Our first morning, Steve surprised Lindsey with a horse ride on the beach, something she's been dying to do. Yasmina kept Lindsey company that morning, while Steve headed for some scuba diving. She was able to ride freely, with a private guide trailing her. It brought back memories of riding Arabian horses as a child.
Steve headed to Ras Mohammed National Park, one of top dive destinations in the world. While he enjoyed the dives, they unfortunately fell short of his expectations (after all he did just swim with a whale shark in Asia), but he may have just had some bad luck. The largest fish was a fat 5+ft tuna, but he missed the rays and sharks he'd expected to see. He did find where all the world's goldfish must come from though.
The rest of our time was spent catching up on planning, specifically a quick jaunt to Petra. We'd planned to head out there on our own, but more trouble at a ticket office made us change our minds. The man at the ticket counter explained to us (with the help of our cab driver translating) that he couldn't sell us a ticket because the bus might show up and be full or be broken down. We rolled our eyes and headed for the tour company.
The tour would take what we figured would take three days to accomplish (due to infrequent transportation options) and cram it into one day. We'd leave at 3:30am aboard a bus, head north near the Israeli border, catch a ferry to Aqaba Jordan, board another bus to Petra and arrive after a total of 7-8 hours. We'd complete the same ride after touring Petra, and arrive back around midnight, 21 hours later. Why not.
The morning's transport went smoothly and with a lot of sleep, we barely noticed the first leg of the trip. The boat ride was enjoyable, as we took in the view of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. We also spotted a massive American Aircraft Carrier, docked in the Straight of Aqaba.
The real dread of the group tour began once we boarded the bus and met our tour guide, Hassan. As he began his incredibly slow and flatly-delivered speech of useless facts, we kicked ourselves for taking the tour option. Somehow his explanation of the various denominations of the Jordan Dinar or the different ancient names for Jordan failed to excite us. Whenever he got sidetracked he'd throw in a "Welcome my friends to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan"--not that he ever explained what a Hashemite is.
Once we arrived at Petra, we quickly snatched our tickets and headed off away from the group. We wandered down the Siq, a snaking canyon lined with irrigation pipes. Petra's builders, the Nabatians (and later the Romans), survived in the hostile desert by controlling and storing water, which they used to create an artificial oasis. At the end of the Siq, stands Petra's best-known monument, Al Khazneh (The Treasury), built in 100bc and made famous by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
And another one...
Other tombs and structures throughout the valley were impressive, but none seemed as well persevered (or restored perhaps?) as The Treasury. The walking was hot and dry, and we couldn't have lasted the whole day even if we'd been on our own without the time limits imposed by the group.
One thing we observed a lot of, and found really amusing, was the heavy use of camcorders. We both figure that these are great for capturing a child's birthday, but can't image watching the videos we saw being recorded. One guy held his video camera to the bus window for over an hour, another got thrilling footage of ancient carvings, and a third did a great job of documenting the seating area on the ferry. Put simply, they chose poorly.
After exploring Petra, we had a buffet lunch at a nearby hotel and began the long voyage back to Sharm el-Sheik. Exhausted from the heat, we slept most of the way back home.
The next morning, we caught a 50 minute flight to Cairo, where we'll rest and plan, before beginning our tour of Morocco. We'd planned to see Mt. Sinai, but given the logistical hassle involved with cheap travel here, we gave up and opted for more time exploring Morocco.
Finally, there seems to be an issue lately with navigating to the entire picture albums, but once you click on an above picture, just click "sedisons albums" to see the entire collection.
No comments:
Post a Comment