Matt & Kate's travel blog or: Matt & Kate's bogus journey

This is Kate – I thought it was time to let Matt have a break from writing the blog.  (Matt: The truth is that I outright forced her to write this section.) We are in Alexandria right now, we just went to see the catacombs which were like something straight out of an Indiana Jones set. Now we’re waiting for our train back to Cairo.  Today is the last day of our middle east adventure. Tomorrow we start our West Africa leg by flying to Ouagadougou (what a fantastic name), the capital of Burkina Faso.

Egypt has been great! There is so much to see here and, despite having heard so many bad stories about being hassled etc, we have found the people very friendly and the travel pretty easy.

We started in Dahab (after taking the ferry from Jordan). Dahab was a good place to start. It’s a very relaxed town, not at all like the hussle and bussle of all other towns we visited. It also had great restaurants and I was pretty excited to find that they all sold banana and chocolate pancakes – yum!!

Dahab’s a great location for diving in the red sea.  So, I left Matt behind to have some R&R while I went on a few dives. The absolute highlight was seeing a huge giant moray eel – probably at least 2 metres long!I also went on my first night dive which was fun. It took a while to get used to being able to use a torch under water.

We then had a 10 hour bus trip to Cairo and spent a couple of days wandering around some of the major sites, including the pyramids of Giza. The pyramids really were as amazing as I had expected them to be and I fulfilled my dream of going inside a pyramid. It was quite expensive and there was nothing to see inside so Matt was not so excited about it, but I still thought it was great.

The Egyptian museum was wonderful, particularly the mummy room and the Tutenkarmon display. We had fun buying some souvenirs from the souks and smoking a sheesha in one of the cafes there. We had our first Sheesha (waterpipe, hookah, nargileh, it goes by many names) in Dahab, where I was absolutely terrible at it and kept coughing, but my Sheesha smoking has now improved (nothing to be proud of I’m sure).   

Our first night in Cairo happened to coincide with the soccer match between Egypt and Algeria (if Egypt won by 3 goals they would win a place in the world cup). I have never seen anything like it! The game started at 7.30 and the whole of Cairo seemed to be out on the  streets watching it on big screens set up specifically. So, of course we went along to watch it too.  They got 1 goal within the first couple of minutes of the game and when all seemed lost they scored a second goal in the very last minute. The whole city went crazy with good-natured celebrations. The streets were packed with people dancing & singing. Everyone was soo excited. People were really happy to see us in amongst the crowd and we got “welcome to Egypt”‘d and asked to pose for photos hundreds of times that night. (We assumed we were incorrect about the 3 goal thing, but we found out later that scoring 2 goals meant they were tied and it went to a rematch to decide it in a few days – such a celebration for a small result.)

We then took the sleeper train down to Aswan. We had a nice comfy cabin to ourselves. I was soo glad we weren’t in a seat as the 12 hour trip turned into a 16 hour trip. From Aswan we joined the 4am convoy (unfortunately it’s next to impossible to travel any other way) to Abu Simbel, which was definitely worth losing sleep for.

Thanks to Agatha Cristie’s ‘Death on the Nile’ I had ‘always’ wanted to take a steam boat down the Nile. I was pretty adamant that this is what we were going to do, but we had no idea if it would actually be affordable. It turned out to be an absolute bargain! Unfortunately the little steam boats have now turned in to huge cruisers and we ended up with the ugliest monster of them all – called the Aton. But the inside of the boat was lovely and so were the buffet meals. It was great to spend time sitting on the deck, watching the nile go by. We stopped at a couple of temples Kom Ombo and Edfu on the way to Luxor.

 
In Luxor we spent a day on the east bank visiting Luxor Temple and Karnak temple and then took a day tour of the west bank, visiting the valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, temple of Hatshetput and the Colossi of Memnon. The  inside of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and Queens were beautiful as the carvings have retained their colours.  (Matt: for the record, the rematch of the soccer game happened while we were in Luxor – they lost, we got a good night’s sleep.)

We took the sleeper train back to Cairo and visited some more pyramids a little further out of town, Dahshur and Saqqara. Dahshur pyramid was great because we were the only tourists there. Unfortunately this also meant we got targeted by the tourist police, who are always best avoided because it usually ends up with them demanding baksheesh (a tip – and they aren’t the only ones of course) for some unwanted service, like pointing something out to you that is already extremely obvious. Anyway, we were able to  go inside the pyramid here, which was great fun and even better than Giza because you can go in quite a long way (with a torch) and we had the whole pyramid to ourselves.

