We took a short half-day trip from Amman to the Dead Sea. Apparently, the New Rest House is the place to go, not the Old Rest House. The Jordanians have built an ok little place on the beach with showers, restaurants, beach chairs etc. There is no direct transport to the New Rest House, so we took another micro-bus from Amman which, unfortunately, decided to drop us off 10 kilometres away from the Dead Sea. We then had to get another taxi/bus to take us the new rest house - the driver drove through several villages on the way, picking up and dropping off several people, before depositing us at the Dead Sea.
We plunged into the Dead Sea and immediately found ourselves floating with no effort at all on our part! The salt content of the water is so high (30%) that it increases the buoyancy of anything in the water.
In addition, given that the River Jordan has been pouring minerals into the Dead Sea for millenia, the water is very mineral-rich. We found several of the tourists liberally caking themselves with mud from the coastline. There are a bunch of cosmetics companies that sell Dead Sea salt and minerals.
It was funny to float sideways as well as have a nice nap on the water. We could also see the Israeli/Palestinian side of the Dead Sea from where we were.
After the swim, we wanted to head back to Amman. Having no other form of transportation, we walked up to the highway and tried to hitch a ride back to Amman. Thankfully, a car pulled up and off we went. It turned out that the driver of the car was a Jordanian systems engineer who had a Palestinian father (a refugee in Jordan) and an Italian mother. We had a very informative chat on the way back. He said that, notwithstanding what Arafat kept talking about, almost none of the Palestinian refugees in Jordan wanted to go back to Palestine. He said the 2nd generation of Palestinians had grown up in Jordan and thought of themselves as Jordanian, not Palestinian.
He stopped at his office on the way back and we got to talk to a few of his colleagues as well. They told us some fun and scary facts about the Dead Sea. Their engineering firm was constructing a de-salinization plant next to the Dead Sea. Both Israel and Jordan are pumping water out of the Dead Sea and into de-salinization plants. The water-level of the Dead Sea is falling by 1 meter per year due to this de-salinization. As a result, the Dead Sea will be gone in 50 years, according to them! The Dead Sea is dying a slow death... They also said that Jordan is considering building a 170 km long canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. This would change the ecology of the region pretty dramatically. All this is being driven by immense water-scarcity in Jordan.
We hopped on the plane that night, bound for Tanzania and Mt. Kilimanjaro!
One of my favorite movies was "Lawrence of Arabia" and his autobiography, "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" yes, Peter O' Toole and Omar Sharif were great, but what really captured my imagination when I saw the movie was the desert where Lawrence planned his revolt in conjunction with the Arab tribes- Wadi Rum, just one hour north of Petra. Shifting sands, the colors of the sunsets in the sky and the harsh landscape strucka chord in me- I knew I had to see it in person. Because the area has been designated a protected area, you have to book a 3 or 4 or 6 hour jeep tour through the tourist office. We had met up with an English guy on the bus coming from Petra and so we ended up taking the tour with him as well.
The desert is stunning- it looks timeless, yet somehow every time you look, you see something different . Every couple of hundred yards, the view changes- the sand changes from deep brick red to the ever-present tan, a sand dune looms in front of you ( they are tough to climb) and hills made of rock that looks like they have been eroded by sea water throw great shadows on the ground. Among the sights we saw on the tour were places either named for Lawrence or places that he actually stayed at.
There were also some naturally formed rock bridges which of course we had to climb. I had been reading a book called "Kingdom of the Film Stars" which tells the story of an English woman's relationship with a Jordanian Bedouin and at one point in the book, he takes her to a castle and she immediately climbs up onto the ruins of a tower. He observes that Westerners always feel the need to climb on top of something to feel they have accomplished a goal, while the Bedouin see no need. This is so true!
Towards dusk, we arrived at a desert camp which had a couple of tents, a campfire and beautiful views. Other guests at the camp included a German couple (teachers) and a Flemish Belgian couple (biking through Jordan). We sat outside on mattresses, watching the sun set and, unfortunately, swatting flies and preventing camels from walking all over us :-). We could see campfires (from other camps) flickering in the distance once dusk arrived.
