Aiports again

Wednesday 4th November

There isn't really much to say about this day.  Went to Cairo airport, 5 minutes away from the hotel (it really was close, the control tower can be seen in the picture), got on a plane and flew to Heathrow.  Not much else.  Egyptair has been a very good airline in the 3 flights I have taken with them, I wouldn't have any problems flying on them again (although there is no alcohol - but I tend not to drink when flying).

There was one little incident on the plane, a bit of an air rage between the guy in the seat behind me, and the women behind him.  She was giving out about his seat being reclined on top of her, he said it was broken.  It almost came to blows.  So one thing, if people ever claim that alcohol is a cause of air rage, I think I can show a case where it wasn't a factor on a dry plane.

Cairo Again

Tuesday 3rd November

It was a very early start this morning, a 4am wake up call.  Amazingly the hotel staff put on breakfast for us, because of this I felt I had to eat something even though I didn't really want to.  I was up early because I was being dragged along to the airport in the same transfer as James and Clare as they were getting the BMI flight back to London.  This is the one I couldn't get booked on, so I was going back via Cairo.  No idea why I couldn't get on this flight, apparently James booked after me.

I was pretty concenred about one thing, our bags getting wet on the runway, as had happened to me at the end of my last trip in JFK, but I needed have worried.  For although it was still raining heavily in Amman, and there was a lot of local flooding, when we go to the airport out in the desert, it was quite dry.

The one thing I am a bit disappointed in is that I never got to see any of Amman, which seemed like a much nicer place than Cairo.

The airport was a fairly standard one, with one exception, except for the quality of the women working in the various duty free shops.  They were pretty stunning.  The flight to Cairo was also fairly standard, and as I had a window seat I was able to look down on all the places we had visited.

When I arrived at Cairo they insisted on making me pay for another Visa, even though you are supposed to be able to get a 24hr one for free.  You would think it is a local scam, but as I pay direct into a bank account the guys who are making me pay can't get their hands on it.  Maybe it is just their patriotic duty to raise extra taxes.  Anyway as I hadn't paid any departure tax in Jordan it wasn't too bad.

When I got out of the airport, the hotel I was staying at, the Novotel near the airport, had its own transfer shuttle, so I wasa able to turn down the advances of all the taxi drivers who had been one of the low points of Cairo.  I'm glad I didn't try to go downtown.  The hotel airport was said on Hotels.com to be 3k away, I reckon it was a 10 minute walk if you could have.  The drive there in the bus took longer because of the one way system.

The hotel was a standard airport hotel.  I had booked it thinking it would be nice to have a decent hotel for at least one night at the end of the trip, but to be honest it probably wasn't as good as half the hotels on this trip.  Still it had a nice Italian restaurant so I had a nice meal, watched some TV and finished my reading. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amman

Do you want some salt with that?

Monday 2nd October,

After a slightly confusing start to the day where nobody seemed to know how we were getting off the mountain, we got transferred to reunite with our Jordanian driver, who hadn't bothered to come to the TV less hotel we were staying in, but stayed in a nearby town with full mod cons.  Anyway although we were almost at sea level we still had another 400m to descend.  Because we were off to the Dead Sea.

On our way we passed the entrance to what is called the Grand Canyon of Jordan.  As it wasn't that grand I think the one in Arizona should sue.

It was great to see a sea again after a few days of desert, but of course this sea is like no other.  For a start at the beginning it was easy to see Israel on the other side, and so it was always just a lake to us.  But it is a big salty lake.  When we stopped on a cliff to overlook the lake, with the smell of the salt, the wind in our faces, and the waves crashing against the cliff, you could have been anywhere in the West of Ireland.  It was quite choppy, and on the far side (at this point I'm not sure if it was Israel or Palestine) it looked like a storm was brewing.  At 400m below sea level it is the lowest point on the Earth's surface.  Its pretty humbling to think that you are below 95% of all the fish on the planet, and 99.999% of all the other humans.

On we went to the quite swish hotel/resort where we were going to actually have a chance to bathe in the Dead Sea. Basically it is like going to the beach in any other resort in the world, except much more salty.  The temperature in the wind wasn't much better than in Ireland in October, but the water was warmer.  Because of the waves it was hard to do the classic floating reading the paper photo, but we go into the water, floated a little, and got out.  There wasn't much else to do.  Also the stones underfoot were very sharp.  Anyway it is a classic case of been there done that, one you get in and float (or try to float in my case) there isn't much else to do.  I'm not sure why people would go there for more than a couple of days.

One other thing, they say don't let the water get in your mouth and they are right.  Because of the waves there were a lot more splashes, and I got one in the mouth.  It was so salty, it was the foulest thing you could imagine.  After we showered off the salt, we went up for a big buffet lunch in the posh hotel.  I have to say it was a magnificant spread, and although it cost a bit, £20, we ate our fill and got our money's worth.  The desserts were particularly good.

Following that we continued our journey to Amman, uphill all the way, as I guess everywhere on the planet is from the Dead Sea.  We got to our hotel, which was another very good one, as usual.  As this was 4pm we arranged to meet up at 5.30 for our last night out on this trip.  We wanted an early start as all had early airport transfers or bus journeys in the morning.  However when we got down to the lobby at 5.30 it was absolutely pouring down.  I mean rain like we don't really see at home.  It was so wet we couldn't go out, so in the end we just stayed in our hotel and had a few drinks and a snack from the bar menu, while we relived our experiences and said our goodbyes.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_sea

Descent to Dana

Sunday 1st November

Today we headed off to Dana, a nature reserve, which extends the length of a canyon dropping from 1200m above sea level to 50m below sea level.  Its the beginning of our descent to the Dead Sea.

