Monday, December 27, 2010

Welcome to Jordan, where taxis are good and buses are bad

We said goodbye to Egypt as we pulled ourselves away from the beaches of Dahab to travel into Jordan.  There are several ways to travel from Egypt to Jordan.  One way is across land where you have to cross into Israel.  The second is by ferry from Nuwebia Egypt into Aquaba Jordan.  We decided to take the ferry and avoid getting Israeli stamps in our passports.  Some Middle Eastern countries will not let you enter if you have Israeli stamp. Syria, which we hope to travel to someday, is one of those countries.    We have heard that you can ask the Israeli border control to stamp an entry on a piece of paper, but we’d still have an exit visa from Egypt at the Israeli border.  In the hopes of avoiding future headaches if we ever apply for Syrian visas we decided to take the ferry. 
The ferry is scheduled to leave at 3pm and we had read that you need to be at the terminal two hours prior to departure.  So we board a bus from Dahab to Nuwebia at 10 am and arrive around 11:30.  We stand in the first of many lines to purchase our ferry tickets.  While standing in line we meet two Australian sisters, Beck & Lena, two Canadians, Hugh & JP, two Americans who are studying in Ghana but are on break, Rick & Drew, and one Philipino-American, Jose.  Little did we realize then as the nine of us stood chatting in that line that our lives would be entwined for a least the next 14 hours. 
The purchasing of the tickets was pretty painless.  Our Lonely Planet guide book had said ferry tickets could only be purchased with US dollars.  Jeff and I came prepared after spending some time in Cairo looking for dollars, which turned out not to be needed; the ticket office look Egyptian pounds as well.  We receive our tickets and walk over to the ferry departure terminal which turns out to be a big warehouse lined with wooden benches.  The tourist police escort us to our shortest line of the day, the customs line, where we are stamped out of Egypt.  So at one-thirty, we settle ourselves onto a wooden bench and wait for the ferry to depart.  We spend the time chatting with and getting to know all the people we meet in the ticket line.  Three o’clock comes and goes and the benches get more uncomfortable.  The only food available in the warehouse is chips, cookies, and tea.  We’ve already be stamped out of Egypt so no one can leave the terminal to get different food.  Everyone starts joking that we’ll be stuck in the warehouse  for days and days.  Finally around four-thirty, we are loaded onto a bus and are driven across the port to the ferry.  We get off the bus and stand in a long slow moving line as they check tickets and passports before we get on the ferry.  We get on the ferry, drop our backpacks in the cargo area and stand in another long slow moving line that is also checking tickets and passports before we are allowed to go upstairs to sit down.  We all make in on board and find another line.  Not sure what the line is for, we jump in it.  Turns out it was the Jordan customs line. We didn’t have to wait too long in it.  A customs guy saw the of bunch us foreigners tells us to sit down.  He collects everyone’s passports, gives us receipts for them and informs us they can be picked up at the arrival terminal in Jordan. 
The seats on the ferry are much more comfortable then the wooden benches.  The boat ride was a very pleasant hour and half.  The ferry docks in Aquaba and we all have to stand in a very long slow moving line to get off the boat.  We make it off the boat, stand in line for the bus to take us to the arrival terminal.  Once inside the arrival terminal, we stand in line to get our passports back with our Jordan visas.  While standing in this line, we meet two more Americans, who were from Haines, Alaska, once again proving it’s a small world!  I have no idea how long we waited for visas, but it was a long time.  In the meantime, our group of nine discussed that if we ever made into Jordan, we could all find a minibus to drive us the two hours to Petra.  Everyone gets visas and clears customs. 
Exiting the terminal, we are bombarded by taxi drivers.  Our group stays strong and says that we don’t want three taxi cars, we want a minibus because the cab fare is too more.  At one point, the group decides to walk away from the taxi cab drivers, thinking maybe we’ll get them to come down in their fares or come up with minibus.  I found this very comical… Where the hell did we think we were going?  We just arrived in a strange country and its dark, but our little plan worked.  Someone ran up to us and said to follow him to his minibus and offered what everyone thought was a fair fare.  Perfect!  We start to follow him until we pass a tourist police stand.  The tourist police come up to us and tell us that we can’t the minibus, we have to take taxis because the bus is not safe.  Our group of nine is now haggling with the tourist police asking why the bus is unsafe, the taxi cab drivers are yelling out their fares and deals, and somewhere in the background, I swear circus music has qued up.  After ten minutes of arguing with the tourist police, we are told we can go on the minibus.  We follow the driver down a dark street where we all think the bus is parked.  There is nothing down this street except for a lit street lamp.  The guy turns to us, says ‘Just go towards the light and I’ll be right back.’  We all just look at each other, thinking maybe he went to go get the bus and he’ll be back to get us.