Later in the evening, Mohammed came along and served us food, after having lit a nice campfire. We then went to sleep in the open air, under the stars, with plenty of warm blankets. We were the only 2 people to do so. Other than a bit of cold just before dawn, it was nice to sleep out in the open. In the morning, we chugged back to the main city of Wadi Rum in the 4-wheel drive.
Here're a couple of video shots of the sunrise. Again, the desert colors of salmon pink and bright blue.. awesome.
We had planned to hitch a ride to Aqaba (1 hour away) and then get a bus back up to Amman. As it turned out, we happened to be in Wadi Rum on one of the two days in the year that it rains! And it rained hard plus there was a big thunderstorm. We got a micro-bus to Aqaba, walked around for a little bit and then immediately caught the bus back to Amman.
It was funny to be able to see the Egyptian side of the Red Sea from Aqaba (where we had spent a few days at Camp Habiba aka The Twilight Zone). From Aqaba, we could also see Eilat (in Israel) on the Red Sea Coast. It was also funny to note that we had travelled all the way back to Cairo, flown to Egypt and driven down to get to Aqaba whereas just a few days before, we had been 5 kilometres from Aqaba on the Egyptian side of the Egypt/Israeli border in Taba!
At 8am, we hopped on a microbus (the photo to the left is not an actual Jordanian microbus - it's just a photo taken off of Google) to take the 3 hour ride to Petra in the south. Jordan is such a compact country, it only takes about 4 hours to traverse the length - it has borders with many interesting countries so that we had the odd sight of seeing a road sign that said "Turn left for Iraq, Saudi Arabia." We figured we would be in Petra by early afternoon. Of course, we hadn't counted on the fact that come hell or high water, a microbus ("grand taxi" in Moroccan phraseology) will not leave until it's full of passengers. When we got on, we were the 5th and 6th passengers - a full microbus takes 16 people. We ended up waiting another 2 hours before the driver could be persuaded to leave. And, to top it all off, we had to pay the driver the fare for two additional people to make up for the fact that only 14 people were on the bus and there were no signs of anybody else wanting to go to Petra. Off we went, then, on the Desert Highway.
We had especially been looking forward to this part of the journey- Petra had been one of the top destinations on this trip for us. And it definitely lived up to our expectations- it was simply amazing. The Nabateans were the builders and occupants of Petra in the 1st Century AD - they controlled part of the trade route between southern Arabia and Europe, trading in frankincense mainly. The architecture and style of Petra reflects the waning influence of the Greeks and the newly ascendant influence of Rome.
If you go to Petra, set aside at least 1.5 days for the place. There are plenty of places to go to and lots of walks. And take plenty of water and sunblock lotion! Also, Petra isn't that far away from Amman (4 hours) or Aqaba (1.5 hours) so definitely go there if you are in Jordan.
The entrance to Petra is through a narrow gorge called the Siq (1.2 km long). Water channels are cut into the mountainside all along the gorge. Horses, horse-drawn carts and donkeys race through this gorge, ferrying tourists to and from Petra. We chose to walk throughout our stay in Petra, as opposed to taking this transport. Of course, this meant avoiding the donkey dung along the way. Very tricky. The photo to the left shows the end of the gorge - you can just see the Treasury building of Petra at the end of the gorge.
Before entering the gorge, one can see huge Djinn Blocks, large wierdly shaped boulders and rocks with tombs carved around them into the mountainside. Nobody knows what the Djinn Blocks were actually used for.
We walked along the main throughway in Petra, seeing a number of buildings carved straight into the mountainside.
Here are some of the tomb entrances on the side of one of the mountains.
Here is a Greek-style amphitheater, again carved out of solid rock.
The Tomb of Urns, built like a palace into the side of the mountain.
Here's a beautiful shot of birds flying around the inside of Petra...
