Paige's Journey Through Switzerland

A couple of days after we returned from our trip around Egypt, my friend Paige arrived! Paige had been wanting to come to Switzerland for quite some time... not only to see the Swiss alps, but to visit L'Abri. L'Abri is a Christian community where you have the opportunity to seek answers to questions about God and the significance of life. They have communities all over the world, but the one in Switzerland is the original L'Abri that Francis Schaeffer started in 1955. If you want more information, their website is www.labri.org. Paige came to Basel for a few days before heading to the place that she would call home for 5 weeks. While she was here, I showed around the city... by bike!

Basel is the one of the most bike-friendly cities. Being able to bike everywhere is actually one of the things that Nate and I love most about living here.

After adjusting to the time change, Paige was off to start her journey at L'Abri. It is located up in the mountains in the French part of Switzerland, so we had to take a tram, two trains and a bus to get there, but we had amazing views just about the whole way! Once Paige got settled, we said our goodbyes, but I knew we'd be seeing each other again soon...
After 5 weeks of being at L'Abri, Paige returned to Basel and had so much to tell me... if you'd like to read about her journey there, you can check out her blog: www.wherelifeishidden.wordpress.com

Paige was with Nate and I for about a week, but Nate had to work during the week, so Paige and I ventured out on our own to see some of the cities in Switzerland. One day, we visited Luzern and Zurich. Here are some pictures of our day trip...

Another day, we went to Bern to visit one of Paige's friends, Jesse, from L'Abri. Paige loved riding the trams :)

I loved seeing Bern because it was my first time.

The Capital building.
We walked around the city, had lunch, then we decided to apparently work off our lunch by climbing the tower of Bern's cathedral... but it was worth it to get to the top.

Looking down from the top... the color of the river was incredible.

There is a huge drop off under Jesse's feet and he was making me nervous sitting there, but in his defense, there were nets below. They were put up to prevent suicides (sad).

Paige & Jesse
The next day we went to the Berner Oberland region to do some hiking. Since it was a Saturday, Nate could join us and you know that he never passes up a hike!

The views were absolutely incredible from start to finish. Jesse was able to join us for the hike too. He always made it interesting because he liked to climb or go to the edge of anything dangerous! That is him and Paige in the distance...
Nate & Jesse were skipping rocks on the lake and Jake wanted to chase them down. He soon realized that the water was freezing and started doing a whiny bark because he was torn whether to go in or not!
We saw quite a bit of wildlife... goats, sheep, cows, and pigs. It was really neat getting up close to them!

Enjoying the view... and the break. :)

Me & Paige

Nate stayed back to get a picture of us hiking. Can you find us?We passed a herd of cows and Jake was terrified!
This is my favorite picture... I just wish Nate could have been in it too!

On Paige's last travel day, we went to the town of Colmar, France. You probably remember it from one of our first blogs. It is an adorable French town that we love to take people to...

After all that traveling, I know you were exhausted, but we hope you enjoyed your time in Switzerland Paige!

Petra In a Day...

While the Pyramids are one of the 7 Ancient Wonders of the World, Petra is one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. We had heard from quite a few people that Petra was worth a visit, so we decided to make a day trip. Little did we know that a "day trip" to Petra from Sharm El Sheik would be such an adventure. In order to reach Petra, we had to leave our hotel at 3:00am, then take a 4-hour bus ride to the Egyptian port of Nuweiba, then take a 2-hour boat ride to the Jordanian port of Aqaba, and then take a 2-hour bus ride to Petra. After spending a few hours exploring Petra, we then had to make the same trip in reverse. Needless to say, it was an extremely long day and we were sick of riding on buses.

In this picture, we are standing on a cliff high above the Jordan desert. Petra is located outside of a town called Wadi Musa (Valley of Moses). As we drove to this town, our guide pointed out a shrine in the distance on top of a mountain called Jebel Haroun, or the biblical Mount Hor. This shrine holds the tomb of Aaron, Moses' brother.

In Arabic, Petra means, "cleft in the rock." As you can see, this description is pretty accurate. From the visitor's center, we had to walk about two miles through this canyon to the actually site of Petra.

Maria sees something in the distance.

We made it!

Petra may be most famous to Americans as the temple that held the Holy Grail in the Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade movie. As we mentioned in a previous post, they also filmed Transformers 2 here and in Egypt.

They were actually filming another movie when we were there, but it looked like the movie was a local version of High School Musical. As part of the movie cast, there were camels. Since it was hot, the camels were very thirsty.

Make sure you click on the picture below to enlarge it because like we said, the camels were very thirsty!

This pictures really depicts why Petra is so amazing. The structures were carved directly into the rock. Keep in mind that this carving took place around 100 BC!

As you would expect of any tourist site, there were plenty of locals ready to sell us some cheap Petra trinkets. Since the site is so isolated, we think the people live in these caves. Note the clothes hanging out to dry.

We climbed to the Urn Tomb, which stood high above the valley floor.

The view from the top.

If you look in the distance between the columns, you can see some more structures carved into the cliffs. Remember, you can click on the picture to enlarge it!

After spending a few hours in Petra, we had to make our long journey back. This picture was taken on the boat ride back across the Red Sea and it really shows why it's called the Red Sea. The land you see is actually Saudi Arabia. When we were on the boat, we could see FOUR countries: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabi, and Isreal... pretty cool.

Sunset over the Red Sea.

By the time we finished our last bus ride, it was past midnight, which meant our day trip to Petra had taken about 21 hours. We were so happy to crawl into bed, but were also glad that we had been able to see such an interesting place. This concludes our Egyptian/Jordanian adventures. We definitely want to thank Mike and Kimberly for allowing us to join them on their trip.