About ten minutes later, the tourist police Jeep comes speeding down the road with a fleet of taxi cars behind it.  The Jeep pulls up and over a loud speaker its saying “No bus.  Taxi only.”  The circus music is blaring at this point and our group has no idea what is going on.  The taxi cabs pull up and the drivers get out.  After a few more minutes of haggling and sorting, our group is divided into three cars for the same fare we agreed to pay the minibus guy.  So we’re off to Petra in our convoy of taxis.  Our taxi driver is a young guy, with a disco light instead of a dome light in the car and is blaring Ludicrous, Shaggy, and Arabic rap.  Every once in a while he’ll yell “Taxi good, driver good, bus bad!” Jeff and I are sitting in the back laughing, while Jose (the Philipino-American) is sitting in the front just repeating “Oh my god!” every once in a while. We stop a rest area for a meal of kebabs and roast chicken.  We had a lot fun talking and laughing with our taxi driver and the rest of group.  One of the other taxi drivers took out his resume and handed it to Jeff.  We’re not really sure what job he was applying for, but Jeff didn’t hire him.  We load back into the taxi convoy and make it into Petra.    
We had asked to be dropped off at the Valentine Inn, but when we arrived into Petra the taxi convoy took us someplace else saying the Valentine Inn was closed.  Its 1am at this point, and everyone was too tired to care where they slept.  Jeff and I took a double room, Beck and Lena (the 2 Australians) take a twin room, and the rest sleep in the dorms. 
But En’shallah we made it to Jordan!
Haggling with taxi drivers for a better fare or a minbus

Finally in our taxi on the way to Petra

Eating at the rest stop about 11PM, our driver is sitting to Jeff's right

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas!

We spent our Christmas by the beach in Dahab, sunning ourselves in the warm Egyptian sun.  Santa was very nice to us and granted us our Indian visas a couple of days ago.  We took two night buses back to back to pick the visas up in Cairo.  It was a little painful, with not a lot of good sleep for 36 hours, but we made it back to the beach to celebrate the holiday here.  I smuggled a little wooden Christmas tree I bought in Germany so we would at least a have a tree to look at while we listened to the call to prayer.  We head to Jordan tomorrow and leave for India on the 30th. We hope that this holiday season finds everyone happy and joyful.  Happy Holidays!
Cheers!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Dahab, Egypt