The Monastery. A 1-hour climb from the main city up into the mountains. Beautiful views of the sorrounding mountain range from nearby hills. There was a Spanish woman who had set-up shop here, selling jewellry - she was doing a considerable amount of business, compared to varoius Bedouin shops along the way. Her strategy: enable tourists to pay with Mastercard and no bargaining or negotiating!
In the evenings, we went to restaurants in Petra - all of them serving "Authentic Bedouin food" which turned out to be mostly meat and potatoes. We also went for coffee to the Moevenpick Hotel next door - if you go there, try to get a place on the roof to watch the sunset! Also, try to do the "Petra by Night" tour where visitors are taken at night through the gorge to the Treasury - the gorge is lit by thousands of candles and the guides tell stories about Petra. We did not get to do this but we heard about it from people we met there.
After a tiring and awestruck couple of days in Petra, we got together with another traveller (a British schoolteacher), hired a taxi and set-off for the haunts of Lawrence of Arabia...
After two more days in Egypt, of which a good part of the time was spent trying to talk to the visa people in the Jordanian embassy in Cairo, we finally got on the plane and flew to Jordan. Once there, we got into the passport control line and hoped for the best. I got through no problem, but then when Dev showed his letter of intent, everything came to a grinding halt. Three, then four, immigration officers came over to examine the letter in turn, look at Dev's passport, flip the pages, read the letter, and then ask Dev where his visa was. After the umpteenth explanation and some considerable thought as to what we would have to go if Dev didn't make it in, they finally relented and let us through. By that time, we barely caught a shuttle into town and to our hotel.
Turns out the hotel we were staying at, Al-Sayara, was the hotel where the human shields and many of the journalists stayed during the Gulf War. The manager was very helpful and we also met a journalist who had started the first newspaper after the US took over Iraq last year. With Iraq right next door, the focus of people's attention at the hotel was on Margaret Hassan, the chief of CARE in Iraq, who had been recently abducted in Iraq.
Amman itself is built a series of 7 hills which makes for intersting taxi rides..there seem to be as many side streets as there are loops. We went to quite a happening cafe/bar (Books @ Cafe) with a gorgeous view -sheesha pipes, and young, hip Amman-ites were in abundance. The country is much more orderly than Egypt - the cabs all have proper modern meters. The petit taxi and grand taxi concept (similar to Morocco) also is properly in place here. The buildings are modern (and finished, unlike Egypt) and the people seem more modern as well. There is a lot of development work and building going on all across Amman - the king seems to be well liked as well - this country has a great future, in my opinion.
We spent some time at Abdoun Circle as well in Amman. Abdoun is a ritzy part of Amman where many of the nouveau riche have their houses. The shops are very westernized - things like English-language bookshops, pharmacy, restaurants, bank etc. are in abundance there - a one-stop shop for the leg-weary traveller! Right off of Abdoun, we also went to a nice restaurant named Blue Fig - given that it was Ramadan, they had some post-sunset festivities going on. Nice place.
Tired from all the drama and just wanting to settle in for the night, we got out at Habiba camp. The manager of the camp came over and sat down with us and started by apologizing for the taxi driver's attitude . As we told him our story of woe, and asked if he thought we would be able to get into Jordan via the ferry to Aqaba without a visa for Dev, he immediately recommended we talk to the camp's owner. The owner of the camp very nicely (we thought) took down Dev's passport and letter of introduction and faxed it over to a "friend" in Jordan. Then we waited to hear back. We figured we would hear from the friend the next day. In the meantime, we decided to make the most of our stay. After all, here we were, right on the Red Sea.
Turns out we were the only regular guests in the whole camp! The Taba bombing had really hit Nuweiba tourism hard- most of the camps up and down the beach were half full or were totally closed. The only camp that had a full load of people was the all-inclusive camp catering to Russians and Germans up the beach. At Habiba, they had a huge lunch crowd daily that came in from various tour groups shuttling through. But for the rest of the time, it was empty. So we had an Italian chef who told us stories of giving up his hectic lifestyle and coming over to Nuweiba to live a simpler life , multiple waiters who still took forever to get us food, and the entire beach all to ourselves. We got in some snorkelling as well- there are some beautiful coral forests on the Nuweiba coast. It was an idyllic day......
