Was that Turkey, or Bulgaria or...

We were suffering a bit from "monument" shock and also getting tired of being woken up at 3:30 daily by the call to prayer and this together with us receiving news of a death in the family made us change our plans and decide to give Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia Slovenia and Austria a miss and head for Munich - a cheap flight airport making getting back for the funeral easy.

Scenery wise and from the motorway they looked stunning, especially after months of sand and flat roofed ramshackle houses with litter strewn all around to be confronted by lush fields, mechanized agriculture, mutlicoloured houses with red tiled roofs surrounded by trees was like entering the promised land. Its a good job Moses never made it to Europe else he would have asked for his money back!

The progress in Bulgaria and Serbia was clear and the countries looked much changed from our last visit and Croatia looked more like Germany than what we remembered. Turkey too looked modern, well organized clean and very very western. You would have been hard pressed to tell you weren't back in the EU at times.

We really look forward to returning to all these countries in the future and certainly from the little we saw Croatia and Turkey are ready to join the EU.

So here we are - 6 days after leaving Syria back in Munich And heading to a therme for Linda's birthday instead of the Hagia Sophia, but in many ways We are pleased to be back in civilization and are looking forward to recharging our batteries and setting off again in September.
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Damascus and straight on for London

Our drive from Bosra was very unusual as we passed through a few towns that were not only Burka free but there were very few headscarfs visible and plenty of ladies walking around and even a few ladies in skirts! It's odd how you get so used to driving through towns and villages and seeing 90% men and the woman you do see are covered head to toe, sometimes not even with their eyes showing. When you do reach a 'normal' town it's quite a shock! What was more interesting though was how these towns seemed busier, more alive and less lethargic than the others, and how the shops seemed more modern and more appealing, more designed to get your attention and get you into the shops with large plate glass windows and displays, whereas in the other towns the shops were little more than a doorway with a rack outside.

Anyway, Damascus must be the first capital we didn't drive through the centre at rush hour but it was still bedlam on steroids. We found the campsite without a map just using the gps! Which we thought quite impressive. The site itself was a little oasis of green grass and trees due to be demolished in 2 weeks!
Damascus is a real gem. Easily the nicest city we have been to by miles and we spent two days wandering around the souks and seeing the sights. We would love to have stayed longer but you pay $100 a week diesel tax in Syria so everyone limits their trips to one week when you really need about 11 days and we therefore headed on to Hama to see the Norias - the waterwheels. We spent a couple of hours in a cafe with a drink watching these ancient wheels turn and creek and groan like mad, whilst the youths climbed all over them and even dived off the top, just for us!

Our next stop was the cavalier castle at Crac de Chevaliers which was great fun to wander round and climb all over. You can climb onto all the tower roofs and ramparts and unlike Europe there are no safety rails and also no walls to stop you walking over the edge and yet small kids climb around without their parents being at all concerned. When we left we saw our first sign post for London!

We tried to visit Aleppo as our final stop In Syria but got kicked out of everywhere we tried to park and as we were both feeling unwell with tummy bugs we headed for Turkey camping just outside Aleppo at a lovely campsite run by a Belgian lady.
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Jerash and southern Syria

Jerash is another wonderful Roman ruin with a twist - there is still chariot racing taking place and gladiator combat every day in the Hippodrome which we naturally went along to see. This was thoroughly enjoyable and obviously the gladiator contests were choreographed but looked vicious nonetheless but the racing seemed pretty genuine. We even got to watch a small section of a legion demonstrate marching and combat techniques. Excellent stuff, apart from at the end of the show we found ourselves trapped in the seats surrounded by an American student leadership trip with an evangelical organiser giving a pep talk to the students in true American style complete with numerous incorrect statements. I had to hold Linda back but in the end we could take no more and had to get people to move to let us out.

The ruins themselves are not in the league of Leptis but still fascinating with the enormous Hadrians Arch dominating the main road. The oval plaza surrounded by two curving colonnades that leads into the city proper is unique and also extremely impressive.

We spent the night camped outside the tourist police station with our very own English speaking policeman to look after us.

The next day we headed into Syria and were met by the most efficient and easy border crossing we've had all trip, which was a pleasant, though unexpected surprise. About 90 minutes after getting to the Jordan departure gate we were driving to Bosra. When we arrived we were collared by a guide, who despite us saying we didn't want a guide was kind enough to find us a place to park overnight and join us for a drink in Taffy. Bosra has what must be the best preserved Roman Amphitheater in the world. It is in almost perfect condition and we spent ages just sitting in the posh seats admiring it. The town itself is less interesting, though the ruins live side by side with hovels where people still live, and the Decumanus is still in use daily with children playing on it and locals cycling on it. It has recently been uncovered down to the Roman tiling complete with ruts from roman carts from its more modern height 2 meters above.

Naturally enough as we were sitting in the local cafe having a juice a British couple - Gary and Kim - turned up. They'd had a lousy few days in Syria including a terrifying incident having a yelling teenage guard point a machine gun at them.

When you've had a few bad days and you're surrounded by an alien environment like Syria you want to find something 'normal' to settle you down again and so we offered them the use of the shower and Linda cooked them supper and a cup of tea! We chatted until about midnight and the next morning Kim cut Linda's hair which was driving Linda mad.

Kim and Gary were driving to Australia and had originally planned to go through Iran, but after the recent diplomatic spat involving the Iranian President and the west visas were not being issued to Brits so they were hoping to go via Saudi!
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Amman

Jon spent 4 hours lying under Taffy cleaning up the tanks and then sealing the splits. Initially it seems to have cured the split tank completely, but the original leak is still dripping, not as badly thankfully. Now we are in Amman we've got another few tubes of Epoxy and will have another go at sealing this.

Amman has a more modern feel to it and is a bustling newish place teaming with people and shops set on 7 steep hills. Naturally we arrived at the city centre at rush hour on Thursday evening - the busiest day of all and wound our way to the camp site at the Theodore Scneller School through a hectic city centre.

There's not much to see here, most other tourists we've met said you need half a day which is about right. The Roman temple on the Hill dominating the city is mainly in ruin but would have been very impressive once and the Amphitheater and Odeon in the valley below are largely complete and still used today.

Shopping wise Amman is great with hundreds of shops and market stalls all noisily hawking their wares. We spent a few hours wandering around getting a few things before heading off to the tranquility of a western style supermarket to restock on things we find hard to get here like fresh milk, strong cheddar and a loaf of bread!