The experience in the minibus from St. Katherine’s monastery was way different from the cramped ride into Cairo from the oasis.  We had the whole thing to ourselves which was both good and bad.  Good because we were each able to stretch out on a bench seat to sleep and bad because we weren’t able to split the cost with anyone else.   Dahab is a sleepy little beach town that caters to the dive tourists.  We check into our very clean hostel and take a much need nap.  We’re wakened by the afternoon call to prayer and are famished.  We find an ocean side restaurant (which isn’t hard in Dahab, in fact finding a restaurant not ocean side might be the challenge) and both order a delicious calamari curry dish.  After our early dinner, we talk to several dive companies in the area and decide to book with Desert Divers.  We’re told to arrive back around 9am for our check-off dive which is just to review basic skills and for them to ensure we’re not complete idiots. 
We wake up the next morning and Jeff is stuffed up.  For those of you who aren’t divers, if you can’t clear your ears or are congested, diving can be very painful.  We go and check in and ask if its okay to postpone until the next day.  We’re told by David, the English guy who was more or less the counter boy, says no problem.  We spend the rest of the relaxing on the beach, soaking in the sun, and reading.  It was very relaxing. 
So the next day, we report back to Desert Divers, get outfitted in our wet suits, masks, fins, weight belts, BC’s, and regulators.  Our guide(you have to dive with a guide in the area because it is protected national park) for our check off dive is a Bedouin who goes by the name Barracuda. A family of three (mom and two older sons) are joining our group as well.  We are soon to realize that this British family begs the classic SNL question ‘Are you British or are you retard?’  The mom couldn’t figure out how to breath through her regulator that was in her mouth and not through her nose, one of the sons had trouble putting his equipment together and it was just a circus getting them into the water.  I’m a new diver, only have been certified last April and Jeff has made around 20 open water dives.  Jeff and I breeze through our skills and spend the rest of our time exploring the sea grass ,as the circus continued without us.  We see several lion fish. 
That afternoon we go out diving with another guide, Frank.  Frank is a no nonsense kind of guy and might have been a fish or a navy seal in a former life.  We take a Jeep out to the dive site called the Islands.  The wind is blowing and the waves are crashing and no one else is on the beach.  Frank tells us that usually this is a very popular dive site, but because of the conditions the rest of the dive operators are “pussies.” Um… I’m already nervous enough and hearing this come out of the guide’s mouth is not very comforting.  But we climb in the water, get our fins and masks on and drop down.  I freak out within a couple of minutes and have to signal to Frank I need to go to the surface and he follows me.  We get to the top and we’re bobbing like corks.  I’m having a hard time to catch my breath, but Frank tells me “Never fear when Frank is near.”   He coaches me through taking a couple of deep breaths, ensures me he’ll be close by, and we drop down again.  Frank was true to his word, staying very close to me, even holding hand a times when he sensed I was nervous.  I was able to relax and enjoy the coral formations and the assortment of fish.  It really was an amazing dive site.
The next morning we dive again with Frank again at a different area just a hop, skip, and jump from the dive shop.  After Frank put my fears of diving in his mind vice and crushed them yesterday, it was a much more relaxing dive.  Diving in this area is like diving in an aquarium or a National Geographic film.  We see all sorts of fish living in the coral, more lion fish, and a giant octopus.  We dive in the afternoon with Barracuda as our guide in a area called the Golden Rocks.  There are coral formations with a sandy bottom and lots of multi-colored fish. 
We spend our last two dives the next day with Barracuda.  In the morning, he took us to the Eel Gardens.  The water was choppy and the current was a bit strong as we put our fins and masks on, but we drop down into some wonderful coral formations.  About half through the dive we come to a completely sandy bottom with what looks like long grass swaying in the current.  As we swim closer, the grass starts to recede into the sand.  It’s the eel garden!   We end the dive by battling our way against the current.  I actually had to hang onto some dead coral to keep from losing ground, but we made it out safe and sound.  Our last dive was back to the Islands.  It was definitely much calmer then when we were there with Frank.  We have a waterproof Canon camera that is approved up to 10 meters by the company.  Jeff did a quick internet search and read that people were taking it up to 20 meters without problems.  As we all know, Jeff loves to push limits so he brings the camera.  As always, Jeff’s luck holds out, the camera survives, and we get some great photos. 
We head out on a night bus tonight back to Cairo to hopefully pick up our Indian visas.  Our plan is to come back to Dahab on the next night bus and be here for Christmas.  En’shallah!
J & T with the fear crusher Frank

