Actually, only halfway up the cliffs, but as far as we could go; the rest was overhanging. Weng is bigger than me, but he's also standing closer to the camera. He was a welter-weight amateur boxer in Taiwan.
What a great vista! Weng and I engaged in some class 4 scrambling up the cliffside to get to higher ground.
This trail just headed into a canyon from behind the resthouse.
A pup tent, bed, and blankets was only 3 JD. What a steal!
I was only in Aqaba for a night. I went to the bus station the next morning, but waited around for three hours for the minibus to show up. I ended up meeting Weng, the first Taiwanese backpacker I have met on this trip. He had just flown into Cairo five days ago to start his four month backpacking trip, but was sort of freaked out and heading to Amman. He decided to come along with me to Wadi Rum.
This was the fast ferry from Nuweiba, Egypt to Aqaba, Jordan. It costs $50 plus another $9 Egyptian departure tax not required at any other exit point. Fortunately it only takes 1.5 hours as opposed to the slow ferry which can take up to 10 hours.
On board, there were loads of bus tourists. There were only a few backpackers travelling through, but no one was headed to Wadi Rum; they were all headed to Petra.
In Dahab, the waterfront is lined with similarly decorated restaurants and shesha bars. "Shesha" is the local term for the hooka pipe for flavored tobacco.
A church was initially built in the 6th century near the presumed site of the burning bush. Later a fortress was built to protect Sinai Christians. Later it was turned into a monastery.
We descended down the pilgrim's staircase to the monastery, which is pleasantly in the shade. I met a young student from Kyrgystan studying Political Science in Cairo. There are loads of Russians in Dahab and in Egypt.
It was an hour and a half later when the sun rose and the entire battalion of tourists descended the mountain (without the Ten Commandments).
I was told by someone that Wadi Rum in Jordan looks pretty much like this place. I hope it's better than that, but then again, see the previous entry.
The summit is around 2386 meters. It's an easy hike, if you don't mind the dusty trail, camel poo, and the last bit of stairclimbing.
Having done so little in Dahab, I finally decided to check out the sunrise at Mt. Sinai. The minibus loaded with tourists sped away from Dahab at 2330 and arrived at the foot of Mt. Sinai around 0200. There were loads of tourists there offloading the deluxe coaches. Touts descended upon our minibus and demanded that we pay them 5 LE each for guide services, which was required. Well, it wasn't required, but we didn't know any better, and I didn't walk with a guide anyways. So goes another buck to baksheesh. I met a Russian kid on the hike up. We tore up the trail, trying to pass camels bearing tourists, eventually making it to the summit two hours later in (almost) solitude. There was a small church on the summit.
I went for a walk along the boardwalk until it became sand. In Assalah, the small village north of Dahab City, Egyptian kids were playing in the water, fishing, and snorkelling. A dude brought a few camels over to the water to cool them off. I was impressed that one of the camels eagerly sat down, but then lost its balance and almost rolled over, so it quickly got up and walked out of the water, a little freaked out.
Adam's Bar near the lighthouse has 500 mL bottles of Stella beer for 5 LE -- less than $1.
Dahab is a resort and vacation spot on the Sinai peninsula. It has a lot of dive shops and hotels, but it is mostly geared toward the budget crowd.
The beach consists of rocks, but most people lounge in chairs. There is great snorkelling and diving just off the beach.
Actually, not "colossi" as this just refers to the statue on the right. The Greeks discovered it in pieces on the ground, shaken down by an earthquake. When the wind howled through the pieces, the Greeks thought it was King Agamemmnon's voice. The howling stopped when the statue was put back together.
These are the only remains of a temple built during Amenhotep III's reign.
Queen Hatshepsut had this massive funerary temple built just for her mummifcation process. She ruled over Egypt, as many of the pharoahs, but creating a story for her lineage. She claimed to be the "son" of a God and her mother, and thus had a claim to the throne despite being a woman. Many of the pharoahs, despite not being from royal blood did similar things by changing the hieroglyphs in temples and having the high priests recognize them as the God-kings during holy festivals.
With the Old Kingdom in ancient Egypt, pharoahs were buried in pyramids, but with the Middle and New Kingdoms, pharoahs were buried in hidden tombs in the Valley of the Kings, on the western banks of the Nile. The west, where the sunset, was considered closer to the underworld, and with this great natural pyramidal peak of Al-Qurn, they didn't need to built a pyramid. There are some 68 tombs discovered so far in the valley, but all of them were robbed, including the tomb of King Tutankhamon, but his was still in the best condition as the graverobbers only stole perfumes. A new tomb was just discovered six weeks prior to my visit.
Interestingly, this mosque was built over the existing Luxor temple back when most of the temple was buried under sand.