We're having a day off today catching up on jobs (we broke the step again which Jon intends to fix) before we move onto Jerash and then Syria.
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Karak & The Dead Sea

Our next destination was Dana National Park which is set in Jordan's "grand canyon". Unfortunately we were too big to stay in the park and so we plotted up on the edge of the canyon at the top.

We've been having more trouble with our diesel tank with one of them splitting down the seam at the top. Having just about repaired the first tank this was not a pleasant surprise. Whilst Jon was under the van inspecting the damage, a car pulled up with two men and a baby in. They asked Linda if they could look around and once comfortably settled inside asked her to make some tea for them!! They were very pleasant and used all our reserves of sugar in their tea! Later that evening as we were getting ready for bed they returned with their entire family (excepting the wives of course!) to show them the van. We think they wanted us to go to their house for a meal but we had just eaten and when we successfully managed to explain we were veggies (because of our religion) they quickly left us alone! It was very funny explaining we are veggies, we have this written down and explained in Arabic and we showed them this. "Why?" is always the first question but once you get past this they keep saying "no fish?" followed by "No meat?" and repeated many many times as if by this process they can make you normal!

During the night the Police tried to move us on, but we told them we couldn't move as we had just epoxyed our tanks and wanted to let it set overnight. After much "Not safe, you must go to hotel" followed by "No" they gave up and left us alone.

As we couldn't visit the park easily we headed off to the Dead Sea on a spectacular drive winding through the mountains until we arrived at Karak.

Karak is a crusader castle captured and improved by the Muslims in one of the crusades. The Christian sections of the ruin are conveniently built in a dark rough stone and the Muslim parts in a smoother white. It is set on top of a hill commanding great views over the plains toward the Dead Sea. Its main attraction to us was - its not Roman or Egyptian! We really enjoyed wandering around something different after having spent the last few weeks visiting numerous Roman and Egyptian sites. Much of the castle is underground - it has 7 floors most of which seem to be hollowed out of the rock. Of course the other attraction was the nightmare one way system and incredibly narrow streets we had to wind our way through to get there. We were followed to the site by a coach which had to stop and ask a car to move before he could get through a gap we had just sailed through with a clear centimeter on either side of us to spare!

The drive down from Karak to the Dead Sea is lovely as the mountains just stop with no foothills and you suddenly find yourself 400m below sea level. The cool air of the mountains is left behind for the stifling heat of the Dead Sea.

We stayed at the Amman Beach Resort car park where we got electricity and filled up with water, which is so salty we can't drink it! The resort is a posh pool club and beach next to the sea. Its £10 each to get into so we spent all day there, we're not sure how the locals can afford it but there were plenty of westerners and locals around.

The beach is sandy, presumably imported, and you walk into the sea from sand onto solidified salt, keep walking and suddenly just float off. It's almost like becoming an Angel as you seem to take off from the sea bed. It really is great fun and according to he guide books and tourist information you can't get sun burn here. Our 3rd degree burns will testify to that being untrue! 3 months we've been away and not got burned once. Read the guide books and check into the nearest burns clinic!

The Amman beach is handy for a number of sites so we set off the next day to Bethany on the Jordan, where Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist and also where Elijah was taken up to heaven in a flaming chariot! For such an important religious site it was deserted! We visited the spot where Jesus was baptized which is being renovated. The river Jordan, now more of a stream, no longer flows to the baptism spot but there is still water there. Steps lead down to the water from a ruined church, one of many dotting the entire site, and a small shelter next to the water is apparently where John the Baptist used to baptise people. We then visited the Jordan river and got to dunk our toes in it under the watchful gaze of Israeli soldiers on the other side of the stream, the mid point being the border with Palestine. One thing you notice about the site is the oppressive heat. It is at least 5C hotter than the Amman beach (presumably because of all the burning chariots) and it was with much relief that we headed to the hills to visit Mount Nebo, where Moses looked upon the promised land and died. The view from the top is fantastic and the grounds the memorial church is set in are pristine and full of butterflies!

From here we visited the church of SS Lot and Procopius en route having to drive half in the verge to avoid a hanging telephone cable that still happily bounced along the roof a little. The church was locked and Jon went off to find the custodian who was in the shower! When he was dressed he let us in to see a marvelous mosaic floor almost completely in tact with a large burn in the centre. The custodian explained that his family lived on this site as Bedhouin for many years and the tent was roughly where the church once stood. The mosaic was unknown to them and under about a foot of soil on which they had their fire. They accidentally came across the mosaic and were then made the custodians of it! A wonderful story.

Next stop was Madaba and the Mosaic map in the Church of st george one of the oldest maps of the Holy Land in existence. In the crypt we saw an icon who, according to the guide, had seen a miracle a few years ago. The crypt had filed with smoke and when it had cleared one of her hands had turned blue! The paint on the hand has been tested by laboratories and the substance cannot be found anywhere on earth! "You are in the land of miracles you know" he told us. 'And gullible people' we thought.

Our last stop on the days tour was at the Panoramic View point overlooking the Dead Sea and Palestine. We had a drink watching the sun set and then hurried down the pass before it got dark back to the Amman for the night.

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Wadi Rum and Petra

The journey from Aqaba to Wadi Rum took us via Safeways to restock with fresh milk and cheddar - they even had salt & vinegar crisps!

Wadi Rum, famous for it association with Lawrence of Arabia, is breath takingly spectacular. The scenery is like something out of a cowboy film with long flat sandy valleys flanked by towering reddish mountains. The silence inside the park is wonderful and as we sat on a small rock outcrop watching the sun set we couldn't here anything apart from the wind. If you have a 4x4 then you can explore to your hearts content but after our previous efforts in the White Desert we took a sunset jeep tour that took us to Lawrence's springs, a wonderful canyon and then onto our rock perch to watch the sun set. We spent the night in the car park completely on our own and lay in bed watching the stars without any light pollution.

When we arrived at Petra we found Dave (Tripoli) was about to leave, so we delayed him enough to feed him have a great chat catching up with his news and half mend his Garmin GPS unit for him! Dave was having to head back to Aqaba as he had problems with a warning light on the dash and hoped to get it fixed there.