Just after we exited the water at Eel Gardens

Crocodile fish

Blue spotted sting ray at the Islands

T looking like a professional diver

Just a taste of the islands

And we're done with our diving adventure

Mount Sinai, Egypt

Instead of waiting around the week in Cairo for our Indian visas, we decided to jump on a bus to Mount Sinai and the coast.  The taxi we took to the bus station not only had a meter, but it was run on natural gas as well.  Our driver was friendly and didn’t even come close to hitting anyone in rush hour traffic.  Our purchased tickets to St. Katherine’s Monastery stated the bus left at 11am.  11am comes and goes, then 11:30, then noon….  While we wait, we meet two other Americans, Charles and Phabian, who were on Christmas break from studying law aboard in London.  The bus finally arrives and we spend the first hour or so chatting with our new friends as the bus rumbles out into the desert and then cat nap, read our books, and listen to music.   The bus arrives into Suez and pulls into the bus barn, for what I assumed was a re-fueling.  That was not the case… After 20 minutes of sitting on bus wondering what is going on as we hear the sounds of tools being thrown around, we’re told to get off the bus.  We get off and go across the street to a kiosk to buy some foul (bread) and cheese and some other snacks.  We eat our little meal in the mechanic break room at the bus barn.  One of the guys comes in to check the paperwork and Jeff asks him ‘Halass?’, which means 'finished' in Arabic and is answered ‘Yes’.   The guy turns around and walks out and I ask ‘Does that mean the bus is fixed? Or the bus isn’t able to be fixed?’ Well it turned out that means that the bus was fixed because we get the signal a few minutes later to climb back on board.  We arrive at St Katherine’s Monastery hours late, but we made it en’shallah! 
We and the two law students make it over to a little Bedouin-style set-up accommodations to catch a nap.  First, we all sit around the fire, drink some tea, and chat with the camp manager, who was quiet the character.  He was telling stories, cracking jokes, and performing magic tricks.  Charles brought out a bag of chips and was literally attacked by the camp cat Sophie, who apparently LOVES chips.  I never thought I would see a chip eating cat.  Around 09:30, we excuse ourselves to our modest room for a little nap before we start our climb.  At 0215, the camp manager knocks on our door and we drag ourselves out of bed.  We (me, J, Phabian, & Charles, who emerged from his room dressed as Waldo) walk about 3km over to St. Katherine’s Monastery we were check  in with tourist police and hire the required guide. 
There are a couple of ways to get up the Mount Sinai 1) ride a camel most of the way and climb the last 50 or so steps, 2) walk the camel path and 3) take the Stairs of Repentance that were laid by the monks of St. Katherine’s as a form of repentance.  We choose option three.  Our guide was a 22-year smoking mountain goat, who told us he could climb the 2285 meters of the mountain in less than 40 minutes.  Well our little group of Americans slowed him down a bit, but we made it in about 2 hours.  Towards the summit, there are some little shacks set up that sell tea, hot chocolate and are a welcome place to warm up.  Believe it or not, we saw snow along the trail.  Just before sunrise, we climb the last 50 steps to the summit.  We post up with the other 150 people and wait for the sun to rise.  It was really cold waiting for the sun to break the horizon.   I had on a wool pair of shoes, hiking shoes, wool pants, outer wind-breaker pants, a t-shirt, a thermal layer with a hood, a down vest with a hood, a wool sweater with a hood, my wind breaker, a hat, and wool gloves and I was still cold.  As the sun crept towards the horizon, people were praying, preaching, and singing.  Once the sun ball hit the horizon, everyone started cheering!  It was the first sunrise Jeff and I have watched together and it was amazing.  After watching the sun rise in sky for awhile, we set back down the mountain. 
We make it down to St. Katherine’s monastery.  Our guide was laughing because he was the last to leave but the first to return.  As we were walking by the camel base, we saw a camel fight and funniest, yet cutest camel.  We head back to camp, eat breakfast, say goodbye to Charles and Phabian, collect our things, and climb into the minibus that will bring us to Dahab and the beach.

Can you find Waldo in our group?

Jeff waiting for sunrise

OMG the sun cam up again!


Warming up in one of the huts just before the summit

The cutest, most kissable camel

And yet, the funniest

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Cairo, Egypt

In front of the sphinx

Inside the pyramid where J once again ignores the 'no pictures' rules


And on the 8th day Jeff created the pyramids


Sitting on the pyramid with our new freind Rebecca


It was time for us to leave the quiet of Farafra to the chaos of Cairo.  Our host Ahmed dropped us off where the bus would be pickin g us up.   As soon as he left, we were approached by a tourist police guy who told us he knew of a minibus that was leaving to Cairo right away.  After some haggling, we decided to take the minibus because there seemed to be more leg room and it would get there quicker then the big bus.  Our stuff got strapped to the top and we climb in with the other 11 passengers.  The driver made two more stops before we left to pick up two more passengers.  Jeff and I are now in a minibus with 12 seats and 13 passengers, so much for having more space.      The minibus speeds, and I mean speeds through the desert so fast at times I’m white-knuckling the seat in front of me.
After several hours, we arrived at Bahariya Oasis and we stop for a break.  I really have to pee, but have no idea where a restroom is and no one else on the minibus speaks English.  There is an older lady on the bus, who thankfully took me under her wing.  She tapped me on the shoulder and signaled for me to follow her.  She talked several local ladies and we find a toilet in a little cafĂ©.  I go back to the minibus where Jeff is waiting and point him in the direction of the W/C.  After he returns, we buy a bag of chips and a Coke from the nearby kiosk, never going out of site of the minibus.   We didn’t want to be left behind! 
Everyone loads back into the minibus and off we go again and the white-knuckling continues!  The lady who helped me find the bathroom was traveling with what we assumed was her husband, son, and grandson.  During our stop, they had been brave enough to venture out of site of the minibus and had bought more food and shared sandwiches with Jeff and I.  Despite we couldn’t communicate with spoken language, this family made our speedy minibus experience much more pleasant.  We arrive into Cairo and after battling the crazy traffic, we say good-bye to our minibus friends and check into our hostel.


The next day we spend our time exploring the Egyptian museum.  This museum is where all the ancient Egyptian artifacts from all the temples, tombs, and pyramids can be seen.  We saw the King Tut exhibit, the royal jewelry exhibit, lots of tombs and coffins that the mummies were buried in and of coarse mummies.  We visited the animal mummy exhibit, which was pretty neat.  The Egyptians used to mummify their favorite pets or exotic animals to be buried with them.  There was a dog, that still had its fur (this might Sitka-dog's fate after she goes), a cute little monkey, a huge Nile crocodile, a goat, and many other animals.  We also visited the royal mummy room, where the famous Ramses II is on display.  This is the guy who was responsible for not only building a bunch of the temples we visited, but for also kicking Moses and the chosen people out of Egypt.  There he was under a display case, with his hair, eyelashes, fingernails, toes, and the rest of him all in place.  He looks like a creep!

