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Published: August 21st 2008
Well it's been an interesting couple of days, to say the least. I took the overnight bus from Cairo to Dahab with an English girl named Sam. Dahab is a seaside town in the Sinai Penninsula, which I think is officially part of Asia. Just as I started to get accustomed to the lack of legroom on the bus, they started blaring some Arabic movie. So I didn't sleep at all.
We got into Dahab at 5 am and were immediately approached by taxi drivers. We negotiated a fare of 15 Egyptian Pounds to Dahab Dorms, which seemed like a really nice hostel somewhere in town. After getting to the town, the driver started asking us about the place we wanted to go. He then asked us which way to go. Luckily, I noticed in the directions that it was near a lighthouse. So when asked to go to the lighthouse, the driver wanted 20 pounds. We argued the whole way to the lighthouse and finally just rolled up 15 pounds, handed it over and hurried away. He yelled something at us but he wasn't about to get out of the taxi.
We proceeded for about an hour to try and find Dahab Dorms and it just didn't exist. And neither did the lighthouse. We ended up in another place that was roughly the same price but probably not as nice. It did have air conditioning though, which was all I cared about. We finally made it to sleep at 6:30 am.
We checked out at noon, left our bags there and tried again to find Dahab Dorms. We eventually found out that it was called Red Sea Resort or something, so that explained why no one knew where it was. It was full so we went back to the original place and booked another night. Dahab is a nice beach town. You can see Saudi Arabia across the sea. There are lots of bars all over, something that is atypical of Egypt. I also managed to get a haircut.
We then booked a dive through the place we were staying. The dive was amazing and the Red Sea lived up to its reputation. I still didn't get to see an octopus, shark or turtle, but just amazing colorful coral and a bunch of cool fish. We met a bunch of Irish people a Canadian girl, and a Chilean girl diving, and it was the Canadian girl's birthday that night.
We lounged around for a while, watched the Brazil/Argentina match from the Olympics, and then set out to some place called the Funny Mummy for Tara's birthday. There I met Andy, a guy from California that was planning on heading up to Jordan the next day, so we made plans to meet up the next day.
The Funny Mummy was a really nice bar/restaurant on the beach. There were no chairs though; only rows of pillows all over the place to sit on. It was good food though, and they had alcohol and hookahs. We hung out there for hours and eventually half the group went dancing, and I, along with the other half, went to bed.
I met up with Andy at 9:30 am the next day and we got a taxi back to the Dahab bus station. When I say a taxi, I meant a jeep with benches in the back. We took the bus to Nuweiba, where the ferry port was on the Red Sea. Here we met a big group of people all traveling alone. There were Americans, Aussies, Brits, Russians, and one girl from Wales. This is where things got chaotic.
First on the agenda was to buy a ferry ticket. Okay, no problem; wait in line, pay and get the ticket. It doesn't work like this in Egypt. Basically there is a window in the ticket office and in front of this window is a giant shoving match to the front. There is no order whatsoever. I tried inching my way up front but Andy did a better job so I passed my passport and money over the crowd to him. We then had to wait 15 minutes or so before getting our tickets and passports back. Then the door opened and it was another shoving match.
Eventually we got everything sorted out and got a bite to eat. By the way, I've eaten a lifetime's supply of koshery, which is rice mixed with pasta, with chick peas and some kind of sauce on the top. Very good. After lunch, around 2:45, we headed to border patrol, got stamped out of Egypt and then waited in basically a warehouse for the 3:00 ferry.
And we waited. For hours. Then a ferry pulled up and a bunch of people shoved and rushed towards it, but it was the slow ferry. So we waited even longer. Finally we got on the ferry and then waited another hour for it to leave. We finally set off up the Gulf of Aqaba into Jordan.
At the port in Aqaba, the group split up into smaller groups. I stayed with 5 of them, and the six of us took two taxis to the Jordan Flower hotel. The drive towards the hotel at night was really nice. First of all, it was probably the nicest road I've been on since leaving home. Multi lanes, smoothly paved, adequately lit; it was perfect. There was a nice view of Israel on the other side of the gulf. I think it was Taba, a town which our bus to Nuweiba was ultimately headed to. We finally got to our hotel at around 11:00 pm, ending a 13 1/2 day of traveling about 100 miles or so.
Four of us headed out into the surprisingly lively town and found an English pub to have a much needed drink. It seemed really cheap but we later learned that there was like a 30% tax. Jordan is not cheap! I'm not proud to say that my first place to eat in the Middle East was McDonalds, which is where we ended up that night. But it was post drinking food and it was the only thing open.
This morning, the rest of the group went up north and all that was left from the ferry group was me and Andy, who is from England. He too is an Arsenal fan and, much to the humor of those around us, we were molding our Jordanian itinerary around the Arsenal match on Saturday. First this morning, we went out for really good breakfast. We had falafel, hummus, and something else all for about $2 US. We then taxied down to the Saudi border for some more diving. It was another great dive with lots to see although I think the Dahab dive beat it.
We lounged on the beach for a bit, got a few hookahs and talked about football (sorry Americans, I would get caned around here for calling it soccer, and it makes more sense to call it football anyway). We then taxied back into town and ultimately to where I'm sitting right now. Tonight we're going out for seafood and tomorrow, we're heading to Wadi Rum, a desert where part of Lawrence of Arabia was filmed. We're going to camp in the desert for a night and then head to Petra, which I'm totally looking forward to. They filmed part of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade there. After that, we might head to the Dead Sea for a day before going up to the capital, Amman.
Originally I was thinking of flying into Turkey from here but the flights are ridiculously expensive. I've met a lot of travelers going in the opposite direction as me and they said to just head north through Syria into Turkey. I realize this raises red flags from an american standpoint, but it's completely unanimous around here, even among American travelers, that it is extremely safe there and the Syrians are among the friendliest in the world. It even says in the guidebooks that the US State Department is out of their minds when it comes to Syria. So, that's probably the plan. Although things are always subject to change. Oh, for the record, the Jordan is the friendliest country I've ever been to. People go completely out of their way to help us and to practice their English. Oh, and by the way, Jordan is country #30 for me.
Everyone keeps asking for pictures. You guys don't realize that the US is one of the best countries in the world for internet connection. It takes up to 5 minutes per picture sometimes, so you all will just have to hold your pants on until I get better facilities around here. But I'll be in Europe in a month so it won't be longer than that.
Catch you later!
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LYNS
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Hey bro :)
hey...congrats you've reached #30 that passports gotta be pretty thick now..mom and dad are driving me crazy with the house and also moms sharing a bathroom wit me and amy..yea theres 4 bathrooms but she'll only use ours so if you haven't guessed we clean it like 3 times a week so its up 2 her expectations you know there sayin "if you don't like it leave"..i can't wait til you get back so they can pick on you 4 awhile :)..amy's been workin on your room in the basement i'll tell ya what you got it made down there..well i guess thats it 4 now i'll give ya more gossip next time..love ya lots