We took a taxi from the train station to a hotel we had booked and Teo decided to stay at this place too. Mum and dad got a double and me a single, eve though it had two beds and it was bigger then mum and dads room. Woohoo! There was also really good signal Wi-Fi and it was free too! This is of course what I spent my time doing until we were too hungry.
We couldn’t seem to find anything to eat at they were all Tapas bars that either had smoking or wouldn’t allow under 18s. So we eventually found a Chinese restaurant that we hadn’t seen before anywhere else before.
We then went back home to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 2 on our laptop. We started watching it really late because it still felt reasonably early to us, we still hadn’t adjusted to the time, so even though mum and dad couldn’t stay awake ‘til the end of the movie, I watched until 1am… yay!!!
So of course I slept in late this morning, until about 11:30 which was I guess a good time to go. We had booked tickets to the Alhambra this day which would start at 2 pm. So we went out for lunch/breakfast at a Turkish place, the headed off to The Alhambra. Because mum had booked online we got our tickets printed off in a big yellow box which was fun :P
So we started our 6 hour journey through the Generalife Gardens (Generalife is pronounced something like Heneralifé). Generalife is taken from the Arabic word meaning architect garden which makes sense because so much effort and thought must have gone into making these gardens. There were hedges, fountains and all kinda of flowers. We must have come on one of the best days because it was so beautiful and sunny, barely a cloud and it was spring so all the flowers were in bloom; pansies, roses, snap dragons, opium poppies, orange trees, purple, pink, yellow, white and occasional blue. Dad of course didn’t like it so much, being the “European weeds” but mum and I thought it was beautiful. We had to wait to get into the patio section because the ticket checkers only let in 50-100 people every 5 minutes or so. But once you were in you could take as long as you’d like. Often when a large crowd would come in, we’d stay in one spot and wait for them all to pass at the tourist pace and we’d have the place almost to ourselves. Teo found it difficult with all the crowds so he didn’t go through into the next section and then only spent an hour in total in the gardens.
We continued on and looked at many fountains, flowers and fish. As we began to finish this section we climbed up some stairs-“Escalera del agua” stairs of water. Along the handrail of these outside stairs was a sort of channel with running water down it. The water was really cool which was great on such a hot day. I think it was melted snow water from the mountains.
The next area we headed for was Palacio de Carlos V. We walked through some more gardens and saw a Medina wall.
We then went to “The Gate of Seven Floors”, a hug round tower where you could go underground. There wasn’t really anything to see there but it was still interesting.
After this we went on a road where lots of tourist shops were. We saw in one of them that they had the Moorish carvings and tiling inside. We took a picture of the coke machines in front of it. This carving is almost exactly the same as the carvings we saw in the Medersa in Marrakech. This carving was all over the place.
So next we entered the Santa Maria Church. There was a huge statue like thing at the opposite end from the door. It was strangely pink in a way but also gold. There was mother Mary in the middle and Jesus with cherubs and God at the top. It was quiet in there and I was beginning to become very tired so it was nice to sit down in this calm area for a while.
We then finally arrived at Palacio de Carlos V. It looked like a huge bull-ring within a square. Kind of like a mini colosseum look alike. Dad went to see the Restaurado room, which mum and I guessed as the restaurant but it actually means restoration. Inside there was a lion statue that, when we went back to the entrance/exit we saw how they restored the lion fountain on a T.V screen.
We continued on to the fort at the front, placed atop the cliff. It was called “The Alcazaba”. Here there were many lookout areas where we could see great views all over the city and the mountains. There was a belltower and ruined suburb area of where some people used to live.
We had to finish slightly sooner than we’d have liked as we needed to get lined up for the Nazaries Palace at 6.
As we came through the first part of the Palace we noticed a pattern made into the path we were walking along out of stones. In the pattern seemed to be some sort of plant picture. Dad thought it looked like a Banksia but we guessed that might not have been the original aim of the artist.
We walked into the first room and saw the amazing tiling. The black, white and green were the main colours used but occasionally yellows, blues and sometimes reds were used as well.
Ferdinand and Isabella had converted many things throughout this palace into their own either Christian or Spanish decorations. Plus and Ultra words were often engraved or somehow placed onto the walls and rooves. In this first room a tiling of the crown had been placed into the wall. There was a little add-on room we couldn’t enter in here filled with the stucco carvings on the wall too.
We then found ourselves in an outside area very similar to the Marrakech Medersa. It took us into a small hallway with more stucco, into a lovely fountain/pond area.
There was a huge wooden door that we then walked through into an enclosed room with more green and black tiling, and a really high ceiling with beautiful wooden patterns. On two of the walls 5 arched windows sit high up with iron lacing covering it, casting delicate shadows onto the floor.
Opposite this room was another wooden door and to the right of this door was a smaller one which took us into a very ornate stucco design. The roof here was redone by Isabella and Ferdinand. There was an eagle with a coat of arms engraved with it and also a big F and a big Y as, in Latin, Isabella was spelt with a Y.
Outside was another little garden area where a fountain stood. This is originally where the lion statue stood that dad saw in restoration. Here I saw, carved out of the stucco, the same eagle and coat of arms.
Mum’s camera battery ran out at this point so I’m struggling to remember exactly how we got to places but I do remember walking across a bridge with another bridge opposite. The opposite bridge looked very curved :S
We sat down for a while on a nice little seat in front of a fountain surrounded by box hedging but we had to hurry it up as it was approaching to 8 pm when we had to leave. We walked through some more of the Generalife area on our way out and walked through more fountains and roses. Some English people who were sitting down wanted to take a photo of dad because he looked like some T.V phone ad host. On our walk back to the hotel we passed a fountain that we took a photo of as we came through the first time. Part of the fountain sculptures were pomegranates. This is when I realised, the Banksia looking thing in the path of the Nazarides palace was a pomegranate.
We finished the Alhambra about quarter past 8 and loved every moment of it J
We attempted to find a restaurant later but found it very difficult as it seems, in Spain, they don’t eat anything but ice-cream and sugar filled pastries. We did eventually find somewhere which seemed pretty good but I don’t think I would go back there…
Next morning I spent the whole time on the internet while mum dad and Teo went shopping and posted a parcel home including mums lamp and my awesome hat!
The four of us had a chat in my room and then we went and waved Teo off. He was taking a bus to Madrid because a train to Madrid cost like $150.
We then saw a fountain/statue of Mary and Jesus in a square on our way to the Cathedral. The Cathedral cost €3.50 so dad said to see a cathedral it wasn’t worth it so only mum and I went in. Inside everything was white and gold. Mum taught me how they got all this gold from South America like the movie El Dorado. There was also a huge statue area where, out of wood, a woman and a man prayed to Jesus. These people were Ferdinand and Isabella.
Afterwards we all went out for tea at a place we saw from the belltower in the Alhambra. So we sat in a shaded area looking up to Alhambra Fortress on the top of a cliff face.
We felt really tired after this so we decided to go back. I watched some Spanish T.V which was ok. I watched dubbed Will & Grace and Smallville so I knew what was going on. None of us slept well this night as the gunshot sound we heard in Ronda happened here as well. There seemed to be a football match or something that was obviously very important so lots of men were getting drunk and lighting fireworks and smashing windows. So last nights sleep wasn’t as peaceful as I would have liked.
We had to get up early so we could get to the 11:33 train today but when we arrived at the train station, they said the 11:33 train to Seville was booked out. The next train went at 4:34 so we waited 5 hours until we could get on the train. Nothing really happened throughout that time except we got a fish and tomato pasties and some biscuity things.
We arrived in Seville at 7:45…
5/31/09
Spain-Ceuta+Ronda 23/5/09
So our first day in Spain! I thought it was very strange how there is a part of Spain on the Africa continent. This part of Spain is called Ceuta. We took a taxi along the coast and said our final goodbyes to Morocco. The taxi driver took us to a cheapish hotel which was very helpful as we didn’t have the guide book to find anything ourselves. This place had free Wi-Fi which was great to be able to book for the next few nights.
We went for a walk so we could find the ferry and know where to go early in the morning. We bought our tickets and saw where we had to go.
At this time we were pretty hungry as we had barely eaten all day but we couldn’t seem to find any close restaurants that was reasonably cheap or didn’t have smoking, so we decided to go to a supermarket and get bread and some other things to make ourselves dinner. I think we spent about 13 euros for three people’s meals and breakfast which is more than one person’s meal would have cost at the restaurants we were looking at.
Next morning we had to get up around 4 am. Well not really 4 am but it was like that on our body clock. Strangely enough, all of Spain is 2 hours ahead of all of Morocco. We found that very annoying when we thought we already had to get up reasonably early.
We arrived at the Ferry station about an hour early just in case something happened. Luckily nothing did but we had to wait for a long time before we could board. We felt really bad when they seemed to put all the Anglo-Saxon or white tourists first. We were at the back of the queue but went on the boat about 4th because they leave all the Moroccans ‘til last.
We left Ceuta at 9 (which felt like 7) and arrived in Algeciras at around 10 even though the company said the boat would take 35 minutes! All the guide books had told us that Algeciras wasn’t a very nice place to stay with lots of people attempting to steal things from you. People obviously don’t steal things on Sunday as the whole place was very quiet and we only saw a few people around. We couldn’t find the train station very well. We were heading to Ronda as fast as we could because we were told Algeciras wasn’t a comfortable place. We asked for some help from an oldish woman who then turned up at the station 10 minutes after us! Dad had a good chat to her but mum and I were sort of excluded as they were speaking Spanish.
After the woman had left we met up with Teo again. He was travelling to Ronda with us so we took the train at 12:15 and saw the most beautiful scenic tour. We went through mountains, over gorges and waved to some people canyoning (people who just travel down stream anyway they can in wet suits-walking, jumping, swimming but no boats or rafts).
We got off at Ronda and went to two different hotels but the same company. We first went to Hotel Arunda 1 but they only had two single rooms left, so Teo took a room here and we went to Hotel Arunda 2 and got a double and single.
We then went walking and decided to check out the main tourist attraction of Ronda. Ronda is a small city built on two top sides of a gorge with a huge bridge connecting the each side together. We went and had some things to eat and then saw the bridge. The gorge was enormous! making of course the bridge just as tall. We went to one side of the bridge and there was a guitarist playing mush music that made me feel kind of sad and wanted to go home instead of actually enjoying where we were so we went to the other side which didn’t have a guitarist but also had a much better view I thought.
We continued walking so we could look from a different angle and went down- not quite to the bottom- but we saw the bridge by looking up. We went down to the old bridge where earlier people had built a bridge, though even the new bridge is old, it was built in the 1700s.
We saw a girl, maybe aged 12, wearing what I thought was a wedding dress. Personally I think that’s a little young to get married, especially in our culture. Mum informed me that she was probably having her first communion. I could see her mother, her father and her brother were all dressed up too, so I’m guessing it was a big day for them.
We eventually climbed our way back up again to the top of the gorge and as we were really tired from a late night and early morning, we went back to the hotel. I didn’t sleep well that night as there seemed to be gunshots or something going off.
We didn’t do much after that until the morning.
Breakfast is included at our hotel but not at Teo’s so he came earlier than what we were expecting so he could have some food too. He told us that last night was a big parade for all the children who had their communion. That’s what the gunshots were, fireworks. Last night mum and dad had been watching the news and saw the Ceuta border. Every so often they let Moroccans through with things for them to sell and then they would come back. Apparently there were so many women trying to get through, that 2 women were crushed to death. We believe this is why the tourists and “white” people were let through first at the ferry.
We left after breakfast on a walk retracing our footsteps from yesterday because mum’s camera battery ran out halfway through our walk and she really wanted those pictures. We then went on the other side of the gorge where there was another guitarist who annoyingly played similar music. From here we could go down and into the gorge, right to bottom. Well mum and I couldn’t really be bothered to go down because then we would have to come all the way back up again, plus dads legs were still really sore from his climb in Chefchaouen. So we went down halfway and still got a great view of the bridge. It looked incredible because the light was only just creeping onto the bridge and only some areas were lit up from the shadows made from the surrounding buildings.
I had to piggy back dad all the way back up again because of his legs!!! Well not really but we made it look that way to mum… shhh
When we made it to the top again dad decided to get rid of some of his useless dirham from Morocco that he couldn’t change anywhere. So we gave it to the man busking with his guitar who looked quite pleased getting 5 silver coins from us…
Mum then wanted to buy a decorative plate she saw yesterday. I helped her choose, its really nice with gold, blue and white patterning. Teo bought a thimble with different coloured flamenco dancers on it.
We then needed to go back to the hotel to pick up our luggage to take on the train with us.
We caught the Ronda to Granada train at 2:11pm.
The train trip was really good but I couldn’t see much as I was facing backwards. We saw fields of red and snow topped mountains. Also huge wind turbines really close up.
We arrived in Granada at around 4:30.
We went for a walk so we could find the ferry and know where to go early in the morning. We bought our tickets and saw where we had to go.
At this time we were pretty hungry as we had barely eaten all day but we couldn’t seem to find any close restaurants that was reasonably cheap or didn’t have smoking, so we decided to go to a supermarket and get bread and some other things to make ourselves dinner. I think we spent about 13 euros for three people’s meals and breakfast which is more than one person’s meal would have cost at the restaurants we were looking at.
Next morning we had to get up around 4 am. Well not really 4 am but it was like that on our body clock. Strangely enough, all of Spain is 2 hours ahead of all of Morocco. We found that very annoying when we thought we already had to get up reasonably early.
We arrived at the Ferry station about an hour early just in case something happened. Luckily nothing did but we had to wait for a long time before we could board. We felt really bad when they seemed to put all the Anglo-Saxon or white tourists first. We were at the back of the queue but went on the boat about 4th because they leave all the Moroccans ‘til last.
We left Ceuta at 9 (which felt like 7) and arrived in Algeciras at around 10 even though the company said the boat would take 35 minutes! All the guide books had told us that Algeciras wasn’t a very nice place to stay with lots of people attempting to steal things from you. People obviously don’t steal things on Sunday as the whole place was very quiet and we only saw a few people around. We couldn’t find the train station very well. We were heading to Ronda as fast as we could because we were told Algeciras wasn’t a comfortable place. We asked for some help from an oldish woman who then turned up at the station 10 minutes after us! Dad had a good chat to her but mum and I were sort of excluded as they were speaking Spanish.
After the woman had left we met up with Teo again. He was travelling to Ronda with us so we took the train at 12:15 and saw the most beautiful scenic tour. We went through mountains, over gorges and waved to some people canyoning (people who just travel down stream anyway they can in wet suits-walking, jumping, swimming but no boats or rafts).
We got off at Ronda and went to two different hotels but the same company. We first went to Hotel Arunda 1 but they only had two single rooms left, so Teo took a room here and we went to Hotel Arunda 2 and got a double and single.
We then went walking and decided to check out the main tourist attraction of Ronda. Ronda is a small city built on two top sides of a gorge with a huge bridge connecting the each side together. We went and had some things to eat and then saw the bridge. The gorge was enormous! making of course the bridge just as tall. We went to one side of the bridge and there was a guitarist playing mush music that made me feel kind of sad and wanted to go home instead of actually enjoying where we were so we went to the other side which didn’t have a guitarist but also had a much better view I thought.
We continued walking so we could look from a different angle and went down- not quite to the bottom- but we saw the bridge by looking up. We went down to the old bridge where earlier people had built a bridge, though even the new bridge is old, it was built in the 1700s.
We saw a girl, maybe aged 12, wearing what I thought was a wedding dress. Personally I think that’s a little young to get married, especially in our culture. Mum informed me that she was probably having her first communion. I could see her mother, her father and her brother were all dressed up too, so I’m guessing it was a big day for them.
We eventually climbed our way back up again to the top of the gorge and as we were really tired from a late night and early morning, we went back to the hotel. I didn’t sleep well that night as there seemed to be gunshots or something going off.
We didn’t do much after that until the morning.
Breakfast is included at our hotel but not at Teo’s so he came earlier than what we were expecting so he could have some food too. He told us that last night was a big parade for all the children who had their communion. That’s what the gunshots were, fireworks. Last night mum and dad had been watching the news and saw the Ceuta border. Every so often they let Moroccans through with things for them to sell and then they would come back. Apparently there were so many women trying to get through, that 2 women were crushed to death. We believe this is why the tourists and “white” people were let through first at the ferry.
We left after breakfast on a walk retracing our footsteps from yesterday because mum’s camera battery ran out halfway through our walk and she really wanted those pictures. We then went on the other side of the gorge where there was another guitarist who annoyingly played similar music. From here we could go down and into the gorge, right to bottom. Well mum and I couldn’t really be bothered to go down because then we would have to come all the way back up again, plus dads legs were still really sore from his climb in Chefchaouen. So we went down halfway and still got a great view of the bridge. It looked incredible because the light was only just creeping onto the bridge and only some areas were lit up from the shadows made from the surrounding buildings.
I had to piggy back dad all the way back up again because of his legs!!! Well not really but we made it look that way to mum… shhh
When we made it to the top again dad decided to get rid of some of his useless dirham from Morocco that he couldn’t change anywhere. So we gave it to the man busking with his guitar who looked quite pleased getting 5 silver coins from us…
Mum then wanted to buy a decorative plate she saw yesterday. I helped her choose, its really nice with gold, blue and white patterning. Teo bought a thimble with different coloured flamenco dancers on it.
We then needed to go back to the hotel to pick up our luggage to take on the train with us.
We caught the Ronda to Granada train at 2:11pm.
The train trip was really good but I couldn’t see much as I was facing backwards. We saw fields of red and snow topped mountains. Also huge wind turbines really close up.
We arrived in Granada at around 4:30.
5/27/09
Chefchaouen
Early morning this morning. Well not too early but earlier than I would have liked as we needed to get on a bus to Chefchaouen. On the bus we met a Canadian couple but only the man spoke English, the woman only spoke French where he was bilingual. I wasn’t feeling well this day and I think the windy roads and bumpy bus didn’t help. We stopped and had a mint tea at one point. After this stop we met a man called Teo. He is Croatian and speaks several languages like English, French, Spanish, whatever they speak in Croatia (oh right Tegan croatian! *hits forehead*) and some others I think.
When we arrived in Chefchaouen (don’t they love their vowels here! essAOUIra, chefchAOUEn, I saw a place on the way to Fez called OUAOUmana!!!) and we got a taxi to where Tao was staying and decided we’d stay there too as we hadn’t booked anywhere. Mum and dad got a double with a shower and toilet and in my room I have a single with a double bed.
After settling my stomach down for a few minutes we went to walk around the Medina. We hadn’t gone far before we started setting the pace of buying things. Mum bought some necklaces and Teo some mini Moroccan shoes.
We kept on and we bought some fried dough doughnuts. There was no sugar on it, just literally fried dough rings. I didn’t like them very much but dad was happy to eat mine.
We continued walking and found ourselves at a corner shop with strange knitted hats hanging from the shops outside walls.
We walked inside and Teo asked me to model some of them to see whether they might fit his niece and nephew. In the end I ended up buying one too because it was just so cool! It’s a knitted brown beanie with green, red and yellow stripes at the bottom with 2 antennae coming from the top!
Later we went for dinner in the square. We were asked by a French couple where we got our hats from and struggled with the English question. They were very relieved to find that Teo spoke French.
Today we just spent most of the day shopping except for when mum and dad left me at the internet café. They got lost finding the bus station and took twice as long as they would have hoped.
Afterwards we met up with Teo again in the square and had some lunch. A man came up to us with sunglasses that didn’t quite fit his face. He sang and played his violin for us but it was the way he played it that was really interesting. He played the violin as if it was a cello on his knee! Then when dad had a go he realised it was tuned in fourths instead of fifths as well. It sounded very different to the way dad plays.
