasure - I love this business. And, unlike a railway car, a reserved seat or a compartment - it makes no difference, the neighbors did not kick me in the side!
Considering the importance of the calmness of a person on board the aircraft and in conjunction with the roar of the aircraft engines, I thought in more detail and analyzed this phenomenon and came to this conclusion. This even and monotonous rumble, I note, quite powerful, is a sign of the normal operation of the aircraft engines, and, therefore, of our safety. And human safety is above all! And any phenomenon, accompanied by security, is perceived as a blessing, with love.
And any violation of this hum, and there was such a case when the engines suddenly began to work more powerfully, a nascent anxiety crept into me. But everything quickly returned to normal, and I calmed down. It would be worse, God forbid, if the intensity of the hum would fall ...
Here is such a paradox: by all indications, an unpleasant phenomenon causes us bliss and tranquility, and its disappearance - wild horror!
In the meantime, the darkness of the night was thickening behind the plane. To the left of the board - blackness already without signs of blue, and to the right - there was only a narrow pink stripe on the horizon - where the Sun disappeared half an hour ago. Even the night swallowed her uncontrollably.
The plane, emitting the same monotonous soothing rumble, crashed into the darkness with its nose - there, outside of which, more precisely, in a small bay of which, the resort of Sharm El-Sheikh was playing with lights.
And with every minute of the flight, as we approached this cherished Shark Bay, each of the two hundred passengers of our airliner, ahead of time, already felt like a resort visitor in his “according to the price list” hotel and splashed in the waters of the Red Sea! God forbid that this is true!
Under the monotonous rumble of aircraft engines, it’s not a sin to take a nap, even on an empty stomach. I woke up already over Egypt, when the plane began to make U-turns from the mainland towards the Red Sea. They flew in an arc to avoid the notorious area in the north of the Sinai Peninsula, where a Russian plane was shot down in the fall of 2015. Below us are the lights of the resorts of El Gouna or Hurghada, and maybe Ras Shukeir, then the Red Sea, the Sinai Peninsula and the Gulf of Aqaba. But for some reason the sea is black! I know it's an optical illusion, it's actually Red! We are going down. The engines, dropping thrust, lowered their rumble.
The real world of the Earth began to take us from the fairy-tale world. And, having made a circle over the Gulf of Aqaba, we fly up already at a low altitude to the long-awaited and cherished Sharm El Sheikh. How close Egypt turned out to be - just a three-plus hour flight ...
Further - after landing, always disturbing and exciting, but at the end with thunderous applause, the usual procedures for passport control, customs inspection, and then - transfer to the hotel. Fortunately, the hotel is near the airport and it takes only fifteen minutes.
"Security" and security in the hotel
The first thing that distinguishes the Grand Rotana hotel from other hotels where I have been is that when the bus with tourists arrives at the hotel, it is checked in the most thorough way. They check the bottom of the bus for the presence of explosive devices using a mirror, as well as a specially trained dog that is sensitive to explosives. It's at the first entrance gate.
There is not even a barrier here, but metal barrier posts automatically pulled out from under the asphalt over the entire width of the carriageway, which, probably, can hold back a tank.
Next is the second “line of defense”, which is more subtle: here, just like at the airport, there is a magnetic metal detector frame that you have to go through and a real X-ray diagnostic conveyor with checking all luggage for any weapons and other prohibited items. And this is after the same procedure at the airport! Only after that, leaving the luggage under the supervision of a hotel employee, you head light to the main building - to the reception for registration.
This whole procedure of inspections and checks causes some psychological discomfort, but, at the same time, it reassures and rejoices that you are safe, like “In Christ's bosom! » This hotel has a high level of security.
And therefore, even if you hear or see cases of sabotage or terrorism in the news, and warnings from the authorities to be careful and vigilant, you can not be afraid of all this behind the gates of the Grand Rotana Hotel: numerous Security, who carry out their service with the utmost care. I determined this back in January of this year, when on the way to the airport we used a transfer bus to pick up departing guests from the Grand Rotana Hotel. And I saw how at the entrance to the territory of this Security hotel with dogs and mirrors they checked our bus so that, God forbid, no one brought explosives into the hotel territory. At the same level, security, and not only at check-in, has remained to the present, which I already felt now, living in this hotel.
I even admit that it is not just us, mere mortals, who are so guarded at the Security Hotel, but the fact that princes and princesses of royal blood can rest in the royal villas on the territory of this hotel. And we are already at the same time with them fall under an increased level of security and safety.
And only after passing the last conveyor of checks, you notice that beauty opens before you and countless tall palm trees growing directly from the water of the pools, as well as a whole alley of fountains spouting from under the asphalt. You did not notice all this while "Security" most carefully ensured your safety and diverted your attention to this.
We arrived at the hotel late in the evening - after ten. And therefore, the illumination of fountains and palm trees, as well as blue water in small pools from which palm trees grew, created a festive and cheerful mood, despite fatigue and nervous tension during the flight.
Porter service (reception) and oriental hospitality
What particularly appeals to them is the mental predisposition that radiates from the face and eyes when you first approach the counter. And this magical action continues until you are satisfied with your problem or your question is resolved. So only a person of the East, who inherited the high culture and hospitality of his people, can hospitably meet you and pay attention to you in an oriental way. And these few seconds of communication at the reception inspire you with so much goodness that when you leave, you still feel its beneficialness for a long time, as if you are under its pleasant impression.
Lobby
I immediately remembered that the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa 5 * hotel is part of a chain of hotels owned by one of the sheikhs of the United Arab Emirates. And therefore the hall, and everything around the hotel, is made in the Arabic style.
Surprisingly soft carpets are laid out under sofas, armchairs and tables throughout the area. When you step on them, the impression is that you are walking on short-cut grass ...This creates additional home comfort. Outside the carpets, there is a light-colored mirrored marble floor. The walls are beige, made, it seems to me, with ordinary sandless plaster and do not make much of an impression. But the ceiling is supported by huge cylindrical cabinets with purple lighting near the ceiling - they are impressive ...
In the rectangular part of the lobby, where, as I already noted, there is a seating area with numerous sofas, armchairs, tables and tables. To the left is the lobby bar. In front of him is a round recreation room with a fountain in the center. It is very pleasant to sit and relax here to the sound of water murmuring as it flows in a continuous continuous and thin stream from the huge bowl of the fountain.
Here, around and on the second floor, there are shops of oriental tea, souvenirs and other trifles. On the right is a marvel of architecture and design, at the level of grandeur it is a four-level escalator with a huge height of a spherical ceiling, against a blue background of which, like in the sky, stars are depicted. For me, this building caused a special impression due to the fact that I first saw all this grandiosity under fifteen meters in height from below (and I advise you), when, after the settlement, I went up the escalator ...
Here and in many other places on the territory of the Grand Rotana hotel, you feel the generous scope of the implementation of architectural ideas in real objects. Sometimes such masterpieces are opened that from them, as from a height, takes your breath away.
I saw similar grandiose forms of implementation of architectural ideas in the ministerial sanatoriums of the "Working Corner" in Alushta, and also when I lived in the royal mansions of the Higher School of Higher Schools in Moscow for almost a year - while studying in graduate school and defending my Ph. D. thesis ...Therefore, despite the fact that such things are not unusual for me, nevertheless, I admired them all the time of my stay at the Grand Rotana hotel.
Here, on the territory of the Grand Rotana Hotel, as in a small quiet bay, around which the storm and bad weather of the economic and tourist crisis rage, you feel the presence of almost the sheikh of the United Arab Emirates, for whom these fluctuations of crises and economic downturns are indifferent. He is above them. Also, the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa hotel, once in which, you go into a completely different world, in which the stunted hand of reality does not reach. Hotel "Grand Rotana" is a real place of relaxation from the negativity of modern life.
As there is an oasis of Nature in the desert, so the Grand Rotana Resort & Spa is an oasis for Soul and body in our difficult life.
Number
After registering at the reception, which takes just a few minutes, you are given an electronic key in two or three copies, a card for a beach towel and other familiarization instructions with the opening hours of restaurants, bars, as well as a color map of the hotel where all this is located. And together with the things they take them in an electric car to the building where your number is. The driver, who is also a porter, brings your things to your room and wishes you a pleasant stay.
Room with an area of .43 sq. m. corresponds to the high level of the hotel "Grand Rotana Resort & Spa" 5 *. It is impeccable, both in cleanliness and in the configuration and quality of everything you need.
The bed - in my room - is a double powerful wooden one with a high mattress. Five or six pillows, the purpose of each is even hard to guess. The bedding is immaculately clean and white.
Together with the towels you used, they change every day. I counted eight such towels: three bath towels, two for feet, two mini for the face and one under the feet when they exit the shower. Pleasantly pleased with the mohair bathrobe and room slippers. Although there is a small carpet near the bed, the floor in the room is still cool - tiled.
Plasma TV, one meter in diagonal - when turned on, regardless of the program, shows a commercial about the hotel. I advise you to definitely look and take it as a guide to the hotel. Showing not only the best places to stay in the hotel, but also the opening hours of each restaurant and bar.
