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05/30/2004: "Long Time, No Post..."

Hi!

I last posted having just arrived in Petra in Jordan. We haven't had any opportunities to post since, either because there wasn't any Internet or because we were sleeping early and getting up early.

Petra starts out with a gorge that could be a tourist attraction in Utah all by itself, which ends with a massive facade hewn into the rock called "The Treasury" that was featured in Indiana Jones. Many facades of Nabatean tombs remain in Petra, but most of the actual city hasn't been restored. It's a fascinating place. We spent two days there walking around and taking pictures.

The next day we went to the desert near Wadi Rum, in a 4WD Toyota truck driven around by a Bedouin. We camped out in the middle of nowhere and played with the telescope; we definitely saw Jupiter and two of its moons really close together; we saw a fuzzy spot which was the Ring Nebula. The driver seemed reluctant to enter Wadi Rum proper, perhaps because he didn't like how the government was treating the Bedouins who lived there, but found a way in without paying in the morning. We weren't sure if we were being driven around Yosemite without seeing Yosemite Valley, but it was all pretty spectacular desert scenery. It's where "Lawrence of Arabia" was filmed, and where the story actually took place.

The fast boat crossing from Aqaba to Nuweiba in Egypt was "down for maintenance" so we had to take the slow boat. It's a 2.5 hour crossing instead of a 1 hour crossing. That's not including the 2.5 hours before the boat actually leaves (after its nominal time) and the 1 hour before you can really get off. We got in a taxi to St. Catherine, and spent the night in the Morgana Villas, which seemed surprised to see people who were not a massive tour group.

St. Catherine's is located at the base of Mount Sinai, and houses the progeny of the original Burning Bush. Most massive tour groups get up at 3, get to the top of the mountain at sunrise, and then check out the monastery afterwards. We got up at 4 and couldn't get a taxi to the mountain, so we went back to sleep, checked out the monastery, and climbed the 3750 Steps of Penitence up to the top in the middle of the warm, breezy day. There were no tourists at all (but no taxis when we got back to the bottom). An Israeli couple shared a minibus with us towards our next destination, Sharm al-Shaikh, where we are now. I asked if he spoke Arabic -- he said "no, I speak Body Language".

Sharm al-Shaikh, as Ray has been saying, is in the Republic of Touristia, as opposed to being in Egypt. We're at a five-star hotel ($70 on the Internet; $220 if you just go there). It's like a vacation from our mad work of travel, with bathtub-warm water and lots of fish to look at swimming around coral right at the hotel beach. We'll probably take a boat trip to see better ones tomorrow or the next day. For awhile we thought we had Ethernet (high-speed Internet for our computer) in our room, but it turned out to be just a telephone connector that was too wide. So we're back at the Internet cafe.

A woman we met on the slow boat told us we should have gone to Da'hab, which is the laid-back stoner hippie dive center with very accessible snorkelling, instead of Sharm, which is the expensive touristy dive center with less accessible snorkelling. Also, we'd planned to take the high-speed ferry to Hurghada, but it's closed for maintenance (for a week). So we'll skip Hurghada, and fly EgyptAir straight to Luxor on Tuesday night. We probably shoudn't have scheduled a fast-paced trip in a slow-paced country, especially without a rental car, but I'm sure it'll all work out.

Traveling was very straightforward in Syria -- prices were understood and reasonable. In Jordan, things were a bit weirder (I couldn't take a day off my car rental as I'd done in Syria; we were almost shortchanged at a gas station; etc.). In Egypt, every dealing is a challenge. The taxi from St. Catherine's to Sharm tried to raise the agreed-on price of 350 to 400 in the middle of the voyage (we refused, of course). Taxi drivers ask you how much you want to pay, and usually double that.

We walked around a mini-mall today, and Egypt definitely has the shopping thing wired -- there's lots of nice stuff to sell to tourists (as well as loads of schlock...)

Time to get back into the perfect water...