So Dad went back to the hotel, Teo did some shopping while mum and I went into the
Kasaba. On the way to the Kasaba we saw a very strange sight. We heard a dog barking so I looked around to see and saw a huge brown dog standing on the roof of a house barking at a little dog on the ground! We got a picture but when mum pulled the camera out one of the women ducked because in the Muslim culture women do not go in photos. The same sort of thing happened in Dharkla Egypt (which I forgot to write about in the tour blog) when there were heaps of young girls talking to Kyuri and me and one of the girls who was 12, held my hand all the time. She gave me a rose but when mum wanted to take a photo of us she held back and so only the younger girls who weren’t wearing the scarf around their heads would go in the photo.
The Kasaba is a fort I think. There is a tower and some prisons as well. We went up the tower and spent a while up there taking photos of the whole panoramic view of Chefchaouen and the mountains.
We were going to go into the prisons but it was so dark we couldn’t see a thing. There was a little museum in the fort area where there were holes to shoot arrows from. One of the cabinets held “Instruments Traditionnel” including violins in the worst condition I have ever seen. So I guess the man at the restaurant was playing his traditional music. Mum believed that Chefchaouen was really just on the edge of losing its culture, just balancing before the fall into western tourism. We could see the tension during lunch when the mosque called and all the older men were walking one way into the mosque to pray. There was also a group of young men walking in the opposite direction and you could see that the older men did not approve. Also the women who would not pose in photos were from places hardly touched by the western culture. I think we were very lucky to see it the way it is now, as I don’t think it will last forever…
So anyway after the Kasaba I went back to do some maths but I decided to stop when I realised I was doing the chapter we had already done last term. Grrrr. We went out for dinner with Teo as it was his last night in Morocco.
I was woken early that morning as I heard dad leaving to climb one of the mountains. Ok so it wasn’t that early but after a late night last night 8 in the morning did feel painful :P I spent the morning doing the maths I was meant to be doing on the rooftop terrace of the hotel looking out at the view of Chefchaouen, listening to music and drinking hot chocolate. I actually don’t mind doing homework anymore because the places I do it in is so special it doesn’t bother me anymore!!!
Teo left around 12 and I kept doing homework until mum began to get worried about dad at 6ish though I don’t think I did 6 hours of homework. Dad got home at 8 o’clock and by this stage mum had gotten very worried. Dad couldn’t walk because he came down such a steep slope.
We went out for dinner at a Moroccan equivalent of McDonalds that wasn’t McDonalds which you can also find in Morocco. Dad found it very difficult to walk there because our hotel was near the top of a steep hill.
Next morning dad read me a fairytale story book in Spanish (though he translated it into English as my Spanish is hopeless). It was the story of the tailor who killed 7 flies in one blow.
After breakfast we went to an internet café to book some accommodation and to check and send some emails.
We then went to the bus-station to catch the bus to Tetaoun. It was raining lots and occasionally the bus roof would leak. Dad and I studied the body parts of a human in French until we arrived in Tetaoun. We took a grand taxi from there to Ceuta border, it cost 2 euros each which was pretty good as it was about a half hour drive. A grand taxi has enough seats as an average car at home but the taxi driver attempts to get as much money as possible so instead of 5 people including the driver there was 7, 2 people seated in the front seat and 4 in the back.
We arrived at the border and this was when we realised dad had left our lonely planet guide of Europe in the internet café. Good one dad! We had to fill out a few forms then got our stamps and headed in to Spain. I think I need to start a new blog now for a different country!
When we arrived in Chefchaouen (don’t they love their vowels here! essAOUIra, chefchAOUEn, I saw a place on the way to Fez called OUAOUmana!!!) and we got a taxi to where Tao was staying and decided we’d stay there too as we hadn’t booked anywhere. Mum and dad got a double with a shower and toilet and in my room I have a single with a double bed.
After settling my stomach down for a few minutes we went to walk around the Medina. We hadn’t gone far before we started setting the pace of buying things. Mum bought some necklaces and Teo some mini Moroccan shoes.
We kept on and we bought some fried dough doughnuts. There was no sugar on it, just literally fried dough rings. I didn’t like them very much but dad was happy to eat mine.
We continued walking and found ourselves at a corner shop with strange knitted hats hanging from the shops outside walls.
We walked inside and Teo asked me to model some of them to see whether they might fit his niece and nephew. In the end I ended up buying one too because it was just so cool! It’s a knitted brown beanie with green, red and yellow stripes at the bottom with 2 antennae coming from the top!
Later we went for dinner in the square. We were asked by a French couple where we got our hats from and struggled with the English question. They were very relieved to find that Teo spoke French.
Today we just spent most of the day shopping except for when mum and dad left me at the internet café. They got lost finding the bus station and took twice as long as they would have hoped.
Afterwards we met up with Teo again in the square and had some lunch. A man came up to us with sunglasses that didn’t quite fit his face. He sang and played his violin for us but it was the way he played it that was really interesting. He played the violin as if it was a cello on his knee! Then when dad had a go he realised it was tuned in fourths instead of fifths as well. It sounded very different to the way dad plays.
So Dad went back to the hotel, Teo did some shopping while mum and I went into the
Kasaba. On the way to the Kasaba we saw a very strange sight. We heard a dog barking so I looked around to see and saw a huge brown dog standing on the roof of a house barking at a little dog on the ground! We got a picture but when mum pulled the camera out one of the women ducked because in the Muslim culture women do not go in photos. The same sort of thing happened in Dharkla Egypt (which I forgot to write about in the tour blog) when there were heaps of young girls talking to Kyuri and me and one of the girls who was 12, held my hand all the time. She gave me a rose but when mum wanted to take a photo of us she held back and so only the younger girls who weren’t wearing the scarf around their heads would go in the photo.
The Kasaba is a fort I think. There is a tower and some prisons as well. We went up the tower and spent a while up there taking photos of the whole panoramic view of Chefchaouen and the mountains.
We were going to go into the prisons but it was so dark we couldn’t see a thing. There was a little museum in the fort area where there were holes to shoot arrows from. One of the cabinets held “Instruments Traditionnel” including violins in the worst condition I have ever seen. So I guess the man at the restaurant was playing his traditional music. Mum believed that Chefchaouen was really just on the edge of losing its culture, just balancing before the fall into western tourism. We could see the tension during lunch when the mosque called and all the older men were walking one way into the mosque to pray. There was also a group of young men walking in the opposite direction and you could see that the older men did not approve. Also the women who would not pose in photos were from places hardly touched by the western culture. I think we were very lucky to see it the way it is now, as I don’t think it will last forever…
So anyway after the Kasaba I went back to do some maths but I decided to stop when I realised I was doing the chapter we had already done last term. Grrrr. We went out for dinner with Teo as it was his last night in Morocco.
I was woken early that morning as I heard dad leaving to climb one of the mountains. Ok so it wasn’t that early but after a late night last night 8 in the morning did feel painful :P I spent the morning doing the maths I was meant to be doing on the rooftop terrace of the hotel looking out at the view of Chefchaouen, listening to music and drinking hot chocolate. I actually don’t mind doing homework anymore because the places I do it in is so special it doesn’t bother me anymore!!!
Teo left around 12 and I kept doing homework until mum began to get worried about dad at 6ish though I don’t think I did 6 hours of homework. Dad got home at 8 o’clock and by this stage mum had gotten very worried. Dad couldn’t walk because he came down such a steep slope.
We went out for dinner at a Moroccan equivalent of McDonalds that wasn’t McDonalds which you can also find in Morocco. Dad found it very difficult to walk there because our hotel was near the top of a steep hill.
Next morning dad read me a fairytale story book in Spanish (though he translated it into English as my Spanish is hopeless). It was the story of the tailor who killed 7 flies in one blow.
After breakfast we went to an internet café to book some accommodation and to check and send some emails.
We then went to the bus-station to catch the bus to Tetaoun. It was raining lots and occasionally the bus roof would leak. Dad and I studied the body parts of a human in French until we arrived in Tetaoun. We took a grand taxi from there to Ceuta border, it cost 2 euros each which was pretty good as it was about a half hour drive. A grand taxi has enough seats as an average car at home but the taxi driver attempts to get as much money as possible so instead of 5 people including the driver there was 7, 2 people seated in the front seat and 4 in the back.
We arrived at the border and this was when we realised dad had left our lonely planet guide of Europe in the internet café. Good one dad! We had to fill out a few forms then got our stamps and headed in to Spain. I think I need to start a new blog now for a different country!
5/22/09
Marakech
Marakech 17/5/09
We spent a 4 hour journey on a bus form Esssaouira to Marakesh. Attempted to sleep but failed with a sore neck. We arrived in Marakesh at around 4:30 in the afternoon. Instantly we could feel the atmosphere filled with much more energy! We got a taxi and left us to walk through the big square and find our Riad. A riad is someone’s home where they provide rooms for people to stay in. through the main square was heaps of freshly squeezed orange juice places and snake charmers. First time I’ve seen a cobra… apparently the snake charmers often come up to tourists and place the snake around your neck and you have to pay them to take it off. That how they earn their money… I think I’ll go to uni and get paid a salary instead… I also almost got knocked out by a man carrying a big metal frame which gave me the scare of my life.
Eventually we found our riad after asking for directions from a few people and cautiously went down a back street. It smelt horrible, sort of crossed between donkey and human sewerage… not very pleasant. We were very wary of where we were going. When we arrived inside it was very beautiful. The place covered in terracotta walls with blue doors… actually a bit like the colour combos we have at home…
We have a small room but all we need for 2 nights, just a shower and toilet, a single and double bed. Perfect as we were to spend the next day out.
One of the people working at the riad, called Jaafar, took us to a restaurant in the middle of the square that was not there when we first arrived. The square was suddenly filled with metal restaurants with white tenting as roofs. I guess, earlier, I almost got knocked out by a restaurant. We had calamari, soup and some chicken couscous. After dinner we walked through the rest of the restaurants all set up in the square, and walked past some amazing meals being prepared. We saw calves heads and brains, strange looking sweets, and escargot being boiled… not the most pleasant after dinner treats I was looking for.
We were too tired to do much else, even though we only spent most of the day on the bus, we were exhausted from the change of scene. Marakesh is something that nothing can seem to prepare you for. Not even Cairo. It had the same buzz but I think a bit more light hearted and filled with things that should be in a circus. Very different from home.
Next morning we got a sleep in-well mum and I did but dad was going off on a tour of the Atlas mountains while mum and I stayed in Marakesh. Apparently he enjoyed it, he went and saw beautiful waterfalls and little shops all parked on he scenic route.
Mum and I were to search Marakesh with Glenda and Julie, an ex Aussie mother with her Canadian daughter that we met staying at our Riad the night before.
First we went to take their luggage to their new riad. Wow… that’s the way I have to describe. It was beautiful but I don’t think beautiful really covers it. We walked through some gardens into a gorgeous little sitting area. Julie then showed me the other sitting area which was surrounded by a purple couch. We tried to go up to the terrace on the roof top but we couldn’t find the way up.
So we left again and set off for the Museum. We walked through a souk-a huge market selling things like leather shoes, jewellery, lamps. Generally the same things over and over again, just like Essaouira. Mum saw some gorgeous matching lamps that we thought would be perfect for our new extension on the house. We decided we would go back and get them after our look through the Museum.
When we got to the museum we bought tickets that would take us to 3 monuments. First was the museum. It was the strangest museum I’d ever seen and nothing like I was expecting. I thought something maybe a bit like the louvre in miniature and I had no idea what they would put on display. We walked in to a large covered courtyard. The whole floor was tiled and had 3 ponds with water basins in it. There were 2 washing areas where the Muslims wash their feet, hands, face, and nostrils 3 times, about 4 times a day. There wasn’t really much to see in the museum, a few paintings and old jewellery but it was the main room’s atmosphere that was really attractive. There were chairs around where people could just lounge out and listen to the relaxing music playing.
We walked a little down the road to where the Medersa was to check that out. It was one of the three monuments. The medersa is the Coranic School was. We saw the bedrooms of where the monks lived. There was Arabic versus written all over the walls throughout the beautiful courtyard.
Next was the quoba. It seemed to be a dome shaped area to bath in. there was a room where they kept the water especially for putting it through the fountain and into the bath. The ceiling is what I found most impressive. Its hard to explain… it sort of climbed its way up in lumps, but not randomly or undecoratively, carved and ornate.
We were then on a mission to find some food. We walked back through the souk and Julie bought some brown, camel leather shoes. Mum and I went back to the man with the lamps and he had sold one! It was soooooo disappointing he only had brass ones but without the gorgeous blue glass that mum and I loved. We bought one anyway and attempted to find another like it in another shop but failed.
We went back into the main square and went upstairs onto a café balcony and watched the snake charmers and monkey man while eating mushroom pizza.
From there we went to go and find the old palace. Itw as purposely destroyed in the 1500’s but a lot of it still stands today but in ruins. Heaps of storks nest in the rooftops of the old palace
We began to feel slightly exhausted after walking for about 6 hours and went back to the riad. I had some internet time and we left for dinner at 7:30. we met up with Julie and Glenda for dinner, and we went to the same place as the previous night as they wanted to go and have dinner within all the buzz of the square. Again I had some of the really good calamari and shared with mum some chicken tagine.
We stayed out for a bit longer playing a fishing game for coke bottles.
Dad and I went and saw some music playing but a guy harassed us asking for money as we took a photo of the people playing music. We had no money so now we have no photo either…
Well we went to bed soon after this, I spent a little more time in the internet and packed for the morning. It will be an early start tomorrow to get on the 7 am bus to Fez.
We spent a 4 hour journey on a bus form Esssaouira to Marakesh. Attempted to sleep but failed with a sore neck. We arrived in Marakesh at around 4:30 in the afternoon. Instantly we could feel the atmosphere filled with much more energy! We got a taxi and left us to walk through the big square and find our Riad. A riad is someone’s home where they provide rooms for people to stay in. through the main square was heaps of freshly squeezed orange juice places and snake charmers. First time I’ve seen a cobra… apparently the snake charmers often come up to tourists and place the snake around your neck and you have to pay them to take it off. That how they earn their money… I think I’ll go to uni and get paid a salary instead… I also almost got knocked out by a man carrying a big metal frame which gave me the scare of my life.
Eventually we found our riad after asking for directions from a few people and cautiously went down a back street. It smelt horrible, sort of crossed between donkey and human sewerage… not very pleasant. We were very wary of where we were going. When we arrived inside it was very beautiful. The place covered in terracotta walls with blue doors… actually a bit like the colour combos we have at home…
We have a small room but all we need for 2 nights, just a shower and toilet, a single and double bed. Perfect as we were to spend the next day out.
One of the people working at the riad, called Jaafar, took us to a restaurant in the middle of the square that was not there when we first arrived. The square was suddenly filled with metal restaurants with white tenting as roofs. I guess, earlier, I almost got knocked out by a restaurant. We had calamari, soup and some chicken couscous. After dinner we walked through the rest of the restaurants all set up in the square, and walked past some amazing meals being prepared. We saw calves heads and brains, strange looking sweets, and escargot being boiled… not the most pleasant after dinner treats I was looking for.
We were too tired to do much else, even though we only spent most of the day on the bus, we were exhausted from the change of scene. Marakesh is something that nothing can seem to prepare you for. Not even Cairo. It had the same buzz but I think a bit more light hearted and filled with things that should be in a circus. Very different from home.
Next morning we got a sleep in-well mum and I did but dad was going off on a tour of the Atlas mountains while mum and I stayed in Marakesh. Apparently he enjoyed it, he went and saw beautiful waterfalls and little shops all parked on he scenic route.
Mum and I were to search Marakesh with Glenda and Julie, an ex Aussie mother with her Canadian daughter that we met staying at our Riad the night before.
First we went to take their luggage to their new riad. Wow… that’s the way I have to describe. It was beautiful but I don’t think beautiful really covers it. We walked through some gardens into a gorgeous little sitting area. Julie then showed me the other sitting area which was surrounded by a purple couch. We tried to go up to the terrace on the roof top but we couldn’t find the way up.
So we left again and set off for the Museum. We walked through a souk-a huge market selling things like leather shoes, jewellery, lamps. Generally the same things over and over again, just like Essaouira. Mum saw some gorgeous matching lamps that we thought would be perfect for our new extension on the house. We decided we would go back and get them after our look through the Museum.
When we got to the museum we bought tickets that would take us to 3 monuments. First was the museum. It was the strangest museum I’d ever seen and nothing like I was expecting. I thought something maybe a bit like the louvre in miniature and I had no idea what they would put on display. We walked in to a large covered courtyard. The whole floor was tiled and had 3 ponds with water basins in it. There were 2 washing areas where the Muslims wash their feet, hands, face, and nostrils 3 times, about 4 times a day. There wasn’t really much to see in the museum, a few paintings and old jewellery but it was the main room’s atmosphere that was really attractive. There were chairs around where people could just lounge out and listen to the relaxing music playing.
We walked a little down the road to where the Medersa was to check that out. It was one of the three monuments. The medersa is the Coranic School was. We saw the bedrooms of where the monks lived. There was Arabic versus written all over the walls throughout the beautiful courtyard.
Next was the quoba. It seemed to be a dome shaped area to bath in. there was a room where they kept the water especially for putting it through the fountain and into the bath. The ceiling is what I found most impressive. Its hard to explain… it sort of climbed its way up in lumps, but not randomly or undecoratively, carved and ornate.
We were then on a mission to find some food. We walked back through the souk and Julie bought some brown, camel leather shoes. Mum and I went back to the man with the lamps and he had sold one! It was soooooo disappointing he only had brass ones but without the gorgeous blue glass that mum and I loved. We bought one anyway and attempted to find another like it in another shop but failed.
We went back into the main square and went upstairs onto a café balcony and watched the snake charmers and monkey man while eating mushroom pizza.
From there we went to go and find the old palace. Itw as purposely destroyed in the 1500’s but a lot of it still stands today but in ruins. Heaps of storks nest in the rooftops of the old palace
We began to feel slightly exhausted after walking for about 6 hours and went back to the riad. I had some internet time and we left for dinner at 7:30. we met up with Julie and Glenda for dinner, and we went to the same place as the previous night as they wanted to go and have dinner within all the buzz of the square. Again I had some of the really good calamari and shared with mum some chicken tagine.
We stayed out for a bit longer playing a fishing game for coke bottles.
Dad and I went and saw some music playing but a guy harassed us asking for money as we took a photo of the people playing music. We had no money so now we have no photo either…
Well we went to bed soon after this, I spent a little more time in the internet and packed for the morning. It will be an early start tomorrow to get on the 7 am bus to Fez.
Fez
Fez
So a supposedly 8 hour long bus trip from Marrakech to Fez. Unfortunately the bus broke down along the way and we had too many long regular stops so we eventually arrived in Fez only four hours longer than we expected. I didn’t get off at any of the stops so my legs hurt a little as I began to walk after not moving for 12 hours!
We met an English speaking guide at the bus station who then organised his brother to take us to our riad. We then agreed for him to take us on a tour the next day but unfortunately that ended up falling through.
When we found ourselves down a dark alley we weren’t as cautious as we now knew riads were often found in strange places. We knocked on the door and were astounded by the place we were in. the whole place except the ceiling was tiles, we could see the rooms on the next floor up, and there was a fountain in the middle of the room surrounded by four tables. The fountain had plastic lilies floating in it. We were taken upstairs to our room. There were 3 rooms; two separated by a curtain- the lounge room and the bedroom, and then the large bathroom. I was to sleep on one of the couches while mum and dad shared the curtained four poster bed.
