Oasis, Days 18-21

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Tuesday 10th May 2011 - Day 18 Oasis

I got up at 6:45am to make sure I got a hot shower which I did. I got back to the room just before my alarm went off at 7am. I had been designated as the alarm for everyone so as soon as it went off I turned the lights on and ushered everyone out of bed, to their delight of course! I packed my bag and headed down to breakfast which was pretty average - bread, an egg and some apricot jam. I had a piece of plain bread and a juice. We all then made our way down to the road to jump on the bus, our new mode of transport for the rest of the trip with the truck being gone. Me, Jess and Pop claimed the back seat but I moved from chair to chair talking to other people as the journey was so boring - without the layout of the truck no one could really interact with each other and there was definitely no card or backgammon playing - it kinda sucked. At one stage I had a challenge with Jess to make it to the front of the bus where Dave was sitting without touching the ground. People looked at me rather strangely but it was fun and I made it of course. I sat and chatted to Dave for a bit which was good as I hadn't really just sat down and talked to him one on one before. The stress of the Syria thing had gotten to him a bit. We didn't see the worse part of it as we were in Lebanon but the others had told us how stressed he had been. He even said that had we not been such a great group of people he would have seriously considered signing off the trip, effectively ended his job with Oasis! He was really looking forward to the down time in Dahab where he had a few friends there to hang out and chill with. I felt for him, especially with Nev being gone and encouraged him to interact with us a bit more rather than doing stuff on his own. We stopped off at a church to have a look-see, found a little place for lunch, to which Dave sat with us at our table, climbed Mt Nebo and went to the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea was amazing! I was a little hesitant to get in at first simply because I could not remember the last time I went swimming in the ocean but given that it was a once in a lifetime opportunity I just had to get in there and experience it. You just float on top of the water as if you are lying on a lilo. It was actually quite an effort to keep your arms and legs under the water, they automatically kept floating to the surface. We then started to have a bit of fun with it trying to get into positions where we looked like we were lying on inflatable things, it was very cool. The massive salt content was what kept you afloat but it also stung any cut or graze you had hence we had been warned not to shave a couple of days before. You couldn't get the salt in your eyes or it burned and had to be washed out immediately. We took some novelty floating shots and some of the others covered themselves in black mud that was in buckets on the beach, good for the skin apparently. We washed off in a clean water shower up from the beach before heading to the swimming pool at the top. No sooner had we gotten in and it was time to leave, we were only there for about an hour. I could have stayed there all day! We had to take our togs off and put them into plastic bags as the salt on them would eat away at the bus seats. We drove another couple of hours before we arrived in Petra. We checked in to our hotel and all 19 of us were in a roof top room - a huge open room that simply had mattresses laid out on the floor - it was like one big slumber party. Jess, Kev and I then headed into town to the Cave Bar, a bar in a cave that we had read about in the Lonely Planet. We wanted to make a reservation for the following night so everyone could go together and have dinner and drinks. The walk down was quite a fair hike, it took about 40 minutes before we finally got there. It was right next to the entrance to the Petra site. No sooner had we gone inside to have a look at the menu and a few of the others turned up. We sat and had a couple of beers and chatted about our trip to Lebanon and their trip back to Istanbul. Turns out the free beers and jet-skis they had skited about was a lie, surprise surprise! It was 6:30pm by the time we finished our beers and our buffet dinner at the hotel was due to start at 7pm so we caught two taxis back up the hill. We had a great driver who gave us his business card and invited us to his house for dinner the next night - he said he wanted to show us Jordanian hospitality. Our dinner was really good, there were loads of different salads, rice, potatoes and a chicken curry as well as fruit for dessert. We hadn't seen any local fruit markets all day and wanted to get some for the trek through Petra the next day. The hotel guy told us he could get us some so we gave him our money and sure enough he came back about 20 minutes later with a big bag of fruit, 4 apples, 2 oranges and 2 bananas and it was so cheap. As we were finishing dinner Andy arrived to say hello. He was staying at the Crowne Plaza, a flash hotel not from the Cave Bar. We chatted to him about his and Fee's trip from Lebanon and what they had been up to. Fee had left the day before. He came to see our roof top room which he found hilarious, I guess he would when he had a nice posh hotel room all to himself. It was good to see him again and really cool that he called in to see us one last time before he headed off on the rest of his trip. We said a proper goodbye to him before hitting bed pretty early as everyone was quite wrecked.