Minibar-refrigerator filled with various drinks and sweets, you can see the prices here - the price list is on top of the minibar.
Upon check-in, a one-time razor, shaving paste and gel, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and even a washcloth are supplied once. All excellent quality! So you should not take all this from home, making your already heavy suitcase heavier. (By the way, its weight should not exceed 20kg, along with hand luggage. )
I was given a room on the second floor, so there was a balcony with an armchair and a coffee table, as well as a small sofa with two pillows: it is very convenient to drink tea or coffee in the evenings or early in the morning, the set of which is replenished daily. There is an electric kettle for cooking.
The room has a powerful (very fast cooling), but quiet air conditioner. From the experience of previous hotels, I know that if you sleep with the air conditioner running, then in two or three days cold symptoms will definitely appear.
Therefore, I would recommend that you, leaving the room, leave one card at the receiver-switch and turn on the air conditioner. When you enter your room, turn off the air conditioner. I would like to point out that the walls of the buildings at the Grand Rotana Hotel are thick, and made, I think, of a special material that allows you to keep the room cool all night. But in August it is even hotter, so at night you still have to turn on the air conditioner for a while.
In general, the room is convenient for a comfortable stay.
Room categories
CLASSIC GARDEN VIEW ROOM - area: 28-42 sq. m. , rooms overlooking the garden in buildings 7.8, 9, which are located at the entrance to the hotel. (+$00)
DELUXE SEA VIEW ROOM - area: 28-42 sq. m. , rooms with side sea view in buildings 3.4. (+$70)
GRAND DELUXE POOL & SEA VIEW ROOM - area: 28-42 sq. m. , rooms with panoramic views of the sea and the pool in building 6 (main building (+ $ 150)
PREMIUM BEACH FRONT ROOM - area: 28-42 sq. m. , rooms on the first line from the sea with a direct sea view in buildings 1 or 2, (+ $200)
CLUB ROTANA ROOM - area: 28-42 sq. m.
, rooms on the first line from the sea with a direct sea view in buildings 1 or 2, (+ $500)
(I do not list the rest of the room categories due to exorbitant prices)
It will also be interesting to know the preference to relax in one or another building (and this, of course, is associated with the prices of the tour, since in each building there are only certain categories of rooms):
1 building - 35 rooms; PREMIUM BEACH FRONT ROOM $1070.
P building - 50 rooms; PREMIUM BEACH FRONT ROOM - $1070
W building - 29 rooms; DELUXE SEA VIEW ROOM - $936
1U building - 0 rooms; DELUXE SEA VIEW ROOM.
U1 building - 54 rooms; GRAND DELUXE POOL & SEA VIEW ROOM - $1003
UP-USH-1X building - 42 rooms; CLASSIC GARDEN VIEW ROOM - $878.
CLUB ROTANA ROOM - $1403.
Villas - 0- GRAND SUITE / SGL - $3803
July 14.2017. Friday
Red Sea fish
On the first day, in the morning - I'm at sea! And the first of the marine abodes that I saw, having entered the pontoon and not yet diving, was a large slope, a black spot floating along the reef. This tailed miracle of the Red Sea, more than a meter long (with a tail), slowly and confidently, with signs of the owner of the Red Sea, paying no attention to anyone, imposingly floated past me.
For the next eight days, I never saw him again.
And during that day, I did not see particularly large fish. But small multi-colored fish and medium ones, up to forty centimeters in length, near the reef of the Grand Rotana Hotel, I counted more than thirty varieties. I even sketched each variety, as best I could, noting the distinctive features and giving each one its own special name, in accordance with these distinctive features.
The most numerous fish are striped (stripes across the back), I called them “Ward No. 6”, they keep in a flock and constantly sit under the pontoon stairs. The pontoon itself in this hotel is built high above the water - up to three meters, and therefore is not a shelter for fish, as in other hotels with a lower or generally plastic pontoon floating on the water. These fish are the laziest, they are too lazy to pinch food from corals, as all fish do, and are already accustomed to feeding by vacationers.
Even despite the fact that there is a fine for feeding the fish of the Red Sea, as well as walking on corals.
The second, as for me, an interesting species of fish is quite large in size at 25-35cm and swimming in shallow water above the corals, this is the "Purple Striped Handsome". This fish feels like the mistress of shallow water, and therefore I often noticed how it chases smaller fish, which, without asking permission, invade their possessions and, apparently, buzz there, for which they receive scolding from them. This type of fish is constantly hungry and therefore they constantly pinch corals, removing some kind of food from them. But not only hunger makes them constantly eat, but also their decent size: after all, to maintain shape, so much food is needed!
They eat little and constantly stand motionless smaller flat fish - "Swordsmen" (they have a long fin in the form of a sword on their backs). And they are always in pairs. It's like they're in mating season all the time...
Always in pairs, and sometimes in fours (what do they have - French love? ) other, larger (up to 40 cm long) and thick dark gray fish walk. "Pockmarked" on the back, as if their scales are peeling ...But they usually live at a depth of up to 6m. And just like the rest of the fish of the Red Sea, they ignore all bathers and divers.
Interesting "Fish-Chameleon" with white spots on the back against the background of a protective color all over the body, like our ATO fighters. The indestructible thirst for life pushed this fish to mimicry - protective coloring. The fact is that most of the Red Sea corals at the end (at the point of growth) are white, while the corals themselves are of an indefinite gray or marsh color. And this fish, as if knowing the identity of its color with the color of this coral, lays down on it and stops all movement. And on the general background becomes indistinguishable.
Confident in this, she does not try to slip away even when you reach out to her with your hand, even very close. And, moreover, it becomes even more immobile. Only two eyes in the form of black dots on the top of the head run in different directions from fear ...
"Fish in the form of ATO" - similar in protective coloration to the "Chameleon Fish", only not with whitish dots on the back, but with dark stripes.
Small, palm-sized, flat and round fish of bright yellow color are striking and impressive. I named them "Yellow Lanterns". They are so bright that they seem to burn from the inside ...
But among the corals appears "Purple miracle with a yellow tail. " Yellow color, like yellow - normal. But purple is so delicate with internal tints that you even wonder how such an amazing color can appear in Nature! I look at this fish with both eyes, I almost open my mouth in surprise - but I can’t, I know that I can choke ...
The fish is the same in shape and size, but "Brown, with overflows. " Its color, of course, is less impressive, but for a change it will do. Moreover, I remember about her, how she was chased for harm by a large striped purple fish - the mistress of shallow water (see above).
Fearfully shows itself out of the corals and again hides in them a round, flat, like a pancake, white fish with stripes in the form of an angle, like a road sign. That's why I called it that: "Fish is a road sign. " With such a bright white color against a gray background of corals, she should hide fearfully - it is painfully noticeable, and any predator will probably try to have breakfast or lunch with her, it doesn’t matter!
I noticed that here, in the Red Sea, in particular in Sharm El Sheikh, in the area of the Grand Rotana hotel, there are a lot of flat fish, like pancakes, round in shape. Only the color and sometimes the shape of the beak differ. But I paid little attention to the beak, that is, the nose.
In addition to those that I have already named, here I often saw a yellow fish with black transverse stripes from under the belly of the same “pancake” shape, but with a “Bright white stripe” above the eyes.
The same shape fish, but orange and stripes across - I called it "Striped orange-blue disk. "
A whitish round fish with a uniform color throughout the pancake shape, without any striped or dotted inclusions: I called it “Whitish Moon”.
"Beetroot disk with a tide" - also from the same variety of flat pancake fish.
As well as flat round fish of small, smaller than a palm, sizes: “Black Night” and “Maroon”.
Among the large fish in the corals of the Grand Rotana Hotel there are "Leopard fish" with a pockmarked yellow coloring like a leopard on the back. They walk in corals in several copies together.
As well as a decent-sized fish with "Emerald Stars" on a brown back and with stripes at the tail.
The small fish and big fish listed above are common. But there are also isolated instances. Near the reef of the hotel "Grand Rotana" is found alone "Porcupine Fish" with needles in different directions, as well as a similar "Magpie Fish" with white spots at the end of the wings-fins. One of them is Lionfish (official name) - a genus of marine fish of the scorpionfish order. They got their name because of the numerous rays-feathers in which the poisonous glands are located. The poison in these glands remains for a long time.
Only a few specimens of the unusual Beer Keg fish are dirty gray with black ripples. In shape, it is so swollen that it seems that it might just burst at the seams ...And from fat laziness, it doesn’t even work with its tail, but waves its fins from under its belly and from the side.
The main array of fish "hang out", mainly near the reef and at a shallow depth of up to two meters.
And when I got out of the water, I did not forget to sketch it and put it in the general catalogue. Such, almost childish game to give their names to the fish, allowed me to systematize and remember each fish by its appearance and external distinguishing features.
On the other hand, for me, the process of learning about the fish of the Red Sea and surprising each already forgotten fish was coming to an end, which is not the best option for a creative person. Because surprise, admiration and other sensory perception of the surrounding reality is the best reason and stimulus for creativity.
