The article below was printed in the New York Times just under 25 years ago. Knowing Hurghada the way it is today, Christopher Wren's perspective back in 1981 is a true blast from the past. Hurghada, and the Red Sea in general, was a totally exotic location back then, which only a handful of foreign travellers had visited. I've included this old photo of the Hurghada Sheraton (since closed), dated circa mid-1970's, to provide some visual perspective to the Hurghada of 25 years ago.

July 5, 1981
A HOLIDAY FOR BEACHCOMBERS ON EGYPT'S RED SEA COAST 
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN 
CHRISTOPHER S. WREN IS A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES. 

The town of Hurghada, on Egypt's Red Sea coast, is one of those increasingly rare backwaters that still promise something akin to a real beachcomber's holiday. There is little but sun, sand and water. The unsullied beach stretches for miles, the sun shines almost every day and the swimming is little short of spectacular. Exquisite coral reefs offer some of the best scuba-diving and snorkeling in the world. Colorful fish abound in the clear salt water and lobsters as heavy as 11 pounds have been taken off the barren offshore islands. The biggest evening entertainment is still the sunset. 

Such delights are encountered all along the Red Sea coast, but they must be weighed against the occasional dangers of curious sharks and unexploded mines - the coastline was closed to visitors for more than a decade because of the Arab-Israeli hostilities, and only last year two British beachgoers were killed when a mine exploded on the beach near Ain Sokhna on the Gulf of Suez. But the vacationer can play it safe by heading south to the two resort complexes that are being developed near Hurghada, 240 miles south of the busy port city of Suez. 

With my wife, Jaqueline, and our two children, Chris and Celia, I recently set off by car on the 350-mile trip from Cairo to Hurghada. We carried extra gasoline and water in jerrycans, since service stations and other tourist facilities are all but nonexistent along the mostly deserted coast. We traveled in convoy with friends, Tom Tifft, an Agency for Inernational Development official in Cairo, and his family. It was just as well that we did, since we had two flat tires on the way. Our route took us south along the east bank of the Nile, and the familiar scenery of the Nile Delta surrounded us. Farmers with their robelike galubeyas hoisted around their knees toiled barefoot in the tall brakes of sugar cane. Small children emerged from the mud houses to wave cheerfully as we swerved to avoid the inevitable potholes, dogs and sturdy little donkeys with precarious loads. 

We arrived at Hurghada after a strenuous six hours of driving. The town itself is the capital of Egypt's Red Sea governorate, or province, though it resembles any drowsy Egyptian village. A mosque with slender minarets dominates the town, which mostly consists of drab concrete houses set unevenly along the dusty, rutted streets. Goats and children are ubiquitously underfoot. A local marine museum, sadly neglected during the war years, displays a collection of local fish, but the most interesting sight is the small harbor, crammed with fishing boats. 

The years of belligerency have preserved Hurghada's natural resources. Because the area was off limits for so long, it has thus far been spared the pollution, underwater depredation and commercialism that have ruined many Mediterranean resorts. But the town's former seige mentality has not quite disappeared. When we visited the harbor to look at the boats, a grizzled old guard with a tattered army jacket and rusty rifle tried to shoo us away, shouting in Arabic that photographs of his military installation were forbidden. 

The resort area is several miles down the coast, on a large bay. At its northern end is the Hurghada Sheraton, a luxury hotel built in the shape of a five-story doughnut; at the southern is the Club Med Hurghada holiday village. The two resorts are the only habitations on a horizon that sweeps from the bright blue ocean to a rugged mountain range. They are quite different from each other, but both share the tranquillity that so secluded a site affords. 

We had made reservations at the Club Med Hurghada. As veterans of other Club Med vacations, Jaqueline and I knew what to expect. The twin-bedded bungalows were cool and comfortable, if a trifle spartan. The food was both French and Egyptian and generally good, particularly the desserts. The drinks at the bar were paid for in beads, though the prices worked out to be high. A can of imported beer cost about $2.50 (inexplicably, the locally-brewed Stella brand was not available). There was the usual Club Med discotheque and evening entertainment, the closest thing to night life in Hurghada. 

