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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