The next day passed and the camp owner hadn't made an appearance. Nor did we have Dev's passport back- the owner had kept it "safe" with him. We had already decided, however reluctantly, that we wouldn't be making it to Israel and would head straight for Jordan. We weren't getting good vibes from the camp manager that our ferry jaunt would be successful into Aqaba, so we decided that we would go back to Cairo (another 7 hour bus journey from hell) and fly into Amman. And we were STILL the only ones in the camp. By this time, the Twilight Zone theme was starting to sound in our head!
Finally, by the third day, we decided enough was enough. We got the passport back (never having received a straight answer from the 'friend'!) and asked for a cab to the bus station. After an hour of "It's coming- just now, very soon!", we hitched a ride with a water truck that was leaving and high-tailed it out of the camp. As we left, we could hear the crickets chirping.........
Answer: Both have seen, but not reached the promised land.
As an Indian citizen, Dev had called the Israeli embassy in Vienna and asked multiple times (the "are you sure" refrain was used quite liberally) if he needed a visa. NO was the repeated reply. As for Jordan, according to the guidebooks, one could get a visa upon arrival. However, as an Indian citizen this could prove difficult, so Dev procured a letter of intent through his underworld, oops I mean diplomatic connections :).
So having done our homework, we blithely boarded the bus for another bus journey from St. Katherine's to Dahab, then on to Nuweiba. Nuweiba is the seaside resort town on the Red Sea from where you can catch the ferry to Aqaba as well as enjoy the sun at a myriad of beach camps. We got off at the taxi and bus station in Nuweiba and of course were surrounded by potential taxi drivers. However the frenzy was a little more crazy here..the taxi drivers actually came to blows while trying to secure us for their cars! We had hooked up with a group of South Korean students and their Japanese guide as we thought it would give us more negotiating power to bring down the cost of the ride - Taba and the border was about 50 km away, and this bus station was the only place from where to catch a ride.
The police got involved in stopping the fight between the cab drivers. The local mafia goons arrived and told us that we have to take their taxi - and the price started going up from 200 egyptian pounds to 250 egyptian pounds and higher! Then the police told all the cab drivers to go away for their prayers because it was about 5pm and time to break the Ramadan fast. So, in short order, we went from multiple available taxis to absolutely nothing! Finally, a couple of cab drivers surreptitiously returned and the Koreans took off in another cab. We took off for Taba along with four Egyptian students. Time was running out (the border crossing would close at 8pm) but the students insisted on taking a tea break about 5 minutes after we left the bus station and lingered for a while. Quite maddening.
At Taba, we saw the bombed-out Taba Hilton (the bombing had taken place a couple of weeks prior to our arrival in Taba). It was surrounded by armed policemen. We trudged through the Egyptian section of the border through no-mans-land and arrived at the Israeli side. We then went through extensive security checks and then the moment of truth arrived - Would Dev be allowed into Israel without a visa (as I had been told by the Israeli embassy in Vienna)? The answer, which took about an hour in arriving, was a resounding NO! Seems the information we had received was incorrect and in fact, Dev needed a visa- no question about it. So two and a half hours after arriving at the border, we walked back to the Egyptian side, negotiated with the taxi cartel again, and took a one hour drive back to Nuweiba. Very frustrating.
After some tense moments in the taxi (price negotiations continued throughout our drive to Nuweiba), we reached Habiba Camp.
Our 25 minute air ride from Luxor to Sharm was quite uneventful other than that we seemed to be the only people who were not part of a guided tour - we also seemed to be the only non-Italians on the plane. At the Sharm airport, we were greeted by the taxi cartel (see previous blog on negotiation techniques...) who charged us an arm and a leg to drive 20 minutes away to a youth hostel. Being our first youth hostel, our expectations were set at zero but the youth hostel managed to underperform our expectations. The manager wanted to make sure that we were married ... he said he could get in trouble if he allowed a non-married couple to stay together. We did not have any proof with us but managed to convince the manager somehow. Our room turned out to have, instead of a door, a torn plastic sheet hanging between the bedroom and the bathroom.