We had to leave quickly; the hostesses were going out and we needed to eat as we hadn’t eaten all day. To eat at their restaurant you must book, so we hurriedly went to the toilet as to not hold them up and they took us to a restaurant. The restaurant wasn’t very nice but I enjoyed the food. I had chicken couscous and mum had vegetarian couscous. Dad had a vegetarian tagine. It was followed up by oranges and strawberries for desert which I happily gave to dad.
Unfortunately mum became ill with a 24 hour bug that night so the next day was a rest day inside. None of us left the riad until dinner time when dad and I became hungry. Breakfast was provided at the riad which was delicious. Dad and I had crepes Morrocain (Moroccan pancakes which are really thick and heavy yet sooo yummy) and pain de chocolat (chocolate croissants but unfortunately there was only a tiny bit of chocolate in it but none the less divine!). There was also freshly squeezed jus d’orange, café or thé, hard boiled œufs, fromage, miel, beurre, confiture and pain de Français. Fantastic!!!
So all day was maths and reading, a bit of cards but a bludge day all round.
When dad and I went for dinner we found a nice little place with funny covered chairs that sat out on the veranda of the restaurant and watched the locals and tourists walk past. I ordered some chicken couscous which was better than the previous night’s one, and dad had some Moroccan soup.
The next day was a slow beginning but at 1pm we were to meet up with a guide to take us around Fez medina. The Fez medina is huge and for any tourist or newcomer it would only take 10 minutes of walking to become seriously lost. So the guide took us around to lots of different shops and places where if we bought anything he would then get a bit too for bringing us there. So first he took us to a Thuja wood place filled with boxes, shelves, tables and all sorts of other things all made out of wood. In Essaouira we had already bought 2 boxes of Thuja wood so we decided not to buy anything here. I think we looked at the nuts and dried fruit shop after that. We bought some almonds and also some pistachios for our guide.
We looked through the souks and tried some of the colourful nougat and then found ourselves at a carpet Dar. A Dar is a tiled building with two stories. On the first floor there are three rooms and a fountain, one on each wall. Then four rooms, one on each wall of the second floor. So we found out our riad wasn’t a riad at all but a Dar.
So anyway this carpet Dar was huge. There enormous carpets hanging all over the place. I have never seen so many carpets and they didn’t have any on the floor either. We spent a long time here and eventually ended up buying 2 carpets; one because mum liked it, and the other to replace one we already have in our lounge room.
We then went to this museum place where there were huge lamps hanging from the roof along with a gigantic teapot made from camel bone! We found it very strange and couldn’t understand why anyone would want an enormous teapot but never the less it was brilliantly decorated I guess…
Dad then asked our guide if we could go and see the tanneries. Mum still wasn’t feeling 100% at this time and a little bit nauseas. So the smell really got to her and was making me gag too. It was very interesting but I couldn’t really concentrate on the man talking as the smell was, honestly, the worst thing I have ever smelt in my life and probably will ever smell in my life!!! We then went downstairs and the man wanted us to buy some Arabic slippers but I swear he was putting the right shoe on the left foot.
Next was a fabric shop with woven silks and woollen material bed sheets and shawls. We bought a couple of small scarfs for some of the family but the bed sheets were much too expensive plus they were too big to carry with us.
All through the day we did see a couple of mosques and Choranic schools but I cant actually remember where they fit in in the day so I thought I’d put it at the end of the tour :P
Mum felt like she could eat today so all three of us went to the same restaurant that dad and I went to the night before.
We weren’t planning on spending another day in Fez but we decided to as we didn’t do anything the first day. But we didn’t do much this day either. I spent the morning playing flute and composing some stuff until we went out to the internet café on our way to a concert we had found out about. So we all dressed up and went to Hotel Palais Jamais. This palace was originally built along time ago but it is now been done up into a VERY fancy hotel. We had got there early so we had a drink which was way too expensive but we figured we should have expected it here, but the concert was free which was great.
The concert was a trio of Loot, percussion and electric bass guitar. It was brilliant and went for about an hour in the gardens on the palace.
For dinner tonight we decided to go to the same restaurant as the two previous nights as we knew we liked the food, the place and the people were very friendly.
Tomorrow to Chefchaouen…
So a supposedly 8 hour long bus trip from Marrakech to Fez. Unfortunately the bus broke down along the way and we had too many long regular stops so we eventually arrived in Fez only four hours longer than we expected. I didn’t get off at any of the stops so my legs hurt a little as I began to walk after not moving for 12 hours!
We met an English speaking guide at the bus station who then organised his brother to take us to our riad. We then agreed for him to take us on a tour the next day but unfortunately that ended up falling through.
When we found ourselves down a dark alley we weren’t as cautious as we now knew riads were often found in strange places. We knocked on the door and were astounded by the place we were in. the whole place except the ceiling was tiles, we could see the rooms on the next floor up, and there was a fountain in the middle of the room surrounded by four tables. The fountain had plastic lilies floating in it. We were taken upstairs to our room. There were 3 rooms; two separated by a curtain- the lounge room and the bedroom, and then the large bathroom. I was to sleep on one of the couches while mum and dad shared the curtained four poster bed.
We had to leave quickly; the hostesses were going out and we needed to eat as we hadn’t eaten all day. To eat at their restaurant you must book, so we hurriedly went to the toilet as to not hold them up and they took us to a restaurant. The restaurant wasn’t very nice but I enjoyed the food. I had chicken couscous and mum had vegetarian couscous. Dad had a vegetarian tagine. It was followed up by oranges and strawberries for desert which I happily gave to dad.
Unfortunately mum became ill with a 24 hour bug that night so the next day was a rest day inside. None of us left the riad until dinner time when dad and I became hungry. Breakfast was provided at the riad which was delicious. Dad and I had crepes Morrocain (Moroccan pancakes which are really thick and heavy yet sooo yummy) and pain de chocolat (chocolate croissants but unfortunately there was only a tiny bit of chocolate in it but none the less divine!). There was also freshly squeezed jus d’orange, café or thé, hard boiled œufs, fromage, miel, beurre, confiture and pain de Français. Fantastic!!!
So all day was maths and reading, a bit of cards but a bludge day all round.
When dad and I went for dinner we found a nice little place with funny covered chairs that sat out on the veranda of the restaurant and watched the locals and tourists walk past. I ordered some chicken couscous which was better than the previous night’s one, and dad had some Moroccan soup.
The next day was a slow beginning but at 1pm we were to meet up with a guide to take us around Fez medina. The Fez medina is huge and for any tourist or newcomer it would only take 10 minutes of walking to become seriously lost. So the guide took us around to lots of different shops and places where if we bought anything he would then get a bit too for bringing us there. So first he took us to a Thuja wood place filled with boxes, shelves, tables and all sorts of other things all made out of wood. In Essaouira we had already bought 2 boxes of Thuja wood so we decided not to buy anything here. I think we looked at the nuts and dried fruit shop after that. We bought some almonds and also some pistachios for our guide.
We looked through the souks and tried some of the colourful nougat and then found ourselves at a carpet Dar. A Dar is a tiled building with two stories. On the first floor there are three rooms and a fountain, one on each wall. Then four rooms, one on each wall of the second floor. So we found out our riad wasn’t a riad at all but a Dar.
So anyway this carpet Dar was huge. There enormous carpets hanging all over the place. I have never seen so many carpets and they didn’t have any on the floor either. We spent a long time here and eventually ended up buying 2 carpets; one because mum liked it, and the other to replace one we already have in our lounge room.
We then went to this museum place where there were huge lamps hanging from the roof along with a gigantic teapot made from camel bone! We found it very strange and couldn’t understand why anyone would want an enormous teapot but never the less it was brilliantly decorated I guess…
Dad then asked our guide if we could go and see the tanneries. Mum still wasn’t feeling 100% at this time and a little bit nauseas. So the smell really got to her and was making me gag too. It was very interesting but I couldn’t really concentrate on the man talking as the smell was, honestly, the worst thing I have ever smelt in my life and probably will ever smell in my life!!! We then went downstairs and the man wanted us to buy some Arabic slippers but I swear he was putting the right shoe on the left foot.
Next was a fabric shop with woven silks and woollen material bed sheets and shawls. We bought a couple of small scarfs for some of the family but the bed sheets were much too expensive plus they were too big to carry with us.
All through the day we did see a couple of mosques and Choranic schools but I cant actually remember where they fit in in the day so I thought I’d put it at the end of the tour :P
Mum felt like she could eat today so all three of us went to the same restaurant that dad and I went to the night before.
We weren’t planning on spending another day in Fez but we decided to as we didn’t do anything the first day. But we didn’t do much this day either. I spent the morning playing flute and composing some stuff until we went out to the internet café on our way to a concert we had found out about. So we all dressed up and went to Hotel Palais Jamais. This palace was originally built along time ago but it is now been done up into a VERY fancy hotel. We had got there early so we had a drink which was way too expensive but we figured we should have expected it here, but the concert was free which was great.
The concert was a trio of Loot, percussion and electric bass guitar. It was brilliant and went for about an hour in the gardens on the palace.
For dinner tonight we decided to go to the same restaurant as the two previous nights as we knew we liked the food, the place and the people were very friendly.
Tomorrow to Chefchaouen…
5/16/09
Casablanca and Essaouira
After flying to Casablanca from Cairo we spent a day there but nothing very exciting happened there. We walked around and we saw the third biggest mosque in the world. It was so beautiful and mind boggling but that was all there was to see in Casablanca.
The next day we took a bus at 3 in the afternoon to Essaouira. We sat at the very front and had a great view of everything. It took us about 7 hours to get to Essaouira and the whole time we were clenching our fists. In Cairo the traffic was insane and so was everyone driving there so we figured that our bus driver was Egyptian. There were many times he would overtake into the left lane with oncoming cars!
We became friends with a man Fuat. He spoke great English and he had only learnt it from travelling. He could also speak Arabic, French, I think a little Spanish and some other languages too, very impressive. He helped us get a taxi in Essaouira to the Medina. The taxi driver couldn’t take us into the Medina so we had to walk a little way but it wasn’t too far. We arrived in Hotel Souiri at about 11 at night and we fell asleep instantly in our separate rooms.
The next few days were all a blur of the same relaxing events. Sleep in, eating breakfast with fantastic orange juice, shopping for jewellery, shopping for shoes, shopping for bags, shopping for cushion covers… shopping in general. Eating out was great. Essaouira is located on the coast so we went swimming occasionally and the fish food was so delicious. Mmm mmm.
Mum bought dad a leather bag, specially made for dad violin. Its made into the shape of a backpack and I’m jealous and kin of want one for my flute, although the shape of the flute in its flute case isn’t quite as impressive!
We made some good friends, owners of the shops on out street. The leather bag man, the jewellery man and a man playing the ginebra, a home made instrument, sort of like a guitar but inly three strings and a rectangular body. This man didn’t speak French, he preferred English. He doesn’t like the French because they colonised Morocco.
To be honest that was about all we did for a week in this place. After our long tour through Egypt we needed a break, not early mornings. So this was our holiday in our trip. This was also a chance for me to catch up on my maths… hmmm don’t know if that came off!
So Essaouira was beautiful and perfect for a relax. Next to Marakech were the busyness of Morocco happens!!!
The next day we took a bus at 3 in the afternoon to Essaouira. We sat at the very front and had a great view of everything. It took us about 7 hours to get to Essaouira and the whole time we were clenching our fists. In Cairo the traffic was insane and so was everyone driving there so we figured that our bus driver was Egyptian. There were many times he would overtake into the left lane with oncoming cars!
We became friends with a man Fuat. He spoke great English and he had only learnt it from travelling. He could also speak Arabic, French, I think a little Spanish and some other languages too, very impressive. He helped us get a taxi in Essaouira to the Medina. The taxi driver couldn’t take us into the Medina so we had to walk a little way but it wasn’t too far. We arrived in Hotel Souiri at about 11 at night and we fell asleep instantly in our separate rooms.
The next few days were all a blur of the same relaxing events. Sleep in, eating breakfast with fantastic orange juice, shopping for jewellery, shopping for shoes, shopping for bags, shopping for cushion covers… shopping in general. Eating out was great. Essaouira is located on the coast so we went swimming occasionally and the fish food was so delicious. Mmm mmm.
Mum bought dad a leather bag, specially made for dad violin. Its made into the shape of a backpack and I’m jealous and kin of want one for my flute, although the shape of the flute in its flute case isn’t quite as impressive!
We made some good friends, owners of the shops on out street. The leather bag man, the jewellery man and a man playing the ginebra, a home made instrument, sort of like a guitar but inly three strings and a rectangular body. This man didn’t speak French, he preferred English. He doesn’t like the French because they colonised Morocco.
To be honest that was about all we did for a week in this place. After our long tour through Egypt we needed a break, not early mornings. So this was our holiday in our trip. This was also a chance for me to catch up on my maths… hmmm don’t know if that came off!
So Essaouira was beautiful and perfect for a relax. Next to Marakech were the busyness of Morocco happens!!!
5/10/09
Jordanian and Egyptian tour
I know the tour started ages ago but this is how it went...
Jordanian and Egyptian Tour –
Day 1 Sunday 12th of April: So this is the day the tour began, though it did not start until 6:30 at night, but we spent the day doing things that weren’t on the tour so we thought we’d see them ourselves.
This morning we woke up and made sure we weren’t late for breakfast as we were the previous morning. We went to meet up with Jen who we met the night before at dinner. We were staying at “Hotel Caravan” and they put on breakfast and dinner for us every day. This morning, like all others at this hotel, we ate omelets for breakfast. Here we met Joy and David. Joy and David are a Canadian couple who were traveling with us for the next 22 days from Jordan to Egypt unlike some of the others who are going to leave us in Cairo. After they left the breakfast room Kelly joined us. Kelly is from Brisbane and she is one of the four who will leave us in Cairo. We invited Kelly to join us, Jen, and Jen’s friend Suzi, a Melbournian, on the tour we were arranging for ourselves and she agreed, so the eight of us left in a big Taxi-Van on our tour. Yes, eight. Alex and Margaret came with us as well. They live in England and they were two of the four leaving us in Cairo.
So now I’ve introduced the Taxi-Van group, I’ll tell you where we went. First we drove for a long time and I spent most of the time either eating Easter eggs (as it was Easter Sunday in Australia) or staring outside to the amazing view of Amman and surrounding suburbs. After the city, the landscape changed and we could see the Jordan Valley and heaps of Rock and dust and a bit of green grass here and there.
Later we stopped in Madaba at a little building where we saw an amazing mosaic floor. I can’t really remember everything about it, I think it was excavated then they took it apart and arranged it again into its original picture but much more smoothly. It was beautiful! There was woman and flowers and amazing patterns all over!
We then packed up into the car again and left to see the Dead Sea!!!! So we drove a very long way but it was brilliant. The views of valleys and hills and towns were incredible. We stopped at a very large bridge and took some photos but there wasn’t much water running beneath us.
So then we got to the Dead Sea. We did not stop as it is on our agenda for the next day. We drove along the shoreline of the Sea and then got taken to a completely new place. It was not far at all from the Dead Sea but near the Dead Sea there was hardly any green. Whenever the ground has water, it will spring in life but the water in the Dead Sea was so salty it didn’t support much plant life. So where we were then taken was a place with many trees, plants and grass. We had been taken to the Baptism sight of Jesus. Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan which was why there was so much plant life. We saw where Jesus was apparently baptised and where John the Baptist stood while baptising him. In this area 5 churches had been built in the same place, over and over again, as floods had destroyed them. People wondered “Why don’t they learn and build the church somewhere else?” but because this was such holy land to them they didn’t want to build it any where but there.
After an hour or so we headed back to the Taxi where the Taxi driver then took us to a shop filled with everything a tourist in Jordan wants. There was jewellery, where mum bought herself a bracelet, book marks, free tea and juice, and the biggest supply of Dead Sea and other types of cosmetics and creams to use when in the Dead Sea, such as moisturisers, mud masks, and my personal favourite: slimming lotion. I didn’t get any, nor did I ask about it which I guess I should have as I don’t understand how it works. I wonder if you drink it? I hope not. I think it was blue…
So anyway, later that evening we arrived at our hotel again and met downstairs with the rest of our tour group for the first time.
This is where we introduced to Faisal, our tour guide for the Jordanian part of the tour. We also met Anne, another Melbournian, Valerie and Bart, from Belgium and Saul, our third Melbournian. The rest of the tour group came with us in our Taxi tour other than Joy and David, our Canadian couple.
After the meeting, Faisal took us out for dinner, well took us to a place where we paid. I had some reeeeeally nice chicken. So this is where we got to know one another for the first time as our family for the next week.
Day 2 Monday 13th of April: up early this morning. 7ish I think it was. We had to be gone by 8 in the morning. Today we were driving to Petra! We would arrive there at about 7 at night, but along the way we were stopping at many things on the way.
Number 1 was Mt Nebo. Mt Nebo is where Moses saw the promise lands and died. We looked in a small sort of museum and saw some things and read others. We also saw a huge mosaic floor, just like the day before. There were women and men and also a lion. Strangely there are no lions in Jordan or Egypt but both countries have them in there ancient artefacts.
Afterwards we drove down Mt Nebo and down into the lowest area of the world that isn’t covered by the sea. On our bus, we suddenly couldn’t see outside very well. There seemed to be a very sick car in front of us which was emitting white thick fumes. At this point we were really close to our destination of the resort where we would swim in the Dead Sea! Faisal told us this white fog was actually insecticide to kill all the flies that would bug the tourists while swimming!
So when we first arrived I was already in my bathers so I didn’t need to change so quickly went down to the sea. There was a pool there but I thought the sea was much better, because, as I found out, the Dead Sea is so salty that you float! It was fantastic! It was such a weird sensation, the closest thing to no gravity. They said to not float on you front because your legs go up pushing your head into the water, which was also a DO NOT as the salt was so extreme that it would cause to eyes to go reeeeeeally red.
Some of the people walking around seemed to be covered in charcoal but there was a place where you could get mudded up. So for 3 Dinah ($6) I became black! My whole body was covered in the stuff! My legs, arms, back, belly, and face. I had to wait 20-30 minutes for it to dry and then you wash it back off in the sea. The skin on my face was so soft afterwards :D! So after we all finished showering the salt off us, we went to have the buffet. Mmmm it was good. There was rice, chicken, fish and the biggest amount of salad I’ve ever seen! The deserts were like different types of jelly: one was the red jelly everyone knows, one was like a yellow thick type and the other was white so I guessed it would be coconut jelly but it tasted nothing like coconut. The last desert was the best but it didn’t look so appetising. It looked like off porridge but it tasted sooooo good, sort of sweet with spices like cinnamon or something.
After this we drove for another hour or so and we were taken to Karak castle, a fortress castle made completely out of stone. We saw the dungeons, the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedroom which housed about 25 people in one room. The room wasn’t even that big! We looked in the museum and saw a chain-mail suit they’d found. We also saw coins, skulls and some other interesting stuff.
There was a school group there and almost everyone said “Welcome to Jordan.” But it wasn’t just there it’s happened heaps of times. Everyone’s so welcoming!!!
Afterwards we drove for another hour and a half and we stopped at a rest stop, the only comfortable looking building around. There were heaps of buses there because every single tourist group that was heading for Petra was stopping there. Inside was everything a tourist needed: silk, clothes, hats, food, jewellery, turquoise lumps and real cheetah skin rugs… *shudder* Here I bought a pistachio ice-cream, was very yummyJ.
Finally when we got to Petra, we dumped our stuff in the rooms and went out for dinner. We went to a place where they played live music that sounded like a broken banjo. For dinner I had chicken wings and chips with lots of bread… tomorrow would be seeing the Treasury at Petra, cant wait!!!!