Before we left Wadi Musa, we went to the spring that is the source of the water that was used in Petra.  It wasn't very exciting.  Also on the way out of Wadi Musa we saw some tress that are 5000 years old.  That was a little more exciting, the idea that they have been around since the time of Moses himself (if he existed).

After that it was onto Dana, past some more great scenery and a very cool Crusader castle, although we couldn't get into it, and then we got to the top of the canyon.  Before we went to the visitor centre we stopped for some photos at the top.  We should have been warned by the fact that the trees at the top were growing at a 45 degree angle, but we weren't.  When we got out the wind in our faces coming up the canyon was amazing.  A few hats had to be recovered.

We then made our way to the visitor centre and attached lodge, which we hoped would be our residence for the night.  It was a really spectacular location, perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking a drop of about 800m into the canyon.  But it turned out this wasn't our lodge, ours was down in the valley itself.  We were going to drive around and then back up from the other end.  However I got an idea that it would be cool to walk down the valley to the lodge.  But we needed to find a guide, and we were having trouble getting information about how far it was and how long it would take.  After about an hour we got a guide, who didn't actually look like he could hike a canyon, but it was our best guess.  Anyway we sent the bags on and began to walk.

So off we went down into the reserve in the midday sun, which was probably not the best idea, but was better than walking uphill on your own in the midday sun, as we saw one girl doing.  We descended the first 500m or so pretty quickly, it was quite steep, and then we were down in the reserve itself.  It is supposed to have all sorts of animal life in it, but we saw very little, a few birds and a couple of wild camels.  Most of the animals lists as living in the canyon were nocturnal, sand cats, foxes, and so on, and of course the one we all would have loved to have seen, the porcupine.  I'm going to trust that these animals exist as we didn't see any evidence of them.

After 3hrs of walking the sun began to go down, and I began to get worried about the speed we were going, which was a lot less than my normal walking speed.  The other problem was that I couldn't get any information from our guide, who didn't speak much English, as to how far it was to go.  He seemed to indicate at 3 that we were halfway, which would mean it would be 6 when we finished, and at 4 it was still many kilometers.  It was beginning to look like it would be dark before we finished, which was slightly concerning, but then we turned a corner and there was a bedouin tent with a pickup truck beside it.  So worst case scenario we could pay for a lift out.

Once the sense of not being stuck in the dark was past, it was a bit more relaxing.  We actually got held up a bit by the goats being herded back to a bedouin village and then after we walked through it we were magically at the lodge we were staying in.  Although we didn't know it, and it looked closed.  But again we were hampered by our guides lack of English.  However eventually the lodge staff turned up, amazingly with our luggage, and we got checked in.

The lodge itself was pretty nice, it was an ecolodge, which meant they were running it with no carbon footprint.  This meant we had little electricity (all lighting was candles) and the only hot water was heated during the day (so showers were in the evening not the morning).  But other that that it was fine.  The food was vegetarian, but I guess I could put up with it.  After all there had been some days when the vegetarian in our party had little choice in her meals.  Actually the food was very good, again like all our food and accomodation on this trip, better than you would expect from the description (a hikers lodge in a nature reserve)

The best part of the ecolodge was the rooftop terrace, which we made good use of.  We saw the sunset, which is supposed to be spectacular, but actually was very cloudy.  Afterwards sitting up there it got cold very quickly.  With the interior courtyard you could look down on, the fact that it powered down at night, and the sound of the camels in the background (which sound a lot like sandpeople) it felt like the Lars farm on Tatooine.  I was fully expecting C3PO to come along and tell me the R2 unit had escaped into the desert.

Because of the cold, and the fact that we were all fairly exhausted after our hike, which we discovered was 15km, so 4.5 hrs wasn't that bad a time, it was a fairly early night.  It is amazing how when you have no electricity you do adjust your sleeping patterns to the availabilty of sunlight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_(Crusader_castle)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dana_Nature_Reserve

This city rocks

Saturday 31st October

Today was Petra day.  I think I was looking forward to visiting this new wonder of the world even more than the old wonder pyramid.  I tend to like big sites rather than the one off structures, perhaps because the crowds don't seem as bad.

To maxmise our visit we got to the entrance at 8am when it opened.  The initial offer of a horse ride from the visitor centre to the entrance to the city itself was rejected when we found out it was only 700m.  It is not like we are fat Americans (no offence to any Americans but the majority taking the horses seemed to be American, the fat French walked).  To be honest I think the time taken to get on and off the horses would probably have taken longer than any time saved using them.  As it was downhill and on a fairly flat path, even Toby's ankle stood up to the task.

We met up with out guide, Ibrahim, who began to give us the lowdown on the Nabataeans who built the town, and its history.  According to him they inveneted everything, although it is more likely as traders they borrowed it from the Greeks, Romans, Arabs and so on.  Still it is quite impressive, they diverted rivers and dammed them to ensure a decent water supply.  Our first sight of the city is the water channels at the entrance to the Siq.  The Siq is the narrow canyon which was the entrance to the city.  It is about 1.2km long, and averages no more than 3 or 4 meters wide.  It is no wonder that nobody found the city for 100s of years.  Although like most lost cities (Ankor Wat and Machu Picchu earlier in the blog) , it turns out the natives always knew it was there.

Anyway we walked down the Siq (we are still going downhill) we looked at the various religious carvings and the water channels down the side.  There were both ceramic channels for humans, and earthen ones for animals.  But the 'gods' were probably the strangest things, they looked like old computer characters, the aliens from space invaders, or pac-man.

