Aqaba & Wadi Rum, Jordan

Days 74-75, September 28-29, 2008

Early in the morning after our day in Newaba, we drove to the ferry station on the Sinai to depart Egypt. The ferry ride was about an hour across the Gulf of Aqaba at the north end of the Red Sea. When you are crossing the sea, you can look around you and see the coasts of 4 countries: Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. After I visit Israel next week, I will never be allowed to enter Saudi Arabia due to supporting a false Zionist state so this is probably the closest I’ll ever get to there. The city of Aqaba occupies most of the short Jordanian coast on the Red Sea and this is where we both entered Jordan and spent the next day and night.

Most of our time in Aqaba was free-time so it was spent walking around and taking the city in. The first thing that you notice when you enter Jordan is that it is noticeably cleaner than Egypt, which as I mentioned before, is a dirty place. Jordan is one of the few mid-east countries that has no oil or significant natural resources and they have prospered despite this disadvantage. When the Middle Eastern oil has dried up, Jordan has set itself up to survive through investments in education and business. They have used their strong economy to build and beautify their country. In Aqaba, everything looks new, is painted, and it has several gardens to contrast the desert that occupies about 80% of the country.

The other noticeable difference between Egypt and Jordan is that Jordan actually has good food. I don’t think that I commented too much on the food in Egypt before and, while it is edible, on a whole, it is very bland and hard on the palate. In my two days in Jordan so far, I have had some of the best food that I have had on my entire trip. OK, well maybe not the entire trip…I have eaten well my entire time abroad, but the food has been excellent nonetheless.

My first morning in Jordan was a big morning for me. I decided to shave my moustache. It was fun while it lasted but I can say without any doubt that I will never wear one again as long as I live. I thought that it looked ridiculous. For everyone in my group, though, that is the only way that they had ever known me so I received a myriad of reactions throughout the morning when they saw me clean shaven. My room mate, Brett, jumped back and asked, “what’d you do with David?” One of the girls, Larissa, gave gasp as if someone just punched her in the stomach. A few people, though, didn’t even notice anything until the next day when I caught them staring at me a little too long and I could tell that they couldn’t quite figure out what was different. Then I put my finger across my lip and they busted out laughing. Several people have told me that I look 5-10 years younger without it. I am happy to look 21 again.

Our second day in Jordan, we drove up to the desert of Wadi Rum which is about and hour and a half north of Aqaba. For our night in Wadi Rum, we stayed in a Bedouin community. It is a collection of tents tucked into a natural shelter created by a rocky mountain.

I never realized how beautiful the desert could be. We took a four hour jeep ride through it and were able to see some beautiful rock formations, colors, and a spectacular sunset. At our sunset location, a few of us hiked up a hill to get some amazing pictures and an even more amazing view.

When we got back to the campsite, it was dark and we ate a traditional Bedouin meal of lamb and potatoes. They cook it in the ground for several hours. The only thing that the meal was missing was a few cold beers. It was the last night of Ramadan and our hosts are very observant of the no alcohol during Ramadan policy. Since Ramadan ends with the new moon, we had a pitch black night by which to see the stars. After the singing and dancing around the campfire ended, most of us found a comfortable spot and kicked back to see a view of the starry sky that only the desert can offer.

The intrigue also began this night. Our guide, Khaleid, disappeared from the camp and no body knew where he went. One of the Bedouins, who spoke English, finally told us that Khaleid was in the hospital because he had become very sick. I knew that he wasn’t feeling well. You could tell that by just watching him but nobody knew he was that sick. All 15 of us went to bed that night, in the middle of the desert, not knowing if we had a guide for the rest of our stay in Jordan. I don’t think that it made anybody sleep any worse but it was in the back of everyone’s mind.

Cairo, Mt. Sinai, and Newaba

Days 71-73, September 25-28, 2008

From Luxor, we took another overnight train back to Cairo. Everyone was beat from the early mornings and long days so it was an early bedtime all around.

When we got back to Cairo, we started our day by touring the largest mosque in Cairo named the Mohammad Ali Mosque. Apparently, this is named after the Egyptian King that built the mosque and not the boxer.

The afternoon was spent exploring a large market and at night, a few of us went to the sound and light show at the pyramids which blew away the one at Karnak. Seeing the pyramids during the day is impressive enough but seeing them lit up at night with stars as the backdrop is absolutely amazing.

