Dahab
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Arabic دهب Dahab |
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| Coordinates | 28 ° 30 ′ N , 34 ° 30 ′ E | ||
| Basic data | |||
| Country | Egypt | ||
| Janub Sina | |||
| ISO 3166-2 | EG-JS | ||
| Residents | 5000 (2006) | ||
 Dahab at dusk
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Dahab ( Arabic دهب, DMG dahab ) is an Egyptian city in the governorate of Dschanub Sina .
The former fishing village in the south of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt has developed into a popular holiday destination. In 2006 there were about 5000 Bedouins and about 700 foreigners living in the city .
The foundation walls uncovered in 1989 on the southern beach promenade belong to a lighthouse and are used between the 1st and 2nd centuries BC. Chr. Dated. The ancient connected Nabataean port (see also Petra (Jordan) ) was on the old trade route and served as a storage facility for merchandise for the commercial city of Maqnah opposite today's Dahab on the Saudi Arabian side.
Geographical location
Dahab lies on a narrow stretch of coast on the Red Sea . Immediately to the west rises the Sinai highlands, east of Dahab extends the Gulf of Aqaba . The larger resort of Sharm El-Sheikh is about 80 km south.
tourism
From the beginning of the 1980s to the end of the 1990s, Dahab was a meeting place for individual tourists. For a long time, Dahab was also considered a hangout for hippie tourism as an enclave. However, since the Sinai was connected to Egypt's electricity grid and the Sharm El-Sheikh airport was expanded, Dahab has also changed fundamentally. Large hotel complexes have been and are being built everywhere. The road network, which has been partially completed since 2003, gives a relatively good idea of the planned dimensions of future mass tourism . For example, the almost undeveloped and unpaved stretch of shore between Dahab and the Blue Hole in 2001 is now partially paved as far as the Canyon dive site .
Although there are now over 100 hotels and around 50 diving centers in Dahab , the place is even less crowded than its southern neighbor Sharm El-Sheikh .
- Dahab is best known for its dive sites that are continuously accessible from the shore. Around 20 beautiful areas can be reached within 30 minutes by jeep. The reefs mostly drop steeply to a depth of up to 900 meters.
- Even among surfers, Dahab has achieved a very high priority due to its strong winds all year round. Windsurfing is particularly popular , but kitesurfing is less popular .
- In Dahab there are numerous yoga , meditation , massage and self-discovery offers, probably a holdover from the wild times of the 1980s and 1990s.
- The restaurants located in the open air along the coast offer Egyptian and sea specialties in a partly romantic and cozy atmosphere.
- Due to its central location on the east coast of the Sinai , Dahab is also an ideal starting point for excursions and safaris inland and along the coast.
- From Dahab you drive about 2 hours to the Sinaiberg and the Katharinenkloster , one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world.
- About 60 km from Dahab on the main route there is a picturesque oasis called Ain Khudra .
Diving
Dahab is very popular with scuba divers . The tourism boom, which was delayed compared to other seaside resorts in Egypt, brought Dahab particularly well-preserved reefs with very beautiful corals until the end of the 1990s . Unfortunately, the mass tourism that started afterwards destroyed many corals, so that the proportion of dead corals should have reached a good 20% by now (however, Hurghada and Sharm El-Sheikh do much worse).
Popular diving spots are the "Canyon", the "Islands", "Oasis", the "Bells" and the "Golden Blocks". The diving spot " Blue Hole ", which is one of the most famous in the world, is particularly well known . As an exceptionally deep and low-current spot (110 m, outside 201 m), it is highly valued by apnea divers and tech divers .
In 1998 the University of Stuttgart carried out a reef check on the house reef of the InMo diving center in the southern part of Dahab for the first time . The investigation was led by Franz Brümmer, Chairman of the VDST 2003–2019.
One of the results was that at the reef edge 72 m away from a transect at a depth of 3 m, 68% of the substrate was covered by stone and fire corals , 13% by soft corals and 13% by dead corals. The uncovered remainder consisted of rock and other rocks. Among the hard corals, the genus Porites was found to be the dominant proportion with 54% , followed by Acropora 25% and Pocillopora 3%. The proportion of the genus Millepora (also cnidarians but not a hard coral, but belonging to the Hydrozoa ) was 18%. As far as possible, the soft corals were differentiated according to genera, Lobophytum receiving 23%, Sinularia and Lithophyton each receiving 15%.
Terrorist attacks on April 24, 2006
On April 24, 2006 at around 7.15 p.m. local time, a terrorist attack was carried out in Dahab , in which three cluster bombs were detonated. The first detonated at a busy intersection in front of the Ghazala supermarket across from the police station. Two more bombs exploded a short time later after people fled to the newly built bridge between the two districts of Dahab, directly at the bridge entrance. At this time of day, these three spots are the busiest spots in Dahab.
25 (local sources speak of 35) people, mostly Egyptians, lost their lives in the attack. Numerous other people were seriously injured. Similar attacks had already occurred in Taba, Egypt, in October 2004 and in Sharm El-Sheikh in July 2005. In October 2005, the Israeli anti-terrorist agency issued a terror warning for Sinai, calling on all Israeli citizens to leave the peninsula. The culprit has not yet been clarified.
A simple official memorial plaque in Arabic and a few private plaques at the southern bridge entrance remind of this crime.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://www.cdws.travel
- ↑ Spiegel report on the threat of terrorism on the Sinai, http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,377703,00.html