Our "Egypt and Jordan Adventure"

October 26 - November 17, 2010.
By Brad Taylor

After our first successful GAP adventure (bicycling through Cambodia in 2008), Averyl (my wife) and I decided to do another GAP trip, this time it was the Egypt and Jordan Adventure.

Our trip would take us through Cairo, Aswan, Luxor, St. Katherine's and Nuweiba in Egypt and Aqaba, Wadi Rum, Petra, Madaba and Amman in Jordan.

We departed on October 26 and, after a crazy sprint through JFK airport to catch our next flight, we arrived at 3:30 pm in Cairo.

Upon exiting the airport in Cairo, we jumped in a cab and headed to the Cosmopolitan hotel.

After checking in and unloading our stuff, we decided to take our guide book and go for a walk down Roda Island and over towards Coptic Cairo.

Cairo is one of the biggest and craziest cities I've ever been in. It's hot, there's a horrible smell to the city (a combination of dust, excrement and pollution), the traffic's insane and to quote our Lonely Planet Guide Book, "... it turns your snot black".

After walking through a couple of areas where tourists weren't so welcome and a minor incident involving Av getting hit by a rock for not giving a group of kids money, we got to Coptic Cairo.

Coptic Cairo is the old Christian area of Cairo. It's a semi-enclosed portion of the city that consists of several churches including the famous Hanging Church and the Saints Sergius and Bacchuss Church where the holy family stayed.

After taking a cab back to the hotel and getting cleaned up we were delighted to discover that the hotel had a pub in it that served local Egyptian beer.

The following day we met up with our tour leader, Mamdoh, and the 13 other companions on our trip.

Our first stop of the day was the Great Pyramids at Giza and the Sphinx. The Pyramids were incredible and you're really left awestruck with just how big they are and the amount of work that would have gone into their construction. The Sphinx is much smaller in scale but just as incredible.

From the Great Pyramids at Giza we boarded our bus and went back into Cairo to visit the Cairo Museum. It's a pretty rickety old looking building but has a ton of artefacts and relics in it. The highlight of the museum, as you'd expect, is the King Tutankhamun's gold head dress. It's housed in a glass container in a separate room from the rest of the museum but as soon as you see it, you get goose bumps. It's wonderful to see it in person after seeing all the pictures of it.

From Cairo we boarded an overnight train for the 14-hour ride south to the city of Aswan.

Aswan was one of the most beautiful stops on our tour through Egypt. It's quite a friendly city on the bank of the Nile with amazing views as the lush greenery on the banks fades into the desert.

Our two day stay in Aswan began with a ferry boat trip to Philae Temple. The temple is more of a complex than a singular temple as many structures make up the site. The main temple consists of two colonnades leading up to the Temple of Isis and its remarkable bas-reliefs.

The complex also contains the Temple of the Emperor Hadrian, the Temple of Hathor and Trajan's kiosk.

Upon returning to our hotel, we boarded a faluka sail boat and crossed the Nile to the west bank. From the west bank it was time to ride camels to a local Nubian village to play a game of football (soccer) with some local Nubian children before settling down to a home cooked Nubian meal.

We concluded our first day in Aswan by settling down for a drink and a sheesha by the Nile.

Our second day in Aswan started at 4:00 am with a four hour ride in a convoy down to Abu Simbel.

Abu Simbel is definitely one of the highlights of the tour for me. It's absolutely breathtaking! The Great Temple in Abu Simbel is fronted by four 20 metre high statues of Ramesses himself looking out over Lake Nasser. Despite the collapse of one of the statues in an earthquake around 740 A.D., the temple has quite an intimidating feel to it.

The Small Temple at Abu Simbel is fronted by six statues, four of Ramesses II and two of his consort Nefertari. It's significantly smaller than the Great Temple but is just as adorned with magnificent bas-reliefs.

The remainder of our day was spent relaxing and drinking wine on a faluka as we sailed up the Nile back towards Luxor.