Finally we rounded the corner and saw out first view of the Treasury, one of the two most spectacular buildings in the city.  This is the iconic sight that is the last scene of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  This is the film that brought the city to the attention of the world.   The Tresury is a building carved directly into the stone rock of the canyon.  It was a tomb for the kings, the normal tombs are a lot smaller, all the buildings in the rock were tombs.  People lived in normal huts, but these haven't survived the years thanks to earthquakes.  It is all the rock tombs that give the city its name, Petra, which of course is the Greek for rock.

The Treasury itself is very spectacular, there are lots of Greek, Roman and Egyptian influences on the carvings on the front of it.  But what is in some ways more amazing is the inside.  It is barely more than a single square room.  It doesn't sound very spectacular, but when you remember that this is hewn from solid rock, it is amazing that they got it so well defined.  It turns out that only recently they have discovered more underneath, so it maybe even more amazing than it looks.

Leaving the Treasury, and all the crowds, behind, we continued on into the main part of the city itself.  All the smaller tombs are here, and a very large amphitheatre.  In some ways the way it unfolds out in front of you are you walk around each corner makes the city even more impressive.  Just as you have seen one part, the next is there in front of you.  I think the Treasury also suffers from the over exposure it has had in films.  We saw a number of other royal tombs in the distance but we skipped over these and fairly raced towards the end of the city.  The city is quite linear, over 3 or 4km from one end to the other, and our guide took us on a sort of short cut on a road overlooking the main street so that we could get ahead of the crowds.  It was a good idea, get ahead of them, and then look into everything on the way back, as you go back out the same way you went in.

Our guided tour ended a bit early, maybe we move a bit faster than the fat tourists, but our 4 hour tour lasted less than 2 1/2 hours.  Having said that we might have been better off without the guide, as he didn't really know that much, except that the Nabeteaens invented everything.  He did recommend we head up the other side of the valley to look at the Monestary, the largest of the buildings, which for some reason is located a bit of a distance from the rest of the city, up a flight of 850 stairs. 

It is not a particularly hard climb though, the only hard part is avoiding the donkeys, and the donkey ride sellers.  It looked like you were taking your life into your hands if you got onto one, but getting in the way of one isn't much better.  The safety of the donkeys is so bad that our local guide told us specifically not to get on one, even though it is probably his mates that rent them out.  The other thing we had to avoid were the traders trying to sell us the usual junk.  What was funny were two, one who had learned from Del Boy (his stuff was pukka, etc) and the other one who actually had a Birmingham accent, she must have grown up there.

When we got to the top of the mountain we saw the Monestary, which was pretty big.  As we had got there before the crowds we had a bit of time to explore and eat our picnic lunches.  I reckon we deserved it as we had probably done 7km by that point, but at least that was the end of the linear city.  We had also beaten the sun, as it still hadn't gotten too hot by then.  The interesting thing is that the guide books say that sunset is spectacular up here, but the place closes at sunset, and as it is 7km from the entrance, I couldn't figure out how you could watch sunset and get out in time (not to mention how dangerous the stairs would be in the dark - although I had brought my torch, now standard for all tomb sites).

We headed back down the mountain, and passed the Crowne Plaza restaurant.  Turns out they own half the site, but at least they have blended in.  You might get a bit annoyed about the modern buildings in such a site, but it is necessary, the fat tourists need to be fed.  We had our picnics, which we ate at various points, and therefore didn't need to eat there.  But they were doing great business.  At this point, 1pm, we began to make our way back out, but we were able to take our time and look into all the temples and tombs we had bypassed on our way down.  Most of the caves began to blend in after a while, seen one room carved out of rock, seen them all.  They all smelt of camel pee anyway (or at least I hope it was camel pee, in at least one place it might have been human).

By about 3 we were getting pretty tired, so we began to head out, and again we ran the risk of being run over by camels and donkeys.  As the route out of the city is uphill, the fat tourists needed a lot more help.  While it is a long day, and we did maybe 15-16km, it really isn't that tiring, as it wasn't that hot.  Still when we got back to the entrance we decided to go for a beer in the Cave bar.

This bar purports to be the oldest bar in the world.  It may or may not be, but it is one of the most unusual locations.  It is built in a 1st centuary AD cave.  Still now it is part of the Crowne Plaza empire (which I'm fairly sure does not predate the Roman empire).  And although we expected it to be an absolute rip off, the pints were no more expensive that they would be in a Crowne Plaza hotel in the UK.  Actually so far the prices of drink in Jordan have been about the same as London.  Not a cheap place to go for a drinking holiday, but that might be the idea.  If you can't stop us from drinking, making it more expensive might make it less likely we get drunk (and less likely locals will take part in the drinking).

After a couple of drinks, we headed back to the hotel, and then later we went out for dinner and then to find the local Irish bar.  Unlike the magical one in Dahab, this one actually existed, we had all seen it.  Actually it was not an Irish bar, it was just a hotel bar that had signs for Guinness, Kilkenny and Magners outside it.  Still it had beer and so we went in.  We only had one beer, I had a Petra beer, locally brewed 8% beer, which felt like 12%.  It was probably the exhaustion of a long day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_7_wonders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra

Lawrence was here

Friday 30th October

The rest of the gang got up before dawn to catch the sunrise.  I didn't bother, and was right to stay in bed as the others said it wasn't that great.  I got up at 6ish, as it was beginning to get quite warm in the tent.  We went on a 4x4 tour of the desert, seeing all thevarious archeological and geoloical sights.  It was pretty good, and actually pretty hrd to describe.  I mean the sights are all the usual weird rock formations which you see in a desert, but there was something about the way we were being bumped around on the 4x4 that made it more like a roller coaster ride than a trip to see some rocks.

