Air Jordans — Aqaba, Jordan
So I'm still alive after the meal on the sleeper train I mentioned in the last post, so perhaps I underestimated their ability to cook food that doesn't murder people. Happy days. The train journey itself was kind of fun, in between worrying that the train was going to leave the track in the middle of the night as we tried to sleep, thanks to massively sudden jerks from side to side. Not great for sleeping, really. Eventually we made it back to Cairo, however and began a city tour, where we took in the Egyptian museum with, predictably, lots of ancient Egyptian stuff. Apparently there's nothing else worth displaying in the museum besides old stuff they've found in tombs from a bazillion years ago. I started to wish they'd mix it up and included some other stuff, like say a Pokemon exhibition or some pictures of cats playing the piano. No such luck though and they didn't have a suggestion box, either. On the bright side, there is some cool stuff, the best of which is king tut's gear, like his golden headdress and various coffin things, all covered in gold. They even have some of his undies and they did not look comfortable. Freeballing would definitely have been preferable back in the day. We visited the room full of mummies where they keep all the famous kings. One of them had recently lost a toe, as it was sitting next to the temperature gage. Poor bugger. That night we bade farewell to some of the group who were not continuing onto Jordan. Sunday was an early start and a long drive from Cairo to Dahab on the Red Sea. After a good night's sleep I got up early to go on my first ever dive. It massively exceeded my expectations and I'm keen to have another go when back in NZ. We saw a turtle and an octopus, which is apparently a pretty good result. I got as far as 12m below the surface which is the maximum they'll let a newbie go to, without proper training. Afterwards we went to the blue hole for some snorkelling alongside an amazing reef. Lots of fish and crystal clear water made for another great experience. The afternoon we all went quad biking through the desert on some 300cc Hondas. Mine drove like it was possessed by Satan as it needed constant direction to the left to make it go in a straight line. A bit annoying but still great fun. In the evening we went out for a great seafood dinner and I caught up with Jim from the UK who was over with mates for a bit of diving. We had some beers and watched Federer lose which was the big fly in the ointment on a pretty cool day. Another early start beckoned and we left for Jordan on the ferry just north of Dahab. From the moment we arrived in Jordan it was pretty clear these guys are a million years ahead of Egypt in how to run a country properly. Jordan really reminds me how much Egypt sucks. Man it sucks. Both are in the desert with no water and Jordan has even worse neighbours, yet they still manage to present a decent place. Seriously Egypt, sort your life out. You don't deserve your pretty pyramids and rich history! Our first night in Jordan was at a desert camp in Wadi-rum. After dropping our stuff off we jumped on the back of two old utes and drove around the desert on our 'safari'. Our ute was an old piece of **** and our driver can't have been much older than 13. Driving around the Wadi Rum area was pretty amazing though. We climbed a huge sand dune and took in some pretty spectacular scenery. We then stopped and drank tea with the local bedouins. Later that night we had some local food at the camp and toasted a few marshmallows by the fire. Great stuff. It gets pretty cold out here though but we were well looked after with big fluffy blankets with pictures of Disney movies, which was a plus. Wednesday was our visit to Petra. Amazing site where Indiana Jones was filmed. I liked it better than any of the sites in Egypt but I wonder if some of that is because Egypt sucks and their sites suffered in my opinion because of it! Did I mention Egypt is a terrible country? That night we stayed in Petra town and went for a local meal and a few drinks, to celebrate a birthday for one of the group. The bar we visited is housed in a cave that dates back 2000 years, so it could be the oldest bar in the world, according to lonely planet. Unfortunately the beer tasted like it was shipped in 2000 years ago. I swapped to a mohito that was even worse - probably to be expected in a Muslim country though I guess! On Thursday we visited the Dead Sea. It was incredibly surreal - when you lie back in the water you feel like a cork - it's impossible to sink. Afterwards we continued our journey up to the capital, Amman. We were meant to visit a castle on the way there, but there were some strikes in Jordan that day because they'd just put the price up for milk, bread and petrol, so the guide played it safe and kept us away from the action. He thought the government (and the king) would relent anyway after seeing the protests so it all seemed like a bit of a waste of time. Funny think about the king of Jordan. His dad looked like a better version of Sean Connery, his mother was hot and his wife is a stunner, yet he's ugly as sin, quite fat and looks like he should be an usher at a cinema somewhere. He's apparently also a bit of a dumbass but if you say that in public you can be put in jail, so obviously very few people do. He must be doing something right though as Jordan seems to be the only functional country around here. Syrians are currently flooding into Jordan as their country implodes yet again... Friday was our last day in Jordan and effectively our last of this tour. We began with a quick trip up mount Nebo where Moses is allegedly buried, though nobody knows for sure. There were plenty of religious nuts there to keep me entertained, with their happy clappy, hand-holding nonsense. Then we began the long trek back to Cairo, via Dahab, which takes the best part of 16 hours.. Not ideal! I got chatting to a policeman outside one of our rest stops and he was saying how he'd like to visit London. I asked when he thought he might make it over and he casually said 20 years, as he's not allowed to go overseas whilst he's in the police, so has to wait until he retires! He followed this up by saying he thinks that's a good thing, though he didn't specify why. Someone has obviously sold him some massive pork pies for him to believe it's good to be stuck in a desert until you collect a pension! Later, after we got off the ferry back into Egypt, our bus driver decided to have a brain explosion and forgot where the exit to the ferry terminal was. Instead he drove down to the beach and got our massive bus stuck in the sand. So we waited for a tractor to arrive which, of course, failed to pull it out. We then waited for a second tractor. Finally the bus was released and the driver breathed a sigh of relief knowing he wouldn't be shot at dawn by his friendly countrymen. Next stop is Dubai, where we fly to on Sunday afternoon. Cheers, John
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