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

Cruising Down the Nile

Mike and Kimberly planned most of the trip, so we have to give them credit for having the great idea of taking a Nile River cruise. It was a great idea because it allowed us to see many amazing temples and tombs that we probably wouldn't have seen if it wasn't for the cruise line planning the excursions. Plus, we were floating on the famous Nile!!! Before reaching the ship, we had to take a night train to Aswan. Nate and I had never taken a night train before, so we were excited for a new experience. However, as we learned the hard way, riding the Swiss trains did not prepare us for the Egyptian train experience.

It is very common to get sick in Egypt, so we were extra careful to not drink the tap water. We even were brushing our teeth with bottled water, but unfortunately, we all became ill at some point on the trip. Nate and Mike had their illness in Cairo and Kimberly had hers on our final day in Egypt. My body, however, had the worst timing. During the middle of the night, while riding the train, I woke up feeling very sick. It was already turning out to be one of the worst night's sleep because the bed was very uncomfortable and because the train was noisy and shaking as if it was going to fall apart, but I soon realized that these were the least of my worries. I tried to fight the urge to throw-up because I hate it more than anything, but I couldn't fight it any longer, so I had to run to the bathroom. To make matters worse, the bathroom was disgusting... I will spare you most of the details, but let's just say that I could see the tracks whizzing by below when I lifted the toilet lid. At the time, I was thinking this is one of the worst nights of my life because my sickness felt like it would never end and I just wanted to get off the train! So if you ever travel to Egypt, take my advice and don't take a night train!

The Cairo Train Station, where you realize you're not in Switzerland or America any more!

Traveling down the Nile was another surreal experience. It is the longest river in the world and goes through TEN countries. It really is an amazing source of life because it is surrounded by desert after desert. Oh yeah, it's also the river that Moses turned to blood!

It took us awhile to find our boat and we were all extremely tired after the sleepless night train, but the ship had already planned an excursion for that afternoon. Nate, Kimberly, and Mike went, but I was still feeling sick, so I stayed on the ship and slept. Nate will take over the commentary from here, since I was in bed when he took the next few pictures.

Hello blog readers, this is Nate. On our first excursion, we primarily focused on the Aswan Dam and the Temple of Isis at Philae. I didn't take any pictures of the Dam, because it's not very picturesque...it's just a really big dam. Actually, there are 2 dams at Aswan. The Low Dam was finished in 1902 and was the world's biggest dam, but soon they built the High Dam which is nearly 2 miles across and contains 18 times the amount of material used in the Great Pyramid and created the world's largest artificial lake. Because of the High Dam, the Temple of Isis would have been completely underwater, so the Temple was moved, stone by stone, to a new higher location and is now surrounded by a beautiful lake.

Wishing that my beautiful wife was with me...

Some cool-looking carvings inside the temple.

On the way back to the boat, I stood on the edge of the Sahara Desert. Maria was a little jealous! Okay, Maria says I have to stop typing now. Bye, thanks for reading!

I'm alive! And I was feeling much better in this picture. I'm standing in front of our cruise ship. It's on a completely different scale than, say, Royal Caribbean, but it was still really nice. Plus, there weren't too many people on the boat, so it felt like our personal ship.

Our first temple of our second day was called Kom Ombo.

I thought this was really interesting. This carving is a line of slaves that are tied together at their necks and their hands. And I find it odd that their faces are missing.
Kimberly, me, and Nate posing on the column ruins

We hopped back on the boat and cruised a little farther down the river. Our second temple of the day was the Temple of Horus at Edfu. Having escaped destruction from the Nile floods, it is the most completely restored Egyptian temple.

In this picture, you can see how high the structure is and how goofy Kimberly and I are... we liked to pose like the carvings. 200 years ago this temple was completely covered by sand and part of the city was actually stood over the temple roof!
Nate was very attentive when our guide spoke. I would get bored and start taking random pictures of Nate. (this is Nate's comment)

The columns at this temple were incredible...

Horus, the falcon we are standing in front of, was one of the most significant deities in the ancient Egyptian religion.

We spent the rest of the afternoon cruising down the Nile, laying out, and swimming in the pool...
The scenery is a lot different than what we're used to... but it was so cool to see wildlife, men & women working, and kids playing...

There were many beautiful sunsets. Sometimes Kimberly and I would go get ready for dinner around the same time as the sun would set, so Nate and Mike would stay to watch it and take pictures. Kimberly and I would tease them that they watched sunsets together. :)

Day 3 of the Nile cruise/tour was my favorite. This day took place in the city of Luxor and the surrounding region. We saw some really neat sights such as these guys, the Colossi of Memnon. They are really old, because back in the day, these were popular with tourists from Greece and Rome!

The Valley of the Kings. All of the famous Pharoahs were buried here including Ramses and Tut. The Valley is really in the middle of the wilderness, several miles from the Nile and Luxor. We were able to walk through several tombs, but they unfortunately didn't allow picture taking.

This was my favorite temple and it was right next to the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Hatshepsut. I had no idea, but I learned that Hatshepsut was a female Pharoah.

It almost looks modern... and the cliffs behind it make it look picture perfect.

Trying to pose like this guy and not laugh...

After exploring the West Bank in the morning, we headed over to the East Bank of Luxor in the afternoon. It was miserably hot, almost unbearable. Our first stop of the afternoon was the Temple of Karnak, which is a huge complex over two square kilometers.

As we were walking through Karnak, our guide casually mentioned that she saw them filming the new Transformers movie just a few pillars away from where Nate is standing in this picture. Since many of the things our Egyption guides told us were a little unbelievable, none of us believed her. When Nate and I returned to Basel, we watched the movie's trailer and were shocked to find out that she was actually telling the truth. So, if you want to see what we saw in Egypt, just go see the movie!
Posing with pillars at the Luxor Temple...

The Luxor Temple lit up at night. This was our last night on the cruise and then we headed to the Red Sea the next morning, but thankfully by plane and not train!