They did most of the planning and we probably would not have gone to this interesting part of the world if it was not for them. We had a fantastic time exploring amazing historical sites and awe-inspiring natural beauty and it was a nice change of pace from our European travels. Plus, it was great to spend some time with friends from back home!
So, if you plan a trip and invite us along, you too can make the blog. Or, just come visit us and you'll still make the blog. We're not too picky, we miss all of you!

Sharm El Sheik and The Red Sea

Note: This is Nate again. Maria thought I should write more posts, so strap yourself in and enjoy the ride.

As you know from our previous posting, we flew from Luxor to Sharm El Sheik. However, we had to make a connecting flight through Cairo. This was the same day that Obama gave his speech at Cairo University, so we were delayed and ended up missing our flight to Sharm El Sheik. Customer service informed us that there were no more available seats on the flights to Sharm El Sheik for the rest of the day, but thankfully we were able to fit onto a later flight a few hours later.

Immediately upon our arrival, we realized that Sharm El Sheik was totally different than the other Egyptian cities that we visited. Unlike the hustle and bustle of everyday life in the other cities, Sharm El Sheik is a laid-back resort town. It is located near the tip of the Sinai Pennisula and sits on a desert-like plain nestled between a range of red-rock mountains and the brilliant, turquoise waters of the Red Sea. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort and instead of being the only Westerners in a city full of Egyptians, we became the only Americans in a resort full of Europeans.

Here's the beach of our resort. The brown stuff in the water was some sort of coral-like substance. There wasn't much life in this area, but there was a 10 foot drop-off at the edge where the snorkeling was fantastic.

When we first saw the Red Sea, we initially thought that the water's color and clarity was comparable to the water in the Caribbean or Hawaii.

We soon realized that it is actually much clearer.

This is the middle pool of 3 huge pools that were back-to-back... to-back at our resort. When combined, these pools stretched over 500 yards. I took this picture from the slide, which was about 2 stories high. We had a lot of fun going down the slide! So did a drunk, topless lady. I did not take any pictures of her, sorry. Our resort was not a nudist resort, so needless to say, she caused quite a commotion, especially amongst the waiters that live in a country where the majority of the women cover their heads.

Here Maria is lounging in the pool with the slide and the topless lady in the background. We really had to be careful to put on a lot of our sunscreen, especially me, because the sun was so powerful. I have never seen so many bright red, sun burnt people in one place. By the way, I was just joking about the topless lady being in this picture, so quit looking for her.

Maria and Kimberly getting a drink at the swim-up bar. Since it was an all-inclusive resort, Maria loved the unlimited orange soda. Orange soda and slides made Maria a happy girl!

Maria and Kimberly were getting ready for dinner, so Mike and I shared another sunset together. This time on the slide. The drunk, topless lady had already gone to her room, but not before taking off her bathing suit bottoms on her balcony in front of everyone, so don't waste your time looking for her in this picture either.

We spent our first day in Sharm El Sheik soaking up the rays, snorkeling, going down the slide, swimming up to the swim-up bar, and relaxing by the pool. On our second day (spoiler alert!), we took an excursion to the city of Petra. On our final day, we took a snorkeling excursion to the Ras Mohammed National Park. The Red Sea is an underwater paradise and this Park is one of the best spots. Little did we know how famous the Red Sea is for its snorkeling/scuba diving. According to this website, www.scubatravel.co.uk/topdives.html, 4 of the top 10 dive sites in the world are located in the Red Sea. Here are Maria and Kimberly on the boat headed to our first snorkel site.

Our first site was awful, because the water was rough and not very clear. Maria is extremely afraid of sharks, so she decided to stay on the boat for the next site.

This picture really shows how the desert comes directly up to the water.

Maria missed out, because the second site was amazing. It was the best snorkeling that I have ever done. Instead of floating a few feet above the coral, like you would in the Caribbean and Hawaii, you swim in the open water alongside a wall of coral. The depth of the water was about 75 feet, but I could clearly see all the way to the bottom and the color of the water was a beautiful, deep blue. It was weird seeing scuba divers swim underneath me while I was floating on the surface checking out the coral and fish. I loved it!

At our next snorkel site, Maria decided to join me. As we were putting on our mask and fins, a guy in the water yelled, "Shark! Shark!" I looked at Maria's face and her eyes completely filled her mask. I then heard the guy yell again, "It's a whale shark!" From watching the Discovery Channel, I knew that whale sharks were harmless vegetarians. I quickly asked Maria if she wanted to swim with it, to which she emphatically said, "NO WAY!", so I jumped in the water and swam after the shark. I swam as fast as I could towards the shark, as a multitude of people, who apparently did not watch the Discovery Channel, swam towards their boats. I was the second person to reach the whale shark and I reached out and touched it.
Okay, this picture isn't of me, but it's crazy how much it looks like me. However, the rest of the story is true. I really did touch it, but I touched its tail, not its head, just in case it mistook me for a plant. I then resurfaced, amongst a crowd of people that had reversed their course and were now headed towards the shark, and I yelled at Maria to come join me in the water. She calmly let me know (sarcasm) that her prior position had not changed, so she stayed on the boat and watched the shark swim by. She later told me that seeing the shadow was enough excitement for her. This is another picture of a random guy with a whale shark. My whale shark was big, about 20 feet long, but not nearly as large as the one in this picture.

Fortunately, Maria overcame her fears and joined me at the 4th snorkeling site, which was very much like the spectacular 2nd site. I held her close the entire time that we were in the water, but we did not see any sharks. She later admitted that the snorkeling was absolutely amazing and she was glad that she finally joined me in the water. Overall, the Red Sea was a relaxing and great way to end our Egyptian adventures. As I previously mentioned, we visited Petra in between our Sharm El Sheik days, so we will share that adventure with you on our next post. Thanks for reading, Nate