Wadi Rum

Time for our week-long tour of Jordan. We crossed the Gulf of Aqaba by hydrofoil on the afternoon of 7 December, arriving shortly after 6:00pm. We’d already cleared customs before boarding in Egypt so disembarking was quick and easy.

Our first impression of Jordan? It’s cleaner than Egypt, or at least relatively free of hazy desert dust. This was obvious from the moment we stepped off the boat in Aqaba. Thanks to its haze-free air we enjoyed a crisp and clear sea view from our hotel room. The Gulf of Aqaba simply dazzled in the sunshine.

This is also where we got our first glimpse of Israel. The Israeli port of Eilat looks surprisingly close as you can see from the image above. Its proximity, less than 2km away, left an indelible impression. It's hard to imagine that this township on the opposing shore was once considered "enemy territory".

After a solid night’s sleep, we spent a lazy morning wandering the streets of this quaint seaside town, before the group set off for Petra via the Wadi Rum desert. The road climbs rapidly from Aqaba to the desert plateau more than 1600 metres above sea level. As it twists and turns it offers some stunning views of Israel and the Red Sea.

Wadi Rum was magic. Wadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to the bed or valley of a river that's usually dry except in the rainy season. This particular wadi is home to an extraordinary desert landscape of red sand and strange-shaped rock formations. The overall effect is so alien that the area is often referred to as the Valley of the Moon. It's no surprise that Hollywood loves shooting movies here.

This is the desert of Lawrence of Arabia fame; blazing sands, purple mountains, and shadows playing tricks with your eyes. Matt Damon’s 2015 blockbuster, The Martian, was also filmed here. However, unlike the real Mars where the average daytime temperature hovers around  minus 64C, summer temperatures at Wadi Run regularly exceed 40C.

We spent several hours driving around in rusty old 4-wheel-drive utes, and exploring narrow ravines, before finally stopping to watch the sun sink slowly below the desert horizon. The contrast between the desert’s deepening shadows and its iridescent red sand was simply mesmerising.

Join us for our next stop in Petra. A magical place where Indiana Jones would feel right at home.

In the footsteps of Moses

Once Cairo was done and dusted, we headed for the Sinai. Getting there took us a good part of a day. We drove almost 450 km, passing through Cairo’s sprawling suburbs, under the Suez Canal, and along the resort-speckled Red Sea Coast (where we stopped for a distinctly unmemorable lunch), before finally turning inland towards Mount Sinai, our final destination for the day. 

On the outskirts of Cairo, our tour bus passed through Nasr City (which translates as the New City). From the window of our bus we caught a fleeting glimpse of the amber-hued Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It’s an impressive open pyramid structure, more than 36 metres high, elevated by a broad, low-rise podium. This intricately embossed concrete memorial was commissioned by Anwar Sadat after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Sadat's tomb was subsequently installed here after his assassination in 1981. 

I’ve included an image below ripped from the web. I had to include this to give you a sense of how elegant this structure looks close up. This incredible detailed facade was all but lost on us as drove by.

Sadly, for an infrastructure geek like me, sighting the Suez Canal was an all too brief experience. Our route took us through the Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel. However, security restrictions on both sides meant that our bus couldn’t stop at any point. The tunnel’s typography also meant our viewpoint was never elevated enough to see the waterway itself. Instead, as we approached the tunnel, we caught a brief glimpse of a container ship gliding through the desert sands. Watching this partially hidden sea-going vessel miraculously traversing the barren dunes was simply surreal.

Our tour group stayed overnight at a simple hotel in St Catherine, a tourist village located a few kilometres from its famous namesake, the Saint Catherine's Monastery. I later learned that this is the world's oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastery. It opened in the year 530 which means its 1500th anniversary is fast approaching. According to tradition, it sits on the site where Moses saw his biblical burning bush. 

We set off from this isolated Byzantine outpost at 3:00am. Although, if truth be told, we actually hired camels to take us most of the way before dawn. Riding up the mountainside in the early twilight proved our least touristy trek in the Middle East.

While I'm not one for walking in the dark at 3:00am, at least another 500 people were happy to do so, singing hymns and Christian ditties until dawn. Again, the cellphone signal was solid on the summit. If only Moses had had such an option. The Lord could have just phoned in the Ten Commandments rather than carving them in stone.

While Mount Sinai was unforgettable, my strongest memories remain those of the stark, red, and purple-hued desert valleys we drove through. These hillsides grew all the more spectacular as the sun began to set. Perhaps the most magical moment though, was a brief stop we made in a date palm oasis sitting quietly in the middle of nowhere.

From Sinai, we headed to the coast to catch the Hydrofoil in Nuweiba. The descent to the harbour was an experience in itself. The road literally drops from more than 1200 metres to sea level in just a few short kilometres. The brakes on our bus overheated as our driver struggled to negotiate the steep incline. I've never been so happy to see a sturdy boat in all my life. The rest of our journey to Jordan was rather uneventful.

One final comment. You may have noticed that many of the images in this post are a little blurry. That's the legacy of my unfortunate spill in Alexandria. I had my camera lens extended on full zoom at the time and the knock it received threw its focus out of alignment. This seemed to mainly affect scenes shot with the zoom lens. It took me several days to realise this and adjust my photography to compensate.

Falling for Alex

Upon our return to Cairo, we spent our last day touring the Islamic sector. A maze of old streets, filled with mosques and local people. One highlight was an unexpected tour of a local mosque organised for us by a friendly student. The doors leading to the highest minaret were specially unlocked, affording spectacular views of the Cairo skyline.