And so I switched my main attention to more mysterious creatures - corals.
flock effect
Swimming in the Red Sea and watching the fish, I had to see, most often, separately swimming fish, sometimes in pairs, but there is a whole flock or even a school of them, hundreds and thousands of them swimming by.
It would seem that this is a common occurrence for fish and understandable to everyone: fish gather in flocks, first of all, for security purposes. Having decided on this, they put an end to the solution of this phenomenon. I was satisfied with these until today. But when I saw with my own eyes individual fish and a flock, I came to a deeper conclusion and expanded it to a human herd - society. Yes, and a flock of any animals or birds has the same principles as fish.
So, I conditionally singled out one individual from the pack, not very frail and painful, but so, average. And if she is released into free swimming outside the pack, then her chances of surviving are reduced to zero. Since any predator that meets on its way and is also hungry will definitely devour it, regardless of the agility and physical qualities of this fish. That's why he is a predator, to be stronger, more agile, etc. And there is not a single law or pattern - it's all a matter of chance.
By the way, the same thing, with a high probability, will happen to the largest and healthiest fish from the school if it swims separately. Thus, the best of the best can be destroyed, while at the same time, by chance, the most frail and unhealthy of the given species remains. As a result, there is a risk of extinction of all life on Earth, and not only.
I do not rule out that Nature, for many billions of years of its existence, has gone through this path of development, ending its existence with complete collapse and destruction. But nevertheless, she found a promising way of development - this is a flock.
Now consider a flock of fish, where there are healthy and strong fish, but also frail and unhealthy ones. And if a predator approaches the flock and tries to profit, then it snatches the weakest and most painful fish from the flock. Which, in comparison with healthy and strong fish, does not run away from a predator so briskly. At the same time, the life of other fish is guaranteed!
The quality of food for a predator is not very different (maybe one healthy fish is tastier than two small ones), and a predator is not a special gourmet to refuse an almost “free” weak fish and, moreover, several, in order to pretty straining, gobble up a large and healthy , and then, even the grandmother said in two, maybe stay hungry. Therefore, the predator feeds on the weakest of the pack, leaving the strongest and healthiest "to the factory. " And only the largest and strongest individuals (the same adult fish from a flock) that can repel any predator live separately, they do not need a flock. This is how natural selection is carried out in living Nature. In a flock, any weak and sickly individual, like a sacrificial lamb, is doomed to be eaten by a predator in the name of the life of stronger and healthier brethren.
But what about in human society? Yes the same!!!
The only difference is that the predators themselves are among the "brothers" within each pack - a collective, society, public and party association. But no one thought about it and did not strain in order to analyze it in more detail and draw the appropriate conclusion.
The main goal of the human pack, as such, - safety in the pack, as that is in Nature, no longer plays any role. Although a person outside the built-in system can be imprisoned or deported from the country (like I. Brodsky). But the main goal is to control the masses, to subjugate them to some, perhaps even unacceptable idea for them, to the interests of one or a group of people, to the State and the Power, and also to force them to work on those conditions and with the pay for their work, as the Power wants ( read - Shark).
As in a flock in Nature, in human society the weakest individuals (people) are doomed to death and destruction (I repeat: humanely, slowly), which are used in the most difficult and unhealthy work. And there are billions of them. They provide a normal life for hundreds of millions of the middle layer and hundreds of thousands of Sharks - their fattening.
Thus, there is violence against a person, over his individuality. Actually, this is the same as slavery, that is, there is a global world New slavery, but even worse than in antiquity; not so much physical as moral and psychological-spiritual. It is more terrible and worse because a person is now different and has stepped into his new phase of development: an intellectual and spiritual one, which, in its significance, has left his physical priorities far behind.
The current slaveholding is realized through: enterprises, organizations and similar production formations; political parties that, after seizing power, reach the highest level of slavery - the state. And already at birth, a person is guaranteed the stigma of a slave, the status of which is confirmed by the passport of a “citizen” (read: “slave”) of one or another state issued to him at the age of 16.
Imagine any collective, society, state, association of states or the world community as a whole. Everywhere inside there are predators that "humanely" slowly, not immediately in one sitting, eat their weaker counterparts. And this happens with the submissive inaction of the victims, because the predators are endowed with the power of Power!
Having acquired the Power (in what way - this is a separate conversation, maybe for money, by inheritance, by nepotism, matchmaking, or through elections), this quite ordinary person turns from a shark in the smallest and lowest teams, to a bloodthirsty Shark at the top of the Power . Although the bloodthirstiness of a shark, who fights with a fellow to the fullest, in reality is much less than the bloodthirstiness of a big Shark, which builds a mansion in overseas lands with the “world by thread”. Lined up a whole clan of predators of different strengths, depending on the height of power. At the very bottom is a foreman or petty manager, at the very top (if it is a state) is the President, if the union of states is the Secretary General of the ruling political party-power (for example, the USSR) or a similar elected person.
For the world as a whole, the Shark is the most powerful state with its President at the head (now it is the USA), which has all the other states under its heel, no matter how they wander. And by the power of superior weapons and their currency, they force them to do whatever this world Shark wants, of course, in the interests of their state and their citizens.
There is a planned rotation of Sharks (during false democratic elections) and unplanned (during revolutions). The world Shark is also changing, but only over a longer period and obviously not in a democratic way, but, which is especially scary, as a result of a world, most likely, nuclear war.
So, you can reach the world nuclear war by watching the fish in the Red Sea while relaxing in the prestigious Grand Rotana Resort & Spa 5 * Sharm El Sheikh. Or maybe it's easier to cancel the "All inclusive" system with its unlimited consumption of locally produced hard liquor? ..
Red Sea corals
I decided to conduct the same experiment as with fish, and with corals. But in order not to drive my creative essence into the framework of an already known system and to maximize the flow of insight, I decided for a while to simply admire the corals, even without knowing their essence.
This unusually long (almost half a kilometer! ), as for a hotel, coral reef delighted me not only with its length, but also with its quality side. I see such a reef for the first time in two years of my twelve visits to hotels in Egypt.
What is unusual about it?
This is, first of all, the boundary line of the coral reef: it is not in the form of a solid sheer wall, as in other hotels, but, meandering, makes such pretzels that you never cease to be surprised and admired. For example, to the right of the middle (main) pontoon, over many hundreds of centuries, Nature has created a fabulous underwater lagoon with a narrow entrance and a wide exit from it.
And, importantly, in this lagoon, as in most of the foothills of the coral reef, and this is at a depth of up to six meters, the bottom is flat, and not steep and sharply leaving to a depth of twenty or more meters. That's where the freedom of marine life! Here, surrounded by corals, they feel safe and at home. Although, the Red Sea as a whole eats their home ...
Corals here grow wildly along the entire height of the reef to the same extent, and this, in all likelihood, is due to the fact that the reef is located on an underwater plateau platform and the depth here is no more than 5-6 meters. Only in some areas the bottom abruptly, about twenty meters, goes deeper.
For the rest of the length, the coral reef has the most bizarre forms created by growing corals for thousands of years: either it goes two or three meters towards the open sea, then it deepens the same way towards the coast.
From above, it is ordinary - flat, and a little deeper it is so diverse in shape that it seems that you are in a fairy tale. Not a reef, but a coral fairy tale, with many unusual fairy tale plots and scenery, which are difficult for a person to invent and, moreover, depict on a theater stage. And Nature here makes it easy and simple.
Swimming along the reef and swimming in the original coral lagoons, you feel that just about, against the backdrop of this fabulous scenery, the same fabulous characters will appear. It may seem so, because fairy tales were also written by people capable of penetrating beyond the limits of this World into another World...
Having been in one fairy tale, after a meter or two you swim into another fairy tale ...And so on the entire extension of the coral reef! This can be imagined and seen even by an ordinary person, without special talents of fantasy. And there is no need to talk about a person of a creative mindset - but only to expect great creations from him ...
More precisely, I met Nature, unusually violently bursting into our World, as if from other worlds. And here, in this unusual place, a dacha rebuilt by diplomats from Japan ...People of the East know the price of fertile places on Earth ...
I do not rule out that here, on the Red Sea, which in itself is already fertile (that's why it is Red, and not Dead), especially in Sharm El-Sheikh, where only recently, just a few decades ago, a harmful the human foot (together with the hand), still preserved, in some places, the virginity of Nature and places strong by grace. Here, in the Grand Rotana Hotel, I felt one of the most fertile places on Earth. And this is not an exaggeration. And this is confirmed by these lines, as a result of the disclosure of the Soul in its creative impulses.
Here it is appropriate to sketch the general state of the corals off the coast of the Grand Rotana Hotel. When viewed from a three-meter height of the pontoon, it is not difficult to determine.