Day 3 Tuesday 14th of April: Petra! Ever seen the Indiana Jones movie of “The Last Crusade”? well Petra is the area where the big stone building is where they eventually find the holy grail. Well I can tell you, the inside looks a little different to the way they portray it in the movie! So that huge pink building thing is real! I always thought it was fake but definitely not! So we got up early and walked the 500 metres it was to get tickets and begin our long journey. Unfortunately for Valerie and me, we had become sick with the equivalent of Deli Belly in Petra. We believe it was the meal last night. So today wasn’t the best it could have been but it was bloody brilliant of what I saw! So it began with a long flattish, gravelly road separated in two lanes: one for people walking and ones riding horses… this of course smelt the whole place out of horse crap… not pleasant. Along this road were huge amounts of rocks and built in this rock were heaps of tombs. These tombs were for the Bedouins and their families.
After the road began to fade the track led to a huge slope down into the gorge that Harrison Ford and his actor friends rode through at the end of the movie (by the way, the gorge is not in the shape of a crescent moon!). This gorge went for a long way and along the way there are heaps of miniature temples but often the gods faces and bodies had been destroyed by the Romans. The gorge then abruptly ends to face the Treasury! This is the proper name as apposed to the big stone thing in Indiana Jones. It was FANTASTIC!!!! I went to look inside but you can’t go all the way into the building. There were three rooms you could see: one straight ahead when you look at the treasury from afar, and 2 others on either side facing opposite to each other. In front of the rooms, like as if on the door steps were carved in bowls. These were to catch the blood from the head of a sacrificed animal that was slaughtered here as this was a temple not the home of the Holy Grail. We took bazillions of photos and then got a little bit of information from Faisal about how the Treasury was built. Apparently it was built from top to bottom. There are also heaps of minor things I would never have picked up without him: on one part of treasury, there is a line with exactly 7 goblets. There are also 31 circular rosette things under the goddess Isis in the middle who is on a circular column at the top. Around this circular column at the top of the treasury there are exactly 365 circles. See a pattern? 7 days in a week, 31 days in a month, 365 days in a year… the Bedouins were very clever.
After gaping at this incredible thing for a while we decided to continue down the path. When I first heard this is what Petra was, I didn’t realise there was so much more to see. People are still living in some of the houses built in the rock there. It was unbelievable the amount of tombs were there and amazingly an amphitheatre as well! Just like the ones we saw in Jerash!
Faisal left us after seeing these and we went to go have lunch. Some stayed where we were but mum, dad, Margaret, Alex, and I continued on to find a shadier place. We sat, I think, on someone’s veranda and ate lunch, though I couldn’t eat being sick and it was at this point that that being sick hit me. I couldn’t seem to walk, not physically, just because I was too tired and I was feeling nauseas and it was also just too hot.
So I tried to keep going and climb the bazillion stairs to the monastery but I just found it way too difficult so we asked dad to go and take some photos for us while mum and I walked back to the hotel. So we did and it took us another hour to finish and dad said that night, the trip to the monastery was the first walk to the treasury again.
When mum and I got back to the hotel I went to bed and slept for 3 hours…
Finally when I woke up at around 6, I got ready to go out for dinner and watch the Indiana Jones movie with our group. We were to have a buffet but so many people were much too exhausted and by the end of the day, it wasn’t just Valerie and I with Petra disease… but I was so desperate to see the movie that I went anyway even though I wasn’t hungry. I nibbled on a bit of rice but mostly drank Fanta. So only mum, dad, Faisal, Margaret, Kelly and I went to see the movie but it was good all the same and it was amazing to see the treasury on the screen! Blew my mind!
Then we were all very tired and it was an early start tomorrow as we were headed for Wadi Rum!
Day 6 Wednesday 17th of April: again up early and today to Wadi Rum. We drove in the bus and arrived at Wadi Rum visitor centre where three white jeeps were waiting for us. We piled our stuff in the back of 2 of the jeeps and split up to get in the jeeps. Mum, Dad, Faisal and I were in one jeep. First we stopped after about 5 minutes at a little store where we bought our lunch. We bought bread, a bottle of Fanta, a packet of biscuits and some cheese.
Next stop was where we were to have lunch. We sat in the shade of rock cliffs. We sat on a blanket and I ate the falafel Faisal had organised everyone for yesterday’s lunch though I was sick and couldn’t eat it then. It was a little soggy but generally good.
Next stop was a Bedouin tent. They gave us some tea which was really nice. It was made of sage and cardamom I think. Mum bought a bracelet there as well. Also on the rocks that were around were some old paintings. Right near this rock, well if you then looked up about 15 meters, there was a spring
After this we stopped at a little canyon where there were some camels walking around. Inside the canyon there was some more paintings; there were camels, Arabic writing and a woman and her child with two men near her.
Then we stopped at Lawrence of Arabia’s house. This wasn’t as interesting as the other stops so I went climbing around the rocks.
Next we made our final stop at the Bedouins tent that we were to stay at that night. We first put all our packs and things in the tent and then sat down on the cushions that were placed in a big square area and had a chat before watching the sunset.
The sunset was apparently going to be the best part of the day, though it was a fizzer. We sat on a rock ledge and the wind was just unbelievable!!! It was so bad you could barely hear anything and the haze was so thick the sun disappeared before it actually set, not to mention that Faisal told us the sun would set at 6. He would have only been an hour out…
After we gave up on the sunset we went back to the tent and stood by the small fire as fuel is hard to come by in the desert. We were then showed by the Bedouins how they cooked our dinner. They’d created a little mound where inside was a huge cooking sort of shelf thing, with chicken on top, and onion and potatoes underneath. Mmmmm it was so good. We also had rice and veggie stew stuff… *drools*.
While dinner was on, the sheik and two of his friends sang for us. It was so… um how to explain it… different. It was very out of tune, very repetitive and nothing like I’d ever heard but I absolutely loved it!
Then Faisal said that dad and I had to play as he was really looking forward to hearing dad on his violin. So we did and it was the worst time I’d ever played but they seemed to enjoy it! One of the guys recorded it on their phones… *shakes head and sighs*
Then it was time for bed as it was an early start tomorrow. Everyone had a choice; to sleep in the tent or under the stars. I chose under the stars with Suzi, Kelly, Saul, Bart and Anne. It wasn’t cold at all and not at all windy as we were sheltered by the rock cliff and the tent behind us.
Tomorrow, to Aqaba.
Day 5 Thursday 16th of April: the trip to Aqaba wasn’t too long. We started the day up early and left by around 7:30 and arrived in Aqaba about 9.am. Here we split up and went shopping at the market stalls along the beach of the Red sea. I bought a hat and some sunnies- just some cheapo cap and plastic glasses though the sales guy tried to convince me they were RayBands! For 3 Dinah ($6) as if!- and we tried out some special things like: nut shops, sweet shops, pancakes made in front of your eyes with a huge hot metal dome. Also went to the exchange place and got some Egyptian pounds.
After we all met up again, we got back on the bus and drove to the port. Here we said goodbye to Faisal and jumped on a boat for about an hour and a half. I just read my book and listened to music trying to block out the noise from the annoying Bollywood movie that was playing. We were sailing across the red sea to Egypt.
When we got off the boat we met up with a guy in a pink shirt who took us to get our visas and our baggage and stuff. He then took us to our bus where we first met Mohamed. Mohamed is our tour leader for Egypt. He was much younger than Faisal and made sure we knew he wasn’t our guide, but our leader. He wasn’t qualified to tell us how everything was like Faisal, he was just to help us organise where we were going, and help get us a guide. He helps a lot though as he can speak Arabic!
So from there we drove another half hour to Sawa. Sawa is a little beach resort we were staying at for the rest of this day and tomorrow. This place must have been the best place we’ve been so far. It had an amazing beach with imported sand onto the red sea, the huts were all made from straw, there was a beautiful little sitting area separated into squares with cushions placed all around it with a table in the middle.
This night we had dinner; I had calamari pizza. Was reeeeeeally good :P! We watched the other guests play Volleyball, and we watched Saudi Arabia, on the opposite side of the sea, come to life with the lights in the city light up as the sun went down.
Day 6 Friday 17th of April: our second day at Sawa. Out of my own money I was paying for me to go scuba diving! We left at about 8 am to come back at midday. Unfortunately when we were there they could only take one person at a time and Kelly, Suzi, Margaret, Alex, Jen, Anne and I all went and each person was to have half an hour in the water. Also there were other people from other hotels there as well so it was gonna be a long day. Mohamed and I were sharing a wet suit and he was going in with the more experienced divers at the beginning. It’s always really hard to get a wet suit on when it’s wet so I had to go last so the suit would dry before I got in. After a while another instructor finished his rescue drill so 2 people could go in at once.
Finally I got in at the same time as Kelly. It was really hard to begin with. I wasn’t sure how much air I could breathe and I felt like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen but I got into the rhythm of it pretty quickly. Overall it was really good. There was this one moment that as we were swimming forward there was a school of pink fish and a school of orange fish both coming towards me at the same time. So I was swimming through an amazing blur of orange and pink fish. Before I got in, one of the scuba people said if you see any little pink fish look at their eyes. So I did and they were sooo beautiful! They were like blue mother of pearl with pink, orange and green tinge. It really was incredible.
So at about 1:30 pm we got back to Sawa. Everyone was just relaxing so I went to read my book and that was about it for the rest of the night. No-one did anything that would use more than the necessary amount of energy. We ate, read, talked and slept. What a tough life it is… J another day like this would have been nice but we had to go to Mt Sinai tomorrow.
Day 7 Saturday 18th of April: we got to sleep in this morning! We were going on the bus to Mt Sinai and leaving at 11:30 am. I believe that’s the time we should leave every morning. Unfortunately that’s not the case. Anyway, so we left late and arrived it St Katherine at about 1:30. We had a few stops on the way and we bought chips, biscuits and chocolate :D.
After some lunch and preparing ourselves for the climb, we left at 3 pm for Mt Sinai. We drove in the bus for about 10 minutes and then we began our walk.
At first it was only on a road and it was barely what you can call uphill but I guess it was slightly. We walked for about 10 minutes before we passed the St Katherine monastery. In Egypt and Jordan the Easter weekend is a week behind than in Australia so unfortunately the monastery was closed as it was Easter Saturday.
Just past this point there were men everywhere with their camels. There were 2 tracks up Mt Sinai; the camel track and the stairs. A guide was taking the people up the camel track and Mohamed up the stairs. The camel track took 20 minutes longer so I stupidly decided to do the stairs. Mum and dad were much smarter and took the camel track with the guide, Joy and David, and Bart and Valerie.
The rest of us then began the ascent up the stairs. No one told me it was about 3,000 stairs up…Mohamed was always first as he was the leader and Saul was always second closely followed by Anne. Saul and Anne were serious mountain goats! We had lots of breaks but they weren’t often enough :P!
So we made it to the top in about an hour and a half and beat the others by about 20 minutes. We watched the sunset and the others only made it just in time. It was beautiful. The orange colours it cast were gorgeous.
I didn’t think would be cold climbing up a mountain so I wore shorts, but I didn’t think of the way down. Neither did Saul so Kelly offered him her white granny thermal pants. These of course looked very attractive on Saul :P!!!
Once the sun had gone down we all pulled our torches out and made the descent down the camel track. The ground kept slipping underneath everyone’s feet as it was loose gravel and we couldn’t see perfectly either.
When we reached the bottom, we quickly hopped on the bus and went straight back to the hotel as everyone was incredibly exhausted. Everyone had ordered dinner but I wasn’t very hungry. I ate some of the really nice Egyptian rice and some bread. There were vegetables and chicken and Kelly and Suzi said it was fantastic.
Then all went straight to bed. Tried to sleep quickly but the pillow was like a long rock. Not the most comfortable. But eventually I found sleep.
Day 8 Sunday 19th of April: Mum and Dad woke me up early accidentally this morning. Dad had become sick with gastro. We were driving to Cairo today and we had a really big bus for like 15 people. Dad had shotgunned the backseat so he could lie down and sleep. It was a long drive; about 7 hours. I read my book and chatted with mum most of the way. I wasn’t feeling too good this day either. More tummy stuff. This time Cairo belly. So dad and I were practically living on Fanta at this stage because it was instant sugar and it was all Dad seemed to be able keep down.
When we arrived in Cairo, dad went straight to bed in the hotel and was asleep in minutes. So mum and I left him and went to find an internet café with Kelly, Valerie and Bart. We also went to a petrol station and stocked up on essentials like chocolate :P! While walking around I got quite scared as the looks I was receiving were quite intimidating and unsettling.
So when we got back we had to have a meeting about the next 2 weeks and meet the new people who would fill in Margaret, Alex, Kelly and Anne’s place on the tour. These people were Scott, from England, Pieter, from Holland, Robin from Canada and Kyuri from the states.
So for dinner we decided to go out to a Cairo equivalent of Hungry jacks, but with much better food. Mum and I had shrimp rice and an Egyptian pancake with cheese and mushrooms to share. Best savoury pancake ever!
When we came back we had to say our final goodbye to Anne as she was catching her plane early in the morning. Then everyone went to bed and got excited as we were going to the PYRAMIDS tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!
Day 9 Monday 20th of April: another early morning, leaving at 8 am so it wont be too hot during the day. Even though technically the first part of the tour was over, Kelly still came with us. Margaret and Alex took their own private guide so we saw them around.
We took a bus and a guide called Hend. She was really good and she taught us that they built the pyramids on the west bank of the Nile because they believed that this was the side of the after life. The solar boat would pass across the sky, rise on the east side of the Nile, and take the souls down with it on the west side.
The pyramids were fantastic. There were 3 pyramids; the great Pyramid, the second pyramid and the third. The king buried in the third pyramid was the son of the one in the second, and the king buried in the second was the son of the king buried in the great. So the 3 pyramids were 3 generations. The great pyramid the highest though the second looks higher as it was built on a higher spot. This pyramid is the pyramid in best condition. All the pyramids were originally covered and polished with limestone until they were completely smooth, almost to make a HUGE slide! The pyramids have been stripped of this limestone but the second still holds the top intact. We walked around the great pyramid with Kelly while Suzi and Jen went inside and saw the tomb.
We were expecting to be hassled a lot when we were at the pyramids. It wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined though we were offered camel rides, necklaces, drinks, and eqalls (that’s not a typo of “=” but the ropes they use to hold the men’s scarves to their head-it’s the best spelling I can get from the Arabic word).
After the great pyramid we went to the second. We had paid to go inside and see the tomb of this one. It cost about 40 Egyptian pounds which is equal to about $10. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside but we couldn’t stay long inside anyway. It was too hot! It was incredibly humid inside and the tunnels were only 1 metre by 1 metre. It was very cramped! Inside there were no hieroglyphics like I was expecting, there was nothing, just the sarcophagus where the body originally lay.
After the pyramids we drove a little way and saw the sphinx it wasn’t nearly as impressive as I thought. I think it was slightly ruined by the amount of fences and touristy things around. It was much lower and also much smaller than the pyramids. Its face has been worn by the wind but there are a few theories on why the nose was blown off. Some say Napoleon blew it with a canon and others believe the Christians and the Muslims did it.
As we were leaving the sphinx, Suzi and I thought about tonight; tonight was Kelly’s party for her 30th birthday the following day. We thought we should buy something really junky from the tourist shops. From a distance we could see some toy camels with their heads moving from side to side so we went over to buy one but it was much too big and expensive. But gosh they were funny.
From Giza we drove to the Egyptian museum. Inside we saw what was in Tutankhamen’s tomb. We saw the famous headdress he wore as a mummy, we saw golden fingers and toes, masses of jewellery, his hundreds of models of his friends he wanted to take with him into the after life, and the famous throne. My trip was slightly ruined as a guy kept stalking me and asking if I was engaged. I found it pretty creepy.
When we got back after the museum, Suzi, Kelly, Mum, Dad and I went to the petrol station to get an ice-cream. It was really hot so this was perfect. We then went back to the hotel and bought some Egyptian wine and some Fanta. We sat in the meeting room with Margaret, Kelly, Alex, Suzi and our computer. We had wireless here so I emailed a few of my friends, then Scott joined us with his computer. Suddenly there was a crowd with everyone in the room where we gave Kelly her birthday card we were organising. We told her the story of the head wobbling camel and she started crying with laughter from it.
Mohamed then brought in some Egyptian cakey lolly things, sort of like a birthday treat that everyone quickly ate but couldn’t finish because there was just too much. There was some sort of vanilla slicey thing, some other things that looked like chicken and fried gherkins. It was strange though yummy :D
At this point we had to leave for Aswan, so we said our final goodbyes to Alex, Kelly and Margaret and left on a little bus to the train station
We arrived at the train station at about 7:30 and we waited for about an hour before it came. I went to the toilet and had to pay a little to the woman cleaning them. It broke my heart to see her. She was dressed in practically rags except for the green raincoat she wore on the outside, she obviously needed glasses as she was cross-eyed and the only money she can earn is buy hoping for the generosity of other people. I was glad to be one of those generous people.
Dad got bored at one point so he got out his violin and decided to have a play. I didn’t join in as my flute was packed along way away into my big pack and I wasn’t going to unpack on the train station platform. He gathered quite a crowd and made the woman from the toilets happy.
Finally the train pulled in and we all scrambled aboard. We were in the furthest carriage away so we had to walk through 2 carriages to get there. We seemed to be the only ones in the whole carriage except one of Mohamed’s friends who came.
We all got to sit in big airplane sort of seats. You could swivel them around 180 degrees! I found that pretty cool. Bart, Valerie, Mohamed, Jen, Saul, Suzi and I all played Uno but it was difficult with the sudden brakes sending the cards flying!
Everyone was too tied to keep this up for long so I just got out my sleeping bag and went to sleep in the most comfortable position I could find…
Day 10 Tuesday 21st of April: When I woke up it was the weirdest sight. To my right I could see the Nile, palm trees, grass and fields where heaps of people were already awake working with their donkeys. To my left were brown sandy hills, desert view. It just shows what difference water makes!
We got off the train at about 10 and walked 50 metres to our hotel. Here it was much hotter than in Cairo and we couldn’t stay too long in the sun as we could feel our skin prickle as it burned.
When we got to the hotel, we were offered complimentary drinks of hibiscus tea. It was delicious. It was a beautiful colour too, a deep, rich, red colour.
Here there were no rooms for 3 people and we hadn’t paid for a room by myself so I was partnered with Suzi.
As last nights sleep was not the best, everyone was pretty tired so I just stayed in my room for a bit and did some washing.
After this we all got on a boat. The people who owned the boat was one family, 3 men; Ali, Jay-Jay and another Mohamed. They took us to a beautiful beach. The sand was really soft and the water really clean, though the water was also very cold. It was nice but I didn’t stay in long!
From here we took the boat to another spot where heaps of men were standing with camels. I’ve only ever been on a camel once before and that was at a fair in Melbourne when I was about 10. That was a bit different as these only have one hump, unlike the ones at home. We took the camels for about half an hour. I had the slowest camel which was annoying as I really wanted to go fast but no matter how much Sham (the guy I had helping me) hit the camel it would not run more than 5 metres, and then of course I felt bad about making him hit the camel so much….
The camels took us to a little Nubian village all painted in pale blue.
Inside the Nubian house there was more blue. In the open area you first walk into, all the walls were blue with yellow, green and black paintings of camels, water holes and things like that. We had a beautiful dinner on the sand in their open area of veggies, rice, chicken, fish, soup and a green soup that I found out later is actually a vegetable boiled. We were suggested to give some of the children a treat or something as there was more than one branch of the family tree living in this house, so the parents were all mothers and sisters of each other. We took the family a bag of nuts that we had bought in Aqaba; some hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts and some dates, though they had seen the dates before, the other nuts were completely new to them.
