My Pictures (cont).....

This is a picture of The Monastery, a huge structure carved into the rock at Petra. It was pretty impressive. The only drawback is that you have to walk up 850 stairs, cut into the stone to get to the top.

My ANZAC Day (a year removed).....

Happy ANZAC DAY!!

This post goes out to the Aussies, because today is a special day for them, ANZAC Day. Today is the day that Australia celebrates and honors the fallen soldiers of her past. It was on this day, back in 1915, that Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed at Gallipoli in Turkey during the First World War. It was the first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand troops. Over 8,000 Aussies were killed at Gallipoli and it's on this day that they remember those who have fought in battle. It is a very important holiday in Australia and I was introduced to it at 4:30 am, one year ago in Brisbane.

The ceremony was incredible. Before dawn, a fire was lit at ANZAC Memorials all over the country. I was at the one in Brisbane with John, the man I was staying with. Truly a special memory for me.

My Pictures......My Five Sided Adventure

Here is a shot from the Pyramids that was taken earlier this year. Yes, that is the Sphinx on the right and the building next to the Pyramid is where a Solar boat is kept.

My photos......My Golgotha......

Since I'm now able to actually upload some photos on this thing, I thought I would share some over the next couple of days/weeks from my travels. I thought of this one first, since it is the one that I wanted to share all along....

This photo is of Golgotha, the Place of the Skull, located just outside the Old City of Jerusalem. It was here, according to my NIV Bible, Matthew (27:33), Mark (15:22), Luke (23:33) and John (19:17) say that Jesus was crucified, here....on this hill that overlooks Jerusalem.

For me, this was a somber, but exciting place. To see where Christ was crucified is something that I will never forget. To be able to sit and look upon this hill, to see what looks like a skull in the hillside (which is truly amazing and how it got it's name) and to think that I am able to stand, to sit and to pray in the place where this all took place......where the Son of God was crucified for me, for us, was incredible. I hope that all who wish too, can experience it one day.

I had feelings here that I have never felt before in my life.....almost as if I finally realized the sacrifice and the significance of that day, so long ago.

.......(the sound of sand being blown through the air).....

Here's a picture from bbc.com of downtown Cairo today during the sandstorm.

My taxi driver in Jordan.....

For some reason, I'm being allowed to upload pictures right now, although I have to do it one at a time. Here is a picture of myself and our taxi driver from Aqaba to Wadi Musa. He's pointing out Petra in the Jordanian countryside.

My First Sandstorm.....

So we've experienced a lot of wind here before and definitely enough to have a layer of dust in the apartment, but today was the worst so far.

I should have known something was going to happen this morning when it was extremely cloudy, but I didn't think anything of it. I left the windows open in the kitchen, dining room and one other window in the entry, thinking that it would allow the apartment to stay cool.

A few hours later, I was changing classes at school when one of the teachers came in and asked me why I still had the windows open.....I had yet to notice that there was sand blowing everywhere outside. We can usually see beyond the school wall and all the way to some buildings that are pretty far away, but they weren't there. To be honest, I couldn't see another building that was a hundred yards away.

Suddenly, I got really excited when I realized what was going on. The wind was so strong that it had blown over one of the trees on our way home. It even knocked down some of the signs that were on the road. Awesome.

When we got home, there was a nice thick layer of dust over everything. If only I had remembered to shut the windows.....

My Challenge......

I've been doing this blog for over a year now and many folks have said that they are, "living through my experiences" or that they are seeing these places through my eyes.....

Well, now I have a challenge for you.

I would like to challenge everyone to leave the United States at least once a year, if possible. If not, go for once every two years.

Some of you might be thinking that this is impossible, that you can't do it. Well, to put it frankly, you're wrong. Canada is very close by and if that's all you can do, do it. Mexico is a pretty cheap place to go, so you can always visit there.

My point is, I feel as though many Americans don't actually try to get outside their comfort zone.....to go out and experience and see what the world is actually like. We instead stay at home and let the television tell us what it's like and we say to ourselves, "oh, that's a nice place, but I'll never be able to get there." That's crap, in my opinion. Save up and go. See the world and bring it back with you and educate others on what it's really like.....not by what CNN, Fox or the Travel Channel tell you. What are the people like? Do they actually like Americans? Is it a friendly place? How is the food? These are all things that people want to know and that you would be able to tell them, just by going.

