El Mina Mosque

Last night, the disco across the street from where we are had the music going full blast from 11 - 2 am. Yikes. We will give it another try but if it's noisy tonight we have the option to move to a quieter room tomorrow. Crazy resort towns.

About 2.5 km away, near the Marina and fish market, there is a large and impressive mosque called the El- Mina Mosque, or the so-called Heavenly Mosque.

El-Mina Mosque was built out of white marble and has two magnificent minarets, each about 40-metres high. We can easily see them from our apartment.

When we got to the mosque, there had just been a call to prayer so men were praying. We were told that you can always identify a devout muslim as they have a brown spot or zebibah, Arabic for raisin on their forehead. It is a dark circle of callused skin, or in some cases a protruding bump, between the hairline and the eyebrows. It emerges on the spot where worshipers press their foreheads into the ground during daily prayers. We saw many men with this spot.

I hadn't brought a scarf to cover my hair so only Chris went in.

The inside of the mosque has an inner hall that is rich and colourful, with magnificent chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, elaborate arches, carved and engraved walls and a 25-metre high dome.

It opened in 2012. This mosque is located directly on the sea and can accommodate about 10,000 worshipers at the same time. It includes two high minarets, 25 domes, a hall for religious occasions and another for lectures and meetings, and there is a very large square in front of it.

After seeing the mosque, we walked through some back streets and were invited into a shop to have a cup of date tea. We had a quite the conversation with the young man whose family lives in Luxor. He told us how farmers create gardens in the desert. First they dig a well for water and then they bring in the rich mud/silt from the Nile and place it on the sand. It takes a little time to establish the gardens but once trees and plants are in place they are good. Another mystery solved.

We have arranged to go out into the Red Sea tomorrow, board a submarine and go down 22m to see life in the coral reefs. This is a first for us!Read more