We took the boat back after thanking the family a lot and went to bed as we were to have an early start the next morning… again.
Day 11 Wednesday 22nd of April: though this morning was specially early. We were to get up at 5:30 and leave by 6:10 to catch a plane to Abu simbel! Only Suzi, Jen, Kyuri, Mum, Dad and I were going by plane, the others got up at 3:30 to catch a bus. It was only a half an hour plane flight so I didn’t really get to sleep as I would have liked. When we got there, we found it difficult to find where to get the tickets. We did eventually and got ourselves a guide too. He taught us heaps; how they moved the whole thing and built it on a fake rock/mountain as it was originally carved into the rock. They sawed through it with a hand saw and if they had stopped the rock would have deteriorated so they worked in shifts, never stopping. Also, in its original spot, Abu simbel would only be lit up by the rising sun twice a year; 21st of October and 21st of February. When they moved it they got it wrong by one day, now it lights up on the 22nd of October and 22nd of February. The only spot in the temple that doesn’t light up is where there is a statue of the god of darkness.
We learnt all this before going inside so we went into Nefertari’s temple first as it wasn’t as crowded at the time. That was really unexpected. When I was told we were flying to Abu Simbel, I never realised there was temple built for Ramses II’s wife (well his favourite of how ever many wives he had). Inside were beautiful pictures carved in and painted in blue, yellow, red, green and white. Most of the temples and things we see were originally these colours but the sun and water bleaches them, but as this was buried in sand for an enormous amount of time and hardly any light reaches inside these, the colour is preserved beautifully.
The first thing you would see when you walk into Abu simbel is 8 statues of Ramses II. He built these to inflict his power among the public. The public could walk into the first section of the temple but the last sections were reserved for the priests and Ramses and probably some of his best mates. I don’t know it all exactly so don’t hold me to it.
After the flight back we met up with our travel agent guy and we got on the bus, for an extra 15 pounds ($4.50) the bus would take us to three stops if we so wished. Jen really wanted to go and see the dam but no-one else was really interested, so she went inside while we attempted to have a picnic in the shade surrounded by men with machine guns. I think we were at an army base or something. Lovely place for a picnic.
When Jen came back we were dropped off at a little port where lots of boats were lined up to take you from there to Philae, a temple of Isis located on an island.
It had beautiful columns and it was in pretty good condition. It looked like a place on a documentary I’ve seen but I’m not sure if it was that one.
Dad met up with a man called Mustafa who showed dad where there were Greek and Roman graffiti and things we wouldn’t have picked up ourselves.
We didn’t do much that night, everyone else went out for tea but we just stayed at the hotel doing some internet which was fun.
Day 12 Thursday 23rd of April: today was a complete bludge day. We had a sleep in and met downstairs at 10:30 though unfortunately Mohamed didn’t turn up until 11:30. I wasn’t complaining too much as I got to use internet and email a few friends before no internet for a long time. When he did arrive, we quickly left and walked the 50 metres to the Nile bank where we met Ali and Jay-jay again. Though they weren’t coming with us which was a shame.
So anyway, we got on a boat-a felucca, a sort of sail boat with a huge comfortable mattress spread out over the whole passenger area.
All day we only swam by being pulled on a rope behind the boat and played backgammon with mum, Suzi and Mohamed.
We stopped floating at sunset to make sure we had enough light to dig the toilet. We had to dig a hole and place the toilet seat over it and there was also a tent with no roof we put around it for privacy.
The boat owners cooked us dinner of rice and veggie soup things. It was really nice. J
Well that was really all that day; it was practically eating, swimming and relaxing… fantastic. The only problem of the whole day was putting up with Bart’s snoring! :P
Day 13 Friday 24th of April: everyone was woken up early and we floated to the other side of the bank after eating pancakes for breakfast and packing up the toilet. We took a bus which was waiting for us to Luxor. The bus trip was very boring, I did some computer things and slept as well. Though on the way we stopped at Edfu; the most preserved temple. Dad was a bit templed out so didn’t want to come in so he stayed in the bazaar and played violin. So mum and I went inside and saw the amazing carvings. This is the most preserved temple because this is where the Romans didn’t attack and the faces of the gods by chiselling them out. Well they did but not nearly as much as other places like Philae. They did the same thing in Petra; some of the mini temple gods were destroyed.
When we came back out mum saw a top she really liked with matching pants. This took way too long to get and held the bus and everyone else up.
When we got to Luxor we spent an hour in our rooms and then went out to Karnak temple. Dad was still templed out so he didn’t come and neither did Scott or Robin. We had a guide whose name was Shaima. She was fantastic. She spoke brilliant English, very fluent. Almost none of the temple was roofed. It was all open, mainly for the public. This temple was built for the god Aemon-Ra. One section was filled with-I think- 20 columns. Each of them were to represent thee flower of upper Egypt, some of them open, others closed. What was amazing was the colours were still present on the columns. The sun is what has faded the colours and there were bridges across the pillars facing down which has never had light on it, so the colours are still vibrant. After this, Shaima took us to the Papyrus museum. We got shown how they make papyrus paper and why they worshiped this plant: because if you slice the plant in half the stalk is in the shape of the pyramid. Also the flower looks like the sun. Many people bought papyrus paintings but mum and I didn’t as we would have to carry it. They were so beautiful though.
When we got back everyone went walking the town. We wanted to go have dinner at Sofra, a nice restaurant recommended by Intrepid and the Lonely Planet. Unfortunately it was booked out so we booked for the next night and went to a different restaurant. It was really hot inside but beautiful food. Had some falafel and veggie stuff… mmmm
We left earlier than everyone else because I was desperately tired. So went to bed after doing some washing.
Day 14 Saturday 25th of April: this morning was the earliest one so far, even more than Abu simbel; up at 4:30 this morning and ready and outside to leave at 4:55. Joy, David, Suzi, Jen, Dad and I were picked up and taken to the Nile bank where we got on a little boat and had some tea, coffee and cake for early early breakfast. It was a quick boat trip, just to the other side of the Nile. When we got off they took us on another little bus trip to a big open paddock where we would go on a hot air balloon trip! We saw all of the balloons being heated up with the huge flame but many couldn’t stay up as it was quite windy. So we got into our little compartments, me with Dad, Joy and David. We did landing position which is crouching down, leaning back and holding on the little loops attached to the basket. When the man pulled on the gas and the radiation heat from the flame was unbelievably hot! We got off the ground by about 20 cm, at highest before it was cancelled. One of the balloons had got off the ground and as we were watching it, we thought it was getting awfully close to a telephone tower. I saw the guy trying to detach on of the ropes which was caught on the tower. As it slowly turned around we could easily see the huge rip from the tope to the bottom of the balloon and watched it fall… so yeah, no balloon flying today!
We then waited at the Colossi of Agamemnon. These were two big statues that guarded a temple but Ramses II re-used the bricks to build something for himself instead. After an earthquake one year it left holes in one of the colossi and so when the wind blew through it, it made a whistling noise. All the locals thought it was a god or something, can’t remember all the details though…
We then all headed off to the Valley of the Kings with Shaima, again as our tour guide. It was only a 15 minute drive from the Colossi which was good. We got a little train to the entrances and we all got tickets for 3 tombs. Mum began to feel a little sick at this time, she began to get auras which means a migraine was coming.
The first tomb we saw was Ramses’ (not sure which one) tomb. Inside was a beautiful hall, all white with blue, yellow, green and red hieroglyphics and scenes. We then walked into small room with blue ceiling paintings of a stretched out woman eating the sun for night then giving birth to it again in the morning. This scene was on the papyrus paintings in the papyrus shop.
For the next one we had to climb along way up. There were lots of stairs taking you to the top. As you walk inside you have to go down heaps of stairs and the further you go down the hotter it gets. It was unbelievably humid in there! The hieroglyphics and scenes in this tomb were very different to the ones before. The pictures weren’t carved out, only painted on. In all the other tombs the pictures were first carved out then filled in with colour. These were just black stick figure drawings really, very different to what we had seen before.
The next tomb was more like the first one with a hall. Though there was much much less colour. I think in this one, it wasn’t quite finished before the pharaoh died. So it wasn’t nearly as magnificent as the others. It was some painted, some carved hieroglyphics and a small room at the end where the sarcophagus was.
On our way out we were swarmed with men trying to sell us stuff. I had 5 guys around me at once! It was almost scary as I could barely walk. This boy called Adam was more persistent than then the others though, he followed me and asked my name. I told him my name was Sally. He wanted my email address but I refused and sort of ran off at this point. It got too much for me.
Next we were headed for Hatshepsut’s temple. Again we took a mini train to get the whole 200 metres. We had a look at the first level before going up the steps. Shaima told us how Hatshepsut was the only female pharaoh. She dressed like a man and had herself painted and carved as a man all over the temple. In some areas though, her step son Tutmosis took revenge on her for stealing his throne, by carving out the name of Hatshepsut and replacing his own to make the man painted giving offerings to the gods, actually him. There were 24 statues -well only 6 now- of her as a man in front of the temple but as there were no hieroglyphics telling these statues were her, so Tutmosis couldn’t destroy them as there was no proof it was her, it could have been any man.
Shaima then took us to her brother’s house where they would cook our lunch for us.
They cooked us chicken, meatballs, zucchini, bread, and rice. Too much food, we couldn’t eat it all!
The bus driver then took us back to the hotel, we said thank you to Shaima, and I went straight to bed, sleeping for 2 hours.
When I woke up, we had to get dressed and ready for the dinner that we’d booked for last night. Scott, Robin and Saul didn’t come. I had some beautiful prawns. Of course I had to pick the most expensive thing on the menu. =P
After this we were all still exhausted from the day and we all went to bed early.
Day 15 Sunday 26th of April: today was the beginning of our trip into the desert. We spent most of he day driving. I was on the computer for the first three hours until the battery went down.
When we stopped for a toilet break, we felt like rockstars! In this small place they must never really have tourists because the kids in the school across the street were hanging out the windows waving to us for at least 15 minutes before the teacher walked in and told them to sit down.
At this stop Mohamed ordered a Shisha-sort of like a fancy smoking pipe. There is tobacco in it but not much. Its always fruit flavoured and Mohamed ordered apple, so of course, when he offered it around I refused.
Back on the bus for another 2 hours until we arrived at our destination; Dharkla. After a while Suzi and I went for a walk. There wasn’t really much to see but every kid we went past said hello, what’s your name? but they didn’t know much else. So we went back and got ready for dinner. At the restaurant we had rice, bread, beans, veggies, mainly all the stuff we’d normally been eating. Though it was very nice, I can’t really complain.
As we were walking back, we looked at the beautiful sunset. This was the night that I decided I want donkey. :D
We ordered some sweet pancakes for tomorrow’s breakfast at a little shop before going to bed.
Day 16 Monday 27th of April: this morning we were woken by dogs at about quarter past 6. Suzi and I walked down to the pancake shop to pick up our pancakes. I was feeling a little nauseas while eating our sugar pancakes and couldn’t finish it. Mum didn’t want hers either as she wasn’t feeling too good either.
So we jumped on the bus and drove to a café thing. We were meant to be served lunch around the time we got there but somehow it didn’t work out and we stayed there for 2 hours before our lunch came. Everyone found it so boring but I actually needed those 2 hours to settle my stomach a bit. We then had some lunch, (though I didn’t eat any as I was still feeling too sick) and then got in 2 jeeps. Each jeep carries 7 passengers… and there were 15 of us. So Mohamed was squishing in to make 9 in one jeep. Very tight.
So we drove for a bit, me in the front not feeling well, and we drove to this mushroom area. There were all these rocks randomly standing around. But their shapes were what was strange The wind had cut away around the middle of the rock leaving all the rocks in a mushroom shape!
Next stop was the chicken and egg. A huge big boulder rested next to a small one in the shape of a chicken.
Finally we got to our camping area. We drove the jeeps together to make an L shape. We then put some material blinds around them, and placed straw rugs on the ground and made our sleeping and eating area. While the jeep drivers were cooking with the help of mum, everyone else was looking at the fossils around. The whole desert must have been underwater at one stage because dad found some shells and a sharks tooth. We sat in a little rock area while watching Scott make the word “Intrepid” out of rocks. When he was finished we told him to move it two metres so it was on a slight slope. Much better for camera shots!
Later we watched the sunset. The colours blurring together, yellow, pink, purple and also red at one stage. Absolutely magnificent.
So to another dinner of chicken, veggies and rice though I was not feeling well so I picked at the rice and bread.
After this we all clumped together, except Robin, to camp out under the stars. In the desert here they have foxes, the only wildlife other than flies we had seen in a while. They come and eat our scraps from dinner during the night and apparently one jumped on Mohamed’s head during the night… wish I’d seen it.
Day 17 Tuesday 28th of April: we woke up early again so the flies wouldn’t bother us while eating. Though after breakfast there was nothing to do for a long time as one of the jeeps got bogged in the sand.
So another cramped day in the car, well not so much for Joy, David, Valerie, Bart, Mum, Dad or me as we were in the one seating 7 passengers. The drive was very bumpy and the driver seemed to be having some fun by driving really fast and scaring the hell out of the tourists!
The other jeeps driver must have been the leader as we were always behind the other car. This of course entertained us very much when Scott and Saul started dancing the Macarena out the window!
So the fast, scary driving continued until we were headed up a very steep dune. I guess we had a very good driver as he got to the top of the dune though the other driver could not. From the top of the dune we could see the other at the bottom searching for fossils. After a bit of a look around we went down, frightening mum to extremes, and met the others and also searched for some fossils. Scott found something whiteish yellow thing that kind of looked like a coconut. In the end we came to the conclusion it was a camel bone.
Next stop was Crystal Mountain. The mountain was very, very small but the crystals were all over the place.
After another little sleep in the back of the jeep, we stopped at a well, where they pump heaps and heaps of water from the ground, which provides for the whole town that surrounds it. You only ever find any people or anything where these springs are.
Then it was to a basalt mountain. All over the desert were small black rocks that dad couldn’t understand how they got there. We came up with some good theories including a shark with legs. Anyway this mountain was completely black except in places at the bottom where the sand had blown on top of it and covered it.
Bart, Robin, Scott, Jen and of course Dad were climbing up the mountain. We only had like 10 minutes which wasn’t enough for the people climbing. This of course caused some tension between Robin and Mohamed and apparently it was not pleasant. I was thankful to be in the jeep I was in.
Next we made our final sop at our hotel, “The Western Desert Hotel.” Here mum and I had a little bit of internet time, but we didn’t leave the hotel because dad was really sick with something. Everyone, including Mum and me, all believed he must have eaten the camel bone from the day before as Dad will eat anything he finds really. We caught him eating some things off trees in the Sinai hotel and ever since dad had a reputation.
I didn’t really want to hang out with Mum or Dad as Dad was sick and Mum wasn’t leaving him, so I spent my time in my room playing flute.
We had dinner that night in the hotel with Valerie, Bart, Joy and David and we discussed Dads bad habits with Camel bone.
Day 18 Wednesday 29th of April: well yesterday’s jeep ride was nothing in comparison to today’s. We were traveling to Siwa Oasis on a road that must have been made 700 years ago it was that bumpy! Also the sand had blown on top of it so you could barely see it anyway.
First stop was at the sand sea dunes. There looked like nothing for miles! We couldn’t see any signs of civilisation except a few jeep tracks that had been there the previous day or so. It felt so good to climb the dunes, your footsteps being the only ones you can see.
So more driving through the desert until suddenly we came up to this random lake. Not a very big one, but big for being out in the middle of the desert with nothing around it other than the road. It was nice to see some green in the orange and white nothingness, as magnificent as it was.
After a little longer in the jeep we had lunch. We put down our straw rugs and the drivers cooked us lunch. We were sitting under a huge rock-well that’s what it looked like at first, with a stalk from where the wind had blown it away like the mushroom rocks. But it wasn’t rock, it seemed to be made of millions of fossilised oyster shells. This of course worried Bart when he saw Dad eating something when lunch hadn’t finished cooking yet. Bart was convinced he was eating the fossils and Dad’s reputation of crazy man-eat anything was re-enhanced!
Soon we were driving through palm trees, not what we were expecting in the desert when we realised we had arrived in Siwa. Siwa is a very small town-well not even that, maybe a village. Well we were staying in a little hotel here. Dad and I attempted to get Wireless on the rooftop but failed dismally. Some of the others tried the computers in the internet café but they waited over 15 minutes for one facebook page to load up. You can’t really expect much more though in a tiny town with nothing for miles and miles.
We all (but Dad) met up at 6 to go the sunset in the old town. In 1900 the city built was made of mud brick but an unexpected amount of rain washed most of it away and now all that is left is ruins. We climbed through them to the top and watched the sunset. It wasn’t nearly as spectacular as the one in the white desert but every sunset is beautiful.
So next we went out for dinner and had some couscous. We had it with chicken and veggies but I couldn’t finish it. It was delicious though. Robin went back to Cairo during dinner. He didn’t want to go to Alexandria so he took a direct bus route straight to Cairo.
Day 19 Thursday 30th of April: this-morning was the first sleep in for a while. Everyone else went on a bike ride to Cleopatra’s bath but because Dad was sick we didn’t go. So we had late breakfast at the same restaurant we went last night and had omelettes. They were reeeeally good. We met up with Mohamed in there and also Kyuri as we were leaving. We asked Mohamed where dad could buy Mum and me some jewellery. We couldn’t find any places he suggested because his directions are a little vague but as we were looking we stumbled across a man inviting us into his house in the mud brick area. Inside we looked at his collection of jewellery and candles made from salt. His salt candles impressed me as he just picked one up and licked it.
Mum and I eventually decided on similar pendants with a Siwan design. They were probably very overpriced but we were happy to help a man here as he didn’t hassle us in anyway and was very kind.
We went back to the hotel at this point because dad wasn’t coping well so I went and sat on the rooftop with all the others except for Pieter, Jen, Kyuri and Saul who went sand boarding down the dunes.
At 8 we went for dinner, again at the same restaurant and I ate everyone’s pizza leftovers which was again, like all the meals so far (except the one I got sick on in Petra), delicious. I also ordered a Salahab, a custard and chocolate drink. mmmm
Day 20 Friday 1st of May: this morning was a very early morning but by choice. Scott and I went up the little rock mountain to see the sunrise. It was so gorgeous. We realised how noisy the town was and also how big as well. So no, not a village anymore, a town. Even before the morning light chickens, goats, geese and donkeys were so loud I couldn’t understand how people were still sleeping. The sun came up very rapidly and just above a plateau. After about 5 minuets the sun was directly centred above this plateau. Then there seemed to be two suns as a pool of water reflected it brighter than the actual sun and soon we could barely look at the reflection. This sunrise topped all the sunsets, even the one in the white desert.
Scott and I came down again and met up with Saul to get some Falafels. They were the best Falafels ever, filled with chips, eggplant, tomato, and some fried peppers which I picked out quite happily!
Next was the bus trip to Alexandria. We drove for a long time until we reached a beach that we stopped at. Only dad and Jen went swimming as it was much too cold. The water was an amazing colour. Under the water were limestone rocks giving it a clear green/blue colour.
The next stop was El Alamein memorial for WWII. We were going to stop and look inside but it was closed so we could only take photos from the outside. We could see a little memorial just for Australians which was comforting to see.
Soon we were in Alexandria. We couldn’t go down our street to begin with because they were filming some TV show. But eventually we got into our hotel. The place, at first, scared me, because the reception area was filled with stuffed ducks and pelicans and had a gazelle head mounted on the wall. But where we were sleeping wasn’t like this which made me feel better. We were all checking each others rooms out, who had the best balcony, the best view, best beds. Well I think Suzi and I got the best. We had an amazing view! We could see the whole harbour as our hotel was planted in the middle. Ah, best hotel so far.