We have decided to go to India after we are done in the Middle East in a couple of weeks.  So the following day, we brave walking the streets of Cairo to go the Indian Embassy.  In Cairo, there are suggested crosswalks but no one, especially drivers pays much attention too.  So to cross the street, we’d stand next to a local and when they’d cross, we’d cross at the same time using them as a human shield until we made it to the other side.  We made it to the Indian Embassy, but they turn around and send us back to Indian Consulate which was just several blocks up from our hotel.  We filled out our paperwork, and hopefully if all goes well, we can pick up our visas next week.
After filing all that paperwork, we take the metro to Giza station.  Cairo has a pretty nice and easy to use metro system, which is why I was kind of surprised that Jeff and I were the only two foreigners on the train.    At the Giza station, we find a taxi driver, who gave us the scariest taxi ride of my entire life!  He literally hit two people, one with his side mirror as we were leaving the station and another with his front bumper.  Neither was hurt, but lots of angry Arabic words were exchanged and we thankfully made it to the pyramids and the sphinx without killing anyone.  We spent the afternoon wandering around the area.  There was a large group of Egyptian school kids there on a field trip and they all wanted photos with Jeff and I.  Jeff keeping asking them for baksheesh after the photo was taken, which the kids all laughed at.  There was also a lot of people trying to sell us rides on camels or horses.  We got into a weird encounter with one guy who had me and a girl named Rebecca, who we had meet at our hostel, sit on his camel for photos.  Then he had the camel get up with us on him and had walked the camel around in a circle, all the while telling Jeff to take pictures and us insisting that we don’t want a camel ride.  So we finally get off the camel and the guy of course wants baksheesh.  The amount Jeff offered was not want the guy wanted and he started yelling at us about how he was trying to make a living.  He was so angry he was frothing at the mouth and shaking.  Jeff wouldn’t back down to his bullying and the guy finally went away with the offered baksheesh after the tourist police came over to see what was going on.  The rest of the afternoon was very pleasant.  We went inside the pyramid that was open, which was hot and a bit claustrophobic.  Our taxi ride back to the metro didn’t even come close to killing anyone, so it was much less stressful.

This one is for you Jessalynn

Farafra oasis & the White desert

Jeff will update everyone on our wonderful camping trip into the White Desert and the amazing people we meet in Farafra when he gets around to it.  Stay tuned!

