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Published: March 25th 2011
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Day 11 – Leaving Egypt
We spent the morning on the beach enjoying our final hours in Egypt and taking one last look at the view before we headed off to catch the Ferry to Jordan. The port in Egypt was once of the few places in Egypt I felt uneasy, it was very obvious we did not fit in or belong a group of tourists going through security and entering a boat with thousands of local men we guessed crossing to Jordan for work. The woman in our group especially stood out and were getting stared on excessively. Luckily after an house a security guard showed us to the first class cabin and the rest of the boat ride went smoothly. It was during this experience that my first complaint against intrepid can be made, our guide had never taken this ferry or been on this part of our tour I will plan on recommending a guide must take a tour as a client once before they should be able to lead it.
Day 12 – Wadi Rum
After a quick breakfast at the hotel we headed out to Wadi rum and switched from our bus to
jeeps for a trek out into the desert, along the way we saw some old local writing on cliffs, wild camels and other animals. After 4x4ing through the desert we ended up at a local bedewon camp for a nice dinner cooked in a pit in the sand, some bedwon tea which was basically sugar cut with tea and settled in for a sun set from a cliff overlooking the desert. That night we slept under the stars where it was surprisingly chilly. This night was less eventfull than I originally thought it would be but that may be because it was my first time campling without drinking in a very long time.
Day 13 – Petra
Another early start had us back in the jeeps, so we can rendezvous with our bus and do the three hour drive to Petra. On the way to Petra our local guide informed us the King of Jordan would be there today and I was anxious to see how the people felt about their king. I knew our local guide really loved the king and talked about how great he is and how much the people love him but I was
not convinced until we arrived in Petra. As soon as we arrived in Petra you could feel the excitement in the air as the people lined the streets with flags, pictures of the king and sang songs. The whole city seemed to be celebrating a visit by their king, I was almost disappointed we didn't stay till he arrived of course we had bigger things to see we rushed to our hotel had a quick shower and headed off to one of the new 7th wonders of the world.
The biggest surprise for me at Petra was just how huge the site was, most of the time whenever anyone talks about Petra they are talking about the treasury but that is just the biggest structure there are tons of small tombs along a very long path surrounded by cliffs, an amazing aqueduct system that would have supplied the city with water thousands of years ago. Of course a lot of the site has been damaged over the years due to flooding, earthquakes, and human interference such as the years that people would live in the tombs. After seeing the treasury we walked to a cafe and our group split
up. A couple of us decided to follow Ian and Clare to explore some of the tombs before climbing to the top of one of the rock faces for an amazing view of Petra and so we can get pictures of the alter of sacrifice. Once we were done our climb we had been walkingclimbing for a solid 5+ hours straight and I'm not ashamed to admit my legs and feet were so which is why i was so relived to see a bar in a tomb. After the long walk we decided to stop in for a beer and enjoy the atmosphere. It was not cheap but we only had one drink and it was a nice way to wind down before dinner at a local restaurant where I had a local upside down rice and chicken dish that you mix with tazeki (yogurt and cut cucumber). After all the walking it was very easy to fall asleep.
Day 14 – Holiday
Not much to say about today it is one of our rare free days, and also the halfway through this leg of my trip I decided to use this as a catchup day to
catch up on reading, laundry, blogging, uploading pictures, and booking airfarehotel for the final leg of my trip. I am glad I chose this day to take a break as we woke up to rain and it has been cloudy outside all day. I am now fully caught up for the first time since my trip began. You may even notice I have added pictures to previous blog posts that did not have any pictures.
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