Through the Middle East

From Aleppo in Syria we wish everyone a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We will be i nTurkey for X-mas and hope there will not be too much snow to stop us from travelling. First Nemrut Dagi then on to Cappadocia. We will see what the next few weeks will bring.

During the last 14.000 km we saw many different houses. From really nice ones to downright dump holes. From houses in green garden to houses built on top of each other. Many houses look as if they are not even finished yet: Iron pins stick up from the roof and when enough money comes in or more space is needed another floor can be added. Also a lot of them still need to be painted because you see the rough stones and concrete. Most of them never seem to get finished. This means that most towns, especially in Libya, Egypt and even more in Jordan look quite uninspiring. When the wind blows the dust and sand through the streets its gets even worse.
In the Sinai of Egypt and in Jordan we see a lot of Bedouin tents pitched somewhere in the desert. Some tents are made from woven wool, but others from old brown bags sewn together. Somehow all the way it looks like houses are never really built according to a city plan, but just somewhere on the available lot the owner bought. Compared to Holland it is so organized over there…

Our last evening in Dahab we go to a restaurant near the beach for dinner. The men enjoy a pizza and I order fish. Maybe not a good choice because the next day I am ill. Not very well timed as we have to catch the ferry from Nuweiba to Aqaba in Jordan. Hans does most of the job: packing, looking after the boys, driving, collecting stamps in the passports and the carnet de passage, changing more money for exit taxes and spending the last Egyptian pounds on food. By the time we can board I am feeling better and drive the van backwards on board in between large trucks. We celebrate Saint Nicolas on the boat, singing songs, reading poems and opening gifts with sweets (later we find more gifts – books, in another bag). As they clean the carpets with kerosene the air is hard to breathe inside, but outside it is too cold and windy. Despite Saint Nicolas it is a difficult crossing of about 3 hours. We are happy to enter Jordan where Hans collects more stamps in passports and carnet, changes euro for Jordanian dinars and buys insurance for the car (one month). In the dark it is nearly impossible to find our way in between the trucks parked around the port. Thanks to a helpful Jordanian we find the road towards Saudi Arabia and thanks to a German mobile home a (no charge) place to spend the night (with electricity). The next morning we wake up to see the beautiful blue sea and a beach. Not bad. We take it easy and go to the aquarium in Aqaba where the boys finally can see some of the fish we already saw when snorkeling and find a MacDonalds for a nice ice cream and Bart is eating his first cheeseburger. It feels like having a holiday. Although the wind is severe I go snorkeling but am disappointed: most of the coral is dead and only a few fish are swimming around. Nothing much compared to Dahab although this is the Marine park of Aqaba famous for diving and snorkeling. The next morning I try another spot, see my first morene but can still not rave about it and Hans does not even try. We continue to Wadi Rum to enjoy the beautiful rock formations in the desert. We stay at the Moon Valley Camp and have tea in the Bedouin tent while the boys enjoy playing with their toys in the miniature Bedouin tent. In the late afternoon we climb a hill together to watch the sunset and to our surprise they prepared a dinner of chicken, rice, potatoes, cauliflower and yogurt we have under the stars. After the dinner we make music together on drums and other instruments, clapping hands, singing and the boys dance. What a wonderful evening. When the generator is started the whole wall is lit with coloured lamps, a fairy tale.
The next day we climb the hill again for sunset after decorating the bus with Christmas items as bells and trees cut out of carton boxes.
In Wadi Rum we change our bus for a 4WD again and set off to see bridges of stone, rock carvings, sand dunes and the ruins of TE Lawrence house. We drive through the soft sand enjoying the fact that we do not have to find our way and can simply enjoy what we see. It is pretty busy in some places and we are happy to return to our silent camp. Only to find it is weekend, so other guests had arrived, new loudspeakers were bought and used and a smoky campfire was lit. This is not like our first night in the camp, but nice to compare the difference.
From Rum we drive to Petra and camp at the parking. Petra is a site high on our list of Things to see. In the past whole buildings were carved out of the rocks, mainly as tombs and you enter through a narrow canyon. This is a great gift for my 41st birthday and I enjoy it very much. We walk all the way, carrying one or two children most of the time. But as the low budget travelers we once were we still do not hire a horse, donkey or camel. We hike together along the various tombs, the theatre, the market street until we reach the museum of Petra. I stay behind with Bart and Rik while Hans hikes up 800 stairs to the so called Monastery. On our way back we meet an American family traveling already for 15 months with their 3 children, unfortunately we do not have enough time to exchange experiences. But the fact that their children had stones thrown to them and people spitting because they were American was quite shocking to me.