By contrast, the mood at the Hurghada Sheraton, which was built in the 1950's and recently renovated, seemed less frenetic. The rooms were a little more elaborate and the glassed-in dining room, which faced the sea, seemed decidedly more formal. (Friends who have stayed there found the food excellent, especially the buffets with freshly caught fish and newly baked bread.) It is worth noting that when we visited the Sheraton, we were allowed to wander about freely, but when visitors from the Sheraton tried to get a look at the Club Med village, they were told they could not enter without paying an admission fee of several dollars apiece. 

A French couple who habitually take their holidays at Club Med resorts told us over dinner one evening that they felt the Club Med Hurghada operation lacked sociability because it took in transient guests as well as Club Med package vacationers. ''It's not a club; it's a hotel,'' the wife complained. 

But the scuba-diving facilities at the Club Med were first-rate, with experienced French instructors, modern diving gear and two compressors to fill the tanks. There was also a reassuring concern with safety. A brief physical checkup was required before a diver was allowed to go underwater. I had reason to appreciate this - I had learned to scuba-dive off the Florida Keys some years ago, but when we submerged for a training dive at the Club Med, I found that my ears would not clear of air pressure sufficiently to let me descend more than 15 or 20 feet. When I wiggled one hand in the international sign of difficulty, the instructor at once swam over and blew into the valve of my safety vest, sending me bobbing to the surface and back to shore. 

Tom Tifft is a certified scuba diver. The next day, he and his son successfully went down to a depth of 90 feet, where they spent an hour exploring the coral canyons before running low on air. Tom reported that the visibility underwater was excellent and the scenery fascinating. 

Meanwhile, Jaqueline, the children and I headed out with a boatful of skindivers for some snorkeling around another offshore reef. A wind had blown up, rocking the boat and leaving me somewhat queasy, but once we had followed the instructor overboard, all was serene. We fluttered through a fairyland of pastel coral cliffs that fell away 30 and 40 feet to a bed of dazzling white sand. Fish glided in and out of the dark grottoes - I recognized black-and-yellow striped butterfly fish, colorful parrot fish, delicate angelfish and some slender silvery barracuda. I became so engrossed in their movements that I never noticed, as others did, a two-foot-long gray shark that approached us and then swam off again. 

The offshore reefs tend to keep sharks from penetrating into the bay. The coral itself seemed alive, not only with the long strands of seaweed and clutter of seashells but also with the intricate designs of pink brain coral. Only when I returned to the boat did I discover that I had been swimming for nearly an hour. 

Some caution was advisable, since not all of the marine life was as innocuous as the tropical fish that seemed to sparkle all around us. In addition to sharks, I was told, the Red Sea diver must beware of spotted moray eels, sting rays and more bizarre creatures. A day earlier, some British military scuba divers camped on the beach for a Red Sea expedition had shown me a poisonous lionfish they had found lying almost invisible on the sandy bottom. As one diver gingerly approached, a knife outstretched in his gloved hand, the lionfish flared its transluscent mane like a spray of chicken feathers. 

Several other experienced divers I met at Hurghada thought the diving there ranked with the finest in the world. At Giftun El Saghir, an uninhabited offshore island, the water is said to be so clear that one can see the bottom more than 150 feet below the surface. The adjacent larger island of Giftun El Kebir is also popular with veteran divers, though hammerheads and other sharks tend to congregate around its northern tip. The British divers I met were not allowed to bring in their ''bang sticks'' - a device that blasts a shotgun shell at a menacing shark - but one assured me that he felt safe enough on the bottom by keeping his back to the coral walls. He also contended that someone snorkeling courted a greater risk because his splashing on the surface might be mistaken by a shark for a floundering fish. 

Another island off Hurghada, Abu Ramada, delights scuba divers with sheer reefs that drop abruptly to a depth of 120 feet. Yet the island's southern rim drops only 20 feet, making it suitable for skindivers. Off the island of Shaab Um Qamar, divers sometimes catch lobsters at night with their bare hands. 

Jaqueline and the children preferred somewhat less excitement in their swimming. One afternoon, Celia and Chris went off with the Tifft children to bob around some shallow sandy coves and dive for unusual shells. We all enjoyed the rare solitude offered by Hurghada, where one could go to bed early without feeling guilty, because there was not much else to to. 

