Eric's World Travels: August 2009

Every single person I've met since coming to Amman has said "Welcome to Jordan." People holler it at me as I walk by on the street. I suppose they are just very friendly, but it's starting to seem like some sort of vast conspiracy. Maybe I just have a sign on my back that says "Welcome Me."

We spent a few more days in Egypt around Dahab. We decide to climb Mt. Sinai for sunrise, which meant that we left at 11 pm and stumbled up the mountain rather than sleeping. It was surprisingly hot despite the altitude and almost total darkness. The trail ran through a camel holding area(for tourists too smart to walk up) in the moonlight and it was kind of surreal to be surrounded by an unknown number of mostly very sleepy camels. In fact the whole experience took on a kind of drugged feeling. Maybe I just wasn't drinking enough water. In fact I know I wasn't because when we got to the top, I was soaking wet from the effort and it became surprisingly cold. We had to rent a blanket that looked like it had been stolen from one of the camels to see us through until dawn. We were awakened by a choir of people with mostly Castillian accents singing in Hebrew "Shima Israel . . ." which made sense given the location. It felt very old testament and I was happy to discover that I would not have to carry any stone tablets down to the bottom. It made less sense when we discoverd that the choir was actually a group of Catholic seminarians, but the music was nice at least.

We did a jot more snorkelling and finished most of our winnings at the pub, although we did leave with 6 liters of drinking water, and headed towards Jordan. It took only 10 hours longer than expected. The bus ride was 90 minutes as advertised, and the ferry took only 3 hours instead of 2, however there was the small matter of the 5 hour wait before the ferry and the 2 hours after it arrived. If that doesn't add up, you more or less understand how we felt during the 12 hour, 120 mile journey. On top of it, I dropped 10 Dinar($15) on the ground getting out of the cab and our driver skillfully made it disappear.

Jordan has been more expensive than anticipated, but mostly worth it. Petra, which I had never heard of before planning this trip has been totally fantastic. The verse, which we see EVERYWHERE runs "The rose-red city half as old as time." In fact the city is only about 1900-2100 years old, which on this trip just qualifies it as oldish. However it looks incredibly ancient on account of being carved from soft sandstone. I was thinking I would like to see a convincing TV recreation of the place at it's heyday, but upon further consideration I've decided that it can't be done. I scarcely believe the real version. Rose-red also give the rocks short-shrift. They are mostly red but swirled with psychedelic tiger stripes of orange, brown and yellow. I continually found myself having to touch them to believe that they weren't painted on, but they are not.
Unfortunately the ancient Nabateans did not build any escalators, or if they did they have been lost to the ages. Consequently we had to do a rather ludicrous amount of hiking to see it all and I have gotten leg cramps that make me feel half as old as time myself(I'll be 25 this week after all). I also took a rather ludicrous amount of pictures, none of which will see the light of day until I get my camera cable from home.

Keep getting further behind, for some reason. I still haven't gotten up to the current time of my first entry. After Abu Simbel we spent the better part of the day sleeping because we had to get up at 3am for it, and then we took a cruise down the Nile to Luxor. My original plan had been to take a felucca, which is more or less the aquatic equivalent of a VW van, but with fewer amenities, but my companions prevailed upon to see reason and we took a cruise ship, which I had never done before. There was no shuffleboard, unfortunately, but we did have an ondeck pool, which was good considering that it is generally unsafe to swim in the river on account of "Snail Fever" which is even less fun than it sounds like.

With the exception of three other people, no one on the boat spoke English, so we were seated at the English only table, where they did their best to keep us comfortable. We met a very interesting Ethiopian lady who was on R&R from the UN in Sudan, and a Norwegian girl travelling with her grandmother. The grandmother was at the English table mostly because there wasn't a Norwegian table. The banks of the Nile were much lusher than I had imagined, and there's few better ways to see them than from a nice cool swimming pool. We also got to see some amazing temples along the way, including Kom Ombo at night, when it was lit up like the set for an opera(which thankfully failed to occur). The guard insisted that I take a photo of the forbidden mummy which no one is allowed to see unless they have three pounds to give him and his boss is on break.

We got to Luxor after two days. Actual sailing time was about 6 hours, but that would have cut into the buffet, so they stretch it out a bit. Luxor has an overwhelming concentration of sites, and we did our best not to see more than we could appreciate, but I still may have sprained my sense of historical perspective and wonderment. It helped that it was 114 degrees most days. The valley of the kings was amazing. One of the tombs still had all the original paint, which frankly, makes the whole affair a lot cheerier. I'd like to see a temple restored to full technicolor glory. Just one, they've got thousands. Unfortunately, the sheer number of people, even at this offest of seasons, who are willing to sweat their way up and down the stairs to the tombs means that the atmosphere inside is just beyond lockerroom and well on its way to sauna. I'm sure this isn't good for the paitings, so most of the tombs are closed. Also notable was the Karnak temple, which is apparently the biggest temple, anywhere, ever. The columns are huge and decorated with a bewildering array of people with silly heads and/or silly things on their heads. That was a big deal for the ancient Egyptians, I guess. When we occassionally splurge on a guide, they attempt to explain the deep significance of these heads, but I usually get distracted by minutiae like the fact that everyone keeps marrying their siblings, and then marrying their offspring to other siblings. At some point they started carving their names really deep so that their horribly adjusted son/nephew/husband wouldn't erase it when they died. That's most of what I got out of the carvings, which are quite beautiful and much more interesting than Jesus over and over again.

From Luxor we took the bus to Hurghada, which was another clothes-on sauna experience. I'm not sure how these women can wear a head scarf--I keep having serious doubts about the wisdom of wearing pants. Hurghada is a gaudy tourist town on the Red Sea, which is, as the guide book informed us, totally swarming with sunburnt Russians. I don't think anyone can enjoy a good sunburn the way Russians can. I know I can't, but I gave it a try when we went snorkelling. The contrast between the unbelievably barren land and the teeming reefs of the Red Sea boggles the mind. On our ride to Hurghada(6 hours) we saw at most 12 plants and animals. In 30 seconds snorkelling, we saw at least that many species, if not many more. Unfortunately the sunburn was quite bad and I had to spend most of the next day in the room wondering just what had made me remove my shirt in the first place(it was the devil) and whether I would ever be able to use a chair again(any day now).

Cheryl left us in Hurghada and we headed across the sea to Sinai. Since Moses wasn't with us we had to take the ferry, which was rough, but probably faster than walking in any case. Then we took a taxi and a bus and another taxi just for good measure to Dahab, which is consistently described as a backpacker's paradise. The Lonely Planet was a bit bored with it, and to be fair, we're not exactly encountering another culture here. In fact, everyone is exactly like us. But the other fact is that it is just a very nice place, with beautiful waters and teeming reefs(spitting distance from the bar) and a great view of Saudi Arabia, which looks just fine from a distance. We even played the pub quiz last night--in which we dominated the less experienced to win 100 pounds of free drinks that we have, so far, been unable to finish.

Some pictures--I only have the cable for my phone camera, so the selection is a bit random.