Diving in the spectacular Red Sea, Safari driving with minors, absorbing the enchanting Petra and floating in the Dead Sea

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Diving in the spectacular Red Sea, Safari driving with minors, absorbing the enchanting Petra and floating in the Dead Sea

After a long Easter Sunday bus day, where the best we could do for Easter Eggs were Kinder Surprises, we were refreshed and ready for our jam packed day of adventure. Very excited but a little nervous about our intro dive, we got saddled up into our wetsuits, weight belts and tanks before trotting down to the light house area in Dahab of the Red Sea. We learnt the very basics on how to get water out of our masks and mouth pieces and the all important hand signals. For our short intro dive, our guide was going to manage the pressures for us which was quite reassuring. Surprisingly, only after a few minutes, both Amy and I got the hang of our breathing and before we knew it we were 9m deep exploring the most amazing vibrantly coloured coral and schools of tropical fish. Diving gave you the feeling of actually swimming with the fish rather than just watching them like you do when snorkelling which was an awesome experience. Both of us were blown away with how awesome an experience the diving was, both very keen to more dives in the future. After our dive, which we were buzzing from, we left to catch up with the rest of group to do some snorkelling.

Two hours of snorkelling with the group was another great opportunity to continue exploring the reefs and marine life as well as taking in the Blue hole (not many of these in the world) which was 90m deep. Remi our guide told us that if we were lucky we would see turtles but unfortunately it wasn’t our lucky day.

That afternoon saw more adventure with quad-biking in the sandy mountains and desert. Another first for the day, over 20 of us set out in a convoy, our heads and faces covered tea towel style, to keep the dust out of our mouths. Easing into the experience we were plodding along at about 35km/hr but, as our confidence grew so did our speed going up to 50-60km/hr (it’s all good mum, I’ve lived to tell the tale) and standing up on the bumps for a little bit of an extra thrill. We then stopped down by a lake and pulled out a few more gymnastic poses (Claire we did these the day before your request- we will post pics soon). The quad-biking was such good fun, a good adrenaline rush, I’ll have to find a friend on a farm when I get back to have another go.

That night we enjoyed some local seafood picking out what we wanted on our platter, tried Shisha for the first time (peach and strawberry), it’s not really for me and celebrated Amy’s birthday for the next day.

The next day saw an early start for the ferry to cross into Jordan and Amy’s 29^th birthday (rocking her pink frilly b’day scrunchie) we were met by our new tour guide Ali. We chilled out in Aqaba for a few hours before driving on to Wadi Rum 70 km north east. Wadi Rum is a massive sandy pink desert with many huge rocky mountains. The huge rock cliffs have been eroded by the wind into many different shapes and sizes. The true size of these mountains was not truly appreciated until we started to run up the sand dune huffing and puffing. We enjoyed the view once we got to the top and the run down was even better. We continued on the afternoon with a jeep/ute safari (we were in the tray) through the sights of Wadi Rum with our local drivers aged 13 and 15 years Mut and Mohammad. These boys made the afternoon, Mut in the passenger seat was constantly out the window or completely hanging outside of the door giving us big cheeky smiles. Great drivers, they finished off the safari both with their doors open hanging out of them, steering with god knows what. They were really fun. The Bedouins are the local nomads that have been living in this desert for over 2000 years and our desert camp, was set up based on a basic Bedouin camp. The host of the camp dressed Amy up in the local dress, eyeliner and headscarf included and we celebrated her birthday again looking like an Arabian princess.

