More Egypt and Jordan

The last time I updated Cheryl was about to head home and Eric and I were still in Hurghada. Cheryl made it home and Eric and I took the 4am ferry to Sinai, which meant we had to get up at 2:30am, not much fun. The good thing though was that because it was so early I slept through the whole ride and also on the bus to Dahab, which is where we stayed for the next few days. Dahab is a backpackers town, lots of chill restaurants and bars, beaches, bookshops, a nice place to relax. It isn't very Egyptian, but I liked it. We did some more snorkeling and took a tour up Mt Sinai that was petty crazy. The tour was to see the sunrise at the top of the mountain so we started hiking at 1am, haha. It was a long night, but the sunrise was pretty awesome. Its the mountain that Moses got the 10 commandants on in the Bible, so there were lots of people there and singing as the sun came up, which was fun. We also stopped at one of the oldest monastery's on the way down and saw a decedent of the 'burning bush' but it was a bit too crowed and I was way tired by then from hiking all night. We have actually seen a lot of important Christian religious sights lately, which makes sense given where we are, but some how it didn't occur to me when planning for this part of the trip. Also when we were in Dahab Eric and I won a pub quiz! It was very exciting and the prize was 100 Egyptian pounds which is a fair amount considering that out hotel room only cost 60 a night. It all had to be spent on drinks tho and we actually had quite a hard time drinking it all, haha, but ended up taking lots of bottels of water back with us.
After Dahab we headed to Jordan on an epic ferry journey which lasted 13 hours. Mostly the ferry was just incredibly late and there was a lot of waiting around, but we were really tired by the time we finally got to the hotel in Aqaba. We went straight from there to Wadi Musa the next day, which is the town Petra is outside of and we spent two days hiking around Petra. Petra is really quite amazing, its a whole ancient city carved out of the sandstone. And the area around it is beautiful as well so its fun to hike around even thought the ruins are a bit spread out. Its not quite as hot as in Egypt so we were able to hike most of both days, though we were always happy to rest and buy tea from the Bedouin families who sell souvenirs and drinks along the paths. After Petra we wanted to stop at the dead sea but it seems easier to go to Amman and then find a tour going to the Dead sea from there. We found a hotel in Amman and booked a tour the next day. We couldn't find one that just went to the sea, so the one we did made some stops along the way. We stopped at a church with some very old mosaics, Mt Nebo and the place where Jesus was baptized, tho Eric and I decided not to pay to see that one. Really I just wanted to swim in the Dead Sea which we did and it was pretty crazy. The salt content is so high that you float so much, its a lot of fun. Its also the lowest place on earth which I think is pretty cool. I didn't actually swim too much because the salt is quite painful to any cuts and pensive areas of skin, though as a female I seemed to have more of a problem with this then the guys.
The next day we took a bus to some Roman ruins out side of the Amman called Jeresh, which were really nice. There were two theaters and tons of columns and old parts of buildings and there were very few people there which surprised me since its like one of the top 3 things to see in Jordan. That night we also went out for a bit of a fancy dinner, partly for Eric's birthday which is on sunday and partly because the guide book said that they had scrambled tofu. It was quite good, but the scrambled tofu I ordered didn't actually have any tofu in it, haha, just veggies and cheese, oh well. It was interesting to see that part of town though, its very modern compared to downtown which is where we have been staying. Yesterday we saw the Citadel and another Roman theater and also and archeology museum which had some of the dead sea scrolls which was interesting. Then Eric left in the afternoon to go back home and I'm hanging around until tomorrow for my flight to Vienna!

Pictures

So I realized I never put any pics up from England of France, but I'm going to move onto Egypt so I don't get even more behind.


Eric and Cheryl and the Pyramids with the Sphinx.

Pyramid and camels.
Islamic Cairo, from above, notice all the Mosques.
Coptic Church in Cairo.


Cheryl and I at Abu Simbel.

Felucca on the Nile.