Wednesday 11th May 2011 - Day 19 Oasis

I had another bad sleep last night, waking every hour like I did in Amman. There was no point in me just lying there so I got up at 5:15am to have a shower. The hotel was likely on solar power because the water was bloody freezing!! We all met outside at 6:30am and got local trucks to take us to the entrance to Petra. The entrance fee is one of the most expensive in the world 50JD (£50)! As soon as it was put on the list of the World Wonders the price went up significantly apparently. The walk down to the main part of Petra was amazing, there were high rock walls and beautiful carvings. Any photos taken simply did not do Petra justice, you really have to be there and see it for yourself to appreciate the pure magnitude of it all. We came across the Treasury first and with it being 7am there were no other people around, just us. We got some great pictures and a local guy even took a group shot of us all. Karli, Ben, Bonnie and Joss rode a camel around for a bit. We then made the ascend to the Monastery, the highest point of Petra with 800 rock stairs leading the way to it. Plenty of exhaustion later and we finally made it, it was awesome! We had a snack from our lunch pack the hotel had given us, took some photos and had a bit of a rest at the cafe there. We then climbed a little further up behind the cafe to a view point to take some more photos looking out over the valley. Sufficiently rested we made the descend back down the 800 stairs which was so much easier than on the way up. We went to see some of the tombs carved into the hillside which were so impressive, such detail. After this most people left but me, Jess, Stacy, Pop and Simon made another mammoth climb to the High Point of Sacrifice. I actually thought I was going to pass out by the time I got to the top and pretty much fell to the rocks. We laxed there for a bit enjoying the view and finished off our snack pack and then Jen and Kev arrived. They had left us at the Monastery and decided to take another trail down. After our relax we headed down and out of Petra as it was most definitely beer o'clock by this stage (2pm). We had intended to go back to the Cave Bar but when we got there is was closed so instead we went to the hotel next door for beers. We decided to get a taxi back to the hotel but there were too many of us so me and Jess decided to be good and walk. 5 minutes into our walk Kev (who had stayed in Petra a bit longer to explore more) drove past in a taxi so he stopped to pick us up which was good as I was really not feeling the 40 minute walk up hill after the day of trekking we had just had. When we got back to the hotel Pop and I rounded up a few people that were keen to go to the taxi driver's house for dinner. We got the hotel guy to give him a ring to arrange it but sadly it was too good to be true. It turns out he actually owned a restaurant in town so we would be taken there rather than his house and he would expect payment rather than the nice Jordanian hospitality that he had made out it was. So instead we joined the others and went back into town to a falafel restaurant they had found the day before. It was a cute little place so we ate in. I ordered two falafel wraps and although I was quite full after one they were so good and I couldn't resist so I ate the other one. I was hoping that being exhausted from 7 hours of walking around Petra as well as now being totally full that I would sleep like a baby. We got taxis back to the hotel and I got straight into bed. Some of the others went down into the restaurant to have drinks and play cards.

Thursday 12th May 2011 - Day 20 Oasis

Today we headed off to Wadi Rum desert. We packed into a tiny bus with our backpacks strapped to the roof which looked pretty dodgy. It turns out it was as not far up the road something flew off the roof. We pulled over while Dave run back and got it. Luckily it was just a jumper and not a full pack but it did mean things were not strapped on as tight as they should have been. We did a reshuffle to make sure everything was secure and set off again. When we got to Wadi Rum there were three 4x4 jeeps waiting for us to take us on a bit of an off road adventure. We took our packs off the bus and put them into a separate jeep that Dave and Di were going to go in to our camp for the night. We drove through the desert and over some sand dunes, stopping to try our hand at sand boarding. The boards were pretty rubbish and really slow so only a handful of people bothered to give it a go, not me. We stopped again to see some ancient carvings in a rock face and have the guide give us a bit of history about the place and the carvings. Our next stop was to climb a large rock that had a bridge type thing at the top. It was quite a steep climb but had great views from the top. We had some photos taken of us on top of the rock then climbed back down. After that we headed to our Beduin camp for the night. I had expected it to be quite rough and very much out in the open air but it was not like that at all. Most of the structures appeared permanent with a concrete toilet block as well as lots of separate sleeping cabins and a large tent for eating and gathering in. Me, Jess and Jen had our own cabin with a spare bed that we promptly dumped all of our bags onto as the cabins were quite small and there was little room on the floor. We relaxed in our cabin while a few others went outside and played in the desert - Simon deciding to get his kit off and have a bit of a nude moment. Just before sunset we all climbed the rock behind the camp to watch it set, it was very beautiful. We stayed on the rock for a bit enjoying the views before heading back down for dinner. The food was amazing, there was so much of it and we were able to just help ourselves. We were fed lots of tea which was really yum. After dinner we were left to relax in the big tent and chat away to each other. One of the locals got out the equivalent of a guitar and started playing it. Pop, Di and Kev gave it a go, it was definitely a lot harder than the locals made it look. The sounds it made were very relaxing. Everyone apart from the locals left, including Dave who did not have his own cabin so staying in the spare bed in ours, leaving just me and Pop chatting away. Once the locals started to get themselves ready for bed we knew that was our sign to leave. We had originally intended to go straight to bed but we heard giggling coming from up behind the toilet block so went to investigate finding Di and Kev amusing themselves by trying to
throw small rocks through the small openings into the toilet block. We sat with them for a while enjoying the starry night before hitting bed.