Possibly one of the funniest things was at our first stop, where we were treated to some Bedouin tea.  Here there were cats (as there had been throughout Egypt) and one of them seemed to wander off into a crevice and started meowing.  The noise of the meow echoing through the desert was hillarious.  It is one of those things where you wish your camera has a microphone so it could capture sound instead of pictures (and then you remeber it does after the noise stops).

Anywaythis whole area is famous because it features in the film Lawrence of Arabia, the life story of T.E. Lawrence.  I am ashamed to say I had never seen the film, so I can't say I recognised any of it, but I will watch it now, if only to say I've been there (which is something I like doing when watching films).

We made a good choice by choosing to go out into the desert early at 7 until 10.30, as if we had gone out later it would have been very hot.  So instead we ame back and had a late breakfast, and then we did a bit more exploring on foot, before we headed off to Wadi Musa, the town next to Petra.

The trip itself wasn't that long, and fairly standard on good roads, although it was quite hilly.  In some places it reminded me a bit of some of the trips in South America with the hills and the desert.  Or maybe it was the crappy Mexican Pzza flavoured crisps I had bought.  We got to Wadi Musa at about 3pm.  It too looked very South American, built on the side of a mountain, or to be more precise, two sides, both sides of the valley over the wadi.

Our guide suggested we go to a place called Beidha, or Little Petra, as our ticket for Petra was arranged for the next day only, so we couldn't go for a sneak preview down there.  We got there on a roller coaster of a road that actually gave us a look down on parts of Petra.  Beidha is exactly like a little Petra, in that it is down a narrow canyon with all sorts of buildings carved into the rocks along the sides.  It is pretty good in its own right and served as an appetiser for Petra which we will see tomorrow.  It is probably best to view thius site before Petr, as afterwards it just won't compare.  One good thing is that it was mostly empty of tourists.

There was one strange thing however, as we walked down the canyon, probably a good 2 km, we got to a set of stairs.  Going up the stairs, and around a blocking rock, I walked into a coffee shop.  It was a bit strange, all the more so because it wasn't advertised, and was empty.  You would easily miss it.  I called the others up, and then we realised that the guys running it were off around the corner waiting for the spectacular sunset.  We were going to wait, but then we realised that we would have to walk back in the dark, and there was a bit of a tension between the locals and a few German tourists already there.  It honestly felt like a fight woul break out.  So we cleared off back to our van and the hotel.

After that it was ou for a reasonable meal, although prices are now much closer to London or Dublin than they were before, and back to the hotel for some sleep ahead of the long day in Petra itself tomorrow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_rum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_Musa

http://www.grandview.com.jo/little_petra.html

Crossing to Jordan

Thursday 29th October

Today was the day we would leave Egypt behind and cross to Jordan.  We did the usual early enough get up, shower, pack, eat breakast, buy some supplies, get in the van routine, and then we set off on our journey north to the por city of Nuwebia.  This is from where we would get a ferry to cross to Aqaba in Jordan.  By taking the ferry we would avoid going into Israel which would have complicated things.  Apparently it can take hours to cross the 6 or 7 km of Israel that you have to negotiate to cross by land.

The journey to the port was fairly short, only an hour or so, so we were there in plenty of time to register and collect the tickets.  So much time so that we were able to go to the beach part of Nuwebia, north of the port, and have lunch in a nice beach front restaurant.  It turns out that our tour leader Mezza is looking to take over this particular place and he wanted our opinion on it.  I have to say it was very nice, but needs a bit of marketing.  Still with Dahab becoming ever more commercialised, it could be the next big hippy hangout in Egypt.

After lunch we headed back to the port to wait for the boat to arrive.  It was supposed to leave at 2pm, but like much travel in third worl countries it is very much a case of who knowsn when.  We fairly quickly realised this was going to be late as 2 came and went with no sign of the boat arrivin from Jordan.  There are two ferries, a slow one and a fast one, and we were on the fast one so I'd hate to see what the slow one is like.  We sat around the terminal waiting for the ship to arrive, until we got fed up as it was even worse than Holyhead, so we went and sat in the air conditioned van instead.  Eventually the ship arrived at 4 and we got on, and eventually departed at 5.  The only problem was that as it was getting dark the fast boat had to travelmore slowly, so it was 7 by the time we got to Jordan. It should have been 3.30.  But we passed the time by playing cards, there it little else you can do, and at least the shop on board was well stocked.

Our entrance into Jordan was fairly OK, there was a hairy bit where our passports were taken while we were on board and not given back until we reached immigration on land, but even that was alright (although a few other travellers panicked when their passports went out of sight, some people take the warnings in LP about keeping your passport with you at all times a little too seriously).

We met up with Yasser, our Jordanian tour rep.  He then drove us to Wadi Rum where we were supposed to watch the sun set, but as it was after 9.30pm when we arrived we were a bit late (sunset was at 5.30).  It turned out it was actually 10.30 local time, as Jordan and Egypt come out of Daylight Savings Time at different times, but as the change in Jordan was later that night it didn't seem worth changing the clocks just to change them back in the morning.  It did confuse me that the clock chage was on a Thursday night instead of a Saturday like at home, until I remembered Islamic country, weekend starts here and all that.