I have accepted the challenge as well. God willing, I plan on trying to leave the US at least once a year. Even if I don't end up settling in the US, what ever country I live in, I will try to leave at least once a year, to visit new places, new cultures and to discover new sites (at least new to me).

And if at all possible, go some place where YOU are the minority. It has been a crazy experience here in Egypt. I get stared at.....a lot! Sometimes because of my shorts, sometimes it's my bald head and other times it's because of how pale I am. It's awkward, it makes me uncomfortable, but most importantly, it allows me to see how people feel in the US when the roles are reversed and it makes me realize that maybe I should try to be a little more friendly to those people, after all, they helped me.

So please, take the challenge, get out of your comfort zone and see the world. Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered that some people read this and love where I go....but wouldn't it be more fun to experience it on your own?

The Western Wall in Jerusalem.

My Breaking Point II......

After arriving in Sharm, we were both tired and a little frustrated about the events of the day, so we ate and then went back to the room. Alex went to sleep and I went for a walk and then played some pool till midnight before going to bed.

The next day was alright. We went to a beach, got some sun and then went to Na'amba Bay, the tourist/shopping/party part of the area. Now, those of you that know me know that I do not party. I do not drink and I don't like really loud music that prevents you from having an actual conversation with the people you are with.....all these things are what Sharm is known for, so it's not a wonder why I was ready to leave. Don't get me wrong, we had some fun for the brief time we were there, but it was enough.

The hotel that we stayed at was very nice. One of the other teachers at school is the daughter of the man who owns it. It's called the Uni Sharm Hotel and it actually has a lot of Russians and Estonians that stay there. Someone thought that I was Estonian one day, which was a little weird.

One of the highlights was speaking what little Arabic we knew with the workers. They seemed to be excited that some tourists actually could speak some of their language and we were treated very well once they knew that....so that was a plus.

One of the drawbacks to Sharm though were the taxi drivers. Twice we got a driver that had no idea where he was going and that trend continued the morning we left. We knew where to go and told the driver, who then thought he was headed in the right direction. I told him that in fact he wasn't and that the bus station we needed to be at was across from the hospital. He shrugged me off and said okay, then asked a local. I then pointed in the direction of the hospital, saying "HOS-PI-TAL, the International Hospital, it's right there! Go to the Pyramid" (the hospital was shaped like a pyramid...awesome). Again, he ignored me and asked another local, who pointed him in the right direction. At this point, our bus left in 15 minutes and I was a bit frustrated.

We arrived with 10 minutes before the bus left and we then got out of the cab. The bus driver looked at us and said that the ride would cost 50 LE (Egyptian Pounds). At this point I lost it because the ride was only 20 LE, probably 15 or 10 for a local. I told the man he would get 20 and that's it. He said no, 50....and so it began. As I was yelling at the man, telling him that is was bull what he was doing to us. I said again and again, 20 is what you will get, just take it and we'll leave. He would reply, "No, okay, 40 LE".

"No, you don't get it buddy. You're ripping us off because we're tourists and you think we're stupid. This is bull____ and I'm tired of it. You get 20." (this phrase was repeated a lot by me).

The man said he would take thirty and then tried to look at Alex for help. Alex was having no part in this argument because he had never seen me like this. I'm not proud of it by any means and I handled it the wrong way, but you can only be taken advantage of so many times before you've had enough....I was at that point.

I finally told him that he could either take the 20 from me, or I would throw it in his car and we would walk away. He again said 30, at which point I threw the 20 LE note in his car, said "Ha-laas" (or finished) and walked off.

This ended our fun-filled time in Sharm. The bus ride back to Cairo was actually quite nice. We rode on a Super-Jet, which is much cleaner, more spacious and actually has a bathroom in it that is relatively clean. I will probably never go to Sharm again (not my scene), but I had a lot of fun in Jordan and I would like to go back one day.....

My Near Death Experience.....

We left Wadi Musa on Sunday and headed south to Aqaba. We were supposed to meet the taxi driver at 10 am, but he was a little late due to car trouble, which should have been our first warning sign for the day.

After attempting to get the taxi started again, we finally got going 15 minutes later. We had made it through the King's Highway and half-way to Aqaba on the Desert Highway before the taxi died again (warning sign #2). Luckily, after letting the car rest again, we were able to go another 10 km before the car died for a third time (after previous deaths in Wadi Musa and on the highway).