Eagerly awaiting our next port of call, we arrived in Petra, ready to explore this hidden ancient city full of mysterious charm. Enjoying a short horse ride down to the main gate, (Amy’s maiden ride), we reached the Siq a cool narrow gorge, which at times blocked the sun as well as reflecting it off the sheer rock faces. This natural tunnel provided a dramatic contrast to what opened up before us, the ‘Treasury’ or Khasneh. A beautiful rose pink colour, with beautifully carved facades into the rock faces that were incredible. Unfortunately we hit the treasury right on noon, so not great for taking shots but we got to enjoy it again as we wondered back past it as we exited. The further we meandered down into this ancient rose city the more and more impressive it was. This ancient city carved into the rocks was filled of tombs, houses, alters, theatres and aqueducts and was built by the Nabataeans over 2000 years ago, possibly 312 BC. In its day it housed over 20000 Nabataeans living in the desert. The city remained unknown to the western world and was rediscovered by a Swiss explorer in 1812 and has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We were then left to our devices and after being told that we would only have time to hike up to either the El Deir (monastery) or the sacred lookout point, Amy and I saw it as a challenge to do both (knowing from our previous efforts of all 5 towns of the Cinque Terre in one day) that we could do it. We set off in thongs (foreigners made comments and were most impressed) up to the monastery, a 90 minute walk taking us less than an hour (our only over-taker was a crazy French guy who ran to the top). The ‘Best View’ at the top was pretty spectacular. Being so high up and being able to overlook the whole of this ancient rock carved city, it was pretty crazy to think that it could be lost for so many hundreds of years. Moving on to the Sacred lookout which took us 19 minutes instead of 30, the view of the city from a different angle close to sunset, was also very lovely. A little slower on the way back up to the main part of town we definitely for once earned our dinner.

The next day saw us visit the Kerak Castle a crusader fortress built in 1142. Not a hugely impressive castle, I think the only thing I will remember about it is nearly getting blown off the castle as it was so incredibly windy. The highlight of the day however, was floating in the ‘Dead Sea’. The Dead Sea is 18km wide, 55km in length and is 377m deep. One of the coolest things about the Dead Sea is that it is 423m below sea level which is the earth’s lowest elevation on land. The Dead Sea in Hebrew means ‘The Sea of Salt’ and it borders Israel and Jordan on the east and the West Bank on the west. With 33%!s(MISSING)alinity, it is one of the world’s saltiest bodies of water approximately 9 times saltier than Shelly Beach. Due to the salinity nothing lives in the Dead Sea. Unfortunately in recent years the Dead Sea has been shrinking rapidly due to a diversion of incoming water from the Jordan river in the north and the southern end being fed into a canal for a company to use the raw materials.

The whole experience was quite bizarre. You would walk into the water and as you sat down your legs literally shot out from under you to float on top of the water. It was awesome, you could float without treading water, flip from your tummy to your back in one quick movement and you could read a book, no problems. Simon I promise, even you would have been able to float! 45 minutes was about all you needed and we decided not to cover ourselves in the mud full of all the skin beautifying minerals due to our past experience of the mud baths in Sicily where we smelt for 2 days and tarnished our jewellery, it was a good call in the end, as other were complaining of smelling. On the way out we tested and re-moisturised ourselves with all the expensive creams and I think Hayden scored himself some new bath salts from the Dead Sea. All in all, a random but awesome experience.

That evening and the next day saw us in Amman the capital which geographically straddle seven hills. The city houses 1.5 million Jordanians, over half the countries population and it is dotted with a number of historic site from the stone age, to the Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic eras. Unfortunately, with not a lot of time to explore Amman and the weather being a bit miserable the only teo things we really got to visit were St George’s Church (Just for you dad) and Mount Nebo. St George’s Church was rediscovered in 1970 and it houses one of the greatest mosaic floors in Jordan and is one of the only few Byzantine mosaic floors found in the capital. The second place we visited was Mount Nebo, one of the most revered places in all of Jordan as this is where Moses is buried. Mount Nebo is one the highest point in the Holy Lands. It was pretty cool as you could see out to Bethlehem, Jericho, Hebrom, Lake Tiberius and Ramallah. Visiting here really made me want to go to Israel, but hey, you can’t do everything. We then headed back to Aqaba to catch our ferry back into Egypt. Unfortunately, as a whole, our trip to Jordan was a little tainted by our incredibly unprofessional, disorganised, crap communicating, tour leader Ali. We tried not to let it get us down and enjoyed our time there but it does show you how much sometimes a tour leader can influence your time and perspective on a place, so we were very happy to say goodbye to him.

A travel day back to Cairo saw us reunite with some of our Egypt tour for one last night together, before saying goodbye to Amy and Egypt and heading off to my next northern African country of Morocco.

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