Tuesday, 5 May 2009

Egypt - Part 5

Dahab
4 May – 10 May
Cairo to Dahab to Jordan to Cairo to Istanbul to London

Don't have many photos from here, as had to get them from other people.

Today we rose at 5am to head to Dahab on Egypt’s red sea. We had a long day on the bus passing through Asia to get there. From Dahab its 20 kilometers to Israel and you can see Saudi Arabia from the shoreline. Once we arrived in Dahab we checked into our cabin style accommodation and spent the day lounging by the pool and then had a walk through the main street of Dahab.

Accommodation -------->

5 May 2009
Today I had a much needed sleep in, once I woke up I went for lunch/breakfast at the Dolphin Cafe which is wehre I spent the rest of the day eating, playing cards, smoking shisas, hanging out and got extremely sunburnt. That night we headed to Miss Dahab at the Tree House and danced the night away.

6 May 2009
Today we went snorkeling at the Blue Hole Blue Hole is a diving location on east Sinai, a few kilometres north of Dahab, Egypt on the coast of the Red Sea. The Blue Hole is a submarine pothole (a kind of cave), around 130m deep. There is a shallow opening around 6m deep, opening out to the sea and an 26m tunnel, known as the arch, the top of which is 52m. The hole itself and the surrounding area has an abundance of coral and reef fish. – no one knows the exact depth as its too deep. The Blue Hole is beautiful and the fish and coral were amazing. I did buy an underwater camera but unfortunately!! It broke AS WELL so don’t have any photos of the fishies. That night we has an all you can eat BBQ dinner which was delicious.

7 May 2007
JORDAN
There was an option excursion to Jordon for the day and I decided to take it up. There were only four of us that did. At 5am we all piled into a bus and were driven for a couple of hours to go to the marina to catch our boat to Jordan. Once the boat docked we hopped off and got on a bus and headed to Petra. From the scenic drive you could see that Jordan is nothing like Egypt and I would totally recommend you to visit it. The scenery reminded me of the Road Runner Cartoon (which funny enough they were playing on the boat ride back). Very rocky ... and looked a lot cleaner that Egypt.

Jordon is in the middle east and is part of Asia Egypt isn’t. The Jordanian currency is strong its about 1 to 1 with the pound. We arrived in Petra - Petra is an archaeological site in, lying on the slope of Mount Hor in a basin among the mountains. It is renowned for its rock-cut architecture. Petra is also one of the new wonders of the world. The Nabateans constructed it as their capital city around 100 BC. The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812. It was famously described as "a rose-red city half as old as time" in a Newdigate prize-winning sonnet by John William Burgon. UNESCO has described it as "one of the most precious cultural properties of man's cultural heritage." In 1985, Petra was designated a World Heritage Site.– which was formed by earthquakes.

One of the tour guides gave this camel a can of beer and it was the funniest thing, the camel took it in its mouth lifted its head up and drank the hole thing. I thought it was going to eat the can as well as it was chewing on it but it spat it right out!

After walking around for a couple of hours we had an amazing lunch and then headed back to Egypt. At the boat dock before we could come back into Egypt they were checking for our temperatures to see if we had old Swinney. One of our girls was a bit hot so had to sit in the corner but after half an hour or so we were fine to leave. I don't have any actual digital photos of Petra, only hard copy ones from my disposable camera, so I down loaded this ones from the net.

8 May 2009
After a much needed sleep today was a good day to just hang out for the morning. In the afternoon I went camel riding. Now these bloody things are sooo uncomfortable, they jerk your body up and down and side to side how anyone can stay on them I dunno. After we stopped for a rest I switched to another camel and this wasn’t that bad, but I would hate to ride them for hours through a dessert.

Camel riding Egyptian Style <-------

9 May 2008
Today was our last day in Dahab. After lunch we packed up and got back on the bus for our 8 hour drive back to Cairo. Once in Cairo it was time for dinner and KFC was sounding good. After dinner I popped into the supermarket to stock up on a box of moro bars. 12 Bars for 26le which is like £3 – £4 bargain. Who would of thought aside from NZ, Egypt was a place in the world that made moro bars! I am ashamed to say though that I pretty much ate the whole box within that week .

10 May 2008
Yahhh, back to London my Egyptian adventures were over.

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