So, along the entire coral reef, which is not far from here, about thirty meters from the shore, live corals grow, go in a continuous array towards the coast, regardless of the line of bends, bulges, at a distance of three to five meters. And in their total mass, they have a dark brown color. This, as I understand it, is their common color of life. Further, about ten to fifteen meters, there is a wide strip with live brown corals breaking through here and there in the form of small bush islands against the background of extinct light beige corals. This color, as for corals, is the color of death ...Further along the entire coast, a light beige strip of extinct corals stretches, without any hope of life. Only sometimes a large purple-striped fish swims here, in shallow water - the mistress of these shallows, or a flock of fry.
And already quite close to the shore, up to five meters wide - a sandbank with a cheerful and lively variety of grains of sand, mixed with various remains of shells and shells of the inhabitants of the Red Sea - the color ripples from light brown to gray-yellow hues. In this area, where there is not a single living coral, two children's beaches are arranged to the left and right of the main pontoon, fenced with buoys. Unfortunately, a small depth - up to half a meter, is comfortable only for the smallest children. Older children prefer the children's pool on site.
Now I will try to describe in words the main types of corals off the coast of the Grand Rotana hotel, in my personal interpretation, by analogy with how I described the species of fish. But here everything is much more complicated. I want to say right away that there are no two absolutely identical corals, even of the same species. Just like there are no absolutely identical trees or bushes on Earth.
"Petrified bush" - well, certainly our shrunken and petrified bush. And he has the same gloomy look and dull color - brown.
"Shell massif" - as if the turtle threw off its shell, and it remained lying among other corals. The size is large, up to one meter.
"Boulder" - in the form of a huge boulder stone, up to one or more meters in diameter. Even sometimes you can’t imagine that a coral has such a look.
“Sheep Fleece”, of course, you can’t say by color that it is the Golden Fleece, but outwardly in shape it is the same.
"Purple rock" - separately lying small "stones" of a bright and unusual color, like for corals - like pieces of rock dug out of the bowels of the Earth!
“Filigree” and Openwork Fans” are similar in structure patterns of interweaving of thin corals in the form of filigree.
The Grand Rotana Hotel has its own sandy beach 450 meters long - I have not seen such a long coastline in any hotel in Egypt. There are 3 pontoons, which distinguishes this hotel from others, as well as two small sandy entries with a beach for children.
The shore in Shark Bay, where the Grand Rotana Hotel is located, is rocky, as elsewhere in Sharm El Sheikh. Along the entire length of the coastline, the beaches in this hotel are located on average, at a height of two to three meters above sea level. Only in three places: at the exit to three pontoons and in two - to children's beaches, there is access to water. All the rest, about ten mini-beaches, are on the rocks - at a height above the sea. It should be noted that every meter of the 450 meters of the beach is rationally used - wherever there is a suitable platform on the rocky coast, it is used for the benefit of vacationers - umbrellas are installed, and under them - sun loungers with mattresses.
Thus, these about a dozen beaches are arranged here - small individual, for several vacationers, with some privacy, so as not to interfere with each other. As a result, we got several individual islands for a beach holiday. The same function is performed by Romantic boars on the south side of the beach, but only for VIPs. For safety reasons, over each cliff there are meter-high fences in the form of thick marine ropes threaded through the holes of wooden posts, firmly walled into the rock. Such a design and technical solution of the fences is a distinctive feature of the beach of the Grand Rotana hotel. In other hotels of the same high level, as, for example, in the Sunerise Arabian hotel, which is nearby, the same fencing functions are performed by ropes threaded through the holes of rectangular lamps - the solution, of course, from the point of view of landscape design, is more impressive ...
The principle of individuality, the desire to get away from the public "noise" for self-contemplation and other manifestations of individual aspirations, is characteristic of the entire Arab culture and philosophy, and I have already noted this when describing individual semi-closed niches in the hotel lobby. There is something in this...
And therefore, I think there should be no problems with places on the beach, even with the maximum load of the hotel by vacationers. But still, among others, there are always the best places, which, basically, are closest to the sea, and which you will determine already on the second day of your vacation, so from early morning you will strive to take them.
The peculiarity of the Grand Rotana hotel beach is that if you look at it from the side, and especially from below, from the sea, it will seem that the beach is in the forest ...in the forest of densely planted palm trees! This is not in any hotel in Egypt! And this is something in the 40-degree heat in August!
And therefore, on the entire 450-meter beach area there are as many as five (? ! ) exits to the sea: three to pontoons and two to children's beaches. I understand your surprise at such limited access to the sea, but other hotels have even less: one, maybe two. Everything is correct! Make the sea accessible everywhere, as in the hotels of Hurghada, in ten years there will be a Dead Sea, not the Red Sea, as in Hurghada ...Do we need this? That is why the strict environmental legislation in Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula: for walking on corals, as well as for feeding fish - a fine of € 500! And this is spelled out in the living conditions of some hotels in Sharm El Sheikh!
Speaking of pontoons in this hotel. Two wooden pontoons - whole grandiose structures on piles of thick metal pipes, like helipads, fifteen meters in diameter, at a height of three meters above the water.
A thick board "sixties" (60 mm thick) can withstand even a two-centre "elephant"-resting (and such are found here). Fences and a staircase to the water, made of pipes and stainless steel structures shining in the sun (a trifle, but nice! ), emphasize the solidity of not only the pontoon, but also the institution as a whole. You feel reliability, beauty and durability when you stand on this wide platform, like on the deck of a ship, and look and admire the sea, corals, and fish. You can even use this building as a convenient observation deck and see from a height all the delights of the Red Sea, without even diving into it with a mask.
On the sides of the ladder, which is wide four meters wide, there are spotlights for illumination, the purpose of which has remained a mystery to me. Like a ladder edge marker so that a drunken guest does not fall into the sea during a night swim? - so night swimming in the Red Sea (and even in the pools) is prohibited.
Show the beauty of the building at night, so that it can be seen even from the landing plane (a kind of hotel advertisement)? - so these lamps do not burn at night ...
On the “helipad” itself, ten meter thick glass windows are mounted in the floor for contemplation of the underwater kingdom. True, it is too high above the water and therefore the fish and corals are poorly visible.
And what else I liked and remembered was the smell of fresh natural wood, which is especially evident when it is wetted during morning cleaning.
A lifeguard sits on each of the three pontoons and vigilantly watches that no one steps on the corals or swims behind the buoys. If anything, he whistles and waves his arms incredibly excitedly: they are probably very strict with this. He does not have to save anyone, since the water is so salty and dense that it itself pushes those floating in it.
But to measure and fix the temperature of water and air at the stand (right there, at the entrance to the pontoon) would not hurt him. As I noticed this information: air temperature 30? , sea depth - six meters, water temperature - 24? hasn't been updated for several days. It's good that the depth of the sea is there - it changes slightly, depending on the tides and does not affect swimmers as much as the temperature of the water. And for anyone entering the sea, it is not only interesting, but also useful to know its temperature in order to plan the duration of swimming. And the reaction to the air temperature will be no less pragmatic. And so this information about the temperature of water and air, for sure, has been hanging since May ...I remember that in the old days I also worked on the beach in one of the boarding houses in Alushta. So I regularly, four times a day, measured the temperature of the water at the breakwater at a depth of exactly 1m, as well as the air, and wrote it all down with chalk on a black board at the entrance to the beach!
And I liked the middle pontoon, first of all, as central and surrounded by the entire beach infrastructure of the hotel. True, soon I changed all its surrounding civilization with stuffiness between the rocks to a calm “grassy” beach with natural ventilation near a distant wooden pontoon. And to create, describing my impressions of the sea and the hotel, it was already more “camelfo”.
Beach in the green relaxation area
Today, after a sleepless night in connection with the first acquaintance with the Grand Rotana Hotel (and the first glance is the most true and impressive), I spent the whole day on the main beach of the hotel, near the main, central pontoon. In the breaks between sleep and wakefulness, I still managed to dive several times into the depths of the Red Sea in a mask and snorkel, noted the extraordinary beauty of the underwater world and wrote some impressions about the sea and the beach.
Here, under a canopy of a sun umbrella, at the very pontoon (I advise you to take places here, ahead of the beach worker, who from the very morning scatters towels on the best sun loungers, so that then for such a service to charge $ 1 - $ 2 from vacationers), I lay all day. I will only note that, surrounded by rocks around, like in a bowl, it is somewhat stuffy here, a fresh breeze is a rare guest, and therefore you have to plunge into the sea more often. But still, despite the increased amenities, there is an excellent beach restaurant "Palms Bar & Grill", where you can dine from 12.30 to 15.30 without going upstairs to the main restaurant "Ramses", as well as play beach volleyball and other games organized nearby. hotel animators, and dive from the pontoon and see the best section of the coral reef in the hotel, however, on the second day I decided to explore the green relaxation beach area near the left wooden pontoon.
I went through a lot of hotels in these two years - more than ten.
An inner voice prompted me something: urgently undermine your lazy body, stop it vegetating in a dreary routine, nourishing your Soul with the same, and fly! . . I intuitively felt, just by looking at the laptop screen, where there was information and a photo of the Grand Rotana hotel, that this was what my rebellious Soul was looking for. And in reality, I did not realize it right away, but only today, on the second day of my stay in this hotel. Did you feel it when you were languishing from the heat under 40?