Hurghada has not yet overcome some physical and bureaucratic obstacles. Egyptian authorities insist that boating and diving be first cleared with the port, a formality that both hotels handle for their guests. Yet there seems to be no clear policy about either spearfishing or collecting coral. 

During our stay at the Club Med, there was a water shortage and we had to rinse off the brine with buckets from our room. (Fresh water for drinking and washing is piped overland from the Nile river town of Qena, 100 miles across the desert.) We drank bottled water imported from France and Bulgaria. There are also occasional power failures, with a consequent breakdown in air conditioning. 

Both resorts have had problems training a staff of local workers, who are not used to catering to western tastes. One evening during our stay at the Club Med, the chef instructed a kitchen assistant to add a bit of brandy to the pepper sauce for the steaks and the helper eagerly poured in the whole bottle. The Sheraton initially brought two-thirds of its staff from Cairo, but hopes eventually to replace most of them with local people. 

Yet these drawbacks lose importance when one considers the advantages that Hurghada offers, not the least being sunshine virtually every day. And the best things in Hurghada are still free, regardless of where one stays. One evening we watched the sinking sun turn the occasional clouds blood red as it disappeared behind the black silhouette of ragged mountains. For those of us who had witnessed the underwater extravaganza that morning, Hurghada seemed to be showing off the best of two worlds. 

If You Go . . . to Hurghada, you will find that Egyptair has flights from Cairo to Hurghada five times a week; departures are at 7 A.M. on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday and at 10 A.M. on Wednesday. The flight takes 50 minutes and the round-trip fare is about $90. Flights should be booked well in advance by your travel agent and even then you should show up early, since Egyptian airlines tend to overbook. The airport at Hurghada is four miles from the resorts. 

Less hurried travelers who want to see the countryside may take an air-conditioned bus that leaves Cairo at 7 A.M., five days a week (there is no service on Wednesday and Thursday), and arrives in Hurghada at 3 P.M. The bus trip, which costs about $14.50, crosses the desert to the port of Suez, at the southern entrance of the Suez Canal, then proceeds down the mountainous Gulf coast. 

Some travel agents, particularly in Europe, are starting to add a few days in Hurghada to the Egyptian sightseeing circuit of Cairo, Luxor and Aswan, but you can also make your own arrangements. The Hurghada Sheraton has 95 air-conditioned double rooms with baths and another 10 beach chalets for larger parties. Reservations can be made through the Cairo Sheraton or the Sheraton hotels chain (800-325-3535). The Club Med Hurghada has 204 air-conditioned bungalows, each with twin beds, a living area and a shower. Reservations can be made through the Club Med (800-528-3100), which holds most of the rooms, or through Misr Travel, at 1 Talaat El Harb Street in Cairo. Misr Travel also has an office at 630 Fifth Avenue, New York 10111 (212-582-9210). Both resorts are usually booked up well in advance, particularly over local Egyptian holidays, though you can sometimes find a room if you inquire at the last minute. 

At the Club Med Hurghada, the price of $497 a person a week, or $71 a person a day, quoted by Club Med, covers the bungalow, all meals and a variety of sports, from scuba diving and snorkeling to sailing and archery. Misr Travel's quoted rate of $49 a person a day covers lodging and meals, but not diving equipment. The Hurghada Sheraton charges between $25 and $30 for a double room with a view of the sea, but meals and activities are extra - a full breakfast is about $4, while the buffet dinner is about $9. Snorkel gear costs about $4 a day, and a sailboat $7 an hour. Scuba diving equipment with a place on the boat is about $14.50 a day; diving instruction is extra. Which resort is the better bargain depends on how much scuba diving you plan to do. Rates go up in October. 

The weather in Hurghada is most inviting during the spring and fall, but the temperature seldom climbs much above 90 degrees, even in July and August, which is cooler than in Cairo. The heat is also tempered by offshore winds. During the winter, daytime temperatures seldom drop below the 60's; a wet suit will be welcome for any serious diving. 

The Red Sea is warm and saltier than a larger ocean, giving a buoyancy that makes swimming less strenuous. At any time of year, the visitor should be careful of sunburn, since the low humidity makes the sun seem less intense than it really is. - C.S.W.