Our first impression of Jordan was the port city of Aqaba and I have to say it seems like a much more modern city than any in Egypt.  The roads are a lot better, and traffic lights and lane discipline are back as well.  So it is more first world.  But we did have the amazing sight of a camel in the back of a pickup truck.  Yep, as we were driving along we saw a camel sitting down in the back of a pickup truck, or ute for any Aussies out there.  Alas it passed by too quickly to take a picture of it, so it is just one of those amazing sights that you have to remember instead.

We got a bedouin dinner in Wadi Rum (and I have to say the lamb was some of the nicest lamb I've ever had), and then we were shown to our tents.  I was a slight bit disappointed as our bedouin tents, as they were built on concrete foundations and with metal supports driven into the concrete, so they weren't exactly nomadic.  But I should have guessed our desert camping trip wouldn't be very isolated when we could hear the train going past.  Still they had to be the nicest outside toilets I've ever seen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuweiba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqaba,_Jordan

I hate camels

Wednesday 28th October

Toda was a lie in, I only had to get up at 7.  We were off to do some Red Sea snorkelling at a place called Ras Abu Gallum, and the world famous Blue Hole (although there are other world famous Blue Holes).  This sounded OK, well except for me who hates swimming, and except for the fact that we had to go there and back by camel.

Toby's reward for hurting himself was not having to go on camels, although he had caught the cambulance down the mountain yesterday.  I say reward, he of course was gutted about not being able to go snorkelling, where I would quite happily have sat in Dahab all day instead of going onthis trip.

After a brief journey in a 4x4, we transferred to our other 4x4s,4 camels.  Getting onto the camel was pretty ok, and although you expect it to be a bit tricky when it stands up, its not too troubling.  However once hey got moving it became a pretty painful experience.  Obviously there was the movement, but the main problem for me was that I was wearing shorts, and the insides of my legs were rubbing against the coarse wool cover they had placed over the camel.  So I ended up getting carpet burns on the inside of my calves.  For this reason I nicknamed my camel Bernie.

In fairness other than that it was a fairly good trip.  Bernie plodded along at a fairly reasonable speed, and although he was a bit hesitant about going downhill, he was fairy surefooted.  Which is just as well as we were travelling on cliffs overlooking the see.  The cliffs were only a few meters tall, but then we were a few meters further up on the back of the camels.  Actually I say Bernie was surefooted, I couldn't actually see.  But I couldsee other camels slipping.  I'm guessing Bernie did as well, but you don't feel it.  Anyway I assumed he didn't want to go into the sea any more than I did, so I left him to his own devices.

I once heard that camels have really good memories for directions, and it must be true, because there was nobody leading us, we were on our own.  But Bernie and the other camels seemed to know where they were going and after an hour our camel-nav led us to the village where the first snorkelling would be done.  I only did a little as I'm not the best in the water and without my glasses.  I went to the edge of the reef, peered over, and saw quite a few fish, but it wouldn't have been fair on the others to have me along dragging them back when we would have had to stick together.  So I got out and sat on the beach while the others went off to deeper locations.  At least then I was ble to take some photos.

After this firstbout of snorkelling we were supposed to reboard the camel train and head back to the Blue Hole for lunch.  However our guide said that these days all the diving has scared off the fish and it is not as good as it was.  (That and it is dangerous, more people are supposed to have died snorkelling/diving there than any other site).  So the others eleted to stay where we were (I didn't vote as it made little difference to me which beach I sat on) and we had a bedouin lunch.

After lunch the others went back out for another hours snorkelling, and I sat on the beach talking to Mezza our guide.  I told him about the various places I've been, and about snow which he has never seen, and explained why I didn't think te top of Mt Sinai as very cold.  He tried to sell me the bits of Egypt I wasn't seeing on this trip, although there wasn't much need, I think a separate trip to Luxor has always been likely.  Just as long as I don't have to go back to Cairo again.  A Kiwi beach bum that I also got chatting to also tried to sell me the idea of visiting the Western Oases in Egypt, which I hadn't thought of before, but from reading the LP descriptions sound pretty cool.

One interesting thing happened while were were out in this remote village.  I turned my phone on, and it decided it was in Saudi Arabia, which was actually 10k across the Red Sea.  I sent a few texts just so that in future when the CIA are analysing my phone records it will confuse them.

When the others came back in we got back on our camels and headed back.  It was a similar trip back, and again the camels were uncomfortable and slow.  As it was now quite cool, with our path back in the shade from higher mountains, I think I could have done the 5 or 6 km back as quick on foot.  Still we made it back to the Blue Hole just before dark, and with a few spots of rain falling on us (news as we are in a desert after all).  As we were booked for a lunch at the Blue Hole we had a late lunch of pizza and then we headed back to the hotel at about 6 to wash the salt and camel stink off.

In the evening I had a wander around Dahab looking for the Irish bar James swore he saw the previous night.  I couldn't find it, I think he was hallucinating from the lack of alcohol.  In the end we just settled down in an ordinary bar for a few drinks, as you never know when the next ones might come.  Overall Dahab is a nice relaxed place to spend a few days, but you would really want to be into your snorkelling or diving to sepnd a week there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahab
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Hole_(Red_Sea)

Thou shalt not slip

Tuesday 27th October

I was woken up at 12.30 am, yes thats 30 minutes after midnight, as James had mis-set his phone alarm.  I did stay in bed until 1.15 when my phone went off, but amazingly didn't fall back asleep as you would expect to at that hour.  Anyway at 1.30 it was time to set off so we left the hotel and drove the short distance to the base of the mountain.  Mt Sinai is the target of our climb as we aim to follow in the footsteps of Moses.