After Petra we feel we are ready in Jordan but still drive north. We are surprised to find the King’s way so narrow and winding up and down the hills. We do not like all the towns we have to drive through although it is always easy when you need to do some shopping. We have our first shoarma for lunch and find the prices indeed much lower than in Petra where they adjusted the prices for the tourists. That night we stay with a Bedouin family living in 2 tents. Only the older children who go to school the next morning wear shoes. This is something Rik noticed as he says “shoes no” in Dutch. They offer us tea and are very curious to see how we live in our “tent”. The next morning we stay a while so the children can play together which they do most of the time. Of course our boys like their “toys”: old tyres to run with and an empty container to drag around. Their children like the plastic animals and small cars we have. But Rik is also playing with the animals that are walking around, chickens and his favorite: a small goat.
When I get tired of all the dust and the heat we continue to visit the mosaic floors in Madaba and swim in the Dead Sea. To swim in that awful tasting salt water is not easy, I notice my legs stay above the water when I try breath stroke! Floating is easier and I can even have Rik on top of me and still keep floating. This is a nice experience. Unfortunately Rik gets some of the water in his mouth and starts to cry so loud we have to leave the sea. Maybe he is also crying because the salt is getting into his damaged skin on his hands and feet. Who knows?
We have no desire to visit Amman (smog and too big) so we drive to the east towards Iraq to see the desert castles along the way. In a vast and empty area huge stone structures were built to accommodate guests that traveled the desert in the past or came hunting. Nowadays there is nothing left to hunt, but in the past deer and oryx were roaming the plains. In the Shaumari reserve they try to raise the Arabian oryx and of course we go there to have a look. We are lucky because they come to eat when we arrive. Beautiful white animals with 2 large horns nearly completely lost forever and family of the oryx we saw in Botswana a few years ago.
The Azraq wetland reserve dried out completely in 1991 thus depriving thousands of migrating birds from their feeding grounds. But the government has secured part of the wetlands water supply and it is wonderful to see water, reed, water birds like cormorants and ducks in the middle of the desert. There is a short hiking trail and a hut to watch the birds, but we are not in the right season.
Back in Jerash we have rain all night. The first rain this season in Jordan is good for the country but not for us. It is quite small in the van with 2 actively climbing children around you and we are happy to have tea with the tourist police every once in a while and getting to know more about the country and the Arab world. When the sun returns Rik and I hike through the old Roman streets among many columns, old temples for Zeus and Artemis and do our utmost to make slides to prove this site is quite big compared to other Roman cities we visited before during our trip through the Middle East. After 14 nice days it is time to leave Jordan and head further north to Syria.

From Luxor we have to drive in a group, called convoy, to Aswan. We can choose the starting time: 7, 11 in the morning or 2 in the afternoon. Not a difficult choice, so we head south at 11 with some other buses that drive fast through town. After a near accident we decide to drive a lot slower and this means we loose the rest of the group, but not our lives! The road follows the Nile Valley, the small green stretch with trees, bushes and crops growing and plenty of villages and towns. In our gray van people do not regard us as part of the convoy and cross roads in front of us, stay in the middle of the road preventing us to take over etc. This is not what the tourist police behind us like so they regularly blow the horn, drive sometimes in the front, sometimes behind us and it is working on my nerves. Combined with the heat, the long driving time of over 3 hours and the lack of lunch I do not feel very happy when we are not allowed to camp in Aswan (later we hear about a new place near the bridge) and have to find a hotel. The map in the Middle East Lonely Planet lacks explanation of the various numbers and it is difficult to find our way. Finally we find a room in Ramses Hotel not far from the boulevard where many Dutch groups also stay. Rik finds it very strange to hear so many people speak a familiar language all of a sudden!
The next day we continue south with another convoy. Not with the tour groups at 3.30 am but conveniently at 11. Before the airport we take the wrong way and the convoy goes ahead… No blowing horns today. No problems at the road blocks if we get there by ourselves and in Abu Simbel we stay in front of the Abu Simbel Tourist Village where grandma has a pink room. Otherwise we would have stayed at the parking of the temples but now we upgrade a little and enjoy it. In the evening a magnificent sound and light show is performed. The temples are used as enormous screens with displays of the removal in the sixties to avoid the temples being under water after the Nasser Lake was created. Ramses II decided to have the temples built thousands of years ago and was quite happy to depict himself 4 times in bigger than life statues. Because it gets dark at 5.30 the show starts already at 7 and we can enjoy it with the whole family. Rik sits next to me looking with his eyes wide open, Bart says the music is too loud. Well it is all around us, but that makes it even more impressive.
The next day the temples do not disappoint us, after the groups return to Aswan around 9, we stroll around taking pictures outside and looking at all the scenes inside. The boys enjoy the boats, owls and other animals they watch on the inner walls.
Somehow we both got the feeling that from now on we are on our way home. Abu Simbel is the most southern point on our trip, but we are not yet half way in time!!!