Sharm had a complete resort feel to it. Fancy hotels every 10 yards. Western restaurants. Lots of Russian and Italian tourists. We got out of there fast...
The next morning, we took a bus to Dahab and from there caught a bus to St. Katherines. Buses are quite an experience in Egypt - they all have 2 levels, a blaring video on at all times, slippery steps, and a waitress who serves tea and coffee during the Ramadan day (go figure... nobody can eat or drink during the day during Ramadan). The bus to St. Katherines had only Europeans on it (plus the two of us).
The scenery going by was a moon-like landscape with no greenery at all. The coast on the other side of the Red Sea to us seemed to have the same landscape as well (it turned out that that was the coast of Saudi Arabia). The bus was stopped and everybody's papers were checked every half-hour or so by the police. Given the bombing of the Hilton at Taba nearby, this was not a surprise. We did not see any signs of the previous Israeli occupation of the Sinai peninsula.
At St. Katherines, we stayed at the Desert of the Fox Camp, run by Bedouins. The rooms had two mattresses... and cost 20 Egyptian pounds each (USD 2) per night! The manager Mohammad had a Portugese girlfriend who arrived on the same bus we arrived on. We met a Canadian dive instructor who had been travelling around for the past 15 years and was (at the age of 35) still using phrases such as "hey, maaaaan" and "dudemaaan". We spent some time in the "reception hut" watching Egyptian TV with Mohammad - some strange programs that seemed like soap operas but had interludes where an elderly man got up and sang endlessly and tunelessly.
The same afternoon, we set off to climb Mt. Sinai (or Jebel Musa, as it is called in Arabic), retracing the steps that the Prophet Moses took several thousand years ago. The Egyptians have quite comically named some of the groves (along the way to the base of Mt. Sinai) "The Burning Bush" and "The Golden Calf." We climbed the steps through the Greek Orthodox monastary and continued on to the base of Mt. Sinai.
Mt. Sinai is about 2200 meters high (6300 feet) high. While the mountain is not very high, the climb itself take a while (2.5 hours) and is quite steep. The last 1 hour is just one big rock after the other.
We were chased by a camel driver almost all the way to the top. Apparently, a number of climbers become quite fatigued along the way and opt to ride a camel to the top for an exorbitant sum of money. We managed to escape the camels and persevere in climbing up the "3000 steps of repentance."
Here's a video of the camel driver and the camel giving up on us and heading back to the base of the mountain...
We reached the top at about 5:30pm, just in time to see the sunset. The views were fantastic. There is a small chapel at the top. Many people opt to stay up there for the night.. enterprising Egyptians provide blankets and hot tea for these intrepid travellers. We were not feeling quite so intrepid and it was getting very dark, so we stayed a half-hour and then started climbing down.
Climbing down was quite an ordeal! It was quite dark with some moonlight and some malfunctioning flashlights. Thankfully, we climbed down with a gentleman from Cyprus who had a very bright flashlight and was very helpful. We talked about Cyprus on the way down.. the Turkish and the Greek Cypriots etc. etc. It was quite slippery going down as a slipper layer of dust covered the footpath. After what seemed like several hours (but was only really 2 hours), we got to the bottom. We saw the Greek orthodox church again and a family dressed completely in white coming out of the chapel.
The next day, we took off for the Israeli border at Taba at the northeaster end of the Sinai peninsula and the top of the Gulf of Aqaba.
We spent a couple of days in Luxor, visiting the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, the Hatshepsut Temple and a few other places. We met some real characters along the way, including a guide named Aladdin and a hotel proprietor who was a clone of Ben Kingsley in the House of Sand and Fog...