It was pitch black, but it did mean that we had a great view of the stars.  Orion in particular looked amazing, far better than it does in the light polluted cities I normally inhabit.  Anyway although it was dark, we all had our torches, so it was ok.  More importantly we were sharing the mountain with 100s of others, so there was a torch procession going up the mountain.

There are two ways up the mountain, the camel trail which is an 8km track which goes up fairly evenly, and the stairs of Moses, which are 3750 steps up the side of the mountain.  Either way the last 750 steps have to be done.  I wanted to go up the steps (and had spent a lot of time training in the gym for steps), but our guide wouldn't split us and the rest of the group wanted to walk up.  The only hard part about the trail is avoiding the camels, which a lot of the fat tourists use to get up.  It takes about 2 hours to get up the trail to the base of the steps, and then another 30 minutes or so to get up the stairs.

However just before we got to the base of the stairs, Toby slipped, and sprained his ankle.  This, and the fact that you can't really overtake the slow fat tourists on the steps (they had got ahead of us by using camels, camels are cheating) did slow us down slightly but we still had half anhour to shelter and drink some hot drinks in a coffe shop at the top.  We had brought chocolates and coke all the way up with us, and you could get it at the top.

Anyway with the emrgency first aid applied to Toby's ankle w got to the top, and still quite ahead of most of the crowds, so our guide got us to a really good position to view sunrise.  Of course it turns out that a lot of the people weren't there for the sunrise.  In fact there was a lot of praying going on at the top of the mountain, and I did for second wonderwhat all that was about.  So focussed were we about getting up for sunrise, I sort of forgot that everyone else was there because it is a holy mountain.  It also explained why there were so many older people there.  I didn't expect to be one of the yougest going up.

We had arrived at our viewing ledge about 45miutes before sunrise which was scheduled for 5.45.  It was a bit chilly in the wind.  The guides had been insisting that we got blankets and so on, but I was happy enough in my fleece.  To be honest I don't think it was any colder than it would have been at home at the same time of year.  Might feel cold to the loals but not to an Irish guy.  Still I did look out of place without a blanket.

The sun duly rose, after about 20 photos, and then it was time to go down.  Again because of the volume of people on the mountain, and Tobys ankle, it was fairly slow going.  As we went down and the sun rose,it got hotter and hotter, until it must have been 25 degrees when we got back to base camp.  It was only about 700 metres below the summit, but it did make a difference to the temperature.  It was about 8.45 when we got down and then it was back to the hotel for a well deserved breakfast and a shower.  After that we checked out and were on our way to our nice bech resort for a rest.

But first it was back to the base of the mountain and to the monestary there which is the site of the burnin bush where God supposedly spoke to Moses.  I managed to commit one of those traveller sins I hate seeing others commit.  As I had forgotten we were going back to the monestary, I had changed into shorts for the beach.  As such I wasn't going to be allowed in unless I covered my knees, so I had to put on a sheet as a skirt.  We saw the burning bush, it wasn't on fire, and a lot of greek iconography, but didn't see all the good stuff, as the queue was too long and the sun too hot (the queue was outside).

After the monestary closed at midday, and we picked Toby back up (he was recuperating from his trip - to the local hospital which was not a pleasant trip at all) and we headed to the coastal resort of Dahab. We got there about 3, but since we had been up since 1 we really just spent the rest of the day relaxing, drinking (hooray we could get drink again) and having a really nice meal in a nice sea front restaurat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt_Sinai

Trip into the desert

Monday 26th October

Today was a big long trip into the desert. We got up at 6 for a 7 departure. Getting out of Cairo was about as good as could have been expected. It definitely could have been worse. The road over to Suez was pretty good, and not very exciting scenery. Just before we got to the town of Suez we turned to go through a tunnel under the canal. Disappointingly thisd meant we didn't get to see the canal, which was something I had wanted to see. But what can you do. We did stop at a service station which had a good scale model and we learnt a few interesting facts. The most interesting are that it costs about $250,000 to go through it on average, and Egypt makes over 5 billion from it.

We continued on and got to our first stop of the day, the Wells of Moses. These were not very exciting. They were either polluted or dry. I was more excitied about seeing the convoy of ships coming out of the mouth of the canal.

Then we went onto the next stop, the Pharoh's caves. These are Hot Springs and the caves are amazingly hot. The caves are not very deep, but they get so hot. It was like a sauna. James and myself were the only ones who went the whole way in, you did have to crawl a fair bit. James almost melted. I banged my head at one point, the heat was quite dizzying. We couldn't stay inside for long, but we couldn't come out fast because the shock of coming back into the relative cold (it was only 30 degrees outside) would have been too much.

After that it was a nice picnic on the beach for lunch. Absolutely amazing beach with nobody on it, possibly ever. The whole coast of the Red Sea is just one big long beach. There is so much of it the few hotels on it do not ruin it. Well that would be if they weren't half built. Like much of Cairo, and the country as a whole, most of the hotels along the beach were half built. Personally I think the marketing slogan for the country should be 'Egypt, it will be great when it is finished'. The ruins are great, its a pity some of the more modern buildings look more ruined than the old ones.

After that we continued our journey towards Mt Sinai. We stopped at a convent on the way, these were Greek Orthodox nuns. We weren't really sure what the point of the stop was, but it was another break in the journey. We eventually go to our hotel in St Katherines at the base of Mt Sinai at about 4.30pm. We were getting dinner at 6 because we were going to have to get up at 1.30am to begin our climb! Needless to say it was straight to bed after dinner. But it was quite hard to get asleep at 8, I haven't gone to bed that early in 30 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_canal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Katherine_city

The only wonder left

Sunday 25th October

It was only overnight that the noise of Cairo, referred to in the previous title, became obvious. The incessant beeping of the car horns meant that getting a good nights sleep was quite difficult. It hadn't seemed so bad during the day. Of course it would have been better if there was even the slightest chance of a decent door to the balcony. It was the flimsiest excuse for a door ever.

