Today we made our way from our Bedouin desert camp to Petra. The night in the desert was not the most comfortable, but it wasn't bad. Mike was afraid That scorpions would get in our tent (apparently 1 girl in our group saw a scorpion in the camp).   The tent that we were sleeping in wasn't super hot in the morning (the desert gets much cooler- about 25 degrees- at night) when we were rudely awaken by some Jordanian girl scouts having breakfast at 6am. We slept in a mosquito net although the night was pretty windy so there weren't really any around. After breakfast we began the drive to Petra where we would spend the next 2 nights. The highways here are really nice, fast and smooth and every vehicle kept to its proper ... read more

This morning we awoke in our hotel in Aqaba with the goal of venturing out and exploring the little tourist town that we were in. We could tell from our short experience the night before that Jordan and Egypt are a world away from one another, even though they share a border. Unfortunately, Elysia woke up feeling very ill; we decided to stay in the hotel so she could get through the worst of it.  At 11:30, we all boarded the bus and headed off to the Rum Valley (Wadi Rum). Wadi Rum is a desert valley in Jordan that is home to the Bedouin people. We arrived at our camp in the early afternoon and enjoyed a delicious meal (including veggies for the first time since we left Europe!!). Jordan has much higher standards for ... read more

July 18 I'm writing this journal entry for a day that I don't really want to remember. But still for our memories it must be documented! We woke up casually and the plan was to go snorkeling in the red sea. I (elysia) tried to go snorkeling the day before with another girl from the group, but I got as far as the reef and I saw huge sea urchin and a huge fat fish and I got scared and swam back to shore (which was actually quite far away). For those who don't know, im afraid of things under the water. Usually if i can see them (snorkeling) and the tide is high so i don't have to rub up against it, i'm okay (it helps if mike is there too)  but the tide was ... read more

This morning we woke up at a decent hour and made our way to St. Catherine's cathedral at the base of Mt. Sinai. Yesterday we walked right past the cathedral on out way to the summit, but visitors are only allowed in between the hours of 9:00 am and 12:00 noon. We arrived at the cathedral around 9:30 am, so it was already packed. On out way into the cathedral, two people from our group were denied entry because their shorts didn't fully cover their knees: Mike and Mark. Luckily, two of the girls kindly donated sarongs to the cause and after donning them, Mike and Mark were allowed inside the Monastery's walls.  The monastery is actually quite small and the visitor area is only a small portion of that. We were able to enter the ... read more

Today was mostly a travel day. We departed Cairo and journeyed to st. Katherine which is in the middle of the Sinai peninsula. We passed through a tunnel going under the suez canal which is essentially the connection between the continent of africa and asia. Politically though its still a part of africa but its not on the same continental shelf ( our guide was adamant that sinai is a part of egypt not asia!) The sinai peninsula was occupied not too long ago by israel  ( in the 1970s Israel signed sinai over to Egypt through the camp David treaty) and even to this day they are wanting to take it back. In the desert I saw monuments of tanks and israeli monuments. We stopped at a rest stop along the way and it was ... read more

We awoke this morning to a knock on our train sleeper cabin door at 4;15. We were an hour and a half from Cairo and breakfast would be served shortly. Now breakfast is a very liberal term; really we were given a tray containing three stale baked items and a bun. Nonetheless, we choked down what we could and got ready to get off the train. We got back to our hotel and checked into our room. Our room had a terrible odor but we were exhausted so we slept for an hour and met the tour group at 830 as planned. The hotel kindly changed our room for us when we complained about the smell.  Our first site for the day was the Citadel near Islamic Cairo. The Citadel contains a few mosques and museums ... read more

The day started very early and we rolled out of our beds at 4:30 am to take a luxurious hot air balloon ride over Luxor. Only 5 of us wanted to spend the extra $ to do this trip so we were our own. A guy from the balloon company picked us  and we walked to a boat which took us across the Nile to luxor's west bank. We were hoping to be in the balloon to see the sunrise but unfortunately the ride was a bit delayed because the winds were too strong. Fortunately an hour later we were clears to go and we were soaring high above the city. On one side of us there was the desert and the desert mountains where the valley of he kings was. You could see a lot ... read more

This morning we awoke early after a long night sleeping on the deck of the felucca. It was very hot and muggy all night - we were beached next to the agricultural area outside a small village and the fields increased the humidity. The inhabitants of the fields also created another joy - methane. When the wind was just right there was a pretty ripe smell in the air!  To top it off, the Mosquitos were out in full force so we awoke to more than a few new bug bites. Oh well, sometimes that is the way it goes!! Anyways, we woke up at sunrise and hopped onto the support boat for breakfast. The boat also took us the final leg of our journey down the Nile (about 20 minutes cruising).  If any Robert Allan ... read more

Today we woke early at 330 to catch our 4am bus from Aswan to Abu Simbel. Because there have been security issues in the past, all of the tourist buses traveling to the temples at Abu Simbel depart at the same time and travel by convoy the 280 km south through the desert. When we met the convoy, we had to go through a few security check points and were joined by a member of the Egyptian Police armed with an AK-47 and sidearm.  Apparently that is standard procedure for all of the tourist buses.  Once we were on the way, we could tell that these rules were actually pretty relaxed. The armed police officer promptly fell asleep and our convoy was spaced so far apart that you couldn't see the other vehicles.  On our journey ... read more