C, was lying on a plastic deck chair, with the same artificial leather mattress, constantly moving this structure after the shadow from the sun umbrella, which constantly went somewhere to the side ...And after taking a refreshing shower, I suddenly seemed to wake up from sleep and at home under my feet, just three meters away I saw what I was looking for: the delicate beauty of dense, rich green and soft as a feather bed, grass on a small slope under the canopy of spreading palm leaves ...And, violating any etiquette and conditionally established rules, I immediately fell on this featherbed, created for me by Nature. I, spreading my arms to the sides, clung to the Earth with my whole body, inhaling the freshness of its smells to the full chest. I showed her genuine love and tenderness, and she responded to me in return.
In addition to sun loungers, the third green area has hammocks, round and rectangular sofas with soft high mattresses and pillows - under sunshades made of translucent fabric material stretched between palm trees. And all this is available to any vacationer, regardless of the chosen category of food or accommodation. I tried them all on myself and I will say that everything is very comfortable, compared to the beach where I was yesterday. Only near the sea on the right are "Romantic Cabanas" for VIP vacationers. And just imagine, you are lying on one of these sofas, or, in a hammock or just on a deck chair, and in front of you and under you is green short-cut grass saturated with moisture (watered abundantly every early morning, and cut as it grows). And this green natural grassy carpet turns into a blue-turquoise sea...And above you, in the gusts of a fresh breeze, palm leaves quietly rustle.
And it seems to me that they communicate with each other in this way ...And I regret that I am deprived of the opportunity to understand their language. In front of you, a little to the left, the pale beige island of Tiran hovered over the sea. And above it all, blue skies. True, not as bright blue as we have over Ukraine, here it is a little hazy. Such is the burning air here in the skies, without any hope even for a drop of rain ...Quiet classical music unobtrusively flows from the C Lido bar, which is nearby. And, surprisingly, there is not a single living soul around. Except for three people: me, a lifeguard on a pontoon and a bartender. The latter was always running somewhere: either with a tray of drinks and snacks, or collecting towels, reserved seats on sofas for regular customers, or carrying a smoking hookah somewhere. And I was surprised that such a comfortable recreation area on the grass, when in the shade of palm trees a fresh breeze blows over the bodies, despite the heat, there is no one outside this fertile zone.
Although in the following days there were more people here, especially hookah smokers. And my heart ached from the current hopelessness that the fate of the hotel business in Egypt, in fact, created an artificial crisis. Besides, which I am sure of, just like in Ukraine, this “fate” has a specific human face… But let’s not touch on politics here. And so everything is clear to everyone.
Sea
I first met the Sea too late - already after thirty. And it didn't take long for me to see it. Honestly, I have not lost my sudden and strong love for the Sea. And gradually, with each summer visit to the Black Sea in Alushta, it penetrated me and eventually took possession of me everything, “to the marrow of my bones” and even more - my whole essence. And how can I now live flawedly, without the main component of my essence? Therefore, having just flown away from Egypt, from the Red Sea to my place in Kyiv, already on the second day I suffer immeasurably without him.
And I live only for them, while for a week or two I write my impressions of those 5-7 days of happiness on the shores of my beloved Sea. I probably have never loved a single woman in my life as much as I love the Sea now ...
And now, just three days since I arrived from Egypt, I remember the Red Sea, when in the early morning on the beach of the prestigious Grand Rotana Hotel in Sharm El Sheikh I met the dawn, enjoyed the view of Tiran Island in the predawn haze and absorbed The sea is everything and without a trace. And all my thoughts were about him and in him ...
The Sea has its own life, not connected with me, unlike my life. The sea has its own movement and its own laws. And where are we, with our sometimes obsessive claims to him? And the conclusions based on visual and even sensory observations are very primitive. After all, the Sea is billions of times older than us, and therefore smarter and wiser. And therefore, a person is unlikely to ever be able to fully comprehend it.
Although outwardly it is quite ordinary and, as the Chukchi would say, simply “Big Water”. But how many secrets does it keep inside? How deep and boundless is its inner content! I will not go into its esoteric essence now, but I will only say that it is enough to dive into its waters with a mask to see just a crumb of these secrets - in colorful fish and, especially, in corals. And one can only imagine what a huge array of secrets the Sea has accumulated over billions of years of its life! But never in life will it open them to the pernicious, barbaric essence of man...
Pools
Special attention is paid to the pool at the Grand Rotana Hotel, since the majority of vacationers during the day are either in it (splashing, playing water polo or volleyball, doing aerobics, riding water slides ... ), or near it (sunbathing on a deck chair under a canopy, sits in a bar, or lies in a boar).
And those who prefer swimming in the pool to the sea from one hundred to one hundred and fifty guests of the hotel. And, constantly and every day. After all, on the beach, I specifically calculated - the smallest of them - at most twenty people. I tried to understand this incident. It would seem that the Red Sea is unique in the world, and its medicinal usefulness is obvious, and corals with fish are unique ...But still, people are more attracted to the pool ...In my opinion, there is one main and only reason why the Egyptians choose the pool, and not sea. An Egyptian, like any other Arab, cannot be near water and out of water - this is beyond his strength! The Red Sea cannot accommodate so many Egyptians and all the Arabs in one hotel at the same time, and this is about two hundred! After all, there are only three pontoons, each of which can accommodate only 10-15 people. What else is there to do on the beach? Sunbathe? - So they are already tanned to the limit, already at birth.
By the way, I have not seen a single Arab sunbathing in direct sunlight, and our European does this all the time. But in the water, in the pool, they can be at least a whole day, especially children. I remember last year in January, while relaxing at the Poinciana Sharm Resort 4 *, I saw a 5-6 year old Egyptian boy blue from the cold. who was in the 15-degree water of an unheated pool for a long time ...The question still torments me: did he survive after such a “love” for water at the level of self-sacrifice? This is an example of how the Egyptians, the people of the desert, love water. If Allah allowed paganism among Muslims, they would worship Water, not the Sun, like our ancestors.
In Egypt, 90% desert, there is a shortage of water and reservoirs, and many Egyptians do not see open reservoirs in which you can swim for years. And I saw with what lust and for a long time they splash in the water, whether in the sea from a pontoon (almost everyone, both an adult and a child, in a life jacket) or in a pool.
The second reason why the Arabs choose the pool, and not the sea, is the water itself, its idolization, like the elements, and it doesn’t matter if it is sea or chlorinated in the pool. And this ease of access (and not from a pontoon), different depths from half a meter in the children's pool (and there is also a pool for kids), to two meters (and not ten meters right behind the reef, as in the sea), various games and entertainment, including water slides, which are not found in the sea, comfort and service - you can drink sprite or cola right in the water - all this and much more ensures that the pool is one hundred percent preferred to the sea. It’s just us, Europeans, for whom water often brings grief and devastation (spring floods, summer heavy rains, flooding and flooding) “sorting through grubs”: we choose only sea and medicinal water, and we have plenty of chlorinated water from the tap!
In particular, I just sat for hours in the sea, listening to the beauty of the underwater world, and for all the time I never swam in the main pool. True, the only time I enjoyed it was sitting in the pool above the cliff (there is such a unique pool above the SPA center - I recommend it) and taking a massage in this jacuzzi pool ...
In addition to these two pools - the main one and the jacuzzi, there are nine more small pools in the VIP area, near the royal villas. But I won’t dispute their advantage over the sea - I haven’t tried it ...
July 16.2017. Sunday
The territory of the Grand Rotana hotel.
“The hotel is located on the first coastline in the Sharks Bay area (Sharks Bay), 7 km from the airport of Sharm El Sheikh. The total area of the territory is 12.5 hectares. This dry standard information, which I gave at the beginning, says practically nothing.
And so I will try to expand and embellish it with epithets and metaphors (which this hotel deserves), within the level of its knowledge that I could achieve in eight days and nights of staying in this territory.
The territory of the hotel "Grand Rotana" has the shape of a trapezoid with a long side by the sea. This form of territory allows you to use the main advantage of the hotel on the first coastline - the coast and the coral reef of the Red Sea. After all, the more this natural gift at the hotel, the more valuable the hotel is. And such a natural gift at the Grand Rotana hotel is as much as 450 meters, which is twice as much as in neighboring hotels! In general, in Sharm El Sheikh, each hotel is allocated an average of 200-250 meters of coastline, and deep into the peninsula - with the limitation of Sharm El Sheikh infrastructure (mainly highways and roads). And this is clearly visible on the map of the city. But everything is in order, starting from the main gate.
Having set myself the problem of describing the territory of the Grand Rotana hotel, I, to my surprise, found that it consists mainly of two completely different territories in terms of landscape and park and even, to some extent, architectural style: to the main building, as would be "entrance" and the main - "seaside" - behind the main building, to the sea. If you look at the essence, then in my view on this territory there are two hotels of different categories and locations, in relation to the sea.