The following day was packed with visits to Kom Obo, Edfu Temple and Karnak Temple. Our trip to Karnak ended on an interesting note as our horse and carriage (calèche) driver made a slight detour to purchase some hash through a guarded door.

The next morning we were off to the Valley of the Kings and the funerary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. The Valley of the Kings was just as impressive as I imagined it would be. It's easy to see how the tombs had been hidden so long and how they're still being discovered. The only disappointing thing was you couldn't bring cameras into the valley, they had to stay on the bus.

Being able to venture into three of the tombs of these great pharaohs was unbelievable! They're hot and cramped but the decorations inside and the thought of who was buried here that long ago is really a cool feeling.

The funerary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut is quite impressive and very well preserved, you can still see a lot of the original paintings on the walls in the Temple to Anubus. The statues of Queen Hatshepsut which line the front of the temple are in relatively good condition. The view from the Temple is nice as you can see across the Nile to Luxor.

We finished our time in Luxor wandering the markets before boarding the overnight train back to Cairo.

Our second stop in Cairo took us off to see the Cairo Citadel which sits upon one of the highest hills in Cairo. The Citadel is wonderfully ornate inside and the views overlooking Cairo really show just how polluted the city is.

From the Citadel, we wandered around through the Khan El Khalili Bazaar (where I purchased my Egyptian National Team football jersey) and enjoyed lunch with our group.

The next morning we boarded our bus and began our drive to St. Katherine city, on the Sinai Peninsula, passing under the Suez Canal.

After arriving at our hotel and dropping off our gear, we were off to climb Mt. Sinai at sunset!

Mt. Sinai is one of the tallest mountains in Sinai and is where Moses is said to unveil the 10 commandment tablets.

The three hour climb up Mt. Sinai is 2285 metres was a tough and slow process. The path winds back and forth up the mountain providing spectacular views surrounding mountains.

We reached the summit about a half hour before sunset and were able to wander around and view the Greek Orthodox Chapel and the Mosque at the top. After taking a number of pictures, we set off the climb back down by flashlight.

The next day we visited the Monastery of St Catherine, a UNESCO world heritage site, the world's oldest working Christian monastery and home of the biblical burning bush. The monastery was impressive but very crowded and the burning bush was hidden from view by scaffolding.

We departed St. Katherine city to complete our tour of Egypt with a beach break day in Nuweiba, a small resort village on the banks of the Red Sea.

After the world wind of a tour we had just had, the stop in Nuweiba was a little slice of heaven. The resort was beautiful, right on the water and had the most luxurious lodgings we'd seen on the trip.

The resort also had a dive shop running out of it so Averyl and I were able to experience scuba diving in the Red Sea and it was far from disappointing. The water is so clear you have visibility for about 60 – 70 feet in any direction and the colours of the fish and the corals are like swimming in an aquarium. The diving was definitely a highlight of our trip and something not to be missed if you happen to be in the area.

After a few drinks on the beach in the evening, it was off to bed before leaving Egypt and entering Jordan.

Our day of departing Egypt and entering Jordan was an interesting one to say the least. We arrived at the ferry dock with what seemed like a million other Muslims who were making the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

The ferry between Nuweiba, Egypt and Aqaba, Jordan doesn't have a set schedule and only runs once a day so once we had our tickets and were in the terminal, all we could do was wait and hope the ferry arrived soon.

The wait was fairly short lived, three hours, but if felt like an eternity as the terminal was loud, filthy and had the worlds worst bathrooms.

We arrived in Aqaba, Jordan after a three hour ride on the ferry and met up with our Jordanian guide, Zahir, who took us back to our hotel.

The first day in Jordan we left Aqaba and made our way to Wadi Rum, a desert valley to the east, where we spent the night in a Bedouin camp.

On the way to the Bedouin camp, we passed Laurence of Arabia's 7 Pillars of Wisdom, an impressive rock formation named for its seven pillared appearance.

