Day 12: Sharm

We checked out of the Le Meridien Dahab and headed for our luxurious one night stay at the Four Seasons in Sharm El-Sheikh. We were greeted with cool towels and cold mint tea. After a few little inconveniences with our room we were settled into a lovely room with a gated entry to stairs leading up to a nice porch.

The sprawling grounds of the Four Seasons are gorgeous. There are palm trees and bushes and beautiful fuchsia, light pink, and white flowers everywhere. We walked down from our room to one of the pools and relaxed on comfy lounges and sipped cocktails. One of the hotel staff even stopped by to polish our sunglasses!

I, of course, was protected from further burning at all times by an umbrella or covering myself with towels. I felt a little like one of those ugly, pale white monsters that hiss and squint angrily in the sun. Later in the afternoon Paul snorkeled off the Four Seasons’ jetty, while I watched from the beach under an umbrella. He promised the reef was not as spectacular as the snorkel sites we had visited in Dahab. Anyway, I didn’t mind my “condition” too much with the sweet resort staff stopping by, adjusting my umbrella for perfect shade and offering to give me the moon if I asked. Hah.

Paul on his way to snorkel off the jetty.
Returning after a successful snorkel trip.

In the evening, Paul and I enjoyed the bottle of wine that Mohammed had given us from Jordan before heading off to dinner. Dinner was great. We went to a restaurant in the resort that overlooks the water and took part in the “fish market.” For our main course, we were taken over to a big block of ice near the kitchen displaying several whole fish, fish filets, shrimp, and calamari. I picked out a yummy whole roulade (sorry little guy) and a grouper filet and Paul picked a tuna filet. So fresh and delicious! The appetizers – shrimp tempura and scallops – and side of Egyptian seafood rice were mouthwateringly good too.

After dinner we walked back out to the jetty off the beach and tried to peer into the water at the night fish. We didn’t see a lot, so we just sat on the lounges and listened to the sound of the water and took advantage of the rarely cool air. It was a great day!
On our way to dinner.
Standing at the gate to our porch and room.

I think my true calling is not the law…I was meant to be the host of a fabulous travel channel show called “Luxurious Hotels in Exotic Locations”! I can just picture it now…

Day 11: Dahab Snorkel Trip

We got an early start on the morning for a day long snorkel trip. We met our guide at 7am and drove out to the famous dive and snorkel site, the Blue Hole. Our guide was a young Egyptian guy from Alexandria. He was nice and enthusiastic – it was obvious he loved Dahab and his job – although he was a little too touchy, grabby for my liking as he tried to guide us in the water.

The Blue Hole was AMAZING (trust me, although it has been quite a common adjective in this blog, I try to reserve that word for the best of the best sites we see). If you can imagine a 300+ ft. deep circular swimming pool with walls of coral and big schools of brightly colored fish, that is the Blue Hole. We entered the water outside the Blue Hole at a little canyon in the coral where the water is over 600 ft. deep. We set out swimming along the outer edge of the Blue Hole’s circular coral wall and returned along the inner edge. The sun is so bright and the water is so clear, visibility is perfect! From the top of the water, we looked down at the beautiful and endless deep blue water. The water never got dark. It was infinitely blue. Fish floated beneath us. I felt like I was in an aquarium. Zebra fish swam right up to our masks and looked us in the eye as if to say, “Hi!” Big schools of little orange fish swam below us and big schools of tiny silver fish at the surface of the water reflected the sun so that it looked like we were swimming through a collection of sparkling silver jewelry. We saw big and brightly colored fish too! I loved the cobalt blue fish with yellow fins and the light blue fish with yellow and white stripes and the green and purple scaled fish. I even loved the ugly tan colored fish with brown speckled spots and bulbous eyes!
A view of the "Blue Hole."
Us standing in front of the Blue Hole after snorkeling.

After the Blue Hole we left for our next stop – the reefs in a nature preserve off the coast of a Bedouin village, reachable from Dahab only by camel. We saddled up the camels with all of our snorkel equipment, in addition to food and supplies from Dahab for the Bedouin. We had a little trouble getting past the police officer guarding the path to our destination, and during an argument between our guide and the police officer, I was loaded on to a camel who took off down the path! I wasn’t quite sure how to use the rope attached to his head so I just pulled and we spun in circles until our guide had finally resolved his issues with the police officer.

It was an hour to the Bedouin village. Our camels walked over the rocky narrow path while waves crashed onto the shore a few feet to our right and mountains loomed over us a few feet to our left. It was a beautiful ride.
A view of the path.
Paul on his slow, stubborn, and grumpy camel.
Paul and our guides on camels in the Bedouin village.