The hotel behind the main building is of the highest category with all the relevant infrastructure and, most importantly, on the first coastline. It is located on the rocky coast of the Red Sea and has several terraces. Three of the most elite "Royal Villas" and "Club Rotana" rooms were built here - on the very seashore, and a little higher and further away from the sea there are six more "Royal Villas", but, judging by the distance from the sea, they are less prestigious. All these buildings and villas are located on the right side of the hotel.
Prestigious in this area are buildings with rooms on the embankment - this is the first and second buildings. They are stretched along the entire coast for four hundred meters and the balconies in the rooms of these buildings overlook the sea and beaches. (By the way, the “Club Rotana” category rooms are located on the right side of the first building). I also like the rooms in buildings 4 and 6 - all with views of the main pool and the sea, as well as slightly worse views from rooms in building 3.
The second (“conditional”) hotel is located, as it were, on the second coastline with a significant distance of more than 700 meters from the sea and the beach. And it is located on a plateau - the main plateau, like the whole of Sharm El Sheikh. Here buildings 7.8 and 9 are also located in a well-groomed green area with many tall palm trees and are decorated with flower bushes.
But, since they are remote from the sea, the beach and from the main infrastructure of the hotel: swimming pools, bars, restaurants, SPA-center, and, moreover, they are located, as it were, outside the main territory of the hotel (from the main entrance gate to the main building), then the category of their rooms (“Classic Garden View Room” - area: 28-42 sq. m. , overlooking the garden), as well as the prices for the tour, are much lower. This territory, and, of course, buildings 7.8, 9 are decorated with tall old palm trees, judging by the date of commissioning of the Grand Rotana hotel (2005), they are at least twelve years old. From the entrance gate, past buildings 7 and 8, a long "walk of fame" stretches with a dense row of palm trees on the sides, and in the middle - a lot of low, but powerful fountains, beating as if from underground. This parade of fountains and palm trees ends with two small pools, straight from the blue water of which tall palm trees grow.
Describing this beauty of the territory, as I called it, parts of the hotel on the second coastline (building 7.
The largest of the beaches is at the middle (main) pontoon under the canopy of twenty-nine huge palm trees.
Architectural forms and landscape design
The highlight of the hotel's architectural symphony is, of course, the grandiose construction of a four-tiered escalator, which rises, almost from the sea, to the highest point of the hotel - to the lobby and to the porter service (reception). But it is not the technical design itself that arouses my surprise and admiration, although I, as an inventor, can evaluate it according to the highest category of technical progress, but its architectural execution.
Above each of these four escalators, to a height of at least twelve meters, rises a dome of a blue vault, symbolizing the sky with many golden stars. And on the sides there is a bright illumination in long rectangular niches.
A person only needs to water and trim the plants more often, giving them nice-looking shapes.
In order to see not the front, but the reverse side of the medal, I walked along the bypass road to the right of the main building - behind the third building. Frankly speaking, the impression does not cause admiration, in comparison with the grand view. Nothing special in terms of park landscape. Common low growing trees and shrubs. Compared to the rest of the territory, this area causes a certain despondency: everything is known and evaluated in comparison. Having seen and got used to masterpieces in some places, there is a natural desire to see them everywhere...But in front of the third building there is an excellent view of the sea and a green grassy carpet, which is especially pleasantly felt by the residents of the rooms on the first floor. And, of course, flowers… The same is at the sixth building, but with a panoramic view of the main pool with a waterfall, water slides and the sea…
I did not notice any other unusual refinements of architectural and landscape design, as such, for example, in the SunConnect SUNRISE Diamond Resort 5 * hotel.
Palm trees at the Grand Rotana Hotel. Flowers
Maple is famous in Canada. And the maple leaf even became a symbol of Canada, entered the coat of arms and honorably ascended the national flag. In the Grand Rotana hotel, Her Majesty the Palm tree has become the same remarkable tree and symbol! The image of a fan of palm leaves is everywhere and everywhere: on napkins, cups, toiletries (packages of soap, shampoos, pastes), on beach towels ... , up to business cards and official representative letterheads. And it's not in vain. There are countless palm trees in the hotel! Why countless? Checked on myself. I tried to refute the statement that 2000 palm trees grow in the hotel - at first glance, the figure seemed too unrealistic, and my crested nature - to treat everything with distrust: “I won’t believe until I touch it!
» But after counting the palm trees on the beach (! ) - four hundred and thirty-three, and then around the main pool - one hundred and twenty-five, I didn’t have the courage to do more. Yes, and three times I started counting at the entrance to the hotel - after the first hundred I lost my way. And, surprisingly, he was sober ...
Sometimes you even begin to suspect about excessive mockery of the palm tree. For example, take and plant it in the middle of the pool, like some kind of rice seedling in China, and make it grow! Yes, in such a constant abundance of water, any root, except for rice and reed, will rot! But no, the palm tree is growing! True, it is suspicious, especially in the pool at the entrance to the main building: the barrel is up to the entire five-meter height, as if in a concrete shell, and at the very top - as in a green plastic pipe. Only leaves in height seem natural. And you can’t feel it: next to “Security”, you won’t get into the water!
If you look at the Grand Rotana hotel from the side, it will seem that it is built in a forest of palm trees.
And their age is not infantile, as in some, no less respectable neighboring hotels, but decent, like for palm trees, - at least twelve years old! True, paying increased attention to palm trees, there is still not enough time left for other exquisite solutions of the hotel's landscape and park design. Except flowers. Flowers and palm trees are everywhere and down there, where there are bare palm trees. They fill the space with their beauty and delight the eye.
A forest of palm trees, fountains and illuminated pools in the evening in front of the entrance to the main building is an excellent live advertisement for potential guests - those who stop by on the way to their hotel or to the airport, when vacationers are picked up or brought by transfer bus. I myself, under the impression of palm trees and fountains since January of this year, thus learned about this hotel and dreamed about it, until now I got into it.
So I would advise the hotel administration to bring all new arrivals to the airport first to the Grand Rotana Hotel, on the way to their hotel, and the last ones before the airport. And it is not difficult to negotiate with representatives of tour operators. But the number of those wishing to buy a tour to this hotel will increase.
Restaurants and bars. Nutrition
The Grand Rotana Hotel, one of the few in Egypt, has abandoned the bracelet system for recognizing the food category of holidaymakers. I stayed in this hotel for eight days, but I did not understand what the advantage of this system is. But I experienced inconvenience. First of all, on any occasion, anyone can ask what number you have. Even to determine whether you are yours or someone else's? Or maybe some, God forbid, a terrorist?
And you know what’s on his mind: he’s just doing his duty, or he wants, doing the same duty, to write you some account for a service not provided or a fine for some kind of violation, for example, he stepped on a coral, fed the fish, or swam over the buoy. Then sort it out half an hour before leaving the hotel. Fortunately, nothing like this happened to me. But in principle, it could be. In recent days, I have already secured myself so as not to tell the number, I carried a voucher with me, where there was all the information about me, the hotel and the terms of stay, as well as an electronic key. By showing these two items, almost everyone, except for those cases when it was necessary to fix a drink or other order, no longer had any questions for me. In addition, for safety and security reasons, as was warned in all previous hotels, you can not tell anyone your room number.
More specifically about food at the Grand Rotana Hotel.
The price of the tour depends not only on the category of the room (I gave a comparative analysis of prices in the chapter “The Room”), but to the same, to a large extent, on the concept of food. Therefore, here I present the difference in the prices of the tour according to the Anex tour price list, depending on the category of food for the tour for 7 nights from 27.07. 2017 :
BB +$00$
HB +$180$
All +$300$
All +$500$
Seeing this picture with prices, I involuntarily remembered the review of the hotel by one lady with advice: "Better take UAll. " Who would argue! In this case, if there are opportunities like this lady, then it's better to take Miami! And as for me, given that I "suddenly" became on a diet, but more - my worker-peasant origin, I chose the BB food system - only breakfasts. And he was pleased. Moreover, taking into account the recommendation of the doctors: “Eat breakfast yourself, share lunch with a friend, and give dinner to the enemy, ” I went to meet the doctor and decided not only to give dinner, but also to give lunch to the enemy. But how is he after my gifts? - I have never seen him (the enemy).
It would seem that ordinary dishes, but the smile and friendly attitude of the juggler-cook who prepares a dish especially for you and serves it directly from the fire, makes its taste and impressions unforgettable. Further - everything is usual, but in such an assortment that you can’t try everything at once, not to mention eating enough of each dish in one sitting.
What distinguishes the breakfast restaurant of the Grand Rotana Hotel from other hotels is, first of all, delicious natural beef sausages - just right for the place - with scrambled eggs and fried eggs. They are of two types: boiled and fried - I liked the boiled ones more. At first I took one at a time for testing, but when I tasted them, and even more so when I saw how one little Arab boy was carrying a whole plate of sausages with a mountain, I could not hold it and dropped it on the floor, which once again confirmed their naturalness and deliciousness, I started taking more of them. And I recommend you.
Next, in importance - hard cheeses. Four types.
And all natural, and not from chemistry, as in hotels of a low category. I liked the cheese in the black shell the most - Edem cheese.