The next day we drive back in the very large convoy with all the tourist busses to Aswan. Nearly everyone drives faster and overtakes us but we enjoy the desert scenery and the trucks loaded with camels for the market. We take the same room in the Ramses Hotel, where the price all of a sudden is 130 Egyptian pound and two nights ago 85! Sorry, but I do not accept that. Mentioning the manager drops the price eventually to the original 85… Time to find a felluca boat to sail on the Nile. Hans negotiates a round trip around Elephant island down from 270 to 55 and we all embark. There is a nice breeze and we sail between many green islands, see night herons, king fishers among others. Upstream the wind blows us south, downstream we go from left to right against the wind and it takes too long for the boys. Rik throws a plastic fish in the river that will reach Cairo one day and cries his heart out.
Time for a farewell dinner in the Aswan Moon restaurant with shish kebab and Om Ali as dessert along the river Nile. The next morning grandma leaves us by taxi and airplane to return to Holland. Strange to continue for the rest of our trip with the 4 of us. But first we join another convoy to Luxor. This time we join the groups to see the temples at Kom Ombo and Edfu. Hans sees the first one with the crocodiles, I take my time at the Horus temple. Now we are also “templed out” as many overland group travelers say. Time for an ice cream at McDonalds and relax at Rezeiky Camp. We meet 2 German travelers with their Man truck and spend quite some time together. They even extend their stay. Our last Luxor day is spent in the Kings Valley to see 3 tombs of Tutmosis III, Ramses III and Ramses I. The outside is nearly invisible, but the interior of Ramses III ‘tomb is very richly decorated with paintings and carvings. To imagine this tomb filled with all the treasures the Egyptians made for their after life journey. Still in 1995 tombs of sons of Ramses II were found with treasures. But most were emptied somewhere in the past. Not necessary to say that the whole valley is filled with tour groups and their smelly diesel busses that keep the engine running all the time. It would reduce the smog considerably if engines were turned off.

Getting ready for our last convoy in Egypt, all laundry done, water tanks filled, McDonalds and the market visited again for fruit and vegetables. Departure time at 8 and this time all the side roads are blocked and the speed is normal. Bye bye river Nile off we go to the swimming and snorkeling area of the Red Sea. Halfway the convoy stops at a road house but we continue and prefer to stop in Port Safaga. Unfortunately we miss the Sun Beach hotel (near the Holiday Inn on the way to Hurghada) where we can camp and try various other places first. The temperature rises in more than one way but in the end everything calms down in the beautiful blue sea with abundant fish and a coral reef right in front of us. After Rik and I find a kids’ playing area we decide to stay another day to relax. Hans and I enjoy taking turns snorkeling and spotting beautifully colored fish, Rik and Bart happily play nearly all day in the area. Hard to leave such a heaven, but we do. We pass Hurghada where all groups go and continue north to Suez. The ferry between Hurghada and Sharm El Sheik is too expensive according to our information so we rather drive. Now we can say we drove in the tunnel under the Suez Canal and saw some of the oil activities in the Middle East. On our way to Dahab, the backpackers hangout with diving and snorkeling possibilities Hans climbs the Moses Mountain in the night to see the sunrise. He passes many groups in the dark and gets on the top after 2 hours of climbing. He rates the walk with 8 to 9 on a scale of 10, but the sunrise only a 4. Home for breakfast long before the rest of the groups return. During the night the whole parking filled up with buses, the boys cannot believe their eyes. After a quick glance in St Catherine’s monastery with too many other visitors we head for Nuweiba to buy a ticket for the ferry to Jordan on December 5. That leaves 4 nights in Dahab to relax, swim, snorkel and walk the boulevard. The place is filled with restaurants with tourist prices, souvenir shops and dive clubs but we still find a fruit and vegetable shop to buy our own food to cook. We stay at the Crazy Camel Camp under some palm trees and are surely one of the few that camp and do not stay in a hut or room. There are many places to dive and snorkel and Hans and I take turns twice a day in the various spots. The Lighthouse and Eel Garden are popular and within walking distance. But right in front of our camp the reef of Machraba starts and is also stunningly beautiful, with a frightening drop of several meters. Every snorkeling safari we still see new fishes and we show them to Bart in a book as he is very interested but does not dare to go himself. Looking at the waves I understand, but when the sea is nearly flat it would be nice if he tried to have a look at least once.
Thus we spend the last days in Egypt before going even more to the east: Jordan.