First and foremost, we wanted to escape from the heat of Aswan and Abu Simbel (which we later found out is right on the southern border of Egypt with Sudan). So we took the train north to Luxor... we escaped from 40 degrees celsius (108 Fahrenheit) in Aswan to 41 degrees celsius in Luxor - not quite the relief we expected - from the frying pan into the fire (and this is the cool season)! Apparently, it goes up to 50 degrees celsius (126 Fahrenheit ) in the hot season. Our guide was telling us about a couple who wanted to take advantage of cheaper rates in the summer - the couple came to Luxor in the summer, rented bikes and set out for the West bank of the nile. They came back an hour later completely dehydrated and dazed...
At the train station, the proprietor of the Hotel Fontana insisted on meeting us and escorting us to his hotel. He turned out to be very focused, controlled and deliberate in all his words and actions which was somewhat disturbing - somewhat like Ben Kingsley's character (the Persian major-general) in the film "The House of Sand and Fog". He would say things like "And now you will have your breakfast" instead of "Would you like to have your breakfast now?"...he would also say things like "you will now go visit the Hatshepsut temple and you will have fun." O.K. Yes, Sir!
Apparently, his hotel business was doing really well as he had just repainted the hotel and was adding new floors to it. Almost all residential and commercial buildings in Egypt are unfinished - almost all have construction work being done on the roof to add new rooms. Our guide told us that this is the case because the tax laws in Egypt require owners to pay 40% tax on the cost of finished buildings. Hence, nobody has any incentive to officially finish constructing a building - quite bizarre. We got a room (the only finished room!) on the top floor of his building.
Our guide was another extreme personality altogether. Just like all the other guides we met in North Africa, our guide in Luxor boasted of having done a whole lot more than just being a guide - he boasted of having a carpet-selling empire, exporting to the US and Europe, having multiple wives etc. etc. His name was Aladdin and his manner of speaking English in an Arabic accent was quite comic - he'd say "Excuse me" every 2 seconds and repeat everything he said two or three times. An example: "Excuse me, you see to my left some sugarcane fields, yes, sugarcane- tall plant, now, excuse me, and sweet, excuse me, at least 400 metres away, yes, excuse me, from the road. Excuse me, in 1997 when the terrorists killed the Greek tourists, excuse me, they hid in the sugarcane - tall plant, yes, excuse me, on your left. So the government now makes a rule that sugarcane is not to be nearer than 400 metres from the road, excuse me, you know, excuse me!"
Next morning, we had breakfast downstairs with a couple of Germans and a Canadian. The Germans (a mother and her son) were called away early by the proprietor to get on a tourbus to go to the west bank of the nile.
We set off in another microbus for a 45 minute ride to the west bank of the nile which is where the valleys, tombs etc. are. The extreme and dry heat and limestone rock makes the place ideal for tombs. On the way, we saw a canal - our guide said that all the local farmers dumped their dead animals into this canal because they had nowhere else to dispose of the dead animals - the canal supposedly also had crocodiles and tons of bilharzia worms. Right after that, we saw an overturned tourbus - our guide said that this was the tourbus on which on German friends from the Fontana Hotel had been... he tried to find out over his mobile phone as to what had happened to them.. the police cordon around the tourbus was too tight.. We drove on to the temple of Hatshepsut.
Here's a little overview of what our guide sounded like... Quite funny!
Our guide gave us a mnemonic to remember the name of the temple of Hatshepsut - he said "Excuse me, excuse me, this temple is like hot chicken soup, you know, excuse me, Hat-Shep-Sut can be pronounced like Hot Chicken Soup. remember that, excuse me!" The temple was somewhat destroyed in an earthquake but has been rebuilt and is very impressive. This was the site of the 1997 shooting of 50 Greek tourists by the Muslim Brotherhood. We saw the bullet holes in the walls. It turns out the Hatshepsut was the only female Pharaoh of Egypt - in fact, her face on her statues have beards which she had put to make her look male. It also turns out the Hatshepsut was the step-mother of Tutankhamen who, supposedly, was killed in his sleep by Hatshepsut's husband.