Petra was a great surprise for us. We like everyone else have seen the image of the Treasury as you approach it from the Siq, but we had no idea just how big the place is! To give you an idea we walked about 30kms over 2 days and barely scratched the surface and Dave drove to the next town for a walk and managed to get himself detained for not having a ticket for Petra! It is huge! A 2 day ticket is an absolute must but you could easily spend a week walking and exploring.

Apart from the Treasury, which we saw on a candle lit walk and then at 7:30am to beat the crowds, the Monastery, the numerous tombs, God blocks and the old city there are loads of picturesque walks through ancient tunnels, mutlicoloured canyons, gorges that narrow so much you can only just squeeze through and paths with sheer drops on one side and a cliff on the other. We loved it and found it amazing that despite it being the main tourist attraction in Jordan with literally thousands of people there at any one time you could easily find your self alone in a canyon or hike for 30 minutes or more without seeing anyone if you were away from the main attractions. We particually loved a walk we did through a deserted Wadi full of Oleanders in bloom through a gorge where the sides looked as though they had been painted and the rock looked like candlewax dripping down the sides of the gorge. It took us around 3 hours to complete the walk and at one stage we had to be man handled up the gorge sides by some Bedhouin as the gorge was flooded. We stopped for our packup lunch in a deserted tomb overlooking a valley littered with tombs and in silence part from he goat bells and occasional bleet. Apart from the Bedhouin we saw one other couple!

The Monastery is in some ways more spectacular than the Treasury as it is much bigger and at the end of an arduous walk up 800 steps. Some people do this on Donkeys but the path at times is very narrow and the donkeys merrily waltz along right next to the edge oblivious to the sheer drop next to them. We walked!

After completing the Monastery walk in the morning we headed for the Place of High Sacrifice in the heat of the afternoon. Mad dogs and Englishmen. The walk took us passed many tombs and up and down mountains like a roller coaster. We had opted for the pilgrimage route and you certainly felt you'd been on a mini pilgrimage when we arrived. In the three hours the walk took we saw 2 other people. It was hot to say the least and at times when we drank it appeared we were colanders! The view at the end was spectacular and we even got to glimpse Aarons tomb in the distance. And to round it all off we had Movenpick Ice Creams at the end of each day. Yum.

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Jordan

We left Egypt on Saturday on the slow ferry at just after 15:30 slightly late mainly as it had to wait for us to complete the paperwork for departure. It is somewhat ironic on our last day in Egypt to see Egyptians actually rushing around exasperated, hurrying us up, but at least they now know how we've felt for the last 5 weeks. The ferry was great, an old one which we had to reverse onto, but well organized with plenty of places To sit and a cafe too. We'd read horror stories about this ferry but we've certainly been on much worse. Take some food, a drink a book and your camera and sit back and enjoy the mini cruise. Even getting our ticket was simple, turn up at around 10am hand oven your carnet and passports and 15 minutes later walk away with your tickets. Easy.

Arriving in Jordan was less complicated than most of our crossings so far. We didn't need a fixer and the authorities were helpful too though the insurance and taxes set us back another £150 for the month.

We found a campsite - the Bedouin Garden Village - a few kms north of Saudi. Rough Guide says its about as Bedouin as a bikini but it is very nice and overlooks the sea too. In fact we were spoiled for choice here as there are 3 campsites all next door to each other.

The next day we headed into Aqaba to get some Epoxy resin to hopefully finally fix the diesel leak, which has lessened greatly since Quintens fix in Luxor. In fact after cleaning it all up I found there was still a small hole at the edge of the plate we used to seal the hole and I'm very hopeful this is now fixed.

The journey to get the epoxy was by taxi and when we arrived at the industrial estate Jon hopped out and went into a shop to buy the bits. Linda was left in the taxi and the driver asked her if she was a good f@@k. This to add to being called a whore in Tunisia doesn't leave you with the best impression of Arab men. Never fear though it will take more than this to put us off coming back or enjoying ourselves!

The picture is of Aqaba and the largest free standing flag pole in the world - surprisingly not in the USA - and in the distance is Israel. To the right of the picture (out of view) is Egypt and if we look left we can see Saudi Arabia.
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Farewell to the Nile

After leaving Luxor we stopped at Dendara - a temple in the midst of renovation. This temple is the only one in Egypt that you can get onto the roof and if you bacsheesh the police you can climb right onto the edge and peer out over the arid landscape in one direction and the Nile in the other. The restoration work allows you to compare the blackened reliefs on the ceiling with their bright and colorful restored twins and it is quite astounding.

From here we headed out to the coast and the Gulf of Suez staying at a camp / hotel where we had omelet and chips in the beach cafe with a glass of wine! Who says Jon doesn't know how to show a girl a good time?

We stopped at one of the numerous Police checkpoints and were told there was a problem. Jon had to go and see the 4 star police chief who promptly told him we were going at 100kph just before the checkpoint! Jon burst into laughter and said we weren't able to go that fast and had been told off by other police for going to slow. The 4 star chief then backed down sensing his bacsheesh fine was fast disappearing and sent us on our way. A couple of day later they tried to fine us again for linda not wearing a seat belt, which of course she was. Presumably they hadn't managed to take their eyes off her chest long enough to notice the belt, but after getting a good close up ogle were satisfied she was wearing a bra.

We had thought we had seen the last of the overlanders bound for Cape Town, but on arriving at Ras Mohamed national park were joined by 2 brit land rovers and 1 swiss van!

We spent a couple of lovely nights there parked right on the beach but had to move on to Nuweiba to check the ferry times etc and that is where we are now. We are in another beachside camp tied to a nice hotel with pool and loungers looking out to Saudi Arabia. We may now try to catch the Saturday ferry instead of tomorrow so we can have another lazy day.



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Luxor Again

After saying our farewells to J&M we headed back into Aswan to visit the unfinished obelisk and Philea Temple. The Obelisk looks as though the workers have just popped out for lunch and will be back any minute to finish it. It was abandoned when a flaw was found in it.

Philea Temple is on an Island and the approach by the lake created by the British built Low Dam is cooling and very picturesque. The Temple itself is nice, but it is its setting that is the main attraction.

