Always opt for the Donkey to the top & back!! I was going to get my first glimpse of Petra today. I couldn't believe it. It was going to be a very long and very hot day in Petra so I wanted to be prepared to make the most of my day. I wore the lightest clothing I owned, the sturdiest shoes and packed a very light backpack. We arrived at the entrance gate at 10am to meet our guide with a plan to have him give us an hour’s tour of the area then leaving the rest of the day [View Full Entry]

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Almost stripped searched at the Border… Another new country today - This time it was Jordan. It was noticeable as soon as we got to the Border how much more affluent and westernised Jordan was as a country in comparison to all the other countries we had visited so far - Including Turkey. The streets were clean, the trees were neatly trimmed and the border guards for more alert and organised. At the border we were all asked to step off the truck to enable to guards to ‘search’ the truck - or in the case get on walk in briefly [View Full Entry]

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A refreshingly late start to the morning is always a pleasant experience. For the first time in weeks I didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn. Also we got a treat for breakfast this morning - instead of our usual meal of cereal and coffee, we finally got some scrambled eggs. It would have been fabulous if we were able to get some bread with it - but scrambled eggs with left over cold tomato pasta isn't as exciting as I had originally expected...(sigh!!) Our next destination was the city of Bosra, a black basalt town approx 137kms [View Full Entry]

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Sunset camel ride over the ruins It was a rude awakening this morning to quickly pack up my things and hustle along to get on my sunset camel ride tour of the ruins. Trying to change your clothes in a pitch black tent surrounded by 24 of your fellow passengers was never going to be an enjoyable experience - not to mention an extremely un-coordinated one. Yes!! My top was inside out & back to front. But I quickly put on as many layers as I could to beat the morning cold and made my way to the spot for my [View Full Entry]

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Is that a camel's head for sale? The souks of Allepo Our first stop of the morning was a local juice bar - something that seems very popular in Syria. We walked as a group to the juice bar for our morning breakfast of juice and cheese bread before meeting our local tour guide named Ahmed. Ahmed was a little old man wearing a white hat and a tattered old blue suit. He had a very strong English accent and spoke in very clipped tones, enunciating every syllable as he spoke. He took us for a tour of the city showing [View Full Entry]

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It finally feels like I am in the Middle East We are leaving Turkey behind today as continue travelling south towards Syria. I’d been in Turkey for a total of only two weeks and in that time I had barely touched the surface. It is a country with so many contrasts - in the city you have all the affluence that you could expect in a modern city but as we continued to travel around the coastline, we also caught the glimpses of what I would expect the real Turkey to be like - one that has more of a [View Full Entry]

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Early morning surprise I begrudgingly woke up at 5:00am this morning to get ready for my sunrise hot air balloon ride over Cappadocia. I had originally not planned on doing this particular ride because of the cost, opting instead to do the ride over the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, but after much umming & aaahing (something not unsurprising of me) I eventually got swayed by the masses and joined in with everyone to do the ride. Me being me - it was in for a penny, in for a pound - so having made the decision to do it [View Full Entry]

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No sleep and a very long drive. Not a good combination!! There was little or no sleep for most of the group last night as we spent the last few hours of our time in Olympos at the local ‘Bull Bar’. It seemed as though only minutes passed from the time my head hit the pillow to when my alarm went off in the morning, forcing me to get up and start packing my things to leave. The fact that I probably had only an hours sleep probably wasn’t going to be a good thing - but leaving at 5am to [View Full Entry]

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Swimming on the Med looking for the sunken city Day 5: Kas to Olympos The plan for today was to sit and do nothing, whilst sitting on a boat and enjoying the sun before a drive to our next destination of Olympus - And we did exactly that. We picked up a boat in Kas that was to take us around to see the nearby islands (we didn’t actually stop to see any of them though). A noteworthy item on our itinerary was the views of a “sunken city” from our boat. I don’t want it to be said that I [View Full Entry]

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Camping again….but it has finally started to warm up. Kas is a tiny little seaside resort off the Western Mediterranean Coast of Turkey. This was going to be our midway stop between the town of Selcuk and Olympos. We arrived there sometime in the late afternoon, leaving us with some sun to enjoy the pebble beach by our campsite. I haven’t mentioned this previously - but the weather in Turkey hasn’t been entirely favourable to us - ranging from very cold, rainy & wet to smatterings of sunshine since the start of the tour. It doesn’t help that I had o [View Full Entry]

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