The boring story of the visas…
The rest of our time in Cairo was taken up with trying to work out the nightmare of visas for west africa. Once in West Africa most visas can be obtained at the borders, which is what we were planning on doing. But the problem is getting there in the first place. Every embassy we approached wanted to see return airfares that fall within the period allowed by the tourist visa. As we were wanting to travel overland and had no idea of an end date we couldn’t satisfy these requirements. It also didn’t help that the Embassies are only open for visa applications on certain days for limited hours and that our time in Cairo happened to coincide with holidays for the ‘feast’ (that marks the end (or possibly beginning) of the pilgrimage to mecca). Also, some airlines wont let you fly if you don’t have a visa, even though you can buy a visa at the airport on arrival. Basically we were banging our heads against a brick wall every step of the way. In the end we decided to purchase a ticket in to Burkina Faso (as visas can theoretically be obtained at the airport) and out of Mali (as we can then get a visa at the embassy in Ougadougou or at the border). So that’s that. I think we’re both just glad that we can still go, despite having to cut our plans down significantly. Although, it’s not 100% we could still be denied by Royal Air Maroc (despite asking them) or not get a visa at the airport. Time will tell.

After this, not sure how reliable internet access is in Africa so the blog might re-appear around christmas (when we return to the UK) or it might continue on regardless.

Here are a lot of photos.

From Amman we took a one-way daytrip to Petra via the Dead Sea and others. First stop was Madaba to see a supposedly famous mosaic map of the middle east, it was fairly impressive but not overly. Next stop was Mount Nebo, the biblical resting place of Moses where he died (at 120) after being shown the promised lands that he would never enter. A good view but a bit hazy. Next up was the Dead Sea, something we had been looking forward to for a while and it didn’t let us down. I really didn’t think it would be quite that floaty, but it was amazing. It was almost impossible to not float, it took a lot of effort to put your legs straight down. A lot of people got covered in mud from head to toe (quite a sight) before getting in, but we decided against it, but we did indulge in the other thing to do of posing for photos reading a book or newspaper. A funny sight. Next up we followed the coast to a mountain range and we stopped at a few more things but the view was obscured by the haze. Our last stop was at Shobak castle which was fairly standard for the desert castles (we’ve seen a few now). We then went on to Petra for the night.

We spent the next two days clambering over most of Petra, I say most as it is a huge place and we could have spent a whole week there and not seen it all. The first day we did the main tourist “pilgrimage” through the centre of town seeing all the sights along the way including the most famous treasury and monastery (after a long hike uphill), the second day we took a more indirect route and hiked through an amazingly twisty canyon and then back down to the centre before climbing up to the top of the “high place of sacrifice” for lunch and then down the other side seeing many tombs and things along the way. Altogether an utterly unforgettable two days, an absolute must do for anyone in the area. I guess we aren’t the only ones who thought so as it was packed (the main route was anyway) with tourists, horses, carriages, donkeys, camels and of course souvenir stalls every 10 metres or so. Still, it doesn’t detract from the place and the second day was almost the exact opposite, we only saw two people for the first 3 hours. Amazing, but we eventually moved on to Wadi Rum.

Wadi Rum is a great little protected area of desert where hundreds of local Bedouins take tourists out on jeep/camel safaris of the desert to see some random sights, but really just soak up the amazing scenery, and then to camp overnight out in the desert. Most of the sights had some connection to T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), but were not that great. “Here is Lawrence’s House”, he lived there for a few months and is now just one wall and the rest fallen over. A great experience that was marred by two things. The first was more camera trouble – in between taking photos of the sunset the camera said “picture error”, it then changed to “card error” and wouldn’t work no matter what we did. Luckily photos had been downloaded after the first day in Petra so “all” we lost was the second day and all of Wadi Rum. That was annoying enough but then we were on the tour with a couple from France with Arabic heritage so they spent the whole time talking with the guide in Arabic, despite the fact that all of them spoke perfect English. Later on another French/Turkish couple showed up who also spoke English/French/Arabic. After a short group conversation they suddenly switch to French at rapid speed and so completely ignored us. After staring at them for a while I walked off and went to the tent. Damn Europeans (this is not the first time this has happened but it never gets any less annoying). One positive was that I got all the photos that the French couple had taken of Wadi Rum (thank goodness for having a laptop with a card reader), which will explain the lack of photos of us.