We set off for Luxor, passing Pumba outside McDonalds, and arrived at to find we were the only people on the campsite! So we went to bed to catch up on some sleep. Quinten and Julie arrived the next day and we spent the next few days having another bash at mending the fuel tanks, going on a becalmed Faluca (sailing boat) ride and visiting the Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsuts Temple, the Ramesseum and the tombs of the workers. We cycled to the Valley and Temple and despite It reaching 46C found the 30km cycle very cooling, especially if it ends with a strawberry milkshake at McD's! The kings tombs are fascinating, but we really liked the workers tombs which were much smaller but lavishly decorated. The Ramesseum was devoid of tourists so was ideal to just sit in the shade letting yourself drift back to when the temple was full of life and Hatshepsuts temple we felt was impressive from a distance, but disappointing once you arrived.

So after another 5 night spell at Luxor, a few McDonalds milkshakes and chillie cheese nuggets (yum), 2 pizza Huts and loads of temples we spend our last night on the campsite with Q&J over a Pizza Hut takeaway!
The next morning after restocking our wine rack (3 bottles) we set off northward.

It is getting hotter and hotter and we are relieved we are beginning our trek northwards to hopefully cooler weather. By 9am it is hot - mid to high 30's and after 2 you just want to sit in the pool in the shade. Heaven help those people heading off to Sudan!




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On our way home!

After recovering from my tummy bug we cycled down to Luxor Temple and shame on us, McDonalds for a strawberry milkshake! Yum. On our return to the camp Katie and Alex rolled up from Cairo and Jon had to reload / mend 3 of the campers laptops! In the evening Jacques and Linda made us all a great Curry as another farewell meal before we headed off to Aswan with J&M. We stopped at the Temple of Horrus along the way which was remarkably in tact with the ceiling and walls highly decorated and some paint still clearly visible.

By the time we reached Aswan Linda was feeling poorly so we went to bed when we reached Adams Camp where Mandy and Linda provided a slap up feast for the mosies getting over 100 bites between them.

We arrived in good time for our convoy escort to Abu Simbel at 11am and were 2 of 5 vehicles. The convoy departure area was surrounded by armed guards who for the first time that we've seen in Egypt, actually looked like they were guarding us and watching out for threats. The convoy left on time (another Egyptian first) and we felt like royalty as we swept out of town passed police stopping traffic at the junctions.

The trip down was uneventful and slowish at 70-85kph until we passed the last check point about 50km before Abu when the tail end coach pulled alongside us flashing and getting very worked up that we should go faster. We ignored them and after a few minutes he zoomed passed and we and Pumbaa (J & M's Landcruiser) were on our own.

We arrived all of 2 minutes after the coach and parked up on the edge of Lake Nasser right next to the temple. The two convoys per day run at 4am and 11am and almost everyone takes the early one which is on its way home by 10am so we had the temples to ourselves. They are the highlight of the temples so far. They have not been vandalised or worn with weather and look as vibrant and beautiful today as they would have done thousands of years ago.

We awoke the next day as dozens of coaches started loading up to take people back to Aswan. We were still having breakfast when half the coaches left on the 9am convoy so we joined the 10am convoy as we turned for home. We were put at the front and within 5 kms had been overtaken by all the coaches bar one and were on our own.

We had a pleasant trip back and then visited Aswan High dam which you had to pay for to walk on but could drive over for nothing! You were only allowed to walk on a small section and we had soldiers yelling at us for walking on the wrong bit / the wrong way etc etc. The dam itself is very disappointing as it is so small, with a 500 km lake behind it you expected a really tall impressive dam.

Our last night with J&M was at the Mossie breeding ground Adams Home, but this time we were covered up and inside well before the hordes had woken for the night.

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Luxor

We arrived at Luxor late at night and tired after the previous days blistering temperatures and a 600 km drive and asked a policeman where the camp site was. He consulted passers by but no one had any idea. Naturally enough this was because thet were standing in front of it!

Reitsky Camp is a godsend in the heat. It has a bar with beer and wine, shade, is central for the sites and has a swimming pool!

Our journey to Luxor had taken us through various oasis towns and at El Kharga we stopped to visit the Necropolis of El Bagawãt, a Coptic graveyard. At the Police Checkpoint at the edge of town the police asked where we were going and then proceeded to follow us. With no signposts to the ruins I decided to pull over and ask them to go first which they did. When we arrived at the ruins two soldiers got out and put flak jackets and helmets on an hen toof at each end of Taffy with there machine guns. We were discreetly escorted around the site had then escorted out of town!

On arriving at the campsite we were offerred a complimentary mint tea which was a nice touch and then spent the evening chatting to Stuart and Susan who were Brits in a landrover going to SA

We visited the Luxor museum which was excellent and spent an interesting hour chatting to a teenager on the banks of the Nile. His views were quite unusual in that he drank beer, smoked pot, didn't go to mosque but thought women should be in the home and not go out as they were simply inferior to men. He was quite astounded that I thought men and women were equal.

The thing that every traveller we have met hates about Egypt is the non stop hassle you get from people trying to sell you something from shirts to boat trips, coffee to taxis. "No thanks" in Arabic or English has little effect and it really puts you off the tourist areas, especially considering how helpful Egyptians have been elsewhere. Sadly many tourists won't have experienced the more remote areas and will go home thinking all Egyptians are like this.

Jacques and Mandy arrived and we spent a couple of great evenings chatting looking at the photos of there journey from Australia and went out for a curry too!

In between the socializing we've managed to Visit Karnak which was breathtaking and get some bits made to hopefully fix one leak in our tanks. When I came to fit them I found the fix done by the garage had broken completely and I could just lift the probe out of the tank! Hopefully my effort will last longer!

The 3 brits we saw at the border crossing into Egypt have just arrived and everyone is chatting happily about the trip except me as I'm confined to quarters with the runs but I'm watching the BBC text commentary on the first test so not all bad.

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Pit Stop!

We arrived in Bawiti around 6pm on 1st May after spending a couple of days doing nothing at Salma camp Cairo. We spent one afternoon and evening catching up with Quentin and Julie who arrived from Siwa and drinking Egyptian wine. When we got to Bawiti we smelt diesel and looked under Taffy and we were leaking at a steady drip drip. The leak was coming from the heater pickup at the low end of one of the tanks. I managed to take the pickup to pieces with Shauns telephone help, and refitted it but not before we had lost 100 liters of fuel on the sand.  It appears the tank has a split in it, so we will need to replace that when we get home.
Jacques and Mandy turned up that night and cheered us up a bit by showing us some of their pictures from their trip so far from Australia to here. Very tempting and very doable!
In the morning a garage mechanic made some repairs and made us fill up and the diesel poured out faster than before! With 280 liters of fuel in the tanks the garage cannot take the tanks off so have suggested that we just run on a few litres at a time. This reduces our range dramatically as it seems once we have around 60 liters or so we start to leak. We are going to run the fuel down to empty and drop the tanks off in Luxor and see what we can do.
The leak continues but I have decided that I will try to repair this myself when we get to Luxor with my swimming pool sealant that I brought with me!