From the Hatshepsut temple, we drove to the valley of the kings which is where over 50 tombs have been found. Tutankhamen's tomb is here but is not very impressive - this is because he was very young when he was killed/died and the Egyptians had a rule that a tomb could only be worked on (excavated, expanded, painted, etc.) while the Pharaoh (for whom that tomb was being built) was alive. Since Tutankhamen died young, his tomb was not very long and had nothing on the wall. Consequently, we went to the tombs of Ramses II, Seti (his father) and others. The longer the reign of a Pharaoh, the longer the tomb.. also, the tombs sometimes take right turns or left turns - this is because there are so many built into the Valley that sometime, while excavating, one tomb would run into another tomb and would have to be diverted elsewhere! Also, most of the tombs were looted immediately after the Pharaoh's mummy was interred there... this was because the looters were mostly the priests and others who officiated in the burial ceremony and therefore knew where the tomb was. The photo above shows the entrance to one of the tombs and also shows our guide Alladin pontificating in front of the tour group.
We stopped off at a bunch of shops which were selling pots/figures made of alabaster stone. The shops were all named after celebrities such as the "Princess Diana Alabaster Shop" etc. In addition, the pots, they sell lots of oddly-shaped figures, such as shown in the photo above! Apparently, the Egyptian government wants to kick out all the shops and houses in this village. This is because they believe that a number of unexcavated tombs exist below the village and that the villagers are secretly digging below their houses to find treasures in unopened tombs! The Egyptian government has cut off the water of the village for the past 3 years, yet the villagers refuse to leave.
We also went to the Valley of the Queens which is similar in the nature to the Valley of the Kings. The tomb of Nefertari is supposed to be the most beautiful one. It turns out that a couple of years ago, some German and French tourists came to blows with each other and with the ticket officials over being denied entry to the tomb because there were too many people inside the tomb. The European tourists smashed the glass of the ticket office and threatened violence - the Egyptian police stepped in .. and from then on, the tomb has been closed to all tourists.. Quite a shame.
From here, we drove back to the east side of the nile and to our hotel. Thankfully, we saw the two Germans sitting in the lobby as we walked in. They seemed quite shaken from their tourbus ordeal. Ben Kinglsey the hotel proprietor was sitting with them, apparently trying to calm them down. The Germans were silent and listening. When the German mother saw us, she started telling us about the overturned tourbus. Apparently, the driver of the tourbus, in the middle of driving, got up from his seat and came into the back of hte bus to investigate some noise. Nobody took over driving the bus and the microbus went off the side of the road and overturned! The driver ran off but was later arrested. Nobody was hurt but everybody was shaken and shocked. Ben Kingsley kept telling the Germans to forget about the incident, that fate had been kind to them, how this could easily have resulted in their death but it did not so they should be grateful! He talked about he 50 tourists killed at the Hatshepsut temple and the person who fell off his bike but was not killed. Apparently to his surprise, the Germans were getting quite agitated hearing this sort of "comforting" talk. My guess is that he was very frightened that the police would associate this incident with his hotel business and would perhaps shut his hotel down. I told Ben the proprietor to stop talking and let the Germans talk about their experience.
We also went to the Temple of Luxor. Here's a little view of the great hall:
The next day, we took a flight to Sharm-al-Sheikh which is an Egyptian resort on the Sinai Peninsula/Red Sea.
3AM-A knock on the door. Groggy and half awake, we stumble downstairs to grab a cup of tea and climb aboard a minibus with about 8 other people for the 3 hour and 280 km bus journey to Abu Simbel. Due to security reasons, the only way to get to Abu Simbel is by convoy. So after about 40 tour buses and microbuses had gathered (about 4 am), we were off. The landscape was desolate- with only a few power lines here and there. Otherwise, there were no signs of life. Watching the sun rise over the landscape was pretty amazing—it was gradual at first, with pinks and blues coursing over the sky and then all of a sudden it was day.