Early the next morning, we departed for Mt. Sinai which is located at the modern day Egyptian town of St. Catherine. It really isn’t much of a town but rather a small collection of hotels set-up to cater to pilgrims and tourists. The monastery of St. Catherine is also at the bottom of Mt. Sinai and is said to be the location that Moses spoke to God through the burning bush.

Driving through the Sinai is one hell of an experience: Hell because it's hot and an experience because of the security. They have had several terrorist bombings at resorts here over the last 10 years so security is very tight. It’s even tighter now since the tourists got kidnapped in southwestern Egypt. Every 50 kilometers or so, there are roadblock checkpoints staffed by the army. Sometimes, they check everyone’s passports and other times, you have someone armed from the army or tourist police ride along in the bus for a while. It is a little unnerving at first but it quickly becomes just part of the routine.

Once we got to St. Catherine, we decided as a group that we were going to hike up Mt. Sinai to watch the sun set and then hike back down in the dark. We started to ascend at about 2:30 or so local time and it took me a little over 2 hours to hike to the top. It was difficult, steep climb to begin with and even more difficult with a broken foot.

However, it was all worth it at the top when, much like Moses, I received two tablets directly from God.

The following are the new 10 Commandments (as handed down from on high by God into the hands of the new prophet, me, on September 26, 2008:

1. Thou shall not mix whiskey and beer
2. Thou shall not be a Michigan Wolverine fan
3. Thou shall spend money you don’t have and worry about it later
4. Thou shall not exercise to the point of perspiration
5. Thou shall not watch “The Hills”
6. Thou shall enjoy unemployment to its fullest
7. Thou shall try any new food which is offered twice but may pass on cow brains
8. Thou shall remember that being single equals being happy
9. Thou shall drink to excess whenever thou pleases except in the case of Tequila which should be drank in moderation occasionally.
10. That shall always tailgate like it will be your last

Besides becoming a modern day prophet, the rest of the climb was also well worth it. The view from the top was amazing. You can see forever and it was an amazingly colorful sunset. Also, on the climb down in the dark (which, at times, was more difficult than the way up), I don’t think that I’ve ever seen so many stars.

My last day in Egypt was spent in the resort town of Newaba on the Red Sea. It was a good way to finish the Egyptian part of my trip. We did some snorkeling in the Red Sea, laid on the beach, and had a little beach party at night from which most of the group stumbled back to their rooms. I was impressed with the endurance of the group because the next morning we had a 5:30 wake-up call to depart for our next stop, Jordan.

Luxor, Egypt (apparently not named after the Vegas hotel)

Days 68-70, September 22-24, 2008

We departed Aswan early on Monday morning via felucca. A felucca is a traditional Egyptian sailboat. Our destination, eventually, was Luxor. Luxor is a city that is a few hundred miles north of Aswan. We sailed on the felucca all day on Monday, camped Monday night next to an Island in the middle of the Nile, and then finished the trip on Tuesday morning via van.

I am pretty sure that spending all day on a slow boat sailing down the Nile was not my entire group’s favorite part of the trip but I absolutely loved it. Egyptians have been sailing up and down the Nile using the same basic technology for millennia. I, being a sailor, really enjoyed seeing how their sails were rigged, how they handled the boat, and most of all, I really just enjoyed relaxing on a boat all day long. With all of the beautiful girls from my tour on the boat with me, I felt like a real pharaoh.

The night was one of the most fun nights I’ve had on the trip yet. We drank the boat out of wine and beer and our Nubian guides had to go to another boat that was camped down the beach to procure us some more warm beer. They also got out some drums and we had a Nubian sing and dance along which wasn’t good on my foot but how many times am I going to be camped in the middle of the Nile singing with Nubians?

They also busted out some of their classics like, “In the jungle, the mighty jungle.” Afterward, we busted out some of our classics like, “Old McDonald had a farm.” I always forget, though, that every culture has its own words for animal sounds. In Egypt, the cow doesn’t go “moo”, the pig doesn’t go “oink”, and the chicken doesn’t go “cluck-cluck.” So unfortunately, “Old McDonald” is not the best song to bring abroad as no one understands why the chickens in America go cluck-cluck instead of pia-pia. After the Old McDonald disaster, someone figured out that “I’m a little teapot” works much better. All I’ll say about that is that if I ever run for office, I’ll have to fear that some incriminating “I’m a little teapot” photos may surface.