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Black and White Desert

We left the mechanic, a newly formed diesel oasis and a trail of diesel as we drove into the Black Desert. This is very similar to monument valley only black with golden sands drifting up the sides and into every nook and cranny of the mountains.

As we left the Black Desert we entered the White Desert and the change is dramatic. The land is littered with small rock formations from the size of a car to Taffy sized in a huge variety of shapes from mushrooms to tents domes to pillars and strangely often the shapes are localised presumably so the tents stay on the campsite! All of these rocks are a bright white, they almost look painted! It bears more than a passing resemblance to the icebergs in the glacial lakes in Iceland, except its 35C and bone dry.

The White Desert is a national park and has a trail you can drive around some of the clusters of rocks. The trail was rocky but looked OK so we took Taffy in! For the first couple of kilometers it was slow going but manageable but soon deteriorated and we eventually got stuck in drifting sand, twice. We dug Taffy out and made it back to the car park both looking like ghosts and drank liters of liquid. Quite how anyone does any work during the day here is beyond me - but the dilapidated buildings would suggest they don't.

We had a lovely night in the desert camped in Taffy with no lights and no sound around us. Unfortunately the night was overcast so we couldn't star watch at night from bed.

We left the White desert and entered a martian landscape of flat reddish sands dotted with hand sized rocks stretching as far as you could see. By now it was a soul destroying 48C outside. It felt like a sauna everytime you opened the door. We decided to find a camp with electricity so we could hide from the heat in Taffy but when we hooked up at Mut we found our electric cable kept overheating because the cable reel was touching the metal of the geny which was red hot even though we hadn't used it! We can run our main air con without a hookup for a few hours so turned it on only to find it not working presumably because of overheating. I assume this is because the fresh air intake is right above our water tank and our cold water is hot enough to shower in! So its now 49C outside and 40 inside and our electricity, generator and air con won't work. Fortunately the bedroom air con works fine so we have hidden in the "den" and are a lovely cool 28! We've also had a cooling dip in the brown smelly thermal spring which is 43C!

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The Pyramids

Taking the desert road from Alex we arrived at Cairo to be greeted with the absolutely amazing sight of.... Carrefore - a French Tesco! I'm sure my brother would be horrified being an ardent fan of the corner shop and a Tesco hater, but roughing it like we are you sometimes need lifes little luxuries, or in our case dishwasher tablets... So a couple of hours later, stocked up on Pilgrims Choice Extra Mature, fresh milk, McVities and Cadburys chocolate we came over the brow of a hill to be confronted by the sprawling mass that is Cairo, complete with smoggy cloud and peaking through the haze the Pyramids.

Finding the campsite proved straightforward but Jon has now given up being the polite English " after you sir" driver and when a car stopped in our lane to use his phone got within an inch of his bumper and leant on the horn in true Egyptian style. Sure enough the driver moved on rapidly! The camp is near the pyramids and you can see their tops from our plot. Unsurprising the site had us and 2 cars on it both of whom were heading to South Africa, 2 Brits Katie and Alex (fourwheelsaround.blogspot.com) and 2 SA Jaques and Mandy who were en route to SA from Australia. (www.seeyouwhenwegetthere.com).

Cairo is home to 22,000,000 people about half of which are Policemen and the other half follow the tourists around pointing out the obvious and then ask for a tip for doing so. Unlike Libya it is simply impossible to enjoy a historic site without a constant stream of people selling things or trying any trick in the book to get you to part with a tip. They will pretend doors are locked and they have a key, often asking you for your ticket first to make them seem official. It took us a few days to figure out most if the scams and cons but it is almost safe to say anyone who approaches you and says more than Hello, Welcome is a con man or Bacsheesh merchant, this includes many of the Tourist Police. That aside we have enjoyed Cairo, the Egyptian Museum was stuffed full of treasures and the King Tut room was fabulous. The general exhibits though are often poorly lit and the labels appear to be the same ones my dad may have seen 40 years ago when he was in Cairo as they are on yellowing paper and typed on a typewriter. The number of coffins and statues is overwhelming.

The citadel set on the hill overlooking the city gives a fantastic feeling for how enormous Cairo is. Buildings stretch in every direction as far as you can see and at the Call To Prayer the noise is deafening. We visited various mosques and the Coptic quarter too, even going into the Church where Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived whilst hiding from Herod. We strolled along the corniche and went up the Cairo Tower for another great aerial view. We've lived on felafel and home made crisps which have been excellent and last but not least, Visited the Pyramids, complete with camel ride, Sakkara, more temple and step pyramids and Dashur, a bent pyramid with the facing material still largely in tact and a red Pyramid. Too much walking, especially for Jons foot and some nights it has swollen up like an elephants, but it no longer hurts much and now we are heading off to the desert he will have a chance to rest it.

Lastly our social life is pretty hectic here! We managed to get some wine - a very nice Egyptian Rose - and shared some with Katie Alex Jacques and Mandy and heard all about their fantastic trips, we've been trying to meet up with Quentin and Julie again and David, the unimog Brit en route to Afghanistan has emailed us to try to arrange a meet as he is now heading up the Nile and we are heading down. As normal, we just meet such interesting and really nice people on our trips and in many ways it is one of the highlights and main reason for traveling like this. It is fantastic when you pull up somewhere and there are other travelers there too. Their nationality is irrelevant, we are all travelers and love to exchange stories and tips, where to avoid, road reports, great spots etc.
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El Alamein and the coast

We had a very peaceful night at Siwa and looked around the old town, had a drink in a cafe and visited the Hill of the Dead seeing our first Egyptian tombs and paintings before heading back to Marsa. No sooner had we arrived than we got a text from Quentin and Julie saying they had just arrived in Siwa!

Next morning we moved on to El Alamein passing mile after mile of Hotel Resorts. By the time we reached Alexandria we had passed in excess of 80kms of non stop resorts around half of which were under construction. Alamein itself is just a small town tagged beside the non stop resorts. The hills are rapidly vanishing as the diggers use them as quarries but fortunately the war cemeteries are still havens of tranquility. Both the Italian and German ones are overlooking the only piece of undeveloped beach this side of Alex. The Italians have build a chapel with marble plaques lining the walls with names on and the Germans have gone for the fort style they used at Tobruk. We stayed the night here and spent an interesting evening chatting to the caretaker family who have lived on the site since before the war.