So for tonight’s dinner we went down the back streets. We walked into a place but there was no room for 14 people. So the next one we went into was almost like an apartment. We walked upstairs and walked into a grubby room with junk and chairs all stacked up in the corner. So the waiter-well I think that’s what he was trying to be anyway-quickly set up some plastic chairs and dirty tables. We ordered ‘huge plates of seafood. We had a choice of grilled or fried. The amount of seafood on one plate was enough to feed 2 happily, and we all got one each. Mohamed then ordered us all some soup and rice, that hardly anyone ate. Then we also had drinks. It was great food… well some of it, but the place was horrible and there was so much waste because no-one could finish their meal. But I guess what an experience…
Day 21 Thursday 2nd of May: so another really early for me, but again by choice, 5:30 again. Saul, Jen, Scott and I went to looking for the fish market. Scott and Saul were really tired as they went looking for a party the night before but couldn’t seem to find anything. Still they didn’t get to bed until 2 so getting up at 5:30 would have been hard! We walked about 45 minutes until we reached the other end of the harbour. Here was the fort, and we followed some locals going inside with fish, but there was a guard who said we couldn’t go in.
So we walked a few streets back then heard lots of voices, so followed them to the fish market. Well I was expecting it to smell unbearable, but it wasn’t that bad. It still didn’t smell that good though. It was really interesting to see. They obviously don’t get too many tourists there as they all looked at us shocked and we got many waves from all over the room. I only saw one type of fish which were still alive, which were the mussels. They were still swimming-well moving- around in there little bowl filled with water.
So when we got back, we had breakfast of pita bread (for something new) and cheese. We met up with lots of the others including mum and dad who were in there.
After Breakfast we met up with Soha, meaning stars in Arabic. She was our tour guide for the day. She gave us a little introduction about Alexandria and the letter U was very important. The harbour was in a U shape and lots of other things we saw during the day.
First she took us to the Turkish palace. One of the Turkish kings lived here but his wife was Austrian. She began to get homesick so, because he loved her, he brought trees from Austria to make a forest around the palace, and then animals, to fill the forest so they could go hunting. The building was even built in an Austrian style with a lightning rod on top of the roof. They obviously didn’t need one as it hardly ever rains let alone storms in Egypt. Though strangely enough today it was raining! There were spots coming down. Not enough for everything to get really wet but it was the first rain we had seen since Versailles in Paris!
Second we went to the Roman theatre, like the one we saw in Jerash and Petra. There was one spot in the very middle where if you stood and sung, or even talked, all the sound reflects straight back to you.
Also there was a display of things that had been pulled up from the water. All these things were part of the original city but earthquakes have pulled a lot of it underwater. You can actually go into the underwater museum, which is scuba diving to see Cleopatra’s house and things.
As we kept driving we drove past a huge pillar. Soha wouldn’t tell us what it was until we drove past it on the way back though.
So now we were going to the catacombs. Apparently a man with his donkey carrying garlic stumbled across this. The donkey stepped and suddenly there was a big hole in front of him.
We walked down a huge spiral staircase with exactly 91 steps. Inside was a big well and lots of little tomb rooms. We went into an area filled with a huge grid of holes where they would burry people. Near this was a much bigger grave spot for horses. These tombs were only for great athletes, so these horses would have won a race or something.
Next area was 3 tombs with a gateway. On the gateway were snakes to protect the people in there. The snakes were symbols for protection because they would turn you to stone like Medusa’s hair. Inside were images carved in like the Egyptian hieroglyphics but Anubis, the god of mummification, was dressed in Roman clothing. It looked very silly!
The next room was where people apparently camped for up to 3 days. There was a rule for these people, you could not take anything out of the tomb area, but they also couldn’t leave any thing in there either. So other than themselves, they couldn’t leave there belongings there but couldn’t take them out either, so they broke them up and destroyed them. This is how the idea of breaking plates at Greek weddings.
So finally on our way back she told us that the huge pillar we saw on the way was Pompey’s pillar.
Next stop was the library. A fire burnt down the original and many valuable books and scripts were lost. It was the rebuilt and now it is MASSIVE!!! There is something like 3000 hard-drives and heaps of books. Not to mention the few exhibitions inside.
We left Jen at the Library as this was her special thing. I think she got herself a library card for the biggest library in the world!
So our next stop was the fort that we tried to get into this morning but we still weren’t allowed to go in.
So at 6 we met up and had a big talk about what we thought was good and bad about the trip. Most of it was good feedback but I think there was a little tension on the subject of the basalt mountain. Luckily Robin had already gone home or the tension might have blown!
After the talk, I had 10 minuted to myself while I finished the surprise I was planning. I took the computer out into the main foyer and showed everyone the power-point I had put together of our trip. There were some classic photos we had.
So this restaurant was much better than the previous night. I ordered a chicken shawerma pie which is like the chicken of the spit thing. I think that was one of the best meals of the whole Egyptian trip.
Day 22 Friday 3rd of May: another early morning just to finish it like we started. We got on a train to Cairo. Not everyone was sitting in the same carriage. I was in the one with Suzi, Scott, Saul, Pieter, Joy, David and Mohamed. The whole way Suzi, Scott and I just looked at Scott’s photos of him in Miami building Madonnas stage.
We said goodbye to Kyuri who was leaving then. So we walked from the station in Cairo to our hotel and settled in for a bit.
We later went to the Bazaar where Suzi was looking for a Shisha to buy and take home. Dad and I left a little early because we couldn’t find anything we really wanted. But we did see this fantastic lamp! It was in the shape of a big egg. It was made of glass and was then covered in a mosaic. But what was so special about this particular one we saw was that it had the number 38 on it. It was the only one with a number and it just happened to be our house number! We wanted to get a photo but we didn’t have the camera with us.
Everyone (except mum who was really sick) had a drink with Joy and David as they were leaving at 7ish. It was really sad to see them go.
We then all went out for dinner (except mum) and Suzi and Jen tried Pigeon.
Scott, Pieter and Saul went shoe shopping while the rest of us headed back for the hotel. We had to say goodbye to Jen then because she was going early in the morning.
When we got back we also said goodbye to Bart and Valerie who were leaving early in the morning too.
Suzi and Pieter left the next day and Scott and Saul the day after that. We left that day too to Morocco late at night.
This was our tour through Jordan and Egypt. We had such a good time with a great group of people. Sorry the blog took so long to come up but as you can tell I was a little busy during the tour, I couldn’t get myself enough time to write my blog.
Jordanian and Egyptian Tour –
Day 1 Sunday 12th of April: So this is the day the tour began, though it did not start until 6:30 at night, but we spent the day doing things that weren’t on the tour so we thought we’d see them ourselves.
This morning we woke up and made sure we weren’t late for breakfast as we were the previous morning. We went to meet up with Jen who we met the night before at dinner. We were staying at “Hotel Caravan” and they put on breakfast and dinner for us every day. This morning, like all others at this hotel, we ate omelets for breakfast. Here we met Joy and David. Joy and David are a Canadian couple who were traveling with us for the next 22 days from Jordan to Egypt unlike some of the others who are going to leave us in Cairo. After they left the breakfast room Kelly joined us. Kelly is from Brisbane and she is one of the four who will leave us in Cairo. We invited Kelly to join us, Jen, and Jen’s friend Suzi, a Melbournian, on the tour we were arranging for ourselves and she agreed, so the eight of us left in a big Taxi-Van on our tour. Yes, eight. Alex and Margaret came with us as well. They live in England and they were two of the four leaving us in Cairo.
So now I’ve introduced the Taxi-Van group, I’ll tell you where we went. First we drove for a long time and I spent most of the time either eating Easter eggs (as it was Easter Sunday in Australia) or staring outside to the amazing view of Amman and surrounding suburbs. After the city, the landscape changed and we could see the Jordan Valley and heaps of Rock and dust and a bit of green grass here and there.
Later we stopped in Madaba at a little building where we saw an amazing mosaic floor. I can’t really remember everything about it, I think it was excavated then they took it apart and arranged it again into its original picture but much more smoothly. It was beautiful! There was woman and flowers and amazing patterns all over!
We then packed up into the car again and left to see the Dead Sea!!!! So we drove a very long way but it was brilliant. The views of valleys and hills and towns were incredible. We stopped at a very large bridge and took some photos but there wasn’t much water running beneath us.
So then we got to the Dead Sea. We did not stop as it is on our agenda for the next day. We drove along the shoreline of the Sea and then got taken to a completely new place. It was not far at all from the Dead Sea but near the Dead Sea there was hardly any green. Whenever the ground has water, it will spring in life but the water in the Dead Sea was so salty it didn’t support much plant life. So where we were then taken was a place with many trees, plants and grass. We had been taken to the Baptism sight of Jesus. Jesus was baptised in the River Jordan which was why there was so much plant life. We saw where Jesus was apparently baptised and where John the Baptist stood while baptising him. In this area 5 churches had been built in the same place, over and over again, as floods had destroyed them. People wondered “Why don’t they learn and build the church somewhere else?” but because this was such holy land to them they didn’t want to build it any where but there.
After an hour or so we headed back to the Taxi where the Taxi driver then took us to a shop filled with everything a tourist in Jordan wants. There was jewellery, where mum bought herself a bracelet, book marks, free tea and juice, and the biggest supply of Dead Sea and other types of cosmetics and creams to use when in the Dead Sea, such as moisturisers, mud masks, and my personal favourite: slimming lotion. I didn’t get any, nor did I ask about it which I guess I should have as I don’t understand how it works. I wonder if you drink it? I hope not. I think it was blue…
So anyway, later that evening we arrived at our hotel again and met downstairs with the rest of our tour group for the first time.
This is where we introduced to Faisal, our tour guide for the Jordanian part of the tour. We also met Anne, another Melbournian, Valerie and Bart, from Belgium and Saul, our third Melbournian. The rest of the tour group came with us in our Taxi tour other than Joy and David, our Canadian couple.
After the meeting, Faisal took us out for dinner, well took us to a place where we paid. I had some reeeeeally nice chicken. So this is where we got to know one another for the first time as our family for the next week.
Day 2 Monday 13th of April: up early this morning. 7ish I think it was. We had to be gone by 8 in the morning. Today we were driving to Petra! We would arrive there at about 7 at night, but along the way we were stopping at many things on the way.
Number 1 was Mt Nebo. Mt Nebo is where Moses saw the promise lands and died. We looked in a small sort of museum and saw some things and read others. We also saw a huge mosaic floor, just like the day before. There were women and men and also a lion. Strangely there are no lions in Jordan or Egypt but both countries have them in there ancient artefacts.
Afterwards we drove down Mt Nebo and down into the lowest area of the world that isn’t covered by the sea. On our bus, we suddenly couldn’t see outside very well. There seemed to be a very sick car in front of us which was emitting white thick fumes. At this point we were really close to our destination of the resort where we would swim in the Dead Sea! Faisal told us this white fog was actually insecticide to kill all the flies that would bug the tourists while swimming!
So when we first arrived I was already in my bathers so I didn’t need to change so quickly went down to the sea. There was a pool there but I thought the sea was much better, because, as I found out, the Dead Sea is so salty that you float! It was fantastic! It was such a weird sensation, the closest thing to no gravity. They said to not float on you front because your legs go up pushing your head into the water, which was also a DO NOT as the salt was so extreme that it would cause to eyes to go reeeeeeally red.
Some of the people walking around seemed to be covered in charcoal but there was a place where you could get mudded up. So for 3 Dinah ($6) I became black! My whole body was covered in the stuff! My legs, arms, back, belly, and face. I had to wait 20-30 minutes for it to dry and then you wash it back off in the sea. The skin on my face was so soft afterwards :D! So after we all finished showering the salt off us, we went to have the buffet. Mmmm it was good. There was rice, chicken, fish and the biggest amount of salad I’ve ever seen! The deserts were like different types of jelly: one was the red jelly everyone knows, one was like a yellow thick type and the other was white so I guessed it would be coconut jelly but it tasted nothing like coconut. The last desert was the best but it didn’t look so appetising. It looked like off porridge but it tasted sooooo good, sort of sweet with spices like cinnamon or something.
After this we drove for another hour or so and we were taken to Karak castle, a fortress castle made completely out of stone. We saw the dungeons, the kitchen, the bathroom and the bedroom which housed about 25 people in one room. The room wasn’t even that big! We looked in the museum and saw a chain-mail suit they’d found. We also saw coins, skulls and some other interesting stuff.
There was a school group there and almost everyone said “Welcome to Jordan.” But it wasn’t just there it’s happened heaps of times. Everyone’s so welcoming!!!
Afterwards we drove for another hour and a half and we stopped at a rest stop, the only comfortable looking building around. There were heaps of buses there because every single tourist group that was heading for Petra was stopping there. Inside was everything a tourist needed: silk, clothes, hats, food, jewellery, turquoise lumps and real cheetah skin rugs… *shudder* Here I bought a pistachio ice-cream, was very yummyJ.
Finally when we got to Petra, we dumped our stuff in the rooms and went out for dinner. We went to a place where they played live music that sounded like a broken banjo. For dinner I had chicken wings and chips with lots of bread… tomorrow would be seeing the Treasury at Petra, cant wait!!!!
Day 3 Tuesday 14th of April: Petra! Ever seen the Indiana Jones movie of “The Last Crusade”? well Petra is the area where the big stone building is where they eventually find the holy grail. Well I can tell you, the inside looks a little different to the way they portray it in the movie! So that huge pink building thing is real! I always thought it was fake but definitely not! So we got up early and walked the 500 metres it was to get tickets and begin our long journey. Unfortunately for Valerie and me, we had become sick with the equivalent of Deli Belly in Petra. We believe it was the meal last night. So today wasn’t the best it could have been but it was bloody brilliant of what I saw! So it began with a long flattish, gravelly road separated in two lanes: one for people walking and ones riding horses… this of course smelt the whole place out of horse crap… not pleasant. Along this road were huge amounts of rocks and built in this rock were heaps of tombs. These tombs were for the Bedouins and their families.
After the road began to fade the track led to a huge slope down into the gorge that Harrison Ford and his actor friends rode through at the end of the movie (by the way, the gorge is not in the shape of a crescent moon!). This gorge went for a long way and along the way there are heaps of miniature temples but often the gods faces and bodies had been destroyed by the Romans. The gorge then abruptly ends to face the Treasury! This is the proper name as apposed to the big stone thing in Indiana Jones. It was FANTASTIC!!!! I went to look inside but you can’t go all the way into the building. There were three rooms you could see: one straight ahead when you look at the treasury from afar, and 2 others on either side facing opposite to each other. In front of the rooms, like as if on the door steps were carved in bowls. These were to catch the blood from the head of a sacrificed animal that was slaughtered here as this was a temple not the home of the Holy Grail. We took bazillions of photos and then got a little bit of information from Faisal about how the Treasury was built. Apparently it was built from top to bottom. There are also heaps of minor things I would never have picked up without him: on one part of treasury, there is a line with exactly 7 goblets. There are also 31 circular rosette things under the goddess Isis in the middle who is on a circular column at the top. Around this circular column at the top of the treasury there are exactly 365 circles. See a pattern? 7 days in a week, 31 days in a month, 365 days in a year… the Bedouins were very clever.
After gaping at this incredible thing for a while we decided to continue down the path. When I first heard this is what Petra was, I didn’t realise there was so much more to see. People are still living in some of the houses built in the rock there. It was unbelievable the amount of tombs were there and amazingly an amphitheatre as well! Just like the ones we saw in Jerash!
Faisal left us after seeing these and we went to go have lunch. Some stayed where we were but mum, dad, Margaret, Alex, and I continued on to find a shadier place. We sat, I think, on someone’s veranda and ate lunch, though I couldn’t eat being sick and it was at this point that that being sick hit me. I couldn’t seem to walk, not physically, just because I was too tired and I was feeling nauseas and it was also just too hot.
So I tried to keep going and climb the bazillion stairs to the monastery but I just found it way too difficult so we asked dad to go and take some photos for us while mum and I walked back to the hotel. So we did and it took us another hour to finish and dad said that night, the trip to the monastery was the first walk to the treasury again.
When mum and I got back to the hotel I went to bed and slept for 3 hours…
Finally when I woke up at around 6, I got ready to go out for dinner and watch the Indiana Jones movie with our group. We were to have a buffet but so many people were much too exhausted and by the end of the day, it wasn’t just Valerie and I with Petra disease… but I was so desperate to see the movie that I went anyway even though I wasn’t hungry. I nibbled on a bit of rice but mostly drank Fanta. So only mum, dad, Faisal, Margaret, Kelly and I went to see the movie but it was good all the same and it was amazing to see the treasury on the screen! Blew my mind!
Then we were all very tired and it was an early start tomorrow as we were headed for Wadi Rum!
Day 6 Wednesday 17th of April: again up early and today to Wadi Rum. We drove in the bus and arrived at Wadi Rum visitor centre where three white jeeps were waiting for us. We piled our stuff in the back of 2 of the jeeps and split up to get in the jeeps. Mum, Dad, Faisal and I were in one jeep. First we stopped after about 5 minutes at a little store where we bought our lunch. We bought bread, a bottle of Fanta, a packet of biscuits and some cheese.
Next stop was where we were to have lunch. We sat in the shade of rock cliffs. We sat on a blanket and I ate the falafel Faisal had organised everyone for yesterday’s lunch though I was sick and couldn’t eat it then. It was a little soggy but generally good.
Next stop was a Bedouin tent. They gave us some tea which was really nice. It was made of sage and cardamom I think. Mum bought a bracelet there as well. Also on the rocks that were around were some old paintings. Right near this rock, well if you then looked up about 15 meters, there was a spring
After this we stopped at a little canyon where there were some camels walking around. Inside the canyon there was some more paintings; there were camels, Arabic writing and a woman and her child with two men near her.
Then we stopped at Lawrence of Arabia’s house. This wasn’t as interesting as the other stops so I went climbing around the rocks.
Next we made our final stop at the Bedouins tent that we were to stay at that night. We first put all our packs and things in the tent and then sat down on the cushions that were placed in a big square area and had a chat before watching the sunset.
The sunset was apparently going to be the best part of the day, though it was a fizzer. We sat on a rock ledge and the wind was just unbelievable!!! It was so bad you could barely hear anything and the haze was so thick the sun disappeared before it actually set, not to mention that Faisal told us the sun would set at 6. He would have only been an hour out…
After we gave up on the sunset we went back to the tent and stood by the small fire as fuel is hard to come by in the desert. We were then showed by the Bedouins how they cooked our dinner. They’d created a little mound where inside was a huge cooking sort of shelf thing, with chicken on top, and onion and potatoes underneath. Mmmmm it was so good. We also had rice and veggie stew stuff… *drools*.
While dinner was on, the sheik and two of his friends sang for us. It was so… um how to explain it… different. It was very out of tune, very repetitive and nothing like I’d ever heard but I absolutely loved it!
Then Faisal said that dad and I had to play as he was really looking forward to hearing dad on his violin. So we did and it was the worst time I’d ever played but they seemed to enjoy it! One of the guys recorded it on their phones… *shakes head and sighs*
Then it was time for bed as it was an early start tomorrow. Everyone had a choice; to sleep in the tent or under the stars. I chose under the stars with Suzi, Kelly, Saul, Bart and Anne. It wasn’t cold at all and not at all windy as we were sheltered by the rock cliff and the tent behind us.
Tomorrow, to Aqaba.