A very original dish with a memorable taste - "Ful madames", and even with various seasonings - right there on the counter: ground pepper, olive oil, lemon (lime), finely chopped tomatoes, onion, sweet pepper, etc. For me, it fulfilled functions of the first course.
I won't list the rest, at least two dozen kinds of dishes...I just wanted to make a special mention of natural juices - five types: mango, orange, apple, a mixture of different juices and guava.
And all that I have listed and more - a buffet! No receipts in the checks and issuing additional bills upon eviction!
There are also three more a-la-carte restaurants: Italian, Asian and Seafood Restaurant.
Guests staying at the hotel for 7 nights or more have the option of one free dinner, either at Mezzaluna Italian Restaurant, Silk Road Asian Restaurant or Palms Bar and Grill Restaurant. In the UAI food system, you can choose any of the four restaurants: the main restaurant or three a-la-carte restaurants
.
Bars.
The hotel has six bars: Duke's Bar, C-Lido; pool bar; Bar on Palms beach; Lounge bar Sky; Lobby bar Isis.
Late in the evening, after I went to the Sky Lounge bar - entrance through the Ramses restaurant, to see and copy my impressions of it on paper, and at the same time listen to the live music of the violin virtuoso (I love violin music! ) Live music , especially performed by a celebrity - this is already something! . . It is always crowded here, and the music reaches the most remote corners of the hotel. It’s nice to sit in the evening and relax, especially since it’s comfortable and not so hot here: powerful fans surround you with a mist of the smallest splashes of water…
Snacks and ice cream
Mezzaluna terrace; Palms (hot and cold appetizers on the menu);
Children's cafe and Mesaluna terrace (Ice cream in stock).
The drinks
The Grand Rotana hotel has a fairly large assortment of drinks: wine, beer, as well as strong alcoholic drinks, cocktails, tea, coffee, soft drinks and packaged juices. All carbonated drinks, beer and mineral water are served in cans/bottles; all juices, wine, cocktails and spirits are served in glassware. Premium drinks, as well as bottled spirits, are sold for a fee.
Evening at the Grand Rotana Hotel
About nine o'clock in the evening. From the chilled, almost to the point of trembling in the body, room (and this is in the month of July! ), I go out to bask in the Egyptian night. In a long stone corridor, you feel closeness. But not from the heat that filled the stone building on a hot day, but from the stuffiness of the stone crypt and the long corridor.
But, having stepped out into the expanse of the immense Egyptian night, you immediately feel how the Soul blossoms like a rosebud. Where did the feeling of the oppressive stuffiness that you experienced in the stone catacombs go! You are free and unite with the southern night. Ahead is the sea, dark and a little menacingly scary. Above you are billions of sparkling stars against a black sky. In the east, the moon gnawed by someone begins to rise timidly. And around you on Earth - a holiday! The lights of lanterns, searchlights, lights and illuminations on a huge 450 meters long coastal area. I open my eyes wider and try to absorb all this, not missing even the smallest things. Even at the subconscious level, because at the level of consciousness it is impossible to perceive and remember all this.
From below, from the sea, where an amphitheater is built on a steep slope, exciting music is heard, and the voice of the host talks about something with excitement in Arabic (after all, now, after Ramadan, most of the guests in the hotel are Arabs). The amphitheater during animation and performances by guest artists is one of the most crowded places in the hotel in the evening hours: according to my calculations, up to a hundred people gather here, mostly with children, since a “children's” animation is always organized before the “adult” animation.
But before the performance in the amphitheater began, I decided to check the “posts” - what and how is now on the territory of the hotel, where and how vacationers have fun and spend time.
A short climb up a wide, light marbled staircase with railings - a stainless steel pipe construction - and I'm on a wide plateau with a huge multifunctional pool.
But in the evening it is now completely gloomy and quiet, in contrast to the life that is in full swing: from the noise, din, voices, laughter, exclamations of children on the slides and in the children's pool, which are usually heard here during the day. The twilight, the lanterns of the blue water in the pools are burning sadly, from which this place has a special attraction for those who want to sit in contemplative silence and, if desired, meditate. But in the evenings it is usually deserted here - the contingent of vacationers is such that everyone strives for active recreation and entertainment, even at night. Moreover, the bar in the middle of the pool "Pull Bar", with drinks - only in the daytime - from 10.00 to 17.00. And for many vacationers, this is a significant stimulating factor in order to enjoy the rest at the bar or at a table nearby.
Immediately behind the pool, at the foot of a multi-tiered building with a four-tiered escalator, there is a whole complex of various restaurants and bars, with the main building at the very top with a hall, a reception and also an empty Duke's Pub bar, which, by the way, unlike the Pull Bar ”, starts working from 17-00, as if continuing the baton “Pull Bar” until one in the morning. Maybe it’s still early and he’ll still “walk around” by night? But I hoped in vain...
In the Italian restaurant "Mezzaluna", which is on the first floor, today, unlike last night, there are already visitors - one table is occupied by an Arab family with children. It is possible that these are vacationers on the “All inclusive” food system for at least seven days and who have free visits to one of the a-la-carte restaurants, including this one. Well, what can you do, because the hotel is less than half occupied: out of 526 rooms - only 213!
In this small, brightly lit hall of the Silk Road restaurant, through the glass wall, you could see how the waiters were running, bustling about, hoping that at least someone would look into them. I looked in, but didn’t go in and didn’t order anything, which obviously upset the waiters, but just to take a couple of pictures,
But on the third, penultimate tier, where the Ramses restaurant is located in the evening hours of its work (dinner: from 18.30 to 22.00), it is always noisy and crowded, because this is the only restaurant in the hotel that is included in the All inclusive food system. Here, unlike other restaurants of the hotel, waiters, cleaners, cooks, managers and other restaurant workers obviously do not get bored.
) stabbed to death four women relaxing on the beach and wounded several. And therefore, the relevant Ukrainian services did not recommend vacationers in the resorts of Egypt to leave the territory of their hotels ...
And after eleven in the evening, the bulk of vacationers disperse to their rooms. Only the Sky Lounge bar continues to “rage” with music and songs throughout the entire district, the entrance to which is from the third tier through the Ramses restaurant. Everything is explained simply: live music, guest artists and the fact that this is the only night (from 17.00 to 00.00) bar that is included in the all-inclusive and ultra all-inclusive food system, that is, practically free (but in fact already paid in advance and included in the price of the tour according to the “All inclusive” system).
Putting aside some infringement of my status (for the first time I rest on the “BB” system, and not on the “All” or “UAll”), I, as a blogger and journalist, confidently and boldly go to the Sky Lounge bar, slowly walk around the hall .
Getting acquainted with the interior, and, having found a free sofa, I sit down comfortably. I listen to the live voice of the soloist. Around in the hall, designed for at least fifty visitors, there are only ten vacationers ...
Somehow, all these empty restaurants and half-empty bars of the hotel sadly remind me of Crimea, Alushta of the early 90s of the last century. The same empty halls of cafes and bars on the embankment, in particular, above the beach of the Yunost boarding house, where the owner of the cafe prepared drinks and snacks all summer long, waited for visitors to recoup the costs of opening a cafe, without waiting, either at the end of June, not at the beginning of August - the high season for Crimea, went bankrupt ...Same here, in Egypt and, in particular, at the Grand Rotana hotel, everyone is waiting for guests from Russia ...But so far Turkey has intercepted all of them ...Again politics? Well, where are you going to get away from her?
After all, why hide, hotels in Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia, each without fail in the form of a "freebie" with the "All inclusive" system, were built by the hundreds for a multimillion-dollar vacationer from Russia, who at that time was "fat" thanks to the sale of expensive energy resources - oil and gas. And with these petrodollars, he ensured the prosperity of the tourism business in these resorts. But, alas, the "lafa" for the Russians ended with the fall in world oil prices. In addition, all sorts of different political misunderstandings, including with the Mistral. And the tourist business of Egypt fell almost to the bottom ...And what bright prospects opened up in the summer of 2015! I remember that during my vacation in July of that year, even Medvedev himself flew to the opening of the second channel of the Suez Canal ...But that was in the past.
And now I'm at the Grand Rotana Hotel, which, surprisingly, stands firmly on the slopes of Sharm El Sheikh on the Red Sea coast - literally and figuratively, and provides its guests with a comfortable and high-level vacation!
A moderately noisy and cheerful evening gradually turns into a peacefully quiet southern night. And after midnight there is no one else on the territory of the hotel, except for the lonely Poet, whose restless and rebellious Soul is looking for more and more reasons for creative inspiration. As well as a whole army of night “Securities” in blue shirts and dark trousers (they have such a dress code), who, after clarifying the status (there are no bracelets), understand the soul of the Poet and kindly allow you to even sit down on a sun lounger by the sea, and get as necessary as air, inspiration ...
Yes, another important, as for fans of the Internet, moment of the service of the Grand Rotana hotel is round-the-clock and high-quality Internet throughout the hotel.
Fortunately, I am free from this psychological addiction and therefore I devoted myself completely to comprehending the beauty of the Red Sea, corals, colorful fish and the man-made beauty of the territory of the Grand Rotana Hotel.