Upon arriving at the Bedouin camp, we dropped our stuff off and climbed into the back of two jeeps and headed off on a four hour tour through the desert. We had an amazing time bounding over sand dunes, meeting locals for tea along the way and got some great pictures of the sun setting. It's amazing how the locals know their way back through the desert at night as it gets incredibly dark at night.

We got back to the camp and settled into a traditional Bedouin meal of chicken, lamb and potatoes cooked underground in large drums. The taste was incredible, probably the best meal we had on the trip.

Our next two days were spent visiting Petra and "Little Petra" also known as Beida.

Little Petra is smaller settlement that was carved into the cliff faces by the Nabataeans and is less crowded than the larger settlement. Little Petra is amazing to see as there are many tombs to walk through and a seemingly endless supply of staircases carved into the rock in which to climb and explore.

The larger, and better known, Petra is a massive complex believed to be the capital of the Nabataeans and was established around the 6th century BCE. It's probably most well known for the Treasury building which was the featured in the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade film.

From the Treasury, we began our three kilometre walk towards the Monastery stopping constantly to explore the Royal Tombs, the Roman Amphitheatre and the Cardo (street).

At the end of the Roman Cardo, we hired donkeys to take us up to the Monastery. After climbing Mt. Sinai two days earlier, our legs were a little tired and not feeling up to another long climb.

The Monastery is the most well preserved structure in Petra and was definitely worth the climb up. The views from the Monastery are outstanding and are dubbed as the "View of the end of the world".

After about six hours of exploring Petra it was off to Cave Bar, a 2000 year old Nabataean tomb converted into a pub, for a pint and a sheesha.

Our stay in the town of Petra was also quite exciting as the local elections were taking place. I have to say if politics were half as exciting in Canada as they are in Jordan, a lot more people would vote. The streets were packed with cars honking their horns, overflowing with jubilant locals waving flags and pictures of their candidate. It really was a big party.

From Petra we were off to Madaba to see Shobak and Kerak Crusader castles. We didn't get to go in to see Shobak castle but Zahir provided us with a great guided tour through Kerak which is the best preserved Crusader castle in the region.

From Kerak castle, we ventured into Madaba to visit a church with a mosaic tile floor that is the oldest known map of the region. The mosaic is beautiful even though the design is actually backwards!

The following day was quite relaxing with a nice stop at the Dead Sea. With the amount of salt in the water, it can sting quite a bit if you have any cuts or scrapes but being able to float in water almost as thick as Jell-O is an incredible feeling.

From the Dead Sea we took the van up to the summit of Mt. Nebo, the burial place of Moses. The museum has some amazing mosaics on the floor and, outside, seeing the sign pointing out the direction and distance of some of the most historically significant cities in biblical times was pretty interesting.

From Mt. Nebo we traveled to the city of Amman, the capital of Jordan. After traveling through Egypt and some remote areas of Jordan, the city of Amman is really modern and very clean.

In Amman, we visited the Citadel of Amman which stands on one of the 22 hills the city is build on and were treated to a wonderful panoramic view of the city.

After visiting the Citadel we took the bus north of Amman to the city of Jaresh. The modern city is home to the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Jerash.

Jerash is one of the most well preserved Roman ruins in the middle east. It contains some very interesting ruins including Hadrian's Arch, the Temple of Zeus, two amphitheatres, a nearly oval forum and several colonnaded cardos with their impressive Tetrapylons.

Jerash is an incredible example of Roman construction and it leaves you wondering just what it would have looked like before the Persian invasion 614 AD.

We returned back to Amman to have our final dinner with our group and do some shopping and wandering around Amman's Rainbow Street. Rainbow Street is an amazing cobblestone street in the center of Amman where, at night, is bustling with people.

With one additional day added to our trip, we transferred from our hotel to the Four Seasons for a day of pampering. It may be the only time we can afford the Four Seasons but it was definitely worth it after 16 days trekking through the desert.

Our time in Egypt and Jordan was an incredible experience and one that I would highly recommend to others. It's a magical area of the world with an incredible amount of history. It's unfortunate that North American media has placed a big stain upon this area as it's quite friendly and welcoming.

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