Friday 13th May 2011 - Day 21 Oasis

Lucky Friday 13th!! After breakfast, which was bread, jam and tea, we headed back in the 4x4 to the village where we were getting back on the tiny bus. It took a while to arrive so a few of us sat on the ground and played some cards. Due to the unrest in Syria further changes to the trip were required. The fast ferry from Jordan to Egypt no longer ran so instead we were going through to Egypt via the Israel border. Kev opted for the slow ferry as some countries he was planning on visiting on his current passport would not permit entry with an Israel stamp in his passport. The bus stopped just short of the border so we got all of our packs off the roof and walked across into Israel. The security checked all our bags and passports, as any customs would. Unfortunately, the main customs lady took issue with my passport and kept it telling me to wait to the side. My bags came through just fine so I just sat and waited for her, Jess waited with me. A couple of others got their passports taken but subsequently returned pretty much straight after, I was still waiting. Amin was then pulled to the side and grilled about all sorts - him being from Somalia and his actual name being Mohammad Amin set off some alarm bells for the Israeli's. The only reason I could think they would have an issue with me or my passport was firstly because I now had blonde hair and looked very different to my photo and also the gold emblem and lettering on the front was coming off so they may have thought it was fake. The lady who took my passport then came over and asked me to step behind the curtain into a small room with her. At first I was a little taken aback and given I was in Israel was not quite sure what to expect but it turns out it was a total non event. She asked me to take my jacket and shoes off, gave me a bit of a frisk, waved the wand over me and then proceeded to give me my passport back and send me on my way. I'm glad it was a non event as I would have hated to find out the alternative! Everyone else was waiting in the next customs area having already got their passports stamped. Jess and I got ours stamped and waited with the others for Dave and Amin to come through. They were still grilling Amin and had now started on Dave. We weren't sure how long it was going to take so we started playing cards. It took 3 hours for them to finally get cleared. Dave reckoned they made an issue of the two of them for no other reason than because they could. I guess they didn't want a large group of people getting through thinking it was as easy as pie. We got on our bus, that had sadly for the driver been sitting there waiting the entire time we were stuck in customs. We then headed to the Egypt border which funnily enough was only a 20 minute drive down the road. We once again got our packs and walked across into Egypt. This time we had no issues whatsoever. A guy from On the Go Tours met Dave there and was helping him with our visas that needed to be glued into our passports - he appeared to know exactly what he was doing. Dave took all our visa glued passports up to the desk, they were all stamped and off we went again. Small mini buses were waiting outside for us and we drove 2 hours to Dahab. Dahab was a resort type place on the coast of Egypt and given the itinerary changes we were there for a whole 7 days! Our accommodation was called Bishbishi, a small lodge type place right in town. Jess and I had a room and bathroom on our own, as did everyone else. We were meant to climb Mt Sinai the following morning but due to the delay at customs we all opted to do it another night. Instead we went to a local restaurant for dinner and then to a local bar called Mojitos Bar. They served "fish bowls" which were cocktails in a huge glass bowl with lots of straws - never a good outcome really! Our first fish bowl was the Kiwi Cooler. It was all down hill from there with more fish bowls following, most of the night was a bit of a blur. At some stage most of the girls got free tshirts. They said they didn't have any left and after some persistent pestering one of the guys gave me the shirt he was wearing! I hit the wall at some stage in the early hours of the morning so threw a "smoke bomb" - when you just sneak off without anyone noticing to avoid being harassed about leaving!

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