Egypt, Day 5 (part 1)

One day trip to Jordan

We set off early in the morning again and headed for the "customs" - a tiny building by a little jetty and a couple of boats. After another session of giving your passport to one man, him passing it over to another, third one flicking through it, fourth man actually stamping it and fifth man checking that the stamp is really there, we proceeded to the little boat that was to take us across the Red Sea to Jordan.

So this is the holiday resort Taba Heights seen from the sea. Five hotels by the sea, surrounded by mountains on land - completely separate from the town of Taba, which is a few miles further along the coast towards Israel. A little higher near the mountains you can see "the village" of Taba Heights. It's not an old village or anything, it's just a congregation of a few restaurants, shops, small hotels, etc. No local inhabitants apart from the staff that work in these businesses. (I wish I'd been able to get hold of all this information before I chose my trip!)



Taba itself is very near the border with Israel. The big hotel on the left is in Taba, Egypt, and the big hotel on the right is in Israel, near(ish) Eilat.



When we got closer to Jordan, we could see this huge Arab Revolt flag towering over the city of Aqaba. Apparently it is the tallest free standing flagpole in the world. (Don't get it confused with the flag of Jordan, which is very similar).



Don't know why this Chinese ship was smokin'. Makes an interesting picture, though.



Aqaba locals enjoying seaside town life. Actually, it was Friday, which explains why there were so many people on the beach! In most Islamic countries the week starts on Saturday and ends on Friday, so Friday is the equivalent of the Christian "day of rest". "Day of play" more like, by the looks of it (there will be another photo from the seafront of Aqaba later on).



We met our Jordanian guide, hopped on a coach and started heading NE towards Petra.



I loved the shape of the sandstone mountains by the road.





The road kept climbing up gradually. Didn't see much on either side for a while - just fairly dull "nothingness". Then, at one point, our guide asked us to close our eyes until he says it is OK to open them (he told me off for keeping my eyes open - hey, I'm a photographer, I can't shut my eyes!) and when he did, we were in front of this view:



The view was very impressive. Naturally, the photo doesn't do it justice, even in the bigger size. (click on the photo to see the bigger picture)

This is some town near Petra... Have to see if I can find out its name! It may be Wadi Musa, which is the nearest to Petra. But then again it may be Ash Shawbak.



Coca-Cola make wheelchairs?



At the entrance to Petra there was trouble with the men at the gate; some misunderstanding about how many people and how many tickets in our group... This man wasn't very nice, but he looked great!



The descent to Petra is about a mile long trek through a ravine in the mountain.



...and some people make the journey in a horse carriage.



Luckily, we walked the whole distance - it was simply beautiful. Regardless of scores and scores of tourists everywhere.



This is the view you have in front of you when you come out of the ravine into the main square:



...and looking back from the other side of the square, this is the ravine we just came out of:



The tourist police is keeping an eye on some seriously suspicious looking tourists.



Camel ride galore. I like the interaction between the riders in this photo.



The Three Musketeers of Jordan?






I know, I know.... I'm in the magnificent ancient city of Petra and all I shoot is camels and donkeys... disgraceful, isn't it. I told you I can't help it.

I have to admit that I took about 500 photos on this day - some of which not too terrible-, so there are many more to show you. But I'm going to cut this day in half and continue in the next instalment. And I promise to post a few photos of the buildings and caves, too.

Egypt, Day 4

Next morning we got on our coach again and headed through the heavy traffic (and a lot more car horn honking) towards the old town. These are pocket camera snaps from inside the coach again.





Would have loved to have some time to wonder around in the old town, but alas, we were on a tight schedule. (The joys of package tour travelling...)








We visited the most famous Coptic church in old Cairo, The Hanging Church (El Muallaqa).







From there we walked to Ben Ezra Synagogue (where photography was not allowed, so this is just a side street I happened to have a glimpse of when following the past-paced guide).



Another candid from the coach.



This photo gave me a chuckle when I had a closer look afterwards and saw that the driver had been playing sudoku; and not on any old ready-made sudoku grid, either, but a hand-written one!



Then we headed back to Taba and the Red Sea. This time I was awake when we went through the tunnel under the Suez Canal!



Coming out of the tunnel. (On the way to Cairo Miles got a great photo of a ship sailing in the canal, looking like it was sailing in the sand in a middle of a desert. But I didn't get as lucky with the timing.)









This is one of the many check points along the journey. I came across these check points first when I was in Egypt about 15 years ago and was travelling between Cairo and Aswan. Well, I guess it's good that they keep an eye on who is travelling on their roads. Not that they have managed to avoid tourist killings that way...



While they were checking whatever they were checking, I noticed that this check point was a lot more interesting than others:





After the huge expand of flat(ish) desert, we drove across the hilly part to get to the coast.





...and enjoyed the evening light show from our balcony.

Egypt, Day 3

I've been asked to show what Egypt is like, so I'm going to include some pocket camera snap shots in this post. The following photos were happy-snapped through the window of our coach on the way to Cairo. (Whenever I wasn't asleep, that is.)

Two day trip to Cairo

Set off: 4 AM. Ugh. Oh well, it's all worth it. The journey is going to take us about six hours.

So we are driving from the blue dot (Taba) on this map to the green dot (Cairo) across the Sinai desert peninsula. Click on the map to make it bigger.



And this is what it looked like just after sunrise.









Just after we had gone through the tunnel under Suez Canal, we stopped for a few minutes to stretch our legs.



Approaching Cairo and its mad traffic.











Did you know that Egypt is the fifth largest garlic producer in the world? And that they have been munching on the divine onion at least since the time the pyramids were being built?



Here we are about to arrive at the Pyramids of Giza, in the outskirts of Cairo.



...and I take my SLR out.

It's the usual story: lots of tourists and camel ride sellers...



This guy just wouldn't leave me alone unless I took his photo.



But it didn't take long for the tourist police to come and chase him away. It's the first time I've seen a police use a whip as a weapon of choice. Well, OK - it's the first time I've seen a police riding a camel, too.



The obligatory shots...







Wasn't quite sure whether it was OK to take this guy's photo. But didn't want to ask him, either. The weapon looked well used.



Some street candids, taken from inside our coach with my 100-400mm lens.







We arrived at our hotel by the river Nile just at the time of sunset.



View from our hotel room balcony.



Wish I could add sound to these photos; imagine a constant cacophony of car horns honking. I liked the sound of it - it was kind of mad and exotic, but at the same time I was quite thankful for the sound proof French windows in the room.