The temples at Abu Simbel are pretty amazing, but even more so is the reconstruction work it took to move them from being submerged in Lake Nasser when the dam was being built. Over a four year period, the two temples were dismantled and raised over 60 meters up the sandstone cliff where they had been built more than 3,000 years before. Here they were reassembled and covered with an artificial mountain. You can still see some of the places where the blocks were cut out and rejoined. I have to say, I liked these temples even more than the pyramids. The facades of both temples are impressive- imposing seated figures of Ramses II (yes, the one who was king when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt) on the first temple and standing figures of Ramses and the Goddess Hathor (I learned that statues that are standing with the left leg forward symbolizes that it was built when the king was still alive) but even more impressive were the decorations inside the temples.
Sadly, there is a lot of graffiti on the outside of the temple... from the early 1800s when the temple was rediscovered! Inside his temple were amazingly detailed pictures of Ramses defeating his enemies and being blessed or making offerings to the gods or with his wife, Nefertari. The colors of the hieroglyphics were still rich and vibrant, making me imagine how beautiful they were when first painted. We weren’t really supposed to take any pictures here—but we managed with some baksheesh to get a few shots. The temples actually go pretty far back into the mountain. For a minute, I wished I was an archeologist, so I could decipher the stories on the walls!
We then endured another tiring 3 hour ride back to Aswan with a busload full of French tourists along with a family from New Zealand.
Most people go to Aswan to enjoy the sleepy atmosphere, take a felucca ride on the Nile and use it as a base for Abu Simbel. To get to Aswan, we took an overnight train from Cairo to Aswan. Fourteen hours, blasting air conditioning competing with a blaring stereo and luggage piled around everywhere. And that was just in our compartment.
We shared the 6 person compartment with some locals traveling to Edfu and Kom Omba. Once we broke the ice, if not the language barrier, we all shared food (since it was after sunset). When it came time to get some shut-eye, I walked up and down the car trying to find an empty compartment. I found one down at the other end of the car, but for some reason, sleep wouldn’t come. Maybe it was the constant drone of voices from the next compartment, or the man with a machine gun who kept walking up and down the length of the car and poking his head into the compartments (there were no doors). Maybe it was one of our travel companians who recited the Koran for several hours while right next to him the next person snored loudly. Finally after a cramped and uncomfortable time of it, we reached Aswan. And it was hot. At least 35 Celsius. And that was strictly average- it can go up to 40!
Later, we took a felucca ride on the Nile. We stopped at Elephantine Island, (so named because the large boulders that make up the island resemble elephants) which has ruins of Nubian temples and a village.
Apparently, it was one of the oldest islands in this area, with artifacts from 5500-3100 BC. The people who still live here speak Nubian and Arabic (Nubia was once the area that is the southern part of Egypt and the northern part of Sudan). After visiting the island, we continued on our lazy ride down the Nile, gently refusing our guide’s suggestions to “drink of the river-it will make you strong!’ and opting for our bottled water instead. The boat captain also broke his fast during our felucca ride - he offered us sugarcane juice and also hibiscus juice. His two assistants were teenagers who were on their summer holidays.
We saw a beautiful sunset and enjoyed a longer than usual ride back to the docks- the head wind had picked up in the mean time and to go back we had to zig zag the boat from shore to shore. The boat captain and crew took great delight in getting as close as they could to other boats and the shore before turning aside just in time. We decided to go to sleep early to prepare for Abu Simbel.
We plunged into the Dead Sea and immediately found ourselves floating with no effort at all on our part! The salt content of the water is so high (30%) that it increases the buoyancy of anything in the water.
-sheesha pipes, and young, hip Amman-ites were in abundance. The country is much more orderly than Egypt - the cabs all have proper modern meters. The petit taxi and grand taxi concept (similar to Morocco) also is properly in place here. The buildings are modern (and finished, unlike Egypt) and the people seem more modern as well. There is a lot of development work and building going on all across Amman - the king seems to be well liked as well - this country has a great future, in my opinion.
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