The Red Sea is really quite blue

Hey time for a real update! When I updated before we were still in Aswan, which turned out to be one of our favorite places. It was much more chill and relaxed then Cairo and Luxor. Also we had a pool which might have helped, haha. We stayed for a few days, spending one of those on a trip to Abu Simbel which is a four hour bus ride, but has some very cool ruins. Since it was further south it was even hotter, which I didn't know was possible. We have gotten used drinking insane amounts of water, finding AC whenever possible, walking in even the tiniest amount of shade, and swimming at all opportunities, haha, all which help with the heat. I decided that if it wasn't so hot I would love Egypt, as it is i like it tons but the heat makes it a bit hard to completely love it.
After Aswan we took a cruise to Luxor which was awesome. We were debating between a Falucca, which is a tiny open boat or a fancy cruise and the cruise won out. If there was a middle we would have picked that, but three days on an uncovered boat with no bathroom didn't sound amazing. The boat we did take was great, we were 3 or the 6 english speaking people, which was actually nice. It stopped along the way at two temples, one of them at night which was pretty cool. Food was included and it had a pool, what more could we need really. We stayed for 4 days in Luxor which turned out to be one day too many, but other then that it was great. There is soooo much to see there, we did a lot but got a bit temples out by the end. We spent one day on a tour with a great tour guide of the West Bank, which has lots of famous stuff like the Valley of the Kings which is where King Tuts tomb was found. We also did the Luxor museum, which is much smaller then the one is Cairo, but also much more manageable because it has less, which I liked. Then we basically saw temples and tombs for the rest of our time there, with a bit of time for eating, napping and smoking sheisha like a local (only once tho because we all decided we were coughing to much to get any more, haha.) The food over all has been great and everywhere, even small local places have falafal which worked out really well.
After Luxor we took a cheap and quite hot bus over to Hurghada which is on the coast of the Red Sea. Its really spectacular when you have been on a bus though the desert and seen nothing but brown dirt to suddenly come upon the sea. Its the most blue sea I've even seen i think in spite of its name. We spent yesterday on a snorkeling trip, which was for sure the best i've ever done, though i'm no expert, but it was way cool. All kind of weird fish and nice coral and by the end I was used to breathing with the snorkel thing which i always hate. Eric got a bit burned so we might not do any more for a little while, but it was a great day. Hurghada itself is a bit of a package tour kind of place, but the beach is wonderful.
Cheryl leaves tomorrow which is sad, but it was great that she was able to come, its always fun to travel with more people. Eric and I then take the ferry across the Red sea and then eventually over to Jordan. I think we will stay on the Egypt side for a few days longer, but we haven't really decided, but the beaches over on that side are supposed to be great also. Maybe I'll even have time to put up some pics :)

Egypt!

A very quick update, but I made it to Egypt!  I met up with Eric and Cheryl very late on Saturday night with no problems.  We then spent 3 days in Cairo which was great.  Cairo is actually not quite as crazy and I had been lead to believe, but it was lots of fun.  And its a very busy city, people everywhere at all time of the day and night.  We started off at the Egyptian Museum, which has so much information that there is no way to see it all.  We hired a guide so we wouldn't miss the important bits.  We spent two days exploring the old Islamic part of the city which is full of mosques and markets and great Turkish coffee, maybe the best coffee I've even had.  We also spent a day at the Pyramids at Giza, which are of course amazing!  We managed to get there early enough to beat most of the crowds and the hottest part of the day.  Its soooo hot here.  I thought Bangkok was the hottest I'd even been but this is so much more.  And its so dry too, which is good i guess, but we have to rest during the middle of the day in order not to get exhausted.  But over all is really good.  We are in Aswan now and doing a Nile cruise for two days started tomorrow and I'll post more after that!

Africa Pics

Baby Lions!

Baobab trees are cool.

Lots of Buffalo.

Zebra!

Rhinos are a bit scary up close.

Giraffe!

Empty beach in Mozambique.

Fun Swazi dancers.

Hippos hanging out.

African sunset.

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe side.

Eric went Bungee jumping! 111 meters!

I saw London, I saw France

I spent the last week walking all over England and France, at least it feels that way haha. Its been a lot of fun though. After my parents arrived in London we stayed at Pieter's house for the weekend with his parents and sister. We hiked a bit and swam a bit, the usual fun. I also went into London with Pieter to meet up with Anne which was great! After that my parents and I went to South East Sussex and camped. It was crazy hot at the campsite so we ended up heading over to the beach almost everyday we were there. We hiked along the South Downs Way, which is a great hike along huge chalk cliffs over the sea, hung out on the beach and also hiked to an old Priory which was cool. One night we went to a pub quiz in a tiny town, haha and didn't do very well but had a great time. It was right before July 4th so they conveniently had an American round, and that round had a question about New Mexico! It was crazy. The next day we went back to Leigh-on-sea and stayed the weekend with the Cordwell's again.