The Commonwealth cemetery is a traditional design and huge. The greeks is a small site not as well tended as the others but still peaceful and fronted by a pair of Greek columns and temple style roof. In the grounds of the commonwealth cemetery is a monument to the Australians and another to the South Africans.

The museum is not too big and has certainly benefited from the Imperial War Museum assisting in the translations in the British wing. Some of the plaques in the other wings are almost completely indecipherable! Overall though it is a very good museum with the most fascinating part being about a truck found in the desert in 1999. The truck was almost fully in tact with ammo and condensed milk tins etc. The engine even started!

We left Alamein and tracked down the tiny station (the soldiers called it "Heaven") which is now crumbling but still recognisable. A new station sits next to it but the original - complete with a tree to give some shade was in fact very moving to be in. Sitting under the tree with the railway lines in front of you you could almost picture the soldiers getting on and off the trains.

Alexandria! It sounds such a grand place, filled with history and Linda had got it in her head that this was going to be European Mediterranean like city. The roads in were manic. It made Tripoli look like a drive In the country on a Sunday afternoon. The roads split, joined, merged and ended with no warnings, there were potholes that Minis could go in and never come out, ruts That if it rained you'd need a ferry to cross and speed bumps the size of the Cotswolds. Add to that you usual mix of microbuses and cars racing and hooting, then get us lost so we end up driving down a tram line and find ourselves in the middle of the souk and you could safely say it was not pleasant.

We did eventually find a parking place next to the fort and taxied off to see the Library - a wonderful futuristic new building that is worthy of the history associated with its name. A wander round the heaving streets and a stroll down the promenade and a nice meal and cake in the poshest patisserie in town and we thought Alex was quite nice, at least on the shoreside. In land it is a sprawling mass of multi story apartments and ports. It looks extremely poor and run down.

We get back to Taffy and found the juice bar that was about 30cm from our van was open to 3am and had the loudest most distorted radio in the world playing. If it had been selling booze we could understand it but OJ? Midnight and the place is heaving and people knock on the sides try the doors shake the van and bang their heads on the mirrors - that OJ must be strong stuff. We can actually see the point of not selling alcohol here, if they get this crazy on OJ and Candy Floss I'd hate to see them on shandy let alone anything stronger! So we up sticks and set off for Cairo. Fortunately Jon spotted a truck stop near the port and asked if we could use it. We were ushered into a warehouse to wake up the next morning and find our selves locked in and at the front of the warehouse seats set up tarpaulins draped on the walls and orange spook suits laid out. All it would need was a video camera and a couple of hooded men with Kalashnikovs and you'd have recognized it from the news. Needless to say we hadn't noticed any of this when we drove in and slept like babies!
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Siwa Oasis

We left Marsa at the same time as our French friends in different directions. They headed to Alexandria and we headed into the desert for Siwa oasis. Leaving Marsa you almost immediately lose the greenery and houses the land changing to desert, not the Hollywood rolling sand dunes but flat barren coarse sand hardpacked and a light rust in colour. You also immediately get faded, easily missable signs at the side of the road -"Minefield".

The drive is straight, 300kms of desert interspersed with phone masts every 25km and rather strangely Ambulance stations every 50km or so. There are no towns, no houses, almost no vegetation and once you pass the last oil rig, very little traffic. Suddenly, just as you are thinking how attractive the scenery is around Sutton Bridge the road drops off the plateau and you are confronted with multi colour gorges, lakes and palm trees. Siwa is a sleepy town, 40c when we arrived at 3pm and most people are hiding from the heat. We stop at the Police and ask where to camp and get directed to a hotel car park. Fine as a reserve but we came here to see the lakes. We head off in Taffy using the 3g phone network to get google maps working and promptly end up at a dead end. Surprising how those irrigation canals look like roads on google! 2 boys in a Donkey and cart signal us to follow them through some tiny streets past half fallen down homes. We go as slowly as we can but they are so excited by us that they start overtaking other carts and the our donkey Is going at a fair old rate. Eventually after ensuring we will never find our way home we arrive at the enormous lake and the view is fabulous though the mozzies look ravenous. We've now walked to the end of the road through the palms and along a sandy track to end up at the sunset cafe! We are almost completely surrounded by lake and the sun is slowly getting ready to set while we drink a coffee that will keep us awake for a month. There are all kinds of birds in the lake and mountains on the far shore a few miles away. Time to enjoy the sunset....
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Libya to Egypt

We left Leptis and began the long trip towards Egypt. Ali our escort told us we could get to Aydabiya in a day easily, we disagreed but it seemed we had no option but try. We arrived in the dark around 9pm and the last couple of hours of driving was a mixture of good road and horrendous road works. To add to this we had seen about 10 dead camels by the road and at night they are very hard to see. Here we met up with the French family we had met earlier as our escort wanted us to all travel together as he was unfamiliar with Eastern Libya. Again this appeared not to be optional. Robert Natalie Lisa and Anouk are lovely so we didn't really mind at all. It gave us a chance to talk to other people and feel closer to home.

Over the next few days we visited Benghazi (not worth it), Tukrah - an old Greek Necropolis and church and Italian fort right on the beach, Cyrene - the greek Roman city set on the edge of a Cliff overlooking the plains and sea below and Apollonia another Greek / Roman city actually half underwater now and largely falling into the sea but in the most picturesque setting possible. It was here that our patience with Ali began to run out. Everyone you meet travelling in Libya say the same things about their escorts. They try to control you all the time, they don't want you talking to locals and they want you to do exactly what they say at all times. This includes what time you get up, how long you spend at a site, where you camp and they even try to tell you what to take photos of. They also appear frightened of stepping out of line with the Police (possibly understandably in Libya) so they will try to stop you doing anything not on your program. The way to deal with this we found was to simply accept somethings that we could not change then ignore the escort when he talked about time related issues. Getting Jon up early is difficult enough for Linda so poor Ali had no chance and as for spending only 45 minutes at a site - we hadn't driven 7000 kms for that!