On advice from our new friend , Abu Muhomed, we arrange a overnight safari into the White desert of western Egypt.  We roll up to the bus station in Dakhla at 5:45am to catch the 6:00am Upper Egypt Bus to Farfara where we will be met by the safari company to begin our adventure.  6:00am becomes 7:00am becomes 7:30am.  I finally get up off the freezing bench to ask the ticket guy what the deal was.  “It comes when it comes En’shallah” (En’shallah translated into English means ‘God willing’)  NO!!!  Not En’shalla!!!  I HATE En’shallah!!  It can be said that Egyptian time is much like Island time, can’t be in too much of a hurry and transportation comes when it comes.   I go back to the bench and start to entertain myself by asking Teresa random questions to no end and explaining the premise of the classic Disney movie “Gus”  about a field kicking donkey that plays in the NFL (For the colts if I recall), a brilliant film. She was not amused.  Finally the bus pulls up 2 hours late and it’s time to head deeper into the Western Desert.  As we proceed I start to notice that the wind has kicked up and garbage and tumble weeds were flying across the road. We arrive in Farafra at around noon and its really windy at this point. Our guides were waiting at the bus stop for us and quickly picked us out of the crowd since we were the only non-Egyptians on the bus.  We were quickly whisked away to the safari company owner’s house.  Ahmed was a 34 year old Egyptian English teacher who invited us into his house and poured some Bedouin tea as we discussed what we wanted out of our adventure. 
“The weather is not so good today, but tomorrow may be better En’shallah, or possibly worse. You are welcome to my guest house for the night if you would like to wait”
And there it was again, En’shallah.  Teresa and I looked at each other and had a silent conversation with our eyes.  We opted to try our luck that day with hopes that it would calm down at night and be nice the next day. So it’s off we go in our Toyota Landcruiser with our 2 guides into the white desert.  The white desert derives its name from the rock formations and chalk deposits, and in our case from all the white sand that was whipped up by the wind creating a whiteout, aka  a sandstorm.  We drove around in the eerie desert setting for a few hours then the driver stopped.  This,  alas, was our camping ground.
                The first attempt to assemble camp failed miserably.  The land cruiser was to be used as a wind block then additional rugs used  to block even more wind.  Oh, the wind would have none of this nonsense. The land cruiser was then repositioned for maximal wind blockage and campsite 2.0 was established successfully.   Teresa and I had to jump in to assist with setting up camp so we could keep up with the gusts.  We were cracking up laughing at the situation and I think the guides thought we were crazy. As the last light of the day faded so did the wind and we ended up having a very pleasant evening eating great food cooked over a campfire and sipping Bedouin tea.  Come to find out our guide, Ahmed’s brother, was a nurse as was most of his family.  This prompted an interesting exchange  between T and our guide about the differences between US and Egyptian nursing.   As the campfire died down we turned in for the night, we were offered heavy blankets to use which we kindly declined so we could use our high-tech thermal mummy sleeping bags to ward off the chill…and our guide did the same.
 I was woken with a shake in the morning.  It was go time!  6:30am and the sky was almost completely blotted out with sand. Our guide told us we needed to get a move on  because the wind was really bad.  A full fledged sandstorm was in effect.  We quickly broke camp and headed back to the oasis and Ahmed’s house. He greeted us when we arrived and we reported that we had a blast on the trip,  how often to you get to camp in a sandstorm?  We needed to catch the bus to Cairo at 10 am but Ahmed was unsure if they would be running that day.  He made the executive decision.  We WILL stay in his guesthouse as a guest and get the bus to Cairo the next day once the sandstorm had passed.  So in we moved and made ourselves at home.  We had lunch and dinner with Ahmed and had great conversations about life in general and what it was like living in the desert.  I think we were in the Egyptian equivalent of Sitka, a small town that likes being small and everyone knows everyone.  We were invited to family fires and tea.  A friend of Ahmed from Germany had arrived that day was staying at the house as well and we all went out to a hot spring late at night to enjoy a soak and stargaze.  It was an amazing experience.  For the first time in Egypt we felt we got away from the tourist hustle and bustle and met some real locals. We were so relaxed and enjoyed every second we were there.  The next morning we had a final breakfast with Ahmed and were delivered to the bus stop.  We paid our bill for the safari and offered more for the food and lodging that was provided in addition.  Ahmed would have none of it.  He told us we stayed as a guest and a friend and would not take anymore money.  We said our goodbyes and T and I waited for the bus talking about the wonderful that experience we just had.  In the 4 months we have been traveling it has been the highlight, the kindness and hospitality was beyond belief.  As we piled into the minibus bound for Cairo we couldn’t stop thinking about the accidental encounter that  made our trip wondering why we were heading to the busy city instead of spending more time in the sleepy oasis of Farafra.
Deep in the White Desert

That's T riding the chicken shaped rock

Waiting for the wind to die down to set up camp

Ahhh!  Finally camp is set up!