Day 5 Thursday 16th of April: the trip to Aqaba wasn’t too long. We started the day up early and left by around 7:30 and arrived in Aqaba about 9.am. Here we split up and went shopping at the market stalls along the beach of the Red sea. I bought a hat and some sunnies- just some cheapo cap and plastic glasses though the sales guy tried to convince me they were RayBands! For 3 Dinah ($6) as if!- and we tried out some special things like: nut shops, sweet shops, pancakes made in front of your eyes with a huge hot metal dome. Also went to the exchange place and got some Egyptian pounds.
After we all met up again, we got back on the bus and drove to the port. Here we said goodbye to Faisal and jumped on a boat for about an hour and a half. I just read my book and listened to music trying to block out the noise from the annoying Bollywood movie that was playing. We were sailing across the red sea to Egypt.
When we got off the boat we met up with a guy in a pink shirt who took us to get our visas and our baggage and stuff. He then took us to our bus where we first met Mohamed. Mohamed is our tour leader for Egypt. He was much younger than Faisal and made sure we knew he wasn’t our guide, but our leader. He wasn’t qualified to tell us how everything was like Faisal, he was just to help us organise where we were going, and help get us a guide. He helps a lot though as he can speak Arabic!
So from there we drove another half hour to Sawa. Sawa is a little beach resort we were staying at for the rest of this day and tomorrow. This place must have been the best place we’ve been so far. It had an amazing beach with imported sand onto the red sea, the huts were all made from straw, there was a beautiful little sitting area separated into squares with cushions placed all around it with a table in the middle.
This night we had dinner; I had calamari pizza. Was reeeeeeally good :P! We watched the other guests play Volleyball, and we watched Saudi Arabia, on the opposite side of the sea, come to life with the lights in the city light up as the sun went down.
Day 6 Friday 17th of April: our second day at Sawa. Out of my own money I was paying for me to go scuba diving! We left at about 8 am to come back at midday. Unfortunately when we were there they could only take one person at a time and Kelly, Suzi, Margaret, Alex, Jen, Anne and I all went and each person was to have half an hour in the water. Also there were other people from other hotels there as well so it was gonna be a long day. Mohamed and I were sharing a wet suit and he was going in with the more experienced divers at the beginning. It’s always really hard to get a wet suit on when it’s wet so I had to go last so the suit would dry before I got in. After a while another instructor finished his rescue drill so 2 people could go in at once.
Finally I got in at the same time as Kelly. It was really hard to begin with. I wasn’t sure how much air I could breathe and I felt like I wasn’t getting enough oxygen but I got into the rhythm of it pretty quickly. Overall it was really good. There was this one moment that as we were swimming forward there was a school of pink fish and a school of orange fish both coming towards me at the same time. So I was swimming through an amazing blur of orange and pink fish. Before I got in, one of the scuba people said if you see any little pink fish look at their eyes. So I did and they were sooo beautiful! They were like blue mother of pearl with pink, orange and green tinge. It really was incredible.
So at about 1:30 pm we got back to Sawa. Everyone was just relaxing so I went to read my book and that was about it for the rest of the night. No-one did anything that would use more than the necessary amount of energy. We ate, read, talked and slept. What a tough life it is… J another day like this would have been nice but we had to go to Mt Sinai tomorrow.
Day 7 Saturday 18th of April: we got to sleep in this morning! We were going on the bus to Mt Sinai and leaving at 11:30 am. I believe that’s the time we should leave every morning. Unfortunately that’s not the case. Anyway, so we left late and arrived it St Katherine at about 1:30. We had a few stops on the way and we bought chips, biscuits and chocolate :D.
After some lunch and preparing ourselves for the climb, we left at 3 pm for Mt Sinai. We drove in the bus for about 10 minutes and then we began our walk.
At first it was only on a road and it was barely what you can call uphill but I guess it was slightly. We walked for about 10 minutes before we passed the St Katherine monastery. In Egypt and Jordan the Easter weekend is a week behind than in Australia so unfortunately the monastery was closed as it was Easter Saturday.
Just past this point there were men everywhere with their camels. There were 2 tracks up Mt Sinai; the camel track and the stairs. A guide was taking the people up the camel track and Mohamed up the stairs. The camel track took 20 minutes longer so I stupidly decided to do the stairs. Mum and dad were much smarter and took the camel track with the guide, Joy and David, and Bart and Valerie.
The rest of us then began the ascent up the stairs. No one told me it was about 3,000 stairs up…Mohamed was always first as he was the leader and Saul was always second closely followed by Anne. Saul and Anne were serious mountain goats! We had lots of breaks but they weren’t often enough :P!
So we made it to the top in about an hour and a half and beat the others by about 20 minutes. We watched the sunset and the others only made it just in time. It was beautiful. The orange colours it cast were gorgeous.
I didn’t think would be cold climbing up a mountain so I wore shorts, but I didn’t think of the way down. Neither did Saul so Kelly offered him her white granny thermal pants. These of course looked very attractive on Saul :P!!!
Once the sun had gone down we all pulled our torches out and made the descent down the camel track. The ground kept slipping underneath everyone’s feet as it was loose gravel and we couldn’t see perfectly either.
When we reached the bottom, we quickly hopped on the bus and went straight back to the hotel as everyone was incredibly exhausted. Everyone had ordered dinner but I wasn’t very hungry. I ate some of the really nice Egyptian rice and some bread. There were vegetables and chicken and Kelly and Suzi said it was fantastic.
Then all went straight to bed. Tried to sleep quickly but the pillow was like a long rock. Not the most comfortable. But eventually I found sleep.
Day 8 Sunday 19th of April: Mum and Dad woke me up early accidentally this morning. Dad had become sick with gastro. We were driving to Cairo today and we had a really big bus for like 15 people. Dad had shotgunned the backseat so he could lie down and sleep. It was a long drive; about 7 hours. I read my book and chatted with mum most of the way. I wasn’t feeling too good this day either. More tummy stuff. This time Cairo belly. So dad and I were practically living on Fanta at this stage because it was instant sugar and it was all Dad seemed to be able keep down.
When we arrived in Cairo, dad went straight to bed in the hotel and was asleep in minutes. So mum and I left him and went to find an internet café with Kelly, Valerie and Bart. We also went to a petrol station and stocked up on essentials like chocolate :P! While walking around I got quite scared as the looks I was receiving were quite intimidating and unsettling.
So when we got back we had to have a meeting about the next 2 weeks and meet the new people who would fill in Margaret, Alex, Kelly and Anne’s place on the tour. These people were Scott, from England, Pieter, from Holland, Robin from Canada and Kyuri from the states.
So for dinner we decided to go out to a Cairo equivalent of Hungry jacks, but with much better food. Mum and I had shrimp rice and an Egyptian pancake with cheese and mushrooms to share. Best savoury pancake ever!
When we came back we had to say our final goodbye to Anne as she was catching her plane early in the morning. Then everyone went to bed and got excited as we were going to the PYRAMIDS tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!
Day 9 Monday 20th of April: another early morning, leaving at 8 am so it wont be too hot during the day. Even though technically the first part of the tour was over, Kelly still came with us. Margaret and Alex took their own private guide so we saw them around.
We took a bus and a guide called Hend. She was really good and she taught us that they built the pyramids on the west bank of the Nile because they believed that this was the side of the after life. The solar boat would pass across the sky, rise on the east side of the Nile, and take the souls down with it on the west side.
The pyramids were fantastic. There were 3 pyramids; the great Pyramid, the second pyramid and the third. The king buried in the third pyramid was the son of the one in the second, and the king buried in the second was the son of the king buried in the great. So the 3 pyramids were 3 generations. The great pyramid the highest though the second looks higher as it was built on a higher spot. This pyramid is the pyramid in best condition. All the pyramids were originally covered and polished with limestone until they were completely smooth, almost to make a HUGE slide! The pyramids have been stripped of this limestone but the second still holds the top intact. We walked around the great pyramid with Kelly while Suzi and Jen went inside and saw the tomb.
We were expecting to be hassled a lot when we were at the pyramids. It wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined though we were offered camel rides, necklaces, drinks, and eqalls (that’s not a typo of “=” but the ropes they use to hold the men’s scarves to their head-it’s the best spelling I can get from the Arabic word).
After the great pyramid we went to the second. We had paid to go inside and see the tomb of this one. It cost about 40 Egyptian pounds which is equal to about $10. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside but we couldn’t stay long inside anyway. It was too hot! It was incredibly humid inside and the tunnels were only 1 metre by 1 metre. It was very cramped! Inside there were no hieroglyphics like I was expecting, there was nothing, just the sarcophagus where the body originally lay.
After the pyramids we drove a little way and saw the sphinx it wasn’t nearly as impressive as I thought. I think it was slightly ruined by the amount of fences and touristy things around. It was much lower and also much smaller than the pyramids. Its face has been worn by the wind but there are a few theories on why the nose was blown off. Some say Napoleon blew it with a canon and others believe the Christians and the Muslims did it.
As we were leaving the sphinx, Suzi and I thought about tonight; tonight was Kelly’s party for her 30th birthday the following day. We thought we should buy something really junky from the tourist shops. From a distance we could see some toy camels with their heads moving from side to side so we went over to buy one but it was much too big and expensive. But gosh they were funny.
From Giza we drove to the Egyptian museum. Inside we saw what was in Tutankhamen’s tomb. We saw the famous headdress he wore as a mummy, we saw golden fingers and toes, masses of jewellery, his hundreds of models of his friends he wanted to take with him into the after life, and the famous throne. My trip was slightly ruined as a guy kept stalking me and asking if I was engaged. I found it pretty creepy.
When we got back after the museum, Suzi, Kelly, Mum, Dad and I went to the petrol station to get an ice-cream. It was really hot so this was perfect. We then went back to the hotel and bought some Egyptian wine and some Fanta. We sat in the meeting room with Margaret, Kelly, Alex, Suzi and our computer. We had wireless here so I emailed a few of my friends, then Scott joined us with his computer. Suddenly there was a crowd with everyone in the room where we gave Kelly her birthday card we were organising. We told her the story of the head wobbling camel and she started crying with laughter from it.
Mohamed then brought in some Egyptian cakey lolly things, sort of like a birthday treat that everyone quickly ate but couldn’t finish because there was just too much. There was some sort of vanilla slicey thing, some other things that looked like chicken and fried gherkins. It was strange though yummy :D
At this point we had to leave for Aswan, so we said our final goodbyes to Alex, Kelly and Margaret and left on a little bus to the train station
We arrived at the train station at about 7:30 and we waited for about an hour before it came. I went to the toilet and had to pay a little to the woman cleaning them. It broke my heart to see her. She was dressed in practically rags except for the green raincoat she wore on the outside, she obviously needed glasses as she was cross-eyed and the only money she can earn is buy hoping for the generosity of other people. I was glad to be one of those generous people.
Dad got bored at one point so he got out his violin and decided to have a play. I didn’t join in as my flute was packed along way away into my big pack and I wasn’t going to unpack on the train station platform. He gathered quite a crowd and made the woman from the toilets happy.
Finally the train pulled in and we all scrambled aboard. We were in the furthest carriage away so we had to walk through 2 carriages to get there. We seemed to be the only ones in the whole carriage except one of Mohamed’s friends who came.
We all got to sit in big airplane sort of seats. You could swivel them around 180 degrees! I found that pretty cool. Bart, Valerie, Mohamed, Jen, Saul, Suzi and I all played Uno but it was difficult with the sudden brakes sending the cards flying!
Everyone was too tied to keep this up for long so I just got out my sleeping bag and went to sleep in the most comfortable position I could find…
Day 10 Tuesday 21st of April: When I woke up it was the weirdest sight. To my right I could see the Nile, palm trees, grass and fields where heaps of people were already awake working with their donkeys. To my left were brown sandy hills, desert view. It just shows what difference water makes!
We got off the train at about 10 and walked 50 metres to our hotel. Here it was much hotter than in Cairo and we couldn’t stay too long in the sun as we could feel our skin prickle as it burned.
When we got to the hotel, we were offered complimentary drinks of hibiscus tea. It was delicious. It was a beautiful colour too, a deep, rich, red colour.
Here there were no rooms for 3 people and we hadn’t paid for a room by myself so I was partnered with Suzi.
As last nights sleep was not the best, everyone was pretty tired so I just stayed in my room for a bit and did some washing.
After this we all got on a boat. The people who owned the boat was one family, 3 men; Ali, Jay-Jay and another Mohamed. They took us to a beautiful beach. The sand was really soft and the water really clean, though the water was also very cold. It was nice but I didn’t stay in long!
From here we took the boat to another spot where heaps of men were standing with camels. I’ve only ever been on a camel once before and that was at a fair in Melbourne when I was about 10. That was a bit different as these only have one hump, unlike the ones at home. We took the camels for about half an hour. I had the slowest camel which was annoying as I really wanted to go fast but no matter how much Sham (the guy I had helping me) hit the camel it would not run more than 5 metres, and then of course I felt bad about making him hit the camel so much….
The camels took us to a little Nubian village all painted in pale blue.
Inside the Nubian house there was more blue. In the open area you first walk into, all the walls were blue with yellow, green and black paintings of camels, water holes and things like that. We had a beautiful dinner on the sand in their open area of veggies, rice, chicken, fish, soup and a green soup that I found out later is actually a vegetable boiled. We were suggested to give some of the children a treat or something as there was more than one branch of the family tree living in this house, so the parents were all mothers and sisters of each other. We took the family a bag of nuts that we had bought in Aqaba; some hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts and some dates, though they had seen the dates before, the other nuts were completely new to them.
We took the boat back after thanking the family a lot and went to bed as we were to have an early start the next morning… again.
Day 11 Wednesday 22nd of April: though this morning was specially early. We were to get up at 5:30 and leave by 6:10 to catch a plane to Abu simbel! Only Suzi, Jen, Kyuri, Mum, Dad and I were going by plane, the others got up at 3:30 to catch a bus. It was only a half an hour plane flight so I didn’t really get to sleep as I would have liked. When we got there, we found it difficult to find where to get the tickets. We did eventually and got ourselves a guide too. He taught us heaps; how they moved the whole thing and built it on a fake rock/mountain as it was originally carved into the rock. They sawed through it with a hand saw and if they had stopped the rock would have deteriorated so they worked in shifts, never stopping. Also, in its original spot, Abu simbel would only be lit up by the rising sun twice a year; 21st of October and 21st of February. When they moved it they got it wrong by one day, now it lights up on the 22nd of October and 22nd of February. The only spot in the temple that doesn’t light up is where there is a statue of the god of darkness.
We learnt all this before going inside so we went into Nefertari’s temple first as it wasn’t as crowded at the time. That was really unexpected. When I was told we were flying to Abu Simbel, I never realised there was temple built for Ramses II’s wife (well his favourite of how ever many wives he had). Inside were beautiful pictures carved in and painted in blue, yellow, red, green and white. Most of the temples and things we see were originally these colours but the sun and water bleaches them, but as this was buried in sand for an enormous amount of time and hardly any light reaches inside these, the colour is preserved beautifully.
The first thing you would see when you walk into Abu simbel is 8 statues of Ramses II. He built these to inflict his power among the public. The public could walk into the first section of the temple but the last sections were reserved for the priests and Ramses and probably some of his best mates. I don’t know it all exactly so don’t hold me to it.
After the flight back we met up with our travel agent guy and we got on the bus, for an extra 15 pounds ($4.50) the bus would take us to three stops if we so wished. Jen really wanted to go and see the dam but no-one else was really interested, so she went inside while we attempted to have a picnic in the shade surrounded by men with machine guns. I think we were at an army base or something. Lovely place for a picnic.
When Jen came back we were dropped off at a little port where lots of boats were lined up to take you from there to Philae, a temple of Isis located on an island.
It had beautiful columns and it was in pretty good condition. It looked like a place on a documentary I’ve seen but I’m not sure if it was that one.
Dad met up with a man called Mustafa who showed dad where there were Greek and Roman graffiti and things we wouldn’t have picked up ourselves.
We didn’t do much that night, everyone else went out for tea but we just stayed at the hotel doing some internet which was fun.
Day 12 Thursday 23rd of April: today was a complete bludge day. We had a sleep in and met downstairs at 10:30 though unfortunately Mohamed didn’t turn up until 11:30. I wasn’t complaining too much as I got to use internet and email a few friends before no internet for a long time. When he did arrive, we quickly left and walked the 50 metres to the Nile bank where we met Ali and Jay-jay again. Though they weren’t coming with us which was a shame.
So anyway, we got on a boat-a felucca, a sort of sail boat with a huge comfortable mattress spread out over the whole passenger area.
All day we only swam by being pulled on a rope behind the boat and played backgammon with mum, Suzi and Mohamed.
We stopped floating at sunset to make sure we had enough light to dig the toilet. We had to dig a hole and place the toilet seat over it and there was also a tent with no roof we put around it for privacy.
The boat owners cooked us dinner of rice and veggie soup things. It was really nice. J
Well that was really all that day; it was practically eating, swimming and relaxing… fantastic. The only problem of the whole day was putting up with Bart’s snoring! :P
Day 13 Friday 24th of April: everyone was woken up early and we floated to the other side of the bank after eating pancakes for breakfast and packing up the toilet. We took a bus which was waiting for us to Luxor. The bus trip was very boring, I did some computer things and slept as well. Though on the way we stopped at Edfu; the most preserved temple. Dad was a bit templed out so didn’t want to come in so he stayed in the bazaar and played violin. So mum and I went inside and saw the amazing carvings. This is the most preserved temple because this is where the Romans didn’t attack and the faces of the gods by chiselling them out. Well they did but not nearly as much as other places like Philae. They did the same thing in Petra; some of the mini temple gods were destroyed.
When we came back out mum saw a top she really liked with matching pants. This took way too long to get and held the bus and everyone else up.
When we got to Luxor we spent an hour in our rooms and then went out to Karnak temple. Dad was still templed out so he didn’t come and neither did Scott or Robin. We had a guide whose name was Shaima. She was fantastic. She spoke brilliant English, very fluent. Almost none of the temple was roofed. It was all open, mainly for the public. This temple was built for the god Aemon-Ra. One section was filled with-I think- 20 columns. Each of them were to represent thee flower of upper Egypt, some of them open, others closed. What was amazing was the colours were still present on the columns. The sun is what has faded the colours and there were bridges across the pillars facing down which has never had light on it, so the colours are still vibrant. After this, Shaima took us to the Papyrus museum. We got shown how they make papyrus paper and why they worshiped this plant: because if you slice the plant in half the stalk is in the shape of the pyramid. Also the flower looks like the sun. Many people bought papyrus paintings but mum and I didn’t as we would have to carry it. They were so beautiful though.
When we got back everyone went walking the town. We wanted to go have dinner at Sofra, a nice restaurant recommended by Intrepid and the Lonely Planet. Unfortunately it was booked out so we booked for the next night and went to a different restaurant. It was really hot inside but beautiful food. Had some falafel and veggie stuff… mmmm
We left earlier than everyone else because I was desperately tired. So went to bed after doing some washing.
Day 14 Saturday 25th of April: this morning was the earliest one so far, even more than Abu simbel; up at 4:30 this morning and ready and outside to leave at 4:55. Joy, David, Suzi, Jen, Dad and I were picked up and taken to the Nile bank where we got on a little boat and had some tea, coffee and cake for early early breakfast. It was a quick boat trip, just to the other side of the Nile. When we got off they took us on another little bus trip to a big open paddock where we would go on a hot air balloon trip! We saw all of the balloons being heated up with the huge flame but many couldn’t stay up as it was quite windy. So we got into our little compartments, me with Dad, Joy and David. We did landing position which is crouching down, leaning back and holding on the little loops attached to the basket. When the man pulled on the gas and the radiation heat from the flame was unbelievably hot! We got off the ground by about 20 cm, at highest before it was cancelled. One of the balloons had got off the ground and as we were watching it, we thought it was getting awfully close to a telephone tower. I saw the guy trying to detach on of the ropes which was caught on the tower. As it slowly turned around we could easily see the huge rip from the tope to the bottom of the balloon and watched it fall… so yeah, no balloon flying today!