The Temple of Luxor was built for three gods by several pharoahs and vandalized by them all, including Alexander the Great. Interestingly, there used to be two obelisks in front, but now one of them is in the Place de la Concorde in Paris.
Built by several pharoahs for three gods, this complex was huge. It was also vandalized by succeeding pharoahs (overwriting their names, or cartouches, over the previous names) and fleeing Christians from Roman persecution.
From Edfu, I took a nice long bladder-empty ride to Luxor. The modern tourist city of Luxor is built around the ancient capital of Thebes from the Middle and New Kingdoms of Egypt. This was also the site of the 1997 massacre of 58 tourists at the temple of Hatshepsut.
For Luxor, we had an excellent tour guide, Gad, with Amigo Tours.
I spent my time here searching for a toilet and ended up entering the temple through the exit for free. Sweeeet.
The Temple of Sobek and Haroeris -- which we didn't bother visiting. We sat around for a few hours as the rest of the tourists got their fill of this temple. I made the mistake of drinking loads of water. I had to pee just before we left, and the driver wouldn't stop until we reached our next destination. We were travelling by armed convoy (a train of buses in tow) from Kom Ombo to Edfu and to Luxor. As a new low in my travels, I ended up peeing in a bottle in the minibus. Everyone was pretty cool about it, though, even the dude sitting next to me.
On the first day, we didn't anything but slowly tack up wind (down the Nile). At night, we tied up next to a beach (it was nice and warm next to the sand). We slept out on the deck (there was no other option). At night it was pretty cold (low around 60 F), so it was great having blankets to use. In the morning, we got up with the sunrise and drifted to the east bank to let the Texans off (they had signed up for a one night ride). We spent the rest of the morning drifting aimlessly in the excellent wind. I guess we didn't have far to travel that day because Captain Cool wasn't in any rush to put up the sail. Instead, we tied up on the shore for lunch and some of the others had a swim in the schistosomaisis-laden waters. Later we visited Daraw, a non-touristy town where we spent three hours doing nothing.
This is all the space that Attah had for cooking up the food for us -- fantastic, considering how limited his resources were.
The others on the tour: the Texan couple (who insisted they were siblings), a Norwegian (doing his Masters thesis in Cairo), and three North American students on Easter break from Bible school in the UK. It was a very unlikely group, but it was a good time.
After Abu Simbel, I returned to Aswan for my felucca ride. Four of the other passengers had spent the morning visiting the islands in the Nile at Aswan. We started off with a nice simple lunch of pita bread, feta cheese, mixed vegetables, and a tomato/egg curry. Very nice!
A felucca is the traditional sailboat used on the Nile. It actually was one of the nicest things I had done in Egypt. Food and bedding was provided for us for the two day/night trip down the Nile. The boat was crewed by two.
Just inside the temple at Abu Simbel. Many of the wall carvings were in color. You could actually see grafitti from the 19th century, when this temple was discovered.
This is a rare case of when I could actually take photographs inside a temple. For that reason alone, it was worthwhile coming out to Philea.
Ah, bakhsheesh -- or tipping. Now I understand how confounded Europeans feel with tipping in America. In a few countries, namely India, Pakistan, and Egypt thus far, people will ask for tips for doing almost nothing. It is ridiculous, and I think it's the same as the children begging for money, candy, or pens on the Annapurna trek. These folks that work closely with tourists are so used to packaged tourists that throw away money, that they'll ask anyone. When they do ask for money, they do so with a smile on their face because it is almost a game to see if they can get anything for doing almost nothing. It is a real shame because the baksheesh tourist encounter is different from that which Egyptians actually experience.
Anyways, I took a picture of this dude and gave him 19 paistres, which was all the loose change I had.
This temple is dedicated to Isis. That's what my book says.
On the first afternoon, we were herded into a minivan for some sightseeing. I met a couple other Americans (Texans, actually) in the minivan so we passed the time talking about their experiences in Egypt. I later found out that the dude only ate at McDonald's while he was in Egypt. Nice one.
Anyways, we first visited the High Dam, which was not so much of a tourist sight, but a place of national pride for Egyptians, I guess. There are two dams along the Nile that powers much of the area, a lower dam and a high dam. We had to pay 8 LE to "see" the high dam. Imagine my utter boredom. It is not much larger than the smallest dam I have ever seen. It's actually on par with a reservoir wall. How pathetic.
The second visit was to the island temple of Philea. This had to be moved when the dam was created, as part of a massive UNESCO project. This is actually not unique to the Philea temple.
The temple was in good condition with good examples of hieroglyphics and carvings on the limestone. Our tour guide was of no use whatsoever unfortunately so I can't tell you anything about this temple.