NOTE: I’m a little teapot photos excluded here for the sake of what’s left of my dignity.

Luxor is famous because it was, in antiquity, called Thebes and was the capital of Ancient Egypt for much of its history. Luxor also has the largest temple complex of Ancient Egypt which is called Karnak and is also home to the Valley of the Kings. The Valley of the Kings was the final resting place for most of Egypt’s Pharaohs after the pyramid building age and, in 1922, was where the untouched tomb of King Tut was discovered.

We visited Karnak both at day to explore the sprawling complex and at night to see the sound and light show. During our daytime exploration of the temple, which is impressive as anything else I’ve seen here except for the Great Pyramid, the temperature in the sunlight reached 50 degrees Celsius which is over 120 degrees Fahrenheit. It was hot.

The nighttime sound and light show was fine and I mostly wanted to go because it was featured in the James Bond Movie, “The Spy Who Loved Me.”

When James Bond was at Karnak, it looked something like this:

When I was at Karnak, it looked something like this:

Before the Karnak light show, we took several horse and carriages on a tour around Luxor. This was fun but the coolest part was going through the local market. The street is barely big enough for the market and shoppers and we were barreling through with a horse and carriage. No wonder people hate tourists.

Our last morning in Luxor, we visited the Valley of the Kings. In order to climb up to the valley, we all hopped on donkeys. I always envisioned that this part of my tour would be more like our camel ride from the other day and we would be trekking across the desert like intrepid explorers reading to discover the tomb of a long dead pharaoh. In actuality, all we did was ride in a close cluster up the main road dodging busses and cars full of the other tourists all staring down at us. Watching our donkeys sneeze on us, kick us, and try to buck us, I am sure that they were saying to themselves, “Look at those asses. They’re all riding donkeys.” Between the dirt, donkey snot, and sweat, it must have looked like we all crawled through foxholes by the time that we got to the valley.

It was no big deal though because the Valley was a cool place to visit. They have discovered 62 tombs here the only intact one being King Tut’s. Some of the tombs are closed for restoration but we had time to go into three of them: Ramses 3, Ramses 4, and Tutmoses 3. Though none of them contain their original treasures, the hieroglyphs and art on the walls still holds their original color and is incredibly impressive. Most of the paintings and carvings look like they could have been completed over the last several months and not over 3000 years ago.

(Both pictures from inside the tombs are from the internet)

The tomb of Tutmoses was my favorite because you had to climb up the mountain to get to the entrance and then descend far back down into the same mountain to get to the burial chamber.

Our last big tour of Luxor was the temple of Hachepsut who was the most powerful queen of ancient Egypt. In a society in which women could not rule, she took the title of King and ruled as one for over 20 years. Her mummy very recently discovered and we saw it in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo last week.

It was so hot in Luxor, all we did the rest of the time was hang out in the hotel pool.

Aswan, Egypt

Day 66-67, September 20-21, 2008

FOOT UPDATE: As diagnosed by a doctor that is part of our tour group, I have definitely broken my foot. I have a fracture of my 5th metatarsal which I can do absolutely nothing for except suck up the pain and wait for it to heal.

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I have been in Aswan, Egypt for the last two days. Aswan is famous for a few reasons. It is one of most southerly inhabited areas of Egypt, the granite for the Pyramids was excavated from here, and this is the site of the Aswan Dam.

The Aswan Dam was built in the 1960’s with funding from the Soviet Union to help protect the Nile Valley from flooding and to generate electricity. The Nile starts thousands of miles south of here (it’s the longest river on Earth) in the mountains of central Africa. Every year from antiquity through 1970, during the rainy season , the Nile would overflow its banks and flood the entire Nile valley. The ancient Egyptians relied on this to both fertilize and irrigate their crops. Without the annual flooding, there would have been no Egyptian civilization known to us today. It was so important for farming that Imperial Rome relied on Egypt’s wheat to feed its empire. The Nile flooding was so exact that the ancient Egyptian’s named one of their months “Inundation” in honor of and in prediction of the floods.

With modern irrigation and farming techniques, more people living in the Nile Valley, and the occasional disaster, the flooding was much less important to modern Egyptians who needed safety and power so the dam was built. Behind the dam now exists the largest lake in the Mideast following the course that the Nile once ran through Upper Egypt. Lake Nassar is narrow but over 300 miles long and extends into Sudan to the south. It is a big, blue lake surrounded by desert.

