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| Page Views: 382 | TRAVEL JOURNAL by lovinoz - last update: Feb 20, 2008 |
13 AUGUST 2007 - SALAAM FROM EGYPT I hope this email finds you happy, healthy and much cooler than we are! Whose idea was it to visit egypt in summer anyways?! ;) i am very happy to report that egypt has fixed its air conditioners since rob was here 6 years ago! oh and most of the toilets flush and the drains work usually! pleasant surprise for him!
i left off my last email towards the beginning of our Imaginative 32-day tour from Istanbul to Cairo. we covered several of the same sites we'd visited in our previous tour of Turkey, but it was a real pleasure since the sights are amazing (although pricey)! after Cappadocia, we visited Mt Nemrut, which was new for us and a welcome change to the tourist-trap, price-gouging we had experienced in western Turkey. we were quite a curiosity in Urfa (birthplace of biblical Abraham) since our group was the only tourists in town and we were surprised when LOCALS came up and asked if they could get photos with us *using their film cameras)! :) in the southeast of the country it was far more conservative and felt more like i had imagined the middle east to be like. culturally, that was our favorite part of Turkey.
even though this was all one tour, we changed guides at the borders of turkey/syria and also syria/jordan. our guide in turkey was not spectacular, but at least she did not hold us hostage for feedback forms. ;) our guide in syria was amazing - very animated and excited to share his favorite places with us and did things off the itinerary (beyond the call of duty) like organising a basketball court so we could have a game and showing us several hidden gems around each city. |
syria was my favorite country in the middle east so far ... there are hardly ANY tourists, the people are genuinely very friendly, and the sights are spectacular! our border crossing went smoothly enough, although the two people with US passports got some extra scrutiny (making sure we had never been to Israel), but friendly enough. we started off in Aleppo for 2 nights, where our hotel welcomed us with free shisha and then we explored the covered markets and citadel. we also stayed in the city of Hama, with incredible wooden water wheels used for lifting water from the river into chanels for irrigating the land hundreds of years ago (they still spin - with a LOUD groaning noise - but the irrigation chanels are no longer used) - some of the wheels have a diameter of over 20 meters!! next we stayed in Palmyra, a roman city with stunning ruins and not much else - yet this is Syria's most well known archealogical site to tourists. damascus was pretty amazing although most of the group was out of commission due to stomach upsets. nothing was "bad" about the food in syria, simply that we were not used to it. the prices of everything in syria were SO much cheaper than turkey - it was refreshing! a large bottle of water was back to $0.50 instead of $2 and we could eat dinner for under $6 and that was a feast!
we had an uneventful border crossing into jordan, but our wallets were unhappy again. jordan is an expensive country, more so than turkey was. at the border, our syrian guide said farewell and sent us on the bus to Amman. we arrived into Amman to find that for some reason the bus station we were supposed to show up at (where we were to meet our new guide) had closed down and so they took us somewhere else. luckily it was only about 700 meters downhill from our hotel, so we slogged to the hotel (it was only 42C/100F) and got ourselves checked in. our guide showed up and introduced himself shortly after this and we asked him where to find food - it was 4pm and we had not had lunch (breakfast was at 6:30am). he gave us several suggestions very close to the hotel, so off we went, but to find that ALL of the restaurants within a 45 minute walk were closed for who knows what reason. we found a falafel sandwich eventually and survived. ;) something about border crossings that it just does not register with the tour company to allow time to stop for lunch. this happened all the time in central america and now again in the middle east. |
(keep in mind that everything in jordan and egypt is a repeat for Rob since he visited both countries during his RTW trip back in 2001)
our first stop after amman was at the Dead Sea for a swim and some mud ... that was pretty amazing except that it was SO hot, even the water was about 85 degrees F ... way too warm when the air is 100+ ... but the beach access was through a resort (had to pay for the access) and included admission to their swimming pool with a slide. we had a blast with that. as for the famous dead sea mud that is "so good for your skin" ... well i think i have weird skin or something because my skin felt AWFUL (dry and flaky) after my mud treatment .... yes i did use the DARK mud like you're supposed to. this happened to a couple other people on the tour too, but i was surprised when they went and bought some dead sea products even after that experience! LOL. next we visited Petra and that was just unbelievably beautiful!! i could see how you could spend a few days exploring the sight, so our one day did not do it much justice. the heat convinced me that 1 day was enough though! we had a night in Wadi Rum ... in a beduin camp and saw a gorgeous sunset. the next day we went on a desert jeep safari which was a bit overrated, esp since the "jeep" was an old pickup truck with benches in the bed (tray) for us to sit on. we visited a huge stone slab that has an ancient map carved on it showing the entire region.
