Summer Photos Finally Posted
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Well I finally got around to posting our pictures from our summer trip to the Middle East (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey). They can be found by clicking on the Photographs Link at the top of this page. The individual links for each area are listed below:
Hope you enjoy them as much as we do.
Geo & Noel
Madaba
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We spent yesterday afternoon floating in the Dead Sea. It was amazing – you are so buoyant that it’s difficult to remain upright. You keep rolling over on to your back or your belly, and you can literally lay there with your arms and legs sticking straight up in the air and not sink. You feel like a Fisher Price Weeble. The water is a deep green colour, and the majority of the coastline is crusted in salt crystals. The great thing about floating in the Dead Sea, is that even though you can’t even see your feet because the water is so green, there’s none of that feeling of intrepidation you get in a lake at home – you know that “something is going to come up from the deeps and drag me down” feeling, because there’s no plant or animal life in the super-salinated water.
Last Day in Petra
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We’ve spent the last two days wandering around Petra. Did you know that the archeological site is actually 50 km sq? It’s massive! You really do walk through the narrow gorge of Indiana Jones fame for 1.5 km before you come out at the treasury (where the chalice was in Indaina Jones part 3). Kelly – you would have loved it – we were thinking of you.
The gorge is so narrow, and the only passage through the valley – it’s easy to see why it was used as a trade control route. Did you know that the Bedouin people lived here until 1980? It’s amazing. We saw all of the incredible tombs and temples carved into the rocks that were also used as homes by later Bedouin tribes (they would carve the rock out between tombs, to crate adjoining rooms for a lovely little condo…). There is a fantastic collenaded street behind the treasury that leads to an ancient Christian church with the most amazingly detailed mo
Egypt to Jordan
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This is just a fast update, as we’re awaiting falefel, then off to Petra.
We spent our last two days in Egypt camped out on the Red Sea in grass huts, going snorkeling on the coral reefs. The water was unbelievably warm, and from the beach we could look across the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia, and to our right was Jordan and Isreal.
We spent an entire day waiting for the ferry to Jordan – administrative efficiency abounds here! (No problem, we’ve been well trained to deal with these kinds of problems…) then the ferry did donuts in the harbour for an hour before we actually docked – apparently there were “high winds”.
Yesterday we spent four wheeling in the Wadi Rum desert, and we saw several sights associated with Lawrence of Arabia, and we stood on the natural stone formation bridges and ran down sand dunes. We camped in the desert under the stars at a Bedouin camp last night, and we’re off to Petra today.
To Laurie: the toilet paper here is “bring your own”.
As usual, we miss everyone and our doggies – Kylie, let us know how they are…
Noel & George
Summer Trip Finalized
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Well we changed our original plans again and are now flying to Cairo, Egypt and exploring Egypt for a week before picking up a tour that will take us through the Middle East. The tour is with Intrepid Travel out of Melbourne, Australia and will take us from Cairo to Istanbul, Turkey.