Anyway it was a fairly reasonable hour that we had to get up at, 8am. Breakfast was at 8.30 and we met up with the rest of the group and our guides at 9am. The rest of the crew, Claire, Toby and Toni, are all similar aged, from the South East of England as well, and have all been on similar types of holidays in the past. So I guess it should be a good trip.

As well as meeting Mezza, our guide for the Egypt leg of the trip, we also met Haba who was our guide for the day. She first took us to the Egyptian museum in downtown Cairo. It was only about 10k from the hotel, but it took about an hour and a half to get there. The traffic was really bad, as bad as anywhere I've ever experienced. Because although this was a Sunday, being an Islamic country, it was actually a work day.

We got to the museum and went inside to see the various artifacts. As usual we couldn't bring our cameras inside. It was quite interesting, all the more so because our guide did have quite a lot of knowledge of all the bits. Of course the main attraction is Tutenkhamun, where you see the world famous golden headdress. It was pretty impressive, but it was smaller than you might think. But he was pretty young when he died. Of course a number of other artifacts were there, but possibly the next most famous was the one that was missing, the Rosetta stone. There was a slightly embarrassed silence as our guide explained how it has been taken and should be returned, because of course all of us have been to the British Museum to see the real one.

Anyway the artifacts were quite impressive, but the museum can still be done in a couple of hours. The new museum, when built, will be even bigger. It has been designed by an Irish company, and will be out by the Pyramids. Which is a good thing because then we won't have to suffer the hour and a half of traffic back to them.

The one disappointing thing of the day was that we went to a papyrus museum, which was really just an excuse for a sales trip. They did show us how they make the papyrus, but it was a really annoying diversion.

Because time was getting on, we opted to skip lunch and go straight to the Pyramids. These were much more spectacular than you can imagine. You think they can't be, because you have heard so much about them over the years, but they really are massive. The Great Pyramid was the tallest structure in the world for 3000 years, until 1311, and because they are on a hill, and despite a couple of buildings downtown that are pretty tall, Cairo is not a tall city, so they are impressive where they might be drowned out on the outskirts of a Western city.

The other thing about the site that you don't really realise is that it is so big. The site covers a number of square kilometers, and the distance between each of the 3 pyramids is bigger than you think. So you have to go off up a hill to get good pictures with the 3 of them. So we spent a couple of hours wandering around the sites and we went into one of the Pyramids. Rather than pay the 100 Egyptian pounds to go into the big one, we went for the middle one for 30 pounds. Which I think was better value.

Being inside the Pyramid was a bit cramped, but not that bad. I do think you can go in even if you are a bit claustrophobic. In fact one American women coming out seemed pretty chuffed with herself because she made it in and out even though she normally avoids going into lifts. There isn't actually much to see inside, thanks to grave robbers, but just to have been inside a Pyramid is amazing.

After that it was off to the Sphinx, again a bit further away from the Pyramids that you think, but again it was pretty impressive. It was also packed. As the Pyramids are so big even a few hundred people clambering on the sides getting their photos taken doesn't get packed, but down by the Sphinx it was much more noticeable.

We were about 2 1/2 hours at the Giza Necropolis complex (as it is called) and we only left at 5 because it was closing up, to get rid of all of us cheap tourists so they can get the expensive ones in for the Sound and Lights show. We headed back for the 'lunch' we missed, which was now dinner. After that we played cards and then later went shopping for supplied for the long trip which we were going to go on the next day.

One last bizarre thing, as I was going to bed I looked out the window, and in the middle of a city I saw a herd of goats being driven across a 6 lane dual carriageway. Its pretty unusual.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Museum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giza_pyramids

Cairo - City of Noise

Saturday 24th October

As its before 5am when we land in Cairo, it is no surprise that getting through the airport is pretty easy. It would have been nicer had Egyptair let us sleep, but they insisted on feeding people during the flight, and basically didn't turn out the lights. I can't understand why, no matter which timezone, London or Cairo, you are in, it is still the middle of the night.

Anyway getting out to the taxi rank I head for my hotel out near the Pyramids, but get the bright idea of heading down to see if I can see them at dawn. Of course telling that to the taxi driver means that he hurtles off at 120k. Now I thought Cairo was a 24/7 city, but at 5am the roads seem pretty empty.

Anyway even with the speed, it turned out I didn't make the Pyramids quite in time, and also it was closed off for a visit by dignitaries. I actually thought it was the local lads trying to do a version of the your hotel is closed scam, in this case the Pyramids are closed because of a visit by the President as they told me, it turned out that later when I looked it up it was actually some Breast Cancer thing with the Presidents wife.

You could of course hire a horse or camel and ride to a hill that overlooks the Pyramids, but because of the smog that hangs over Cairo, you can't see anything. Still I did get to see a pack of wild dogs eating a dead camel (and another pack eating a dead horse), which you don't get to see every day. It was pretty bizarre, but by the time I got my camera out only one dog was left.

The same guys who told me (correctly - I'm still amazed that it wasn't a scam) that I couldn't get in at that hour, did let me go up onto their roof to have a look. It was a great view, but the camera couldn't get it, because it turns out the smog in the air was pretty thick.

