Lovers defy Dahab bloodbath
2006-04-25 22:08
Dahab - "We had to show the bombers. We believe in love," said Icelander Anak Aldin, who tied the knot with his girlfriend in the Egyptian resort of Dahab amid the carnage of Monday's triple-bomb attack.
He dismissed any suggestion of cancelling his Bedouin-style wedding to Swedish girlfriend Kerstin Hellman after the explosions ripped through the Red Sea town, killing 18 people and wounding dozens more.
"Love is stronger than anything," piped up his new wife, sitting in the seafront restaurant where they were married just an hour after the bombings.
Aldin suffered a moment of panic when he was unable to contact his bride-to-be for an hour after the blasts, preoccupied as she was, dressing up in a white Bedouin tunic and putting on her make-up.
"I heard the explosions. People were shocked. People were running and leaving town," said the 39-year-old Icelandic healer, whose wedding to Kerstin was his third.
World-renowned diving
"I had to get my wife, come down and eat. We had to show the bombers. We believe in love."
Dahab, whose name means gold in Arabic, is a former Bedouin village which boasts world-renowned diving off the coast and has been a popular destination for backpackers for a long time.
Aldin met Hellman just three weeks ago on a tantric sex course in Sweden.
Caught up in a whirlwind romance, they came to Egypt on a whim, spent two days in Cairo and chanted at the pyramids before making their way to Dahab where they checked into a beachfront hotel and decided to get hitched.
Although the bombings meant the couple could no longer ride through the streets to their nuptials on camels as planned, they said they tried to make sure nothing else detracted from their Bedouin-style day.
Vague about their future
A local restaurant cooked up a wedding banquet, where there was Arabic music and dancing before the couple spent the night in the desert.
After a honeymoon spent in the desert the future for the couple is vague.
"May be we'll move here, go back to Sweden or move somewhere else," said 27-year-old Hellman.