Waiting for dinner to be ready

Monday, December 13, 2010

Dakhla, Egypt

We decided to go check out the oasis of Egypt.  This was a little tricky.  We took a late train from Luxor north into a city called Asyut.  We had read in several other travel blogs that tourists weren’t really supposed to be in Asyut.  The train roles into Asyut around 3am and as soon as we get off the train, there is a tourist police asking where we are planning on going.  We tell him we’re going to take the bus to  Dakhla oasis.  He explains to us that the bus doesn’t leave for Dakhla until 11am and that we can either stay in the train station cafĂ© until the bus station opens in the morning or he could walk us over the a hotel by the bus station where we could get a room.  We decide to be escorted to the hotel to catch a few winks.  The only room the hotel had open was a small little closet with a twin bed in it that smelled like paint fumes, but Jeff and I opened the window and cuddled for a couple of hours until it was time to catch the bus.
We buy tickets and get on the bus.  The bus drives a little ways out of town and stops at a tourist police station where we have to hand over our passports for a couple of minutes.  Passports back in hand, we’re off to Dakhla.  The landscape driving across the desert is a vast area of dusty, sandy, nothingness with an thin line of asphalt running through it.  There are check points along the asphalt line where the bus slows down and the only thing we can understand the driver say to the tourist police manning the checkpoint is “Americanos”.  The police would take a quick glance, spot us through the window and away the bus went again. 
We reach Dakhla seven hours after leaving Asyut.  We get off the bus, gather our things and are trying to decide which way to go the find the hotel we read about in Lonely Planet when a motorcycle pulls up.  The driver introduces himself as Sam and asks where we are staying.  When we tell him the name, he says that that hotel is closed, but he has a hotel we could stay at.  Jeff and I exchanged a glance that Sam caught and told Jeff to get his motorcycle and he would show him the closed hotel.  So as Jeff sped away on the back of motorcycle without a helmet in the middle of nowhere Egypt, I was left on the street corner to worry about 1) my husband’s safety and 2) what was I going to do if he never came back.  But luckily in a few minutes he did reappear, safely, confirming the hotel was closed.  We decided to follow Sam back to his family’s hotel, which is when things started to slide a little bit.
We end up listening to Sam trying to sell us a tour of Dakhla and White Desert for about 45 minutes.  When the price of the tours comes up, he wants more money then what we want to pay and his brother is on the stairs making hand signals not to take the tour.  We tell Sam thanks but no thanks.  We are advised to take showers before we went to eat because the water got shut off after a certain time.  Ok, no problem.  So after dinner we went back to our room (which we have already paid two nights for) and on closer inspection there broken glass on the floor and a termite nest in the corner of one of the twin beds.  So Jeff and I ended up in our sleeping bags cuddling in a twin bed again, making the best of things! 
The next day we wandered around the town of Dakhla.  When we wandered into the neighborhoods one kid would run up to us yelling ‘hello’ and the next thing you knew 20 other kids were running behind us.  They were really sweet and kept wanting Jeff to take pictures of them so they could see themselves on the camera screen. 
We walked down to the tourist office to get some information only to find it was closed.  Across the street was Abu Mohamed Restaurant where we decided to grab some lunch.  Abu Mohamed makes a wonderful lentil soup and after lunch he arranged for transportation and guided us around Dakhla.  We went to a place called Magic Springs, where the warm water bubbles up with the sand.  It was kind of like swimming in thin warm quick sand.  We saw the old town that was made out of mud bricks.  We walked up the sand dunes right outside the oasis.  We also visited a another warm spring that was pumped out the ground into an irrigation line where the locals (and Jeff) went swimming.  We returned to Abu Mohamed’s restaurant, ate a wonderful dinner, and he helped us arrange a tour into the White Desert.  So one more night in our sleeping bags in our twin bed and then it is off the oasis of Farafra for our camping trip into the desert!
Waiting for the bus at the station

Some of the children of Dakhla

Our tour guide Abu Mohamed

Sand dunes just outside of Dakhla

Floating in Magic Springs
Jeff splashing in the irrigation warm springs

Old town

Luxor, Egypt

Last week we spent about three days in Luxor seeing all the attractions that bring hoards of tourists to the area.  We stayed on the East bank of the Nile, but took a ferry over the West Bank to see the Valley of Kings.  Of course, we were haggled the entire 10 minute ferry ride by a guy who drove a taxi on the West bank and gave ‘tours’.  And of course, he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.  We disembarked from the ferry, with Mr. Taxi man still trying to talk us out of our money, and found a guy (who said he had a taxi but really it was just a beater of a car and he had to pop the hood and tinker with some things before the engine would start) that took us out the Valley of Kings for a fraction of Mr. Taxi’s price.  The Valley of the kings is the royal necropolis and we went into four of the tombs.  Each tomb was carved into the mountainside.  The long hallways lead into ante-chambers and the burial chambers at the end.  All the artifacts have been removed, either by grave robbers or put into the museum in Cairo, but there some beautiful frescos (although I don’t think that is what the Egyptians call them) still remaining.
Ghetto taxi

Inside one of the tombs where Jeff isn't supposed to be taking pictures. 


After touring the tombs, we found a local guy to show us the path over the Theban Hills the Funerary Temple of Hatshepsut.  We walked through the area of the Tombs of the Nobles, although we didn’t go into any of them, on our way to Medinat Habu, the funerary temple of Ramses III.  One of the tourist police there let us into a restricted area of the temple which was really neat to see, and even more amazing he did it without wanting baksheesh!
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Hiking over the Theban Hills

View of the Funerary Temple of Hatshepsut from the hike
Inside the restricted area of Funerary Temple of Rames III

Jeff's new baksheesh friend at the Hatshepsut Temple

On the East bank, we visited the Temple of Karnak.  This temple was built, modified, enlarged, and restored over a period of 1500 years and was the important worshiping place for the ancient Egyptians.  Besides Karnak, we walked through the tourist and local the bazaars.  Jeff even got a haircut in the local market! 