After all that it was time to head to the hotel. As it was about 9 now, and the traffic was pretty bad. When I got there I eventually convinced them to store my luggage (they wouldn't do it without a room number, trying to convince them that I had no room number until they let me check in later was the challenge), and I headed out to look around the city.

I decided to walk to the Metro station, as on the map it looked like it was only a 20 minute walk but in fact it turned out to be a 45 minute walk. In the heat (about 30 degrees) this felt a lot more. Still it was an interesting way to see a bit of the city that you normally wouldn't see. Eventually I got to the metro and here I think I suffered my first scam of the say. I'm fairly sure that I got the 50 cent note change instead of the 50 pound note. I wasn't 100% sure what I handed in but I am fairly sure they shortchanged me. From the official desks. I was not entirely happy.

The metro train turned up in a few seconds, they seem fairly frequent, but the Lonely Planet nearly got me in trouble at this point. The LP said that the first 2 carriages on the train were reserved for women, so I stood down the platform, but when the train arrived there were these symbols like those on women's toilets on the middle carriages. So I guessed these were the women's carriages, so I had to run back up the platform.

The metro got me into the centre of town fairly quickly, and then I had a wander around the downtown and the main markets. It wasn't very impressive, and it takes a good photographer to show how ordinary these areas are, and I'm not that good a photographer. While wandering around these places I didn't really see many more tourists, but the Egyptians seems quite polite and I didn't feel threatened at any point. I did once pick up a little posse, 2 kids started following me, but I put on a burst of speed and lost them.

After that I decided to walk to the Citadel, which is one of the main sights on the tourist trail, but when I got there it was closed. This was after quite a long walk, but I decided to continue on and look inside a mosque quite nearby. The guy at the door seemed quite friendly, and said the mosque was also used for Christians on a Sunday. There did seem to be some Christian influences in it. Anyway for a donation to the orphans fund, which he probably pilfered afterwards, I was allowed up the minaret where I got some good shots of the city.

After that instead of hanging around the Citadel I went up the nearby Mokattam hill which overlooks the whole city. This is supposed to give good views of the city, but with the haze it wasn't very clear. Still it was a bit cooler, and the restaurant I found had a nice cliff side view. And I could get a beer. Here I was joined by a local called Abdu, who insisted on giving me a load of advice about the city, even though I didn't ask. I think he was after a beer, which I offered and he accepted.

After that I headed back to the hotel to check in. I had planned to visit one or two other sites, but the whole not having sleep overnight because of the flight was beginning to catch up on me. And the fact that I was standing in the lobby for an hour checking in due to the bad reception staff. So when I got to my room and lay down for a second, I dropped off for a couple of hours.

I was woken by the arrival of James, me new roommate. As part of the group I will be continuing around Egypt with, he came with the information that he was the only person collected at the airport, and that there will only be 5 on the trip. Which is less than the 8 I was expecting. Obviously the quality of the trip will depend slightly on who they are. James met the guide, and I'll meet him and the others in the morning.

Anyway I had a chat with James, who seems sound, and then we headed out for a bit of a shopping trip, which turned into another exploration of the bits of Cairo off the tourist trail. The shops are actually quite similar to the ones at home. This was underscored by the fact that we saw a ketchup in the local supermarket that is a handmade ketchup made in Essex that isn't even very easy to get hold of in the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_El-Khalili

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Citadel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokattam

Half Term Hell

Friday October 23rd


So there I am just getting onto the train to go to the airport and I get my free London Evening Standard. Open it up to page 5 and there it is in the headlines, Egypt is now the most popular destination for this year's half term, overtaking Majorca and the Canarys.


Wait a second, what was that news again, its half term! When did that happen? I had no idea. I don't know how but when booking the holidays I never ever considered if it was half term. Normally I'd know because someone in work would be off, or the prices of the holidays will spike, but none of the signs were there this time.


So when I get to Heathrow it is packed, and a lot of them are kids. I'm not sure where the recession is (still ongoing as the announcements today indicated) but it isn't in Terminal 3 this evening. Loads of kids being dragged off to far flung places. Luckily the adventure type of holiday that this is going to be isn't really one that kids can do, so it probably will be OK once I get out of Heathrow.


Of course that may not be as easy as it sounds. For a start the flight is a bit slow to go up on the board. And worse, when I went to the pizza restaurant in the terminal for a bite to eat, they were out of pizza. Obviously the kids are ravenous. Actually as the terminal empties, and our plane is still not boarding, it seems that the kids are disappearing, and it is more of a backpacker crowd that is left going to Egypt. So maybe it isn't too bad after all.


Eventually the flight goes up on the board, and we get on. Loading is quite fast, so we actually end up only taking off 30 minutes late. Which is just as well, as it is getting late and there is a curfew in Heathrow. I think we were the last plane to leave Terminal 3 that evening.


Of course it turns out that not all the kids had gone on other planes. Sitting in the middle of my row are a number of kids, but their dad is sitting across the aisle beside me, so they are either well behaved enough to leave on their own, or bad enough that he is trying to get away from them.

Its back

After a 16 month absence this blog is back. Why? Well a few people have asked about my upcoming trip to Egypt and Jordan. Its only a tiny trip compared to the big one last year, but as I am now based in London it might be a while before I get to see some people back in Ireland (or beyond). So this will allow people to keep up to date, and of course the photos will also be updated.



Unlike the last trip, it is unlikely that I will actually do much updating while on the road, this trip is too short (12 days) to waste in internet cafes. So most of this will probably get done the week after I get back.



I was also asked about increasing the detail on the New Zealand portion of the last trip, so I am also going to try to dredge a few extra details out of my memories.