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Published: July 16th 2008
Hello all,
I know it has been a long time! As you can see, I am now back in Tanzania and straight back into it! I have now been back at school for 2 days and it feels like I never left! Still, I had an amazing trip so no complaints! The tour was great, a wonderful group of people and for once I wasn’t outnumbered by Aussies!
I began with 5 days on my own in Istanbul - had a good look around at everything - the history is amazing. Managed to get myself lost a number of times, but all fun.
The tour itself was great, although really busy. We had lots of wonderful people and for once I wasn’t outnumbered by Aussies! Once we began the tour properly it was straight into it. The Turkey part of things involved lots of travel so we spent huge amounts of time on the bus. However, this is bus travel like you’ve never seen - we were even served coffee and cake!! Highlights of Turkey had to be Gallipoli, Ephesus (ancient city) and Cappadocia (rock city - parts were used as Tatooine in Star Wars). Also an interesting experience walking across
Hagia Sophia
The church of St Sophis in Istanbulthe border to Syria - we had about 1km walking in ‘no-man’s land’ bordered by razor wire and mine fields - cool!
Syria was a surprise, considering I only went because it was included in the tour I wanted to do. It was not as into tourism as the other countries so still a little untouched. Highlights in Syria were Palmyra and the food (lots of falafel!).
Jordan was everything you expect it to be from the stories. Petra was mind-blowing - we spent a whole day there, then rocked back the next morning for sunrise (had to practically break in as it wasn’t open so early, but we managed!) On the way out we decided to go for a bit of a trek and ended up clambering up rock walls etc which was great fun. When we finally made it out we saw a sign saying that venturing there without a guide was not recommended - oops! Getting out of Jordan had to be the worst part of the whole trip. The ferry has no set time to leave, so we arrived just after 9am to find the whole of the Arab world queued up trying to get to
Egypt as it was holiday time for them. Some had been waiting for 5 days and the situation had not been helped by 2 ferries breaking down the day before! We finally managed to get on a ferry at 1am (although we didn’t make many friends by getting special treatment) and though it was supposed to be a 1½ hr trip, we didn’t manage to dock in Egypt until 7.30am! Nothing like keeping things interesting!
I really enjoyed Egypt, although would have liked to spend longer there. The pyramids were of course incredible, and situated practically in the suburbs! Cairo museum was also fantastic, especially the mummy rooms! It was pretty sad when the tour finished up and everyone went their separate ways. Still, I am back in Tanzania now, fired up for another term, and as usual it feels like I was never away!
Hope you are all well,
Take care,
Jo xx
(ps, photos are coming once I have finished wading through the thousands - talk about snap-happy tourists!!!)
j
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Sarah B
non-member comment
Hey!
Hi Jo, It is great reading your blog and looking at your latest pictures. The trip sounds like it was fantastic. safe travels and enjoy the term.... Sarah xx