I described a standard evening with the opportunity to give myself to certain evening activities to increase my emotional tone after a sultry day on the beach. I can’t describe and disclose much higher levels of service, because I only had a “BB” level.
Evening animation
In addition to the daytime beach by the sea and by the main pool, where various games and entertainment events are organized, animated performances are held every evening after 21-00 by hotel animators, as well as by the talent of invited professional artists.
The program is varied and has a weekly cycle of original performances: it's a fire dance, a belly dance, a fakir show, the Miss Hotel and Mister Hotel competitions, and many others. All of them, as for the viewer watching them for the first time, seem original and interesting. But for me, who visited the resorts of Egypt more than ten times, unfortunately, these programs did not represent any originality, since I had already seen them dozens of times each.
July 17.2017. Monday
Fourth day or half term
Three days are enough to get used to the hotel. And on the fourth day, you are already your own, and within the framework of Egyptian resorts, you are even an old-timer of the hotel. But the whole process of adaptation is reduced three times, that is, up to one day, if on the very first day of your arrival at the hotel, an old-timer guide appears and will tell and show you everything.
In practice, this can be implemented as follows: on the first day of arrival, you come, for example, to the beach or to another public place where you can easily start an acquaintance with a casual conversation. And then in plain text ask to bring you up to date and tell the features of this hotel. Moreover, the interlocutor will gladly provide you with such a service, with the awareness of his own importance as an experienced and experienced resort visitor (there is such a human weakness of his own increased significance). But you subdue your pride and accept such voluntary and free help. Indeed, in every hotel there are such subtleties, sometimes even very significant ones, that only in such a conversation can one learn about them. And such advice and recommendations can be expensive - they will save you time and money, and will also allow you to make the most of the entire resource of the services provided by the hotel.
The restaurant has a children's buffet, children's chairs are provided, you can visit the paid "Kid's Cafe".
And, importantly for a holiday on the Red Sea, these are two children's sandy beaches in shallow water - for young children.
July 18.2017. Tuesday
Dawn over the Red Sea
Well, what is the Red Sea without dawn? And without not meeting him, and repeatedly, even after a sleepless holiday night? And not just to meet and put a tick on the fulfillment of the duty to Nature, which is trying so hard, but to fully enjoy this process. And I, in eight days, received such pleasure three times. Perhaps this is partly because I am a lark by nature ...
I wake up early, it's not yet four. I don’t know what alarm clock, but I don’t exclude that it’s internal. While from the balcony of my room I listen and listen to the night, I notice that the sky in the east is somehow, as if by magic, glowing.
And therefore, everything that is on earth: residential buildings, trees, bushes, flowers and everything else, as if manifesting itself from the darkness of the night, where they were barely noticeable, into their natural appearance, shape and color. So once I had images in the photo during their development in a developer solution ...
After some time, the East began to flood the pink color, which intensified in brightness and more and more coverage of the sky, until a bright fiery point, the size of a pea, appeared in the center of this fiery array. And it began, rising from the horizon, to slowly grow, turning into a huge flaming disk...
Six o'clock in the morning. The sun is already high and irresistibly striving towards its zenith, towards the zenith of its glory. The mountainous island of Tiran, from the beginning of sunrise all the time lay on the horizon as a sadly dark giant, suddenly from its foot began to be covered with a dense white veil, as if flying over the sea. He began to change his color to a cheerful light gray.
It is better with a camera, and if you are also writing, then do not forget to grab a pen and paper ...Unfortunately, do not set yourself up to see some kind of miracle at sunset. Sunset in Egypt is easier than Sunrise. And even more so than our evening Dawns in Ukraine. However, there is something to admire.
During the day, the Sun has worked hard, giving all of itself to the Earth and everything that is on it. And its excess is especially felt here in Egypt in the middle of summer. And in the evening, as if having exhausted its strength, the tired Sun slowly begins to roll to the West, to its nightly haven, where it will rest and gain strength in order to start its daytime charity tomorrow morning. And so every day.
And today, in the halo of its glory, it is approaching the top of the mountain. I catch myself thinking about the great power of the mountains, which I felt back in the Crimea and even devoted a whole cycle of my poems to this.
And at the same time, a thought arises that comes from a sound Mind: “But didn’t my purest and, it would seem, immaculate creative (read - spiritual) essence sell out to diabolical material temptations and with such excitement, like a prostitute, wave at her? I felt ashamed of her...
I understand that, of course, I am too categorical and, due to the inferiority of the mind (not only my own, but in general), I may not know all the intricacies of philosophy and the relationship between the Soul and the body, God and the Devil, and there is some rational explanation for all this , which, perhaps, someday the Most High (or, God forbid, the Devil) will open to me. But now this situation is driving me, or rather my mind, into a dead end. But I will leave this problem as an unsolved axiom by me, and I will try to open the next layer of problems.
I wondered why places like this VIP hotel, with its high potential for activating the creative process (which I feel for myself), are not accessible to those who need it most? Namely, creators, creative individuals. Here, people who are tired of making capital do not create (with the rarest exception), but carry out physical and psychological rehabilitation. And large capitals, as usual, are made not on virtue and philanthropy, but, on the contrary, on hidden or obvious tears and even the blood of many thousands of fellows ...Such is the psychology of business in modern conditions. And in order to get into this or a similar VIP hotel, for example, for ten days, having easily laid out a couple of thousand dollars, you need to use part of this bloody or “tearful”, if not “bloody” money. So, where is justice - from the point of view of not gangster, but highly spiritual concepts? ..
And with regard to the hotel - everything is correct and logical. After all, the hotel is part of the business and, of course, should work for profit, not for loss. But at the same time, I remember the good old (I don’t say “Soviet” anymore, since now, according to the criminal legislation of Ukraine, as for propaganda and the revival of communist-Soviet ideas, you can get a prison term) times when there were Houses of Writers, Artists and composers from the Unions of the same name. And even on the southern coast of Crimea. They obviously did not exist on the meager funds of membership dues, but were also abundantly subsidized by the state. Where is that state now? I know that the Ukrainian state will say: “Crisis! War! » And what will the American, British, German or Japanese state say?
I confess that I slept soundly amid the lush greenery for several hours in a row. My body could not resist, so as not to restore its strength after a sleepless night. Is it really possible to fall asleep before two in the morning, when there are so many interesting things going on here, from the evening until late at night? And not only hotel animators are guilty of this. Southern Nature itself creates more and more new ideas every night - you just have time to listen to them in yourself, opening your eyes wide, and, most importantly, your Soul ...And therefore today I fell asleep only at five in the morning, when the Sun was already trying to break through the bluish haze east. The soul raped the body until five in the morning, preventing it from falling asleep.
Yes, the body gets tired of an excess of beauty, but does the Soul get tired? I don’t know if he gets tired, but he constantly longs for beauty. And in anticipation of it, it contracts, and, having received what is expected, it straightens out like a powerful spring that nothing can hold it.
And every day and every night, from the first minutes of arrival in Sharm El Sheikh, I feel it here, on the Red Sea. And now, after the kind Soul gave the tired body a rest, after its awakening, it also demanded positive emotions for itself. And I, after taking a cool shower, just like a couple of days ago, fell into the shade on a carpet of thick grass and got such emotional (and physical) pleasure - at the level of an unearthly boundless good!
I clung with my whole body to this fertile Earth, spreading my arms wide to the sides, hugged her. And at that moment a miracle happened - a leap of my being. I felt the living breath of the Earth, the vibrations of her life. And I was no longer an outside observer (although even observing this is a great blessing of the rarest revelation), but here there was unity with the great creation of this World - with the Earth, communion with it, with its immense good.
And I caught myself thinking that I was unwittingly fulfilling the mission entrusted to me to connect with invisible threads two parts of one element - the waters of the Red Sea and the waters of the Dnieper, located on different continents and separated by thousands of kilometers. And this is done against my will, apart from my earthly (material) being. But this is done with the consent and with the active participation of that my second “I” from the subtle world, in which the Soul is the appearance of my other essence.
Maybe it's my fantasy? Or do I think too highly of myself? But everything is explained simply. I have heightened sensitivity to that other world. And I transfer all the emotions of that world to our world, trying to realize them in the form of words and phrases - the tools of our world. so that everything that I felt became the property of many. Although, I understand that this is ideally impossible. Is it possible to compare our flawed and impoverished language of writing with the language of feelings?
Fill even purely material obligatory procedures with spiritual content – to create.
These are the thoughts that appear when you swim in the Red Sea, and after that who will say that the Red Sea is not an incentive for the creative process and not a reason for thinking about the mortal and eternal?
In abbreviation. Full text: "Holidays in Egypt"
https://www. facebook. com/sashasim. Egypt/
And in the book: Sasha Sim. Red Sea: Corner of the earthly Paradise. Travel notes from Egypt. - Kyiv: SIM & HAM Publishing House, - 2017. - 535 p. , illus. ISBN 966-8802-17-9
© Sasha Sim (Alexander Golovko), 2017
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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