Pillars at Karnak

Running 7 times around the scrab beetle for good luck

Jeff getting his hair did Egyptian style
Horse and buggies would line the popular tourist streets.  Every time while walking back to our hotel from the main attractions, we would have to continuously tell the drivers no thank you.  Its kind of funny to be walking down a busy street with a horse following you!  But we did end up taking a carriage ride on our way to the train station.  Our next adventure lead us into the oasis of Egypt!

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Aswan, Egypt

The day we left Istanbul was the first day on this trip that Jeff and I were in travelers purgatory.  I woke up with a nasty case of some sort of travelers’ bug with results out of both ends.  But I sucked it up, put on my pack, puked into a plastic bag at metro station during a transfer we had to make, and checked into our flight.  We flew Turkish Airlines to Cairo, which is the last airline in existence that still feeds all of its passengers.  Instead of eating my oh-so-delicious in flight meal, I spent my time in the lavatory which was luckily only two rows behind us.  We got into Cairo and had missed our connecting flight to Aswan.  No problem we’ll just go to the ticket counter and Egypt Air will help us out… Egypt Air is not in the customer service business.  The first counter told us we need to print off our electronic ticket before they could help us.  The second counter across the airport was a bit more helpful and did get us seats on the 5 o’clock flight out.  Proceed to the check-in counter were we witness a yelling match between a tour guide, trying to check his ‘people’ in for their flight, and the counter representative.  The representative closed his counter in order to fully engage in the yelling match.  Unfortunately, we don’t speak Arabic so we could only imagine what the fight was about.  We get checked in and head towards our gate only to soon realize that the flight has been delayed.  In fact when looking at the Egypt Air departure board, every Egypt Air flight is blinking ‘delayed’.  So we settle into some seats (near the bathroom) and waited for them to call our flight.  As it gets closer to our delayed departure time, I wander up to the desk and ask what is going on.  They were pretty much already boarding our flight, hadn’t made any announcements, the screen above the desk was labeled for a different flight and destination, and we almost missed it.  But we got on-board and made it to Aswan. We only needed to collect our bags and get a taxi to the hotel.  Our bags arrived on the belt, but when we go to get a taxi, two guys get into a fight about who will get our fare.  One takes my bag and starts walking over to his car while the other is running ahead of him slamming the trunk closed.  There’s more Arabic yelling, peppered with “Its no problem friend” and “I’m number one taxi, you come with me.”  I had to grab my bag, yell at him to let go, and ended up getting a very nice taxi driver got us to our hotel.
The next day, I’m still feeling a little weak, but rally to take a ferry over to Elephanitine Island and explore the ruins there.  There are also two small Nubian villages there that were very rustic.  Jeff and I pay our entrance fee and would have liked to just wander around the ruins by ourselves, but we have a tourist police man and a ‘guide’ follow us all over.  After about a half hour, Jeff tells them that we’re fine and would like to be left alone.  Then comes the awkward baksheesh (tip) time.  The ‘guide’ wants more money, what about the tourist police guy, and of course we don’t have small change only bigger bills.  This our first run in with the baksheesh and it is nowhere near our last.    Little kids will run up to you on the street yelling “Baksheesh? Baksheesh?” 
We plan a trip Abu Simbel temple the next day and arrange to have a minibus pick us up.  We head out to dinner and then wander a little bit around the bazaar.  On our way back, Jeff (who secretly thought I was a wussy the day before), has to vomit in a plastic bag.  He got the exact same bug I did and we had to postpone our trip to the temple. 
We spent the next day mostly recovering from our illness at the hotel but did take a sun set felucca boat ride on the Nile which was very nice and relaxing (minus the baksheesh time at the end).  We woke up at 02:30 to catch our mini bus to Abu Simbel.  The bus picks people up from several different hotels and then lines up for the 4 am convoy out into the desert.  It was a 3 hour bumpy ride out to the temple, but it was well worth it. Abu Simbel and the close-by Temple of Hathor were amazing.  There are four huge statues of Ramses II stationed outside the temple.  We spent two hours at this site and then it was back on the minibus.  The bus also stopped at the temple of Philae which we had to take a water taxi too. 
We were dropped off at our hotel (after giving the driver baksheesh), grabbed something to eat, and got on the train to Luxor.  The ticket counter won’t sell tickets to tourists, so you just get on the train and buy a ticket on board.  Its very weird, but we  made it Luxor, no problem my friends.
Sunset felucca ride

Inside one of the temples
Abu Simbel temple