Besides the Aswan Dam, we visited the Philae Temple dedicated to the Goddess Isis, the granite quarry, and the temple of Abu Simbal.

I’ll include some pictures of the quarry and the Philae Temple. It was quite amazing. It was built a few hundred years BC and was used to worship the goddess, Isis. During the early Christian persecutions, it was also used to worship Christ. Amidst the walls of hieroglyphics, one can also make our crosses and early Christian symbols. In the 1960’s, to escape being drowned by the birth of Lake Nassar, the entire temple was cut into pieces and reassembled on higher ground. The same process was used to save the temples at Abu Simbal much farther upstream.

The most impressive thing about the quarry is a giant obelisk that was carved out of the rock but then cracked so was left as is, ruined, over 3000 years ago. It is impressive that the ancient Egyptians were able to precisely cut the rock for all of their monuments without using any metal tools. All of the pyramids and all of the temples of ancient Egypt were quarried using stone to cut stone.

At night, after our tours, we took a long camel ride around the desert for sunset. Out of our entire group, myself, Maria, and Shilpa had the most lively camels. I think I laughed for an hour straight while the camels were racing around with us on their backs. All the while we were doing our best to get a few good pictures and not fall off. My camel was named “Crocodile.” I asked the camel jockey (a legitimate one) if he got that name because he bit like a crocodile. He said no but I am pretty sure that if he could have reached his neck around to me, I’d have been camel cud. Maria’s camel was named Christine. Our camels raced for a while, and while she may tell you differently, my camel defiantly won.

Nubian camel jockeys follow on foot to make sure the camel don’t decide to take off into the desert. When they want the camels to go faster, they yell, “Ya la.” Ya la roughly means, “go” or “get moving” or “come on.” So for and hour, I kept hearing, “Ya la, Christine, ya la.” I can’t wait to see my friends Dan and Christine in New Jersey and let Dan know how to call for his wife in Arabic. Sorry Christine. Ya la, Christine, ya la!

We took the camels to a Nubian village for dinner. The part of Egypt, in antiquity, was the country of Nubia, the perennial enemies of Egypt. The locals were and are referred to as Nubians. They have black skin, their own language and live in one of the more beautiful, if not hot, areas of modern Egypt. Saturday, the temperature hit 105+ but with zero humidity here in the desert.

Yesterday, my last full day in Aswan, we took a trip down to the temples of Abu Simbal. Abu Simbal is the large temple complex built by Ramses II, the Moses Pharoah, and one of the longest reigning and most powerful of ancient Egypt. Ramses is probably the most well-known Pharaoh, next to King Tut, and it is his image that is often used in modern media to depict an Egyptian Pharaoh.

We had to leave very early for Abu Simbal with our wake-up call at 3:15 AM. It is about 150 miles south of Aswan, deep into the Egyptian desert. The reason that you have to leave so early is that there are set caravan times to go to the temple. Since it is relatively close to the Sudanese border, one of the most dangerous places on Earth, all tourist buses have to drive together and need a security escort. The day after we were there, 11 tourists were kidnapped by some Sudanese in another border area of Egypt. They were off on their own in a place that they probably shouldn’t have but I am still glad that we had our security convoy.

There are two temples at the site: one dedicated by Ramses II to the sun god Ra and one by his wife Neferteri to the goddess, Mut. Both are over 3500 years old and amazingly preserved. In much of the temple, the hieroglyphs are so well preserved that you can still see the original paint on them. This would be impressive no matter what but even more so if you consider that the entire temple has been moved 50 meters up and several hundred meters down from its original location which now sits at the bottom of Lake Nassar. When the Aswan Dam was being built, Egypt and UNISCO organized a worldwide international coalition of archaeologists and engineers to document and save as many of the Nubian and Egyptian sites as possible that would be flooded by the new lake.

Abu Simbal, over the course of several years and with the Nile rising more everyday, was cut into pieces and perfectly reconstructed in its new location. It is so precisely reassembled that if you had visited in the 1950’s and then again today, you may have no clue that you are in a completely different spot.

The temple was great and totally worth the early wake-up but it did make for a very sleepy ride back to Aswan.

That night, we went through a crazy market and did some shopping. I had a great few days in Aswan.

Ya la, Christine, ya la!

She’s going to kill me.