From Wadi Rum we took a minivan to the intersection of the highway, a minibus from the side of the road to Aqaba where we bought a new camera card and called our credit card company who had left a message saying there was a problem, but after a very expensive 12 minute conversation the result was “there is nothing wrong with your card and you don’t need to do anything” – thanks! We decided to go straight on to Egypt so we took a minibus to the port and then a very expensive and time consuming ferry to Nuweiba and then a minibus to the bus station, then a bus to Dahab and then a ute to the hotel. A long day of many varied transports but we got to Dahab in the end and were so glad to be there as the place was and is great. We are staying one more day and then going to either climb Mt Sinai (biblical references again – but great views) or go to Suez to watch boats go by or go straight to Cairo. Then on to Alexandria, maybe an oasis town and then down the Nile (incorporating some water transport in there.)

[A lot of] Photos now (obviously the photos from our second day in Petra are absent and the Wadi Rum photos aren’t ours – but we were there, honestly).

We were in Lebanon for 6 days and I think it rained on every one of them. We still had a great time, but it really would have been better without all the rain (and the wind, thunder and cold). The first thing we noticed on entering the country was the rather ever present security presence. Police, army and security guards (in Beirut anyway) were everywhere. Which is almost understandable given the history of the place, but personally I think having occupied tanks all over the place a little excessive.

We arrived in Beirut and noticed the difference from the rest of the middle east as soon as we hit the centre. Walking around the downtown area, we immediately felt like we were back in Europe. And after being sick for a while and with not much of an appetite it was a refreshing change to suddenly have options for dinner that didn’t involve kebabs of some description. Despite the reputation of Lebanese cuisine our first two dinners were at Mexican and Japanese restaurants. Apart from, eating and hiding in our hotel room watching movies during the storms, we also went to the great national museum, wandered along the beachfront and then took a daytrip to Jeita Grotto. These caves were the most impressive we have ever seen, plus we got to take a cable car and a boat ride inside the caves. Unfortunately we couldn’t take photos. (If you are interested www.jeitagrotto.com has some photos.)

We then took a trip up north to Tripoli. Unfortunately we timed this rather poorly. The main things to see are souqs and mosques and the like, but we were there on a Friday afternoon – basically the Muslim weekend. Just as we decided there was nothing else to see around town, it started pouring so we went back to the hotel. The next morning we went to Byblos to check out some ruins, however no one had mentioned that they were very ruined ruins and after all we’ve seen we were a little under whelmed.

We then returned to Beirut (a change of plans after losing my keys and then extremely luckily tracing them through the hotel’s taxi) to make a daytrip the next day to Baalbek. Yes, it was more ruins, but much more impressive. We even got a small window of sunlight to enjoy them in.

The next day we headed off to Amman (Jordan), via Damascus (Syria is the only way in or out of Lebanon). It was quite an adventure. Firstly at the Syrian border we had to buy a whole new visa ($100 each!) because our old ones were two days old and they don’t extend them or have transit visas. It reeked of slightly shady goings on, but you never really know. Then our driver between Damascus and Amman was less than fantastic. First of all, we are flying along the highway to the border in the dark and wet at up to 150km/h (conditions appropriate I would think). I suspect that was just to get there as quickly as possible for the shenanigans he had planned. Syrian border, no problems. In between borders there is a duty free shop selling all sorts of things presumably, but all anybody bought was cigarettes. Our driver came out with several bags full, chucked them in the car and then went back in for more. He came out and then started hiding the excess (there are obviously some customs requirements) all throughout the car – in the glove box, centre console, in the boot, under the seats (he asked to use us but we were having nothing to do with it), in his socks and finally under his tucked in shirt. Quite impressive in its own way. He also met up with other drivers and seemed to be arranging something. We get to the Jordanian border and the car gets a thorough(ish) searching, with a discovery made in the (locked) glove box. A bit of yelling, arguing and then dealing behind the car later we were free to go. 100 metres past the border we stop and meet back up with some other drivers, cigarettes are distributed and we’re off. When we got to Amman he insisted that a random hotel was our hotel and we couldn’t be bothered and got out of there, the pouring rain was a better option. Quite an adventure really.

That’s it, here are some photos. I’m annoyed we didn’t get any photos of the legendary traffic though. For a known car hater, the traffic in Beirut was unbelievable and inexplicable – why would you drive when you can’t go anywhere without being stuck in a traffic jam? Unless of course you like using your horn…

Oh and we are in Egypt now, have already gone through Jordan, a blog post to come on that in a few days. Quick summary – Petra is absolutely amazing! We are in Dahab to be exact and soaking up the beach after a few desert experiences.