When we entered the Bedouin village, all of the Bedouin children were naked and jumping and diving and back-flipping off the rocks into the water. The Bedouin women swarmed us with jewelry and cotton head scarves, and after politely refusing several times, we were finally ready to get back in the water.
A view of the Bedouin village from the path.

Again, it was AMAZING. I had never been one to admire coral, but I loved it! I don’t know whether I suddenly acquired an appreciation for coral or it was particularly beautiful here. There were purples and blues and yellows and whites in the shape of fans and flowers. And it was everywhere. I barely saw sandy ocean floor. And the variety of big and small fish was overwhelming. One of the highlights was seeing a family of pipe fish (related to barracuda, according to our guide) swimming with us. Another highlight was the large clam with bright blue lips opening and closing on the ocean floor.
Me in front of the snorkel site.

After our snorkel, we had traditional Bedouin tea and a traditional Bedouin lunch of chicken, rice, potatoes with onions, and a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers. We ate lunch and relaxed under the shade of Bedouin tent (more like a straw shack). The Bedouin village was different from our Bedouin camp in Wadi Rum – straw shacks rather than real tents, no electricity, and a toilet that was nothing more than a hole in the ground with makeshift wooden walls for privacy. After lunch and a nap in the tent, we headed out for one last snorkel I was impressed that our second snorkel in the nature preserve was so different from and just as exciting as our first!
The "tent."
Our lunch and nap spot.


In the late afternoon, we reloaded the camels and headed back for our hotel. I knew I was sunburned after that third snorkel, despite reapplying sunscreen four times throughout the day. The extent of the burn hit me hard on the way back. And the worst of it was at the edges of my bum and the backs of my legs. Let me tell you, riding a camel with a sunburned behind is PAINFUL. Every muscle in my back was working to lessen the impact of the camel’s bouncy walk and the rubbing of the rough saddle blankets on the backs of my legs. On the back my face got hot and my mind was spinning in circles and my whole body ached. The camel ride back felt twice as long as the ride to the reef. Finally, we arrived back at the Blue Hole and hopped into the back of the rickety old Jeep that had driven us from the hotel in the morning. Between the bumpiness of the Jeep ride and the overwhelming smell of diesel, I thought I would never make it back to the hotel. I tried my best to stay strong, but eventually I had to ask the Jeep to pull over. I must have been suffering from severe dehydration in addition to my burn – I was so sick! I rode the rest of the way back in the front seat, stopping just once to get sick again. I must have done something to get on Ra’s bad side! (I think Ra is the Egyptian god of the sun…)

Paul was a great caretaker back at the hotel. I laid in bed like a mummy slathered in aloe, moving just to sip water and take a few Tylenol PMs. The next morning I felt great (except for the minor inconvenience of pain when sitting down, walking, or generally moving my legs at all…great, comparatively speaking, that is).

Day 10: Dahab

We spent the day lounging on the beach pods at Le Meridien. We chose to stay at the Le Meridien based on trip advisor reviews that spoke of a reef directly off the hotel beach. The reef did not disappoint! We snorkeled several times during the day and saw lots of pretty coral and fish, including a beautiful (and poisonous) lion fish! And Paul saw an eel and stone fish later in the day! I had given up on snorkeling by the late afternoon and was content reading my book and looking out across the water at our view of Saudi Arabia, although I was a little sad to have missed the eel and stone fish.
View of the hotel from the beach.
The view of the beach from our room.
Camels strolling the beach.
Paul humoring me with a picture of the beach pods.
Relaxing in a beach pod with juice.
Paul heading out to snorkel.
He got to be a snorkeling machine!

After we rinsed off the extremely salty water, we headed over to one of the hotel restaurants at what we thought was 7:15 and were told that the restaurant did not open until 6:30. For more than a day we had been operating on Jordanian time and finally figured out that Egyptian time was an hour different! Again, I blame Lonely Planet, which specifically told us that Jordan and Egypt are in the same time zone. Anyway, we had a lovely dinner at the Asian inspired restaurant at the hotel when it opened. The food was great and we looked out over the pretty shimmering water under the light of the full moon.

Random Thoughts on Jordan

• Jordan is a country with gorgeous landscapes, amazing historical sites, and nice people. I would highly recommend a visit and would happily return in a heartbeat.
• There are cats everywhere. Cats are like squirrels or pigeons and invade all the restaurants begging for food. Restaurant hosts and waiters are always shoeing the cats out, but those little cats are persistent!
• In almost all of our hotels we’ve had to slip our key card into a little slot in the room to use the lights and air conditioning. An interesting way to conserve electricity.
• There are a lot of checkpoints set up along the roads, but Americans are waived right through. Mohammed threatened to tell the guards we were Iraqi. Hah.
• There are pictures of the King and prince everywhere – hotels, restaurants, etc. Paul says it’s Orwellian.
• Although we had the impression that driving is completely chaotic, Mohammed told us that the traffic police are extremely strict. And if you get pulled over, you must pay the ticket on the spot or go to jail. That’s why all Jordanians kept 50 dinar hidden in their cars.