Just after visiting the Knightsbridge Commonwealth war cemetery which is on the site of much of the fighting during the seige of Tobruk we were overtaken by a lorry going at what must have been in excess of 80mph. He misjudged his line and smashed into our mirror making a noise like a shell going off. He stopped and the Police arrived and after examining the damage - he lost all of his mirrors, we have just had the main mirror glass cracked and a bit of the plastic surround broken - decided to not take the Police up on their offer to charge him. So we shook hands and continued on our way.

Our last stop in Libya was Tobruk where we had a nice farewell meal with our French friends and visited the war cemeteries (which must be the best kept things in Libya).

We arrived at the border with Egypt around 4pm thinking it may take between 5 and 12 hours to cross. 2.5 hours later we were through what appeared to be organised chaos. At the border we had met 3 other British motorhomes doing a similar trip to ourselves. These 3 turned out to be part of The Silk Route Club, a small group of highly adventurous motorhomers who have toured virtually all over the world. In fact their web site has been part of the inspiration for us actually coming here! We ended up spending the night with them and Jon fell out of the van (sadly not due to us getting a drink) and badly sprained his foot. Fortunately it was his left and Taffy being automatic he does not need it to drive. He is unable to walk at the moment but we have again bumped into our French friends who are doctors and have very kindly made him a strap for it.

We are now plotted up for the next two nights next to the sea at Cleopatras beach and hope to visit Rommels beach and museum when Jon can hop in the nearby town of Marsa Matruh.
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After a lovely day in Tripoli spent exploring the medina and souks we headed south towards Algeria ignoring both the FCO and parents advice in the process. We stopped en route to visit 2 kasrs at Nalut and overnighted in a small town near Ghadmes where a child kindly lobbed a stone onto our roof breaking one of the solar panels. A roll of selloptape later and it was working fine! Ghadames has to be the highlight of our trip so far, we explored the underground town sunk beneath the Oasis and went dune riding in a 4x4 which would have failed an MOT years ago. We had sand bread and tea with the Toureg and sat on the dines and watched the sun set over Algeria. We had been invited to round the evening off with traditional music and dancing laid on for a French minister and US diplomat but when we turned up we found it had been cancelled because they were too tired!

A 780 km drive back in a day to Tripoli and 2 stops to see a stunning abandoned hill top village at Termeisa and an underground berber house at Gharyan is too much and arriving in the dark on party night was a bit stressful to say the least and yet another occasion we really regretted not smuggling a bottle or two through customs! We were rewarded with another day in Tripoli to wander around which was lovely. Our next stop was the quite astonishing Leptis Magna. This fabulous Roman city is breathtaking with literally 100's of columns still standing, some of the best preserved baths we've ever seen and a port, theatre market place and much more. The guides say if you only see one thing in Libya it must be this and 5 hours of walking later and 3rd degree sun burn on a cloudy day says they're right. Taffy: our grey water tanks are now stinking again and it looks like Jon will have to do some repairs again.

We crossed the border in 2 hours largely because we managed to talk our way through the diplomatic plates only channel and met our escort Ali who took care of our paperwork. We then headed onto Sabratha a magnificent Roman city right on the shore of the med. The theatre - largely rebuilt by the Italians is stunning set against the blue sea and sky. Next we drove into Tripoli at rush hour, which was the single most scary driving experience we have ever had. The drivers here are fast and reckless, they almost seem keen to die. Road markings are ignored, traffic lights are merely guides and pavements are designed for skipping to the front of a queue. When we had parked we met another Brit motor home - David - driving to India via Pakistan and Afghanistan (now there's an idea) who told us to always arrive and depart late at night.

Next day we walked around Tripoli to find the souks such a pleasure to be in. Shop keepers chat but never hard sell, people cone to talk to you out of the blue and you can pick an item up in a shop and put it down again without anyone giving you a special nice price, instead giving you free samples of cakes and free gifts when you did buy something. We bumped into a shop keeper we had met earlier in a Restaurant who then acted as our translator to help order a salad. Libyans have to be the nicest people we have ever met. We even had a man climb in our van today when we were having a cup of tea and invite us 1000kms south to stay at his home! While he was with us a 8 year old girl came in and joined us, sat with us shook our hands told us her name Saya -apparently it means beautiful day - and then left. Oh and did I mention 157 litres of diesel cost £12.50

We left northern Tunisia and immediately lost our Blackberry service and found that WAP was not set up on the phone despite O2 promising it was so we can no longer be tracked on Google Latitude or easily send our blog entries in. We're likely to not get our service at all in Libya either so it may be quiet for a while.

We've zig zagged down towards the Libyan border seeing some fantastic Roman ruins along the way. We've met literally hundreds of French motorhomes all going or leaving a rally in Tozeur as well as a lovely South African / New Zealand couple driving home to SA! We've tried some local foods even Jon and also the Black coffee, fought our way through souks and markets, cycled 2 km into the Sahara, spent 3 hours lying on the dunes in the sun in perfect tranquillity then headed to the nearest hotel to make use of the hot spring pool! 

We've even had to stop to let a herd of camels cross the road. Tunisia has been a great experience and the people outside the tourist centres helpful and very friendly. In the tourist zones the people are quite different, if they say a word to you it is because they want you to come into their shop, buy something or just want money. It gets a bit annoying and counter productive in the end as we tend to avoid the zones as we're fed up saying no thanks. Libya next...

Dougga and Bulla Regia

We have spent the day doing Roman ruins. We spent the morning at Dougga which is simply stunning. There is an almost completely in tact Roman temple dominating the town and walking up the steps to its main entrance you really felt you had gone back 2000 years. The view from the temple over the surrounding countryside was breathtaking. The theater is also one of the best we've seen again cut into the hillside south facing and a stunning view of the valley. The town is isolated away from any modern development so you can reaLly imagine the streets bustling with people and noise. We loved it!