We then waited at the Colossi of Agamemnon. These were two big statues that guarded a temple but Ramses II re-used the bricks to build something for himself instead. After an earthquake one year it left holes in one of the colossi and so when the wind blew through it, it made a whistling noise. All the locals thought it was a god or something, can’t remember all the details though…
We then all headed off to the Valley of the Kings with Shaima, again as our tour guide. It was only a 15 minute drive from the Colossi which was good. We got a little train to the entrances and we all got tickets for 3 tombs. Mum began to feel a little sick at this time, she began to get auras which means a migraine was coming.
The first tomb we saw was Ramses’ (not sure which one) tomb. Inside was a beautiful hall, all white with blue, yellow, green and red hieroglyphics and scenes. We then walked into small room with blue ceiling paintings of a stretched out woman eating the sun for night then giving birth to it again in the morning. This scene was on the papyrus paintings in the papyrus shop.
For the next one we had to climb along way up. There were lots of stairs taking you to the top. As you walk inside you have to go down heaps of stairs and the further you go down the hotter it gets. It was unbelievably humid in there! The hieroglyphics and scenes in this tomb were very different to the ones before. The pictures weren’t carved out, only painted on. In all the other tombs the pictures were first carved out then filled in with colour. These were just black stick figure drawings really, very different to what we had seen before.
The next tomb was more like the first one with a hall. Though there was much much less colour. I think in this one, it wasn’t quite finished before the pharaoh died. So it wasn’t nearly as magnificent as the others. It was some painted, some carved hieroglyphics and a small room at the end where the sarcophagus was.
On our way out we were swarmed with men trying to sell us stuff. I had 5 guys around me at once! It was almost scary as I could barely walk. This boy called Adam was more persistent than then the others though, he followed me and asked my name. I told him my name was Sally. He wanted my email address but I refused and sort of ran off at this point. It got too much for me.
Next we were headed for Hatshepsut’s temple. Again we took a mini train to get the whole 200 metres. We had a look at the first level before going up the steps. Shaima told us how Hatshepsut was the only female pharaoh. She dressed like a man and had herself painted and carved as a man all over the temple. In some areas though, her step son Tutmosis took revenge on her for stealing his throne, by carving out the name of Hatshepsut and replacing his own to make the man painted giving offerings to the gods, actually him. There were 24 statues -well only 6 now- of her as a man in front of the temple but as there were no hieroglyphics telling these statues were her, so Tutmosis couldn’t destroy them as there was no proof it was her, it could have been any man.
Shaima then took us to her brother’s house where they would cook our lunch for us.
They cooked us chicken, meatballs, zucchini, bread, and rice. Too much food, we couldn’t eat it all!
The bus driver then took us back to the hotel, we said thank you to Shaima, and I went straight to bed, sleeping for 2 hours.
When I woke up, we had to get dressed and ready for the dinner that we’d booked for last night. Scott, Robin and Saul didn’t come. I had some beautiful prawns. Of course I had to pick the most expensive thing on the menu. =P
After this we were all still exhausted from the day and we all went to bed early.
Day 15 Sunday 26th of April: today was the beginning of our trip into the desert. We spent most of he day driving. I was on the computer for the first three hours until the battery went down.
When we stopped for a toilet break, we felt like rockstars! In this small place they must never really have tourists because the kids in the school across the street were hanging out the windows waving to us for at least 15 minutes before the teacher walked in and told them to sit down.
At this stop Mohamed ordered a Shisha-sort of like a fancy smoking pipe. There is tobacco in it but not much. Its always fruit flavoured and Mohamed ordered apple, so of course, when he offered it around I refused.
Back on the bus for another 2 hours until we arrived at our destination; Dharkla. After a while Suzi and I went for a walk. There wasn’t really much to see but every kid we went past said hello, what’s your name? but they didn’t know much else. So we went back and got ready for dinner. At the restaurant we had rice, bread, beans, veggies, mainly all the stuff we’d normally been eating. Though it was very nice, I can’t really complain.
As we were walking back, we looked at the beautiful sunset. This was the night that I decided I want donkey. :D
We ordered some sweet pancakes for tomorrow’s breakfast at a little shop before going to bed.
Day 16 Monday 27th of April: this morning we were woken by dogs at about quarter past 6. Suzi and I walked down to the pancake shop to pick up our pancakes. I was feeling a little nauseas while eating our sugar pancakes and couldn’t finish it. Mum didn’t want hers either as she wasn’t feeling too good either.
So we jumped on the bus and drove to a café thing. We were meant to be served lunch around the time we got there but somehow it didn’t work out and we stayed there for 2 hours before our lunch came. Everyone found it so boring but I actually needed those 2 hours to settle my stomach a bit. We then had some lunch, (though I didn’t eat any as I was still feeling too sick) and then got in 2 jeeps. Each jeep carries 7 passengers… and there were 15 of us. So Mohamed was squishing in to make 9 in one jeep. Very tight.
So we drove for a bit, me in the front not feeling well, and we drove to this mushroom area. There were all these rocks randomly standing around. But their shapes were what was strange The wind had cut away around the middle of the rock leaving all the rocks in a mushroom shape!
Next stop was the chicken and egg. A huge big boulder rested next to a small one in the shape of a chicken.
Finally we got to our camping area. We drove the jeeps together to make an L shape. We then put some material blinds around them, and placed straw rugs on the ground and made our sleeping and eating area. While the jeep drivers were cooking with the help of mum, everyone else was looking at the fossils around. The whole desert must have been underwater at one stage because dad found some shells and a sharks tooth. We sat in a little rock area while watching Scott make the word “Intrepid” out of rocks. When he was finished we told him to move it two metres so it was on a slight slope. Much better for camera shots!
Later we watched the sunset. The colours blurring together, yellow, pink, purple and also red at one stage. Absolutely magnificent.
So to another dinner of chicken, veggies and rice though I was not feeling well so I picked at the rice and bread.
After this we all clumped together, except Robin, to camp out under the stars. In the desert here they have foxes, the only wildlife other than flies we had seen in a while. They come and eat our scraps from dinner during the night and apparently one jumped on Mohamed’s head during the night… wish I’d seen it.
Day 17 Tuesday 28th of April: we woke up early again so the flies wouldn’t bother us while eating. Though after breakfast there was nothing to do for a long time as one of the jeeps got bogged in the sand.
So another cramped day in the car, well not so much for Joy, David, Valerie, Bart, Mum, Dad or me as we were in the one seating 7 passengers. The drive was very bumpy and the driver seemed to be having some fun by driving really fast and scaring the hell out of the tourists!
The other jeeps driver must have been the leader as we were always behind the other car. This of course entertained us very much when Scott and Saul started dancing the Macarena out the window!
So the fast, scary driving continued until we were headed up a very steep dune. I guess we had a very good driver as he got to the top of the dune though the other driver could not. From the top of the dune we could see the other at the bottom searching for fossils. After a bit of a look around we went down, frightening mum to extremes, and met the others and also searched for some fossils. Scott found something whiteish yellow thing that kind of looked like a coconut. In the end we came to the conclusion it was a camel bone.
Next stop was Crystal Mountain. The mountain was very, very small but the crystals were all over the place.
After another little sleep in the back of the jeep, we stopped at a well, where they pump heaps and heaps of water from the ground, which provides for the whole town that surrounds it. You only ever find any people or anything where these springs are.
Then it was to a basalt mountain. All over the desert were small black rocks that dad couldn’t understand how they got there. We came up with some good theories including a shark with legs. Anyway this mountain was completely black except in places at the bottom where the sand had blown on top of it and covered it.
Bart, Robin, Scott, Jen and of course Dad were climbing up the mountain. We only had like 10 minutes which wasn’t enough for the people climbing. This of course caused some tension between Robin and Mohamed and apparently it was not pleasant. I was thankful to be in the jeep I was in.
Next we made our final sop at our hotel, “The Western Desert Hotel.” Here mum and I had a little bit of internet time, but we didn’t leave the hotel because dad was really sick with something. Everyone, including Mum and me, all believed he must have eaten the camel bone from the day before as Dad will eat anything he finds really. We caught him eating some things off trees in the Sinai hotel and ever since dad had a reputation.
I didn’t really want to hang out with Mum or Dad as Dad was sick and Mum wasn’t leaving him, so I spent my time in my room playing flute.
We had dinner that night in the hotel with Valerie, Bart, Joy and David and we discussed Dads bad habits with Camel bone.
Day 18 Wednesday 29th of April: well yesterday’s jeep ride was nothing in comparison to today’s. We were traveling to Siwa Oasis on a road that must have been made 700 years ago it was that bumpy! Also the sand had blown on top of it so you could barely see it anyway.
First stop was at the sand sea dunes. There looked like nothing for miles! We couldn’t see any signs of civilisation except a few jeep tracks that had been there the previous day or so. It felt so good to climb the dunes, your footsteps being the only ones you can see.
So more driving through the desert until suddenly we came up to this random lake. Not a very big one, but big for being out in the middle of the desert with nothing around it other than the road. It was nice to see some green in the orange and white nothingness, as magnificent as it was.
After a little longer in the jeep we had lunch. We put down our straw rugs and the drivers cooked us lunch. We were sitting under a huge rock-well that’s what it looked like at first, with a stalk from where the wind had blown it away like the mushroom rocks. But it wasn’t rock, it seemed to be made of millions of fossilised oyster shells. This of course worried Bart when he saw Dad eating something when lunch hadn’t finished cooking yet. Bart was convinced he was eating the fossils and Dad’s reputation of crazy man-eat anything was re-enhanced!
Soon we were driving through palm trees, not what we were expecting in the desert when we realised we had arrived in Siwa. Siwa is a very small town-well not even that, maybe a village. Well we were staying in a little hotel here. Dad and I attempted to get Wireless on the rooftop but failed dismally. Some of the others tried the computers in the internet café but they waited over 15 minutes for one facebook page to load up. You can’t really expect much more though in a tiny town with nothing for miles and miles.
We all (but Dad) met up at 6 to go the sunset in the old town. In 1900 the city built was made of mud brick but an unexpected amount of rain washed most of it away and now all that is left is ruins. We climbed through them to the top and watched the sunset. It wasn’t nearly as spectacular as the one in the white desert but every sunset is beautiful.
So next we went out for dinner and had some couscous. We had it with chicken and veggies but I couldn’t finish it. It was delicious though. Robin went back to Cairo during dinner. He didn’t want to go to Alexandria so he took a direct bus route straight to Cairo.
Day 19 Thursday 30th of April: this-morning was the first sleep in for a while. Everyone else went on a bike ride to Cleopatra’s bath but because Dad was sick we didn’t go. So we had late breakfast at the same restaurant we went last night and had omelettes. They were reeeeally good. We met up with Mohamed in there and also Kyuri as we were leaving. We asked Mohamed where dad could buy Mum and me some jewellery. We couldn’t find any places he suggested because his directions are a little vague but as we were looking we stumbled across a man inviting us into his house in the mud brick area. Inside we looked at his collection of jewellery and candles made from salt. His salt candles impressed me as he just picked one up and licked it.
Mum and I eventually decided on similar pendants with a Siwan design. They were probably very overpriced but we were happy to help a man here as he didn’t hassle us in anyway and was very kind.
We went back to the hotel at this point because dad wasn’t coping well so I went and sat on the rooftop with all the others except for Pieter, Jen, Kyuri and Saul who went sand boarding down the dunes.
At 8 we went for dinner, again at the same restaurant and I ate everyone’s pizza leftovers which was again, like all the meals so far (except the one I got sick on in Petra), delicious. I also ordered a Salahab, a custard and chocolate drink. mmmm
Day 20 Friday 1st of May: this morning was a very early morning but by choice. Scott and I went up the little rock mountain to see the sunrise. It was so gorgeous. We realised how noisy the town was and also how big as well. So no, not a village anymore, a town. Even before the morning light chickens, goats, geese and donkeys were so loud I couldn’t understand how people were still sleeping. The sun came up very rapidly and just above a plateau. After about 5 minuets the sun was directly centred above this plateau. Then there seemed to be two suns as a pool of water reflected it brighter than the actual sun and soon we could barely look at the reflection. This sunrise topped all the sunsets, even the one in the white desert.
Scott and I came down again and met up with Saul to get some Falafels. They were the best Falafels ever, filled with chips, eggplant, tomato, and some fried peppers which I picked out quite happily!
Next was the bus trip to Alexandria. We drove for a long time until we reached a beach that we stopped at. Only dad and Jen went swimming as it was much too cold. The water was an amazing colour. Under the water were limestone rocks giving it a clear green/blue colour.
The next stop was El Alamein memorial for WWII. We were going to stop and look inside but it was closed so we could only take photos from the outside. We could see a little memorial just for Australians which was comforting to see.
Soon we were in Alexandria. We couldn’t go down our street to begin with because they were filming some TV show. But eventually we got into our hotel. The place, at first, scared me, because the reception area was filled with stuffed ducks and pelicans and had a gazelle head mounted on the wall. But where we were sleeping wasn’t like this which made me feel better. We were all checking each others rooms out, who had the best balcony, the best view, best beds. Well I think Suzi and I got the best. We had an amazing view! We could see the whole harbour as our hotel was planted in the middle. Ah, best hotel so far.
So for tonight’s dinner we went down the back streets. We walked into a place but there was no room for 14 people. So the next one we went into was almost like an apartment. We walked upstairs and walked into a grubby room with junk and chairs all stacked up in the corner. So the waiter-well I think that’s what he was trying to be anyway-quickly set up some plastic chairs and dirty tables. We ordered ‘huge plates of seafood. We had a choice of grilled or fried. The amount of seafood on one plate was enough to feed 2 happily, and we all got one each. Mohamed then ordered us all some soup and rice, that hardly anyone ate. Then we also had drinks. It was great food… well some of it, but the place was horrible and there was so much waste because no-one could finish their meal. But I guess what an experience…
Day 21 Thursday 2nd of May: so another really early for me, but again by choice, 5:30 again. Saul, Jen, Scott and I went to looking for the fish market. Scott and Saul were really tired as they went looking for a party the night before but couldn’t seem to find anything. Still they didn’t get to bed until 2 so getting up at 5:30 would have been hard! We walked about 45 minutes until we reached the other end of the harbour. Here was the fort, and we followed some locals going inside with fish, but there was a guard who said we couldn’t go in.
So we walked a few streets back then heard lots of voices, so followed them to the fish market. Well I was expecting it to smell unbearable, but it wasn’t that bad. It still didn’t smell that good though. It was really interesting to see. They obviously don’t get too many tourists there as they all looked at us shocked and we got many waves from all over the room. I only saw one type of fish which were still alive, which were the mussels. They were still swimming-well moving- around in there little bowl filled with water.
So when we got back, we had breakfast of pita bread (for something new) and cheese. We met up with lots of the others including mum and dad who were in there.
After Breakfast we met up with Soha, meaning stars in Arabic. She was our tour guide for the day. She gave us a little introduction about Alexandria and the letter U was very important. The harbour was in a U shape and lots of other things we saw during the day.
First she took us to the Turkish palace. One of the Turkish kings lived here but his wife was Austrian. She began to get homesick so, because he loved her, he brought trees from Austria to make a forest around the palace, and then animals, to fill the forest so they could go hunting. The building was even built in an Austrian style with a lightning rod on top of the roof. They obviously didn’t need one as it hardly ever rains let alone storms in Egypt. Though strangely enough today it was raining! There were spots coming down. Not enough for everything to get really wet but it was the first rain we had seen since Versailles in Paris!
Second we went to the Roman theatre, like the one we saw in Jerash and Petra. There was one spot in the very middle where if you stood and sung, or even talked, all the sound reflects straight back to you.
Also there was a display of things that had been pulled up from the water. All these things were part of the original city but earthquakes have pulled a lot of it underwater. You can actually go into the underwater museum, which is scuba diving to see Cleopatra’s house and things.
As we kept driving we drove past a huge pillar. Soha wouldn’t tell us what it was until we drove past it on the way back though.
So now we were going to the catacombs. Apparently a man with his donkey carrying garlic stumbled across this. The donkey stepped and suddenly there was a big hole in front of him.
We walked down a huge spiral staircase with exactly 91 steps. Inside was a big well and lots of little tomb rooms. We went into an area filled with a huge grid of holes where they would burry people. Near this was a much bigger grave spot for horses. These tombs were only for great athletes, so these horses would have won a race or something.
Next area was 3 tombs with a gateway. On the gateway were snakes to protect the people in there. The snakes were symbols for protection because they would turn you to stone like Medusa’s hair. Inside were images carved in like the Egyptian hieroglyphics but Anubis, the god of mummification, was dressed in Roman clothing. It looked very silly!
The next room was where people apparently camped for up to 3 days. There was a rule for these people, you could not take anything out of the tomb area, but they also couldn’t leave any thing in there either. So other than themselves, they couldn’t leave there belongings there but couldn’t take them out either, so they broke them up and destroyed them. This is how the idea of breaking plates at Greek weddings.
So finally on our way back she told us that the huge pillar we saw on the way was Pompey’s pillar.
Next stop was the library. A fire burnt down the original and many valuable books and scripts were lost. It was the rebuilt and now it is MASSIVE!!! There is something like 3000 hard-drives and heaps of books. Not to mention the few exhibitions inside.
We left Jen at the Library as this was her special thing. I think she got herself a library card for the biggest library in the world!
So our next stop was the fort that we tried to get into this morning but we still weren’t allowed to go in.
So at 6 we met up and had a big talk about what we thought was good and bad about the trip. Most of it was good feedback but I think there was a little tension on the subject of the basalt mountain. Luckily Robin had already gone home or the tension might have blown!
After the talk, I had 10 minuted to myself while I finished the surprise I was planning. I took the computer out into the main foyer and showed everyone the power-point I had put together of our trip. There were some classic photos we had.
So this restaurant was much better than the previous night. I ordered a chicken shawerma pie which is like the chicken of the spit thing. I think that was one of the best meals of the whole Egyptian trip.
Day 22 Friday 3rd of May: another early morning just to finish it like we started. We got on a train to Cairo. Not everyone was sitting in the same carriage. I was in the one with Suzi, Scott, Saul, Pieter, Joy, David and Mohamed. The whole way Suzi, Scott and I just looked at Scott’s photos of him in Miami building Madonnas stage.
We said goodbye to Kyuri who was leaving then. So we walked from the station in Cairo to our hotel and settled in for a bit.
We later went to the Bazaar where Suzi was looking for a Shisha to buy and take home. Dad and I left a little early because we couldn’t find anything we really wanted. But we did see this fantastic lamp! It was in the shape of a big egg. It was made of glass and was then covered in a mosaic. But what was so special about this particular one we saw was that it had the number 38 on it. It was the only one with a number and it just happened to be our house number! We wanted to get a photo but we didn’t have the camera with us.
Everyone (except mum who was really sick) had a drink with Joy and David as they were leaving at 7ish. It was really sad to see them go.
We then all went out for dinner (except mum) and Suzi and Jen tried Pigeon.
Scott, Pieter and Saul went shoe shopping while the rest of us headed back for the hotel. We had to say goodbye to Jen then because she was going early in the morning.
When we got back we also said goodbye to Bart and Valerie who were leaving early in the morning too.
Suzi and Pieter left the next day and Scott and Saul the day after that. We left that day too to Morocco late at night.
This was our tour through Jordan and Egypt. We had such a good time with a great group of people. Sorry the blog took so long to come up but as you can tell I was a little busy during the tour, I couldn’t get myself enough time to write my blog.
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