Day 9: The Ferry from Aqaba to Egypt

Paul was hit with the infamous stomach bug just in time for our stressful journey from Aqaba to Dahab, Egypt. I loaded him up with lots of prescription drugs from the US and we headed out early to catch a cab to the ferry.

Navigating the ferry was a little confusing, but we figured out where to pay the exit tax and get our passports stamped and sat down to wait for the ferry. I think the man at the exit tax counter (who looked like a ridiculous bobble head doll with his wagging head and constant eye rolling) ripped us off and forced us to pay the higher Jordanian exit tax rather than the foreigner tax, despite our protests. Oh well.

We met a girl from France who was traveling alone and together the 3 of us worked to figure out the ferry protocol. We saw a big line forming and hurried over to wait, but we were waived to the front of the line and told to sit in the shade. We learned several times that day that foreigners are permitted first in line over locals. It wasn’t fair, but I pushed aside my guilty feelings and was thankful for the privilege. A big bus pulled up and we boarded and headed to the ferry.

The bus dropped us off at a big industrial looking ramp that led to the inside of the ferry. We dropped our suitcases on the ramp and headed up the steps to grab a seat for the ride. The ride itself was long (despite the name “fast boat”) but uneventful, and we finally disembarked at the Nuweiba port in Egypt.

It was like entering the 7th Circle of Hell. I guess that is a slight exaggeration…but Egypt is definitely a different country than Jordan. We stepped out of the ferry and I felt like the hot thick air almost knocked me over. All the foreigners were walking in confused circles trying to figure out how to get the hell out of the port. Eventually we boarded a decrepit bus with seats missing, sticky dates stuck to the seatbacks, and shabby curtains and were dropped a short walk away. More walking in circles and we were eventually pointed toward an office to retrieve our passports (which we had to hand over on the ferry). Then we were redirected to a bank to buy the visas that were required for our passports. Then back to the office. The whole time Paul and I were lugging suitcases over rocky broken “paths.”

After we got our passports, we still had no idea how to get out of the port. I tried to ask a man for help, but he told me he did not speak English. I know he was lying from the way he asked in perfect unaccented English, “Do you speak Arabic?” and smirked at me gleefully when I told him “No,” and he responded, again in perfect English, “I don’t speak English.” I hope that made his day.

Finally we were pointed toward huge lines of locals all yelling. There was a general sense of chaos. Paul was polite and walked toward the back of the line (I was heading straight for the front), but we were waived to the front anyway. Again, foreigners get to cut in front of locals. To be fair, the locals had A LOT (literally huge carts) of bags to be screened and we had just a couple of suitcases. We made it through “screening” (more a token gesture of sending bags through a scan as fast as possible), and Paul thought to wait again in the same line as the locals for the exit point. By this time I was irritated at the chaos, the heat, and the 1 English-speaking man who had refused to talked to me. I told Paul that this was a place with no rules and that we were leaving, so we just walked around the lines and headed out of the port with no further inspection. No one had a problem with that.

Luckily Paul had arranged transport with our hotel and there was a man holding a sign with the name Mr. Overmyer on it. If the port was the 7th Circle of Hell, he was an angel!

He took us to his car, gave us water, and an hour later we were delivered safely to our hotel in Dahab, Le Meridien. Paul managed the stress and chaos of the day despite his terrible illness, and by the time we were at the hotel, the drugs had kicked in and he was good as new. A big thanks to my Dad for the prescription!

Day 8: Aqaba

We left the desert early in the morning and headed to the port town of Aqaba on the Red Sea. Mohammed showed us around town, and at one point we had views of Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and of course, Jordan. After Mohammed helped us buy tickets for the ferry to Egypt, he dropped us at our hotel. We were sad to say goodbye to our great tour guide.

We stayed at another Kempinski hotel and we were upgraded to a corner room with a beautiful sea view. We spent the day relaxing by the beach and pool before resting up for what was sure to be an exciting (read: stressful) ferry ride to Egypt.

View from our balcony.
Paul looking out at our pretty view.
Paul sitting in the infinity pool in the sunset.
Me walking on water! The Holy Land has that effect.

From our balcony we looked out at Taba, Egypt - the city on the left - and Eliat, Israel - the city on the right. The tall line of white buildings in the middle of the photo is the northern border of Taba.

Days 7-8: Wadi Rum

We woke up and packed our bags for a night in a Bedouin tent in the desert. Mohammed picked us up at 2 and we started out on the 2 hour ride into Wadi Rum.

