Round the World 2008

August 18, 2008

We left Cairo on Saturday morning for the seven hour drive to Mt. SInai driving under the Suez Canal and across the Sinai Peninsula.  After arriving late afternoon we started the three hour hike to the top of Mt. Sinai where it is said that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments.  The hardest part of the hike was being in exposed sun for such a long time…but towards the end we were walking in the shadows of the mountains and it was cooler.  There was a small church at the top of the mountain and beautiful scenery all around.  We waited at the top to see the sun set and then began the hike down.  Since it was a full moon we were able to see fairly well hiking down in the dark.  At the base of Mt. Sinai is Orthodox Monastery of St. Catherine which we visited the next morning.  There we saw the burning bush through which god spoke to Moses. We enjoyed the rest of the day at the Red Sea resort of Nuweiba where we stayed the night.  From the beach we could see across to the mountains of Saudi Arabia. 

Yesterday morning we headed towards the port of Nuweiba where we were to get the ferry across to Jordan.  What was supposed to be a few hour ferry ride turned out to be a day long ordeal.  We didn’t arrive in Jordan until 1AM.  The first problem was the delayed ferries.  Also, since it is two weeks before Ramadan, travelers are beginning to make their way to Mecca in and the cheapest way from what we were told was to take the ferry to Jordan and then to cross into Saudi Arabia through Jordan.  The crowds were unbelievable and we were pushed, shoved and herded around for most of the day.  There was no order in the immigration process either in leaving Egypt or arriving in Jordan.  Also, it is very common here for people to cut in front of you and you need to be defensive at all times.  After passing through immigration on the Egyptian side, we waited for about 7 hours in a large holding area with no air conditioning that was filled to capacity with travelers.  Other than a small snack stand, there were limited food options, but I was fortunate enough to befriend a family who was picnicking next to me and they invited me to share lunch with them. At one point a guard trying to keep order in the room became so frustrated that he picked up a random person’ suitcase and threw it across the room hitting a family.  That wasn’t the first time we saw that type of behavior in Egypt. The chaos continued on the ferry and through Jordanian immigration. 

 We were surprised to see that the beach town of Aqaba where we stayed the night was still alive when we arrived at 1AM and we went out to a nice outdoor cafe where we got delicious shwarma and falafel sandwiches.  Aqaba seems very modern compared to the places we visited in Egypt.  Today we’ll drive to Wadi Rum and spend the night out in the desert at a Bedouin camp.

From Aswan, we floated down the Nile on a felucca which is a sailboat with a covered open area with a mattress and lots of pillows. Very relaxing. We sailed all day and then in the late afternoon stopped along the shore to spend the night. We spent the evening swimming in the river, having dinner, listening to our crew play and sing traditional Nubian music, and dancing on the beach. Yesterday we arrived in Luxor which has the highest concentration of Egyptian ruins. There is so much to see here and we’ll spend the rest of the day exploring before heading back to Cairo on the overnight train.

Abu Simbel

After taking an overnight train from Cairo to Aswan we finally got a little bit of a break from the hectic pace of the first few days of the tour.  While in Cairo, we saw the Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx and the Egyptian Museum all in one day .  Our hotel in Aswan is a resort where we spent much of yesterday and today relaxing by the pool.  All activities are early to avoid the heat of the afternoon.  It can easily get to over 100F in the desert.  

Last night we took a felucca (sailboat) ride on the Nile and stopped at a Nubian village on Elephantine Island for a homecooked dinner with a local family.  It was the best meal I’ve had since coming to Egypt. We also smoked a “shisha” Egyptian water pipe.

This morning we got up at 3AM to drive to Abu Simbel which are two enormous temples carved into the side of a mountain by Ramses II.  The size of it and the fact that the entire temple was carved out of one piece of stone was hard to believe considering the site is over 3000 years old.  To get there, our bus was escorted by a military convoy because the site is very close to the Sudanese border. 

Today we have a free afternoon to lay by the pool again and then tomorrow we head to Luxor, again by felucca. The trip will take the entire day and we’ll sleep in the boats before arriving on in Luxor on Tuesday.