This time the driver called another cabby, who came to meet us. By the time he got there, our taxi back in action and we had continued our journey. We only had 10 km until the border stop before the car died for the fourth and final time. What should have been a 90 minute trip, ended up taking around 2.5 hours. All this time we were a little worried because the last bus to Sharm el Sheikh left Taba at 3 pm (in Egypt), which was only 2.5 hours away and we were still in Jordan and had to clear customs in two other countries!

Fortunately, the Jordanian Customs went pretty quickly, but we then had to wait for a taxi driver to come to the border. We got some 26 year old kid, to drive us to the Taba border, where we were feeling pretty good because we had 2 hours until the bus left.....then we saw the Indians.....

Sure enough as we hit a group of Nigerian pilgrims heading into Israel, we met a group of Indian tourists leaving Israel. Of course the Egyptian authorities weren't prepared (again) and it took forever to get across the border. Luckily, after an hour, we made it across and quickly walked to the bus stop in Taba (which has probably the second worst bathroom in Egypt, next to the one at the Giza Zoo in Cairo).

We then realized that we gained an hour when we came into Egypt (time change) and so we actually now had to waste 90 minutes, at an empty bus station....awesome.

Finally the bus left at around 3:10 (even though it had been sitting there longer than us, it still was late departing). The bus was actually pretty empty, which was a change from the norm....buses here are usually extremely crowded and smelly, but not this time. Our bus driver was cruising down to Sharm, which is supposed to be a 3.5 hour trip.

After stopping in Nuweiba and at numerous resorts and random places along the way, we were flying down to Dahab, another resort town. This was when it was starting to get scary because the bus driver was going fast, in a beat-up old bus and it was getting dark. See, here in Egypt, the lines on the road for lanes are more suggestions than anything else, so when we take a corner turning left, we are usually in the left lane when we do it (you know, the lane where the cars are coming at you). After avoiding a few cars and having to stay in our own lane, we then nearly got into a few accidents while trying to pass other large vehicles, all the while other cars were coming at us.....it was a little scary at times, but we survived.

Finally 4.5 hours later.....we arrived in Sharm. We were both really excited to be off that bus and I couldn't wait to get a bite to eat and go to bed.

My Second Day in Petra......

On the second day, we decided to check out some of the caves and tombs that were off the beaten path. We started out by heading to the Mughar an-Nasara, which were some Christian caves and tombs a little off the track. It was a lot of fun because most of the people that visit the site don't actually make it out here. We were all alone to climb around on the rocks and check out the tombs, which were pretty cool. We were trying to make it to the Al-Wu'eira Fort, a Crusader fort that is really far away from everything, but unfortunately, we didn't find it, so we settled for this area. One of the highlights was that as we were coming back and following some other caves along the basin, some camels were grazing around 300 yards from us. It was pretty cool.

After having lunch, we decided to hike up to the High Place of Sacrifice, a little area at the top of Jabal Madhbah (a mountain I believe). The hike was pretty steep and it took a while to get up there, but once we did the view was amazing! You could see the surrounding valleys on every side and it looked spectacular. We took some fun pics before beginning our decent.

Then we decided that we had enough for the day. We had done a ton of hiking and it was time to leave Petra. Truth be told, I didn't actually get to see everything that I wanted to. The tomb of the prophet Aaron is supposed to be near-by and I would love to be able to see the Crusader fort one day as well. Maybe next time.....

My picture from the first day....

The view from As-Siq as the Treasury is coming into view.....

Sorry, but it took a lot of screaming and patience to even get this one picture up for you. I wish the connection/computer/internet were working better so that I could upload more, but this is what we get for now....sorry!!

My First Day in Petra.....

(Quick note...this is part two of the Petra Series and if you haven't read the first post, scroll down and do that first!)

We decided to sleep in before starting the first day of Petra. After buying a two day pass, we started the walk down As-Siq, the 1.2 km long entrance to the city, most of which is a canyon that was created by many, many earthquakes. It was a good start and the inside of the canyon was amazing. The canyon walls were extremely colorful, filled with different shades of reds and browns.

Then suddenly through the canyon walls you see a bright light and what looks to be a huge building and As-Siq opens up and you suddenly have Al-Khazneh (the Treasury) staring at back at you. This building is the one that you usually see when looking at pictures of Petra. It is an amazing site. It is absolutely huge and carved right into the sandstone walls! You really start to wonder how these people were actually able to do this 2,000 years ago.