The Wadi Rum desert is gorgeous. The sand is soft and fine and the mountains are all tall and distinctly shaped with faces that look like melting wax. We arrived at our camp site and 4 and sat drinking tea (supposedly hot tea is the best cure for thirst in the hot desert) until our 4 x 4 tour of the desert at 5:30.

Our 4x4 tour was GREAT. We rode in the back of a pickup truck on makeshift benches while a nice, quiet and gentle Bedouin man drove us through the desert. He was a shepherd to a pack of camels and his camels all wandered over to the truck when we drove past. He must be kind to those camels!
Paul in the back of the 4x4.

Me in the back of the 4x4.
Camels following our Bedouin driver behind the truck.

Mohammed accompanied us and explained the sites in English. We stopped at an otherwise non-distinct rock face and saw Nabatean carvings of camels in the rocks. Mohammed explained that the Nabateans tried to settle in Wadi Rum before discovering that the rocks in Wadi Rum were granite beneath the sandstone facade and unsuitable for tomb carving.

Mohammed had bought another melon along the side of the road on the way into the desert and we stopped at a beautiful secluded spot on top of a peak overlooking the desert to crack open the melon and eat it. It was perfect. Then we drove to Lawrence of Arabia canyon and Paul and I raced to the top of a tall steep sand dune. I won’t say who won the race, but I will admit that it was exhausting (I think for both of us). I was panting so hard at the top, all I could do was collapse into a heap. Mohammed laughed at us from the bottom of the dune. The run down the hill was like flying, especially compared to the way up. Last stop was a perfect location to watch the sunset. It was beautiful.
View of the truck from our spot.
Another view from our spot.
Mohammed cutting open the melon.
Us with our Bedouin driver.
Running up the steep sand dune.
Collapsed in a heap at the top of the dune.
Beautiful sunset.

We returned to the camp and relaxed for an hour until dinner. The camp was not completely roughing it. There was a row of flush toilets and showers and our tent even had a bed! Dinner was good – kebabs on the grill and various sides – and afterwards we did a little belly dancing. Paul and I thought it was going to be a belly dancing show, Aladdin style, but it turns out belly dancing in Jordan is everyone holding hands and dancing around in a circle and we had to participate in the fun. After we got the circle going, one of the men at the camp pulled me into the center of the circle for a little more elaborate dancing. I laughed uncomfortably and stumbled over my feet, but it was fun, and eventually all the women took a turn in the spotlight with the slightly creepy man.
The camp lit up at night.
Paul in the camp.

After dinner, Paul and I decided to go for a walk in the desert. Unfortunately Mohammed terrified me with his talk of rabid hyenas waiting to eat us, and within the first 15 minutes of walking outside the camp we saw two huge scarab beatles (that loved chasing people with flashlights!), so the walk was pretty short. Although short, it was a good walk – quiet and pretty and peaceful in the desert.
YIKES!!

When the sun first went down, the moon was so bright we hardly saw the stars in the sky. When we woke up at 4:55am for our sunrise camel ride, the moon was gone and the sky was black and the stars were glowing. Within half an hour, it was too light for stars. I thought it was amazing to see the way the sky changes throughout the night.

Our sunrise camel ride was awesome. Our Bedouin guide hardly spoke a word of English, but he was great (and even tried to teach us Arabic!). He was from Sudan and planned to spend 1 year in Jordan before returning to his family in Sudan. He loved to take our pictures (which we obviously loved) and put his head covering on our heads to dress us up as Bedouins. At the end of our tour, he gave us his email address and asked us to send pictures for his kids in Sudan to see. Neither Paul nor I nor Mohammed could figure out how he had access to email in the mountains, but we will definitely pass along the pictures.
Starting out at dark.
Me with our Sudanese guide.
Paul makes a good Bedouin!
The shadows of our camels in the desert.
Beautiful sunrise.

There was a little puppy in the camp that I loved, despite his habit of nawing on hands and ankles and shoelaces. The puppy followed Paul and me out of the camp to where the camels were waiting in the morning, and when our Bedouin camel guide saw that I loved the puppy, he brought the puppy along for the ride on the side of his saddle. The poor puppy fell off the tall camels on the way to the sunrise point, but he picked himself up and followed us all the way on foot. He then nawed on Paul and me the entire time we were trying to take in the sunrise... The Bedouin guide gave the puppy his own camel for the ride back, but Paul, from on top of his own camel, grabbed the scared puppy and held him for the return ride. (Paul was closest in line to the puppy in our little caravan – it was our Bedouin guide, then me, then Paul, then the puppy – although the caravan line got a little crazy when halfway back to camp Paul’s camel made his move to take second in line from my camel). Between the camels, the puppy, and the beautiful sunrise in the desert, I was in heaven.
Paul's "desert monster."
Puppy on a camel!

After breakfast, we left the desert and headed to our last stop in Jordan, Aqaba.