next it was on to Aqaba for a night (with views of Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt around the gulf) and then a ferry ride across to Egypt. the ferry is never on a real schedule, sort of just leaves whenever they want to, so we got there at 10am expecting to leave at noon, but it did not leave until 5:30pm. we did not get to our hotel in Dahab until 11:30pm, then went for a midnight dinner. the next day we went for a snorkel then bussed to St Catherines where we slept for a couple hours before the inevitable climbing of Mt Sinai (started at 3am). i cheated and took a camel to the top and sunrise was just after 6am. it was pretty cool to do it for the sake of it being "mt sinai" and the biblical significance but i have seen nicer sunrises in other places. |
later that morning we drove 8 hrs to cairo, after passing through a tunnel under the suez canal. cairo is quite the busy and hectic city i imagined it would be, but there are so many exciting sights and experiences to be had here too. we started off with a visit to the giza pyramids, which were stunning! it was so very hot outside but on the good side, that meant smaller crowds and less guys hasseling you to rent their camel or buy their postcards. this was the last day of our tour and it was SOOOO sad to say goodbye to our new friends. this tour group was a lot of fun and everyone got along so well! they were continuing onwards to aswan.
the next day was 31 July and rob had booked accommodation for the next 2 nights at a "surprise location" in honour of our 3rd wedding anniversary (1st august) ... yes, we are still speaking to each other after 9 months in each others pockets and 3 years of marriage. i was thrilled to discover we had a balcony room with a view of the giza pyramids at Le Meridian (5 star). :) talk about some much needed pampering for 2 days! :)
next we took a bus back to Dahab (should have been 9 hrs but took 11 instead) and stayed in a really cheap, but nice, place for 5 nights and did some scuba diving in the Red Sea. it was so relaxing to stay in one place for so long and take it easy. after that we went to Sharm El Sheikh (2 hr bus ride away) for 3 nights and were horrified by prices for everything. diving was 3x as expensive as Dahab, so we ended up just enjoying the beach and splurged for snorkel equipment rental on the last day to swim/snorkel from our hotel along an AMAZING reef for about 3 hours! it was stunning, but unfortunately our sunblock was not very effective for some reason, making it quite a tearful effort to carry backpacks the next day. anyways, it was worth it since we saw 2 new things ... first we saw a MASSIVE moray eel that was at least 2 meters long and about 6 inches in diameter ... this was swimming along slowly about 3 meters beneath us so we followed it for a little while. shortly after that, we found a HUGE eagle ray swimming beneath us (only 3 meters below us) and it had a wingspan of at least 2 meters and a length of 2.5+ meters! thats the biggest one we've seen ... saw some smaller ones in the galapagos but that was from the boat (not as impressive as being in the water with it). |
after our visit in sharm, we bussed back to cairo to meet up with our new tour group. this tour will go from Cairo down to Aswan, then to Abu Simbel, Luxor and Hurghada. really looking forward to it! :)
hopefully i will write again pretty soon with another update. thanks again for all of YOUR emails - i really love hearing from everyone! :) i hope this email finds you happy and healthy!
hugs,
daniele |
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urvashi123 Wed Oct 21, 2009 14:32 UTC
HI! Greetings from Nepal. how are you ? do you remember me ? just wanted to drop a line to you to say hello! | adelaidean Fri Jun 19, 2009 00:33 UTC
posted a lunchtime get together if you guys are available..love to see you again.. | dracko Mon Dec 29, 2008 21:22 UTC
Hey! Happy New Year!!! I'm not sure yet. I want to go SOMEWHERE far away this coming year. I've been thinking Thailand, if I can find a willing sucker to come along. Also, may or may not be heading to NZ in 2010 on a dive expedition. Time will show... | aussirose Sun Dec 28, 2008 09:57 UTC
Heya Daniele. Just dropped by to say it's wonderful that you are coming to the big downunder meet next year! Cool!! Looking forward to meeting up!! :o) Cheers, Ann. |
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