Cappadocia is known as the land of the fairy chimneys, but one of our first introductions to these chimneys in the very appropriately named 'Love Valley' made us think that it looks more like the land of phalic statues! It is like some crazy cult has carved big statues of a feritility god. However nature created the surreal lunar landscape, when 30 million years ago erupting volcanoes covered the region with volcanic ash. Volcanic rock then covered the ash and solidified into what is known as tuff (soft rock like substance). The peaks and canyons were formed by erosion from water and wind that wore grooves into the tuff. Due to the ease of carving into the tuff, many of the fairy chimneys and surrounding mountains were used for houses and churches. Dwellings were also created ... read more

We had the morning to explore Acaba, so Dan and I walked down by the beach out onto a pier where we took a few photos of Elat, the Israeli town that was just across the water. It was amazing to be so close to Israel. Apparently, Jordan gave land to Israel in exchange for more beachside land. In the land that Jordan gave away, Israel found oil. There is no oil in Jordan and the only exports that the country has is minerals including uranium. Later that day, we met up with a Sheik and his team at Wadi Rum Village, where we transferred our bags into 4WDs that took us out into Wadi Rum desert. From here we ventured out to see the sights of the desert. We visited Khazzalah Siq (Canyon) which was ... read more

We headed out to the foothills of Mt Sinai at 3 pm for a 6 mile trek to the summit. We joined our local Bedouin guide, Musa, at yet another security check point and started our walk. Not far past St Katherine's monastery, we had the option of hiring a camel for 85 EGP that could take us most of the way to the top. Not being the type to wimp out of the challenge, Rae and I declined the offers from the camel guides and trudged on up the path. Mt Sinai is 2285 m above sea level with the last portion of this being 750 steps to the summit. We made it to the steps without too much physical stress and sat at a little vending shop there for a rest and a cup ... read more

We were met in the lobby by our tour guide for the day at 8am. She was a lovely local girl, lets call her R as her name is too hard to spell, that arrived early killing my expectation that the Egyptians had a time of their own, like the Spanish. Our driver was waiting outside and Dan and I were their 2 clients for the day. R shared so much of her knowledge about the city she called home and about the ancient history that was to become very real to us. We drove through rural townships, which appeared to be quite poor. We saw plantations of date palms, which were to be ready to harvest in July. Apparently, the dates are still collected by people climbing up each tree to collect the red and ... read more

Flying over Egypt gave us an insight of what we were to encounter over the next few days. There was a patchwork of cultivated land, desert that spanned for ages and what appeared to be a child's building block version of buildings in circular formations scattered around the landscape. The towns looked brown and completly devoid of greenery, which we discovered later was not true as the buidling block high rises that house the people and businesses are actually taller than the trees, hiding them from high aerial view. Cairo was not one of those cirular townships, instead it was a sprawl that went on beyond as far as you could see. Whilst our plane was in a holding pattern we found the edge of the old city discovering, that it had expanded as far as ... read more