Our student guide then insisted we join him for traditional tea and a sheesha at his local cafe. He even sweet-talked a nearby stall owner into letting us take a group photo wearing the stall's traditional crimson felt Fez hats. Afterward, we offered him a tip but he fervently rejected it. He genuinely just wanted to showcase his part of town to a bumbling bunch of tourists.

The following day was a rest day. I caught a train to Alexandria with another member of our tour group, Patti, a Canadian soldier on R&R from the Afghanistan front line. She's in the white Fez hat in the opening images of the post. While we were off exploring, Garry chilled out in our hotel. Alex was certainly worth the visit if only to offer a contrast to the dust and dirt of Cairo. 

The Express Train took about 2.5 hours to reach the coast. We then spent a day walking from one end of Alexandria to the other, taking in many of its most popular tourist sights, including Polmey's Pillar and the extensive Roman catacombs. By the time we were done, we'd walked more than 11km.

On the reflection, the sights we saw told a great story of the city's heritage as a frontier port and a major crossroad in the ancient world. For example, Polmey's Pillar is a triumphal column celebrating the Roman emperor Diocletian. It originally supported a colossal stone statue of the emperor dressed in armour.  

The statue has long gone but the column remains. At its base sits a classic Egyptian sphinx. However, this isn't an original feature. The Romans relocated it from Heliopolis, an ancient city located where the northern outskirts of Cairo reside today.

Imagine if you can, the contrast of this barren monument with that of the intricately carved white domes capping Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi Mosque. This stunning building is dedicated to the 13th-Century Murcian Andalusi Sufi saint Abul Abbas al-Mursi. His tomb resides inside. Sadly, we could only view the mosque through a grilled gate.

Toward the end of the day, I managed to take an unscheduled plunge into the Mediterranean Sea. I slipped on a slimy rock while capturing just one more digital memory. The camera took a solid whack and never focused quite the same again. You can see me taking this final photo below, moments before my feet disappeared from under me. That image I was trying to capture? The Citadel of Qaitbay which you can see above.

Aside from this unfortunate incident, the only regret I have about my day in Alex was the fact that we didn't have time to visit the Bibliotheca Alexandria. In the end, I had to settle for a distant waterfront view of its extraordinary profile from across the bay. Even from a distance, this post-modern building's sweeping curves were impressive with the late afternoon sun glinting off its glass facade.

For more on our adventures, follow this link as we cross the Suez Canal and make our way towards Jordan.

A dam good time

Aswan was very pretty. The Nile splits into a series of picture-perfect islands at this point with a dozen traditional felucca boats sailing by at any given moment. All I knew about this city was its massive high dam holding back the Nile. Aswan proved far more note-worthy. 

I was surprised to discover that Aswan actually has two dams. The oldest of these, the Aswan Low Dam, or Old Aswan Dam as it's commonly known, was completed by the British in 1902. At the time it was the world's largest masonry dam. Today, it's the city's primary river crossing. However, an impressive new stay cable bridge recently opened upstream as a second crossing. 

The high dam sits 6km upstream from the old dam. Everything about this structure is big!. It's 3.8km long, 111 metres high, and incredibly, it's made entirely from rock and clay. The base of the dam is an astounding 980 metres wide, while the crest is a modest 40 metres. It's currently the world's largest embankment dam.

After docking in front of the Arous El Nil Hotel, we made our way to the Aswan Egyptian Nubian Museum. However, unlike the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, photos are permitted here. Above you can see the impressive Golden Coffin of a bearded priest called Wennefer and another of those prolific Ramses II effigies. This one comes from the Garf Hussein temple, 60km south of Aswan. It’s one of several archeological sites relocated to higher ground when the High Dam was built. Sadly, no surprises for guessing whom this particular temple was dedicated to.

Our tour group then crossed to the West bank of the Nile, hired camels, and trekked across the desert to the abandoned monastery of St Simeon. The decaying ruins were a photographer's paradise, made all the more dramatic by late afternoon shadows. Without a doubt, it was a memorable experience with plenty of iconic desert imagery.  

Later that evening we visited the nearby Philae temple complex for a stunning sound and light show. The complex sits on an island in the Aswan Low Dam reservoir. It was relocated here in the 1960s when its original island was submerged by Lake Nasser. Despite the move, it retains an impressive profile from the water. Let's just say it wasn't hard to take plenty of postcard-perfect images.

On our last full day in Aswan, we awoke at 2:30am to join a convoy of 50 buses traveling to Abu Simbel, about 280km south. Tourists now travel in armed convoys as a result of a terrorist attack that occurred at Luxor in 1997. Then once there, machine gun touting soldiers keep watch as you explore the temple’s environs. I'm happy to report that our early morning transfer passed without incident. Instead, most of us passed the time catching up on lost sleep.

Abu Simbel was phenomenal. Ramses II certainly knew how to commission a decent temple. The location is everything you imagine it to be. To think that such a structure was taken apart and moved to higher ground in the 1960s is equally amazing. The only downside?  Traveling in convey meant the serenity of its location on the shores of Lake Nasser was somewhat diminished by the crowd.

I had to metaphorically pinch myself more than once. I couldn’t believe that I was seeing this magnificent complex with my own eyes. I recall first learning about Abu Simbel from a cover story published in National Geographic magazine in May 1969. However, at the time the only reason I had a copy of this particular magazine was thanks to article about Apollo 8.

From Aswan, it was back to Cairo on another sleeper train. The complementary breakfast wasn't so memorable. There are only so many pieces of stale bread one can endure!  I'll leave you with a few parting images of our journey up the Nile. Far more memorable than the train!