On Sunday I flew with my parents to Montpellier, France which is in the South of France. Its a cute little town full of winding tiny roads and old Cathedrals. The Tour de France had one of its races here yesterday which was pretty awesome. It started and ended in town, which i guess is unusual, it normally ends in a different town. It was a team time trial and Lance Armstrong's team won and since he is the only person I knew anything about that was pretty exciting. It was also just a great atmosphere, tons of people all excited about the races, the sponsors giving out free stuff, everyone lining up to watch the race, it was fun fun. We saw the first teams start, each team starts 7 min apart, and then walked the mile or so down to where they end (after they ride in a huge loop outside of town). It was a long day with lots of standing in the sun, but actually a lot more exciting then I thought it would be. Today we drove up to Nimes, about an hour away and spent the day there. They have one of the oldest preserved Roman amphitheater there which was really cool to see. It had an extremely comprehensive audio guide tour so I learned quite a lot about gladiators and the kinds of events the Romans held there. We also wandered around some markets and saw some other cool Roman ruins. And ate great bread, cheese, fruit, and chocolate croissants which I've been doing everyday for lunch, haha. Tomorrow we might go see the beach or more cathedrals or another Roman town or all three if we can fit it in before we have to head back to London the day after that. I then have 5 days after my parents leave to hang out around London and since we haven't really done that yet I think I'll spend them doing London museums and stuff like that. If anyone has know of any great London spots I should hit up let me know!

Off to London

Well I have left Africa and arrived in London, got in late last night. Last I wrote Eric and I were about to go to Botswana to meet up with his friend Sean. We were in the capital Gaborone for three days and it was a lot of fun. It rained a lot of the time there, so we didn't do that much out doors, but I liked the town a lot. Sean is there studying for the summer so we got to hang out with him and some of his classmates, we went out one night which was a lot of fun. We also checked out some of the local museums and went to a village that wasn't to far away. After Gaborone we drove back to Joberg, returned the rental car and hopped onto our flight to Victoria Falls town in Zimbabwe! I wasn't sure what Zimbabwe was going to be like since they have had a lot of trouble there lately, but in Vic Falls town it seems very safe. They really only take US dollars there now which is a pain, but other then that, and it being pretty empty, it was a nice town. The falls were amazing! I couldn't believe how much water was coming down every second, it was crazyness. And just standing somewhat near them was like being in a rain storm! So much water. We also crossed the border to Zambia and saw the falls from that side, where the views are maybe not quite as good but you can get much closers which is fun. We also rafted the Zambezi, the first time i'd ever been rafting, so much fun. The water was very high still so only the haft day trip was open, but I thought it was great. And Eric went bungee jumping! That was crazy, but he seemed to enjoy it.

After a quick three days in Zimbabwe we flew back to Joberg so eric could get his flight back home. The Zimbabwe airport gave us hand written plane tickets, haha, i'd never seen that before. Back in Joberg we did a tour of the Cradle of Humankind, which is a cave were they have found lot of old human remains and stuff like that. It was a good tour but way over priced for what it was so we were a bit grumpy after that. Oh well. Afer Eric left i took the bus to Durban which is on the east coast. I still had 5 days before my flight and it seemed like the most interesting city that I could get to in one day. I really liked it, but i was there during a huge rugby game so it was packed! Like every room full everywhere I called, so i was luck to find a dorm eventually. It was a fun few days hanging out on the beach, and I went to this water park with a girl I met at the hostel. The only bad thing was that once I got to London I realized that someone had stolen all of my credit card numbers. I think it was from the hostel which I locked up my money belt in their safe while I was at the beach. I still have the card but all of them have been used in Durban in the last few days so I had to cancel them. A bit of a pain, but luckily nothing else was taken and I can get them replaced. So now I'm in London at Pieter's family's house and my parents arrive tomorrow!