We then went to Bulla Regia which is much less well preserved. The things we had come to see were the mosaics, still in situ in the Baths and the underground houses the rich people built to escape the heat. You could have simply moved a some furniture back in and lived in them they are so well preserved. The floors are covered in mosaics and the central courtyard columns still have their fluting and at the top have ornately carved stone.
So, another day, another Roman ruin...
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Carthage and Beyond

We ended up spending 3 nights by the sea in Carthage. We even took the tandem out for a day cycling round the various punic and Roman ruins. These sites are not the best we will see on this tour, but the fact that they played such an important role history makes then somehow come alive. The old Punic ports, now just glorified ponds, once saw the worlds most powerful fleet berthed here and the models and excavations really help you visualise it. The Antonine baths cover an enormous area - even for a modern pool complex and much of the lower ground floor remains in tact directly adjacent both the sea and the new Presidential palace. Allegedly you must not point your camera at the Palace even by accident, but we weren't immediately shouted at or shot when we did. We were however moved on by the guards on our cycle home when, exhausted and half way up another big hill, we stopped next to the Palace. After recovering we cycled into Sidi Bou Said, a picturesque almost European Mediterranean town sat on top of a cliff overlooking the sea. The town is completely white with blue doors and windows and is a huge tourist attraction for Tunisians and foreigners alike. The doors are all decorated and really beautiful and naturally enough the souvenirs sellers have many mini door for sale. We really loved these doors so thought we'd buy one and asked how much? 150 dinar we were told. After haggling we got it for 15 (and the seller seemed happy with this price).
After collecting our carnet yesterday and having lunch at a posh cafe du thé in the centre of Tunis we have now moved on to Douga. We could have changed planets the difference is so great. Douga has some of the most fabulous Roman ruins and the Roman town is situated on a hillside overlooking the new. We are unfortunately not allowed to camp next to the ruins and has been sent to camp outside the Police station where we have been joined by 4 French motorhomes. The town is ramshackle and not pleasant, unlike Tunis you rarely see a woman, and many of the ones you do see are wearing traditional clothes. The cafes have virtually no women in them and walking through the town you certainly feel people watching you. Some people say bonjour and others ignore you, but on the whole people are generally nice to us.

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Welcome to Africa

We're sitting in a car park plotted up for the night with the sun setting behind us and the waves crashing on the shore In front at Carthage. Couples are strolling along the promenade in front of us wrapped up in winter coats and we've just put the heating on! We arrived off the ferry in the dark 2 days ago after filling in numerous forms and getting them stamped by various officials in what was a fairly well organized port. We had managed to get off the ship last - so busy chatting to a German that in the end they had to make an aNnouncement asking us to move our van off the car deck. When we got to Taffy it was sitting alone in the middle of the deck and the Italian crew were getting a touch animated. This proved fortuitous as we just followed the 20 motor homes on an organised tour out of the port to their overnight pitch and joined them for our first night.
The next day we drove into Tunis and parked up for our second night. We walked into the city and managed to get accosted by the captain of the ferry who had dropped an envelope on the ground. We made the mistake of calling him and giving him his envelope which resulted in a long chat lots of hand shaking then an appeal for cash. We even saw the guys ID card so think he was actually the Captain! 10 minutes later and we'd been collared by a 'friendly' local who turned out to want to sell us carpets and then the family scented oil for £18 for 10 ml - he was down to £5 before he figured out Linda was related to Scrooge And we left. Another 10 minutes and Jon had to extract someone's hand from his inside jacket pocket and another 10 and we were thinking what the hell have we done.

24 hours later and we've visited the fabulous Bardot museum and seen (and walked all over) some outstanding mosaics and found our little plot up and are beginning to settle in. We always find the first 48 hours anywhere the most difficult and certainly Tunisia has taken this to a new level, but we are sitting in Taffy, in the ancient city of Carthage, looking out at the med, with a bottle of wine, surrounded by cactus, palm trees and bright rust colored cliffs and we consider ourselves incredibly lucky to be here - what a difference a day makes.
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Remember the carnet....

We rounded last night off with a glass of wine and a pizza delivered to our door. It was ordered in a mixture of German French and Italian and was fantastic. We woke up refreshed and decided to double check our papers to find the carnet had the wrong chassis number on it! Paul at the RAC, unphased as usual simply sent a new one out to Tunis for us to collect on arrival. We set off from our Sosta for the port much relieved and promptly ended up missing our turning and heading back to Switzerland! Quite why the co pilot thought that our Sat Nav was wrong along with all the road signs remains unclear but ho hum, a 25 km detour later and we arrive at Hell on earth - Genoa port. Few signs, plenty of trucks, lots of irate Italians hooting their horns and a bemused Englishman doing a 3 point turn in the middle of it all! The check in was chaotic, it was like Primark in the sales! There was room for 200 cars but the ferry takes 1100! People and bags lay everywhere and the cars were so loaded down the tyres were almost invisible. We got our papers sorted and eventually boarded as almost the last vehicle. Our luxury suite turned out to be a double bedded cabin and hardly what you'd call luxury or suite, but never mind, back in Taffy tomorrow and that is luxury.
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Tempting fate

"This will be our last easy border crossing" Linda said 5 miles from the Swiss border. 10 minutes later we had found ourselves in a huge queue of lorries that had been stationary for 3 hours. "It could take another 4 hours" one of the drivers informed us - and we thought Ukraine was hard to get into. Plan B, go via France. We set up the navigator and 5 minutes later we ae out of Germany and in France! Another 5 minutes and we've taken a wrong turning and ended back in Switzerlands Customs lorry park! So we head off on foot smile sweetly and laugh with the French and Swiss Douane and have got all our papers stamped, the road toll paid and are on our way again somehow missing out hours of queues. We then somehow manage to leave Switzerland go back into Germany then get back into Switzerland again. God knows how we are going to find Egypt let alone Cairo if we can't manage to get out of the EU!
3 hours later and we have arrived on the Med, and got ourselves stuck half way up a mountain pass and lost in an industrial estate before finding our overnight Sosta. So far all the road signs have been in the Latin alphabet, we've had good English maps and the aid of Sat Nav. From tommorow its all going to be in Arabic, our maps are 1 inch to 100 miles and no Sat Nav. Sounds a doddle!
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Extra time winner!

Well with less than 90 minutes to go before the banks closed on our last day at home HSBC managed to get the guarantee sorted and the papers over to the RAC by fax. The carnet will now be next day delivered to Stowmarket for us to pick up on route during our farewell tour! Talk about cutting it fine!
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Nearly Time to Set Off....

With only 5 days to go before we depart we are still waiting on HSBC to
get the Bank Guarantee in place so the RAC can issue a carnet. HSBC
having lost our file have a lot to do to get the documents faxed over to
the RAC so we can take the Carnet with us when we depart. Other wise it
will have to be couriered out to Tunis for collection at the embassy.
Still, this is only one in a long series of minor problems that we've
had to overcome to get the trip on track and I'm sure it won't be the
last...