After taking some pictures, we turned and headed down the Street of Facades, a little street that has the remnants of tombs on either side. A short walk later and the street opens up to the Theatre, a 7,000 seat, Roman style amphitheater in the city. It was stunning.

From there we continued down the path and then veered to the right to check out some tombs high up on one of the mountains. We then went back down to the path and it lead us to the Colonnaded Street (an ancient street) where you can see some old pillars and the remains of what were probably stalls for vendors. We then passed the Qasr al-Bint (the only free-standing structure left after thousands of years of floods and earthquakes). We stopped to have lunch before beginning the next leg of our journey.

After lunch we began the ascent to Ad-Deir or The Monastery, which is probably the second most popular site in Petra. It is an 850 steps up a long rock-cut staircase, donkeys that carry up tourists (not to mention the remains of what the donkeys had to eat earlier). It took us around 45 minutes to climb up, but when we did a huge building was awaiting us. Ad-Deir is a bigger building than The Treasury and it is very well preserved. After taking a few pics and stopping for a Coke, we went back down the mountain (this time only taking 25 minutes).

We were exhausted at this point and decided that we would call it a day and we walked back to the Treasury, As-Siq and eventually out of Petra. Luckily our hotel wasn't very far away (roughly 300 m from the entrance) and we were back at the hotel pretty quickly.

My Trip to Wadi Musa....

Okay, so since we have finally returned from Jordan, I am now able to actually write about it. So to make it easier to read, I'm going to post about it as a few different topics, that way I can recall what happened easier and since there is a lot of information, it will make it easier to read (hopefully). We'll start with the trip to Wadi Musa...

Since I am not able to actually go on a trip in which actually getting to the destination goes as planned, we (my roommate and I) started off this trip by taking a bus to Nuweiba, a little resort city on the eastern part of the Sinai in Egypt. We left on a big East Delta Bus at around 11:15 pm on Wednesday night, assuming that we would be in Nuweiba around 6:45 am the next day. The bus was dirty, smelly and it was so cramped that even a sardine would feel suffocated. But alas, hours later (and a terrible Arabic movie), we arrived in Nuweiba.

After arriving there, we sat and remembered that we would have to wait for around 3 hours just to buy a ticket to take a ferry to Aqaba (in Jordan). The ferry wouldn't actually leave until noon, if it left on time (and this being Egypt, that wouldn't happen). So after being offered some roasted pigeon at 7 am, we went with plan B. We decided to find a taxi driver to take us back up to Taba, cross the border into Israel and go through Eilat, where we would cross the border again into Jordan.

Surprisingly, this worked pretty well (and ended up being a little cheaper than the ferry ride). Alex and I took a taxi to Taba and began our walk across the border. We figured in about 20 minutes we would be in Israel and 4 hours ahead of schedule.....then we met the Nigerians....

I knew that it was Easter weekend, but I didn't realize what that meant.....pilgrims. We met a tour group from Nigeria at the Taba border crossing and we were caught between two (possibly three) tour buses of Nigerian pilgrims heading to Jerusalem. The Egyptians were not prepared and so it took about an hour and a half to cross the border and finally get into Israel. Where we were quickly able to catch a cab and we were dropped off at the Jordanian border crossing 30 minutes later.

After a short exit process and entrance into Jordan, we were quickly able to find a cab that took us the entire 2 hour trip to Wadi Musa, where Petra is located. We made it to our hotel (the Petra Palace) around 3 pm local time, hours ahead of where we would have been if we waited for the ferry in Nuweiba.

My Next Trip.....

Okay, so I've kept you waiting long enough and now that the next trip is here (we leave this week!), I feel as though I should inform you of where we are going......

But first, just to let you know, we means Alex (my roommate) and I. Just wanted to clear that up!

It was a tough decision in the end. The prices for Cyprus skyrocketed recently and a couple of alternative options came up at the last minute. We almost went to Malta, an couple of islands south of Italy, but we couldn't get the deal we wanted on the airfare. It was around $200 more than I wanted to spend.
There were even thoughts of India, since I managed to find flights for around $600 from Cairo. However here the problem was that the hotels are super expensive and I just don't quite trust and Indian hostel for some reason.....

So we will be leaving for Jordan on Thursday morning. I would like to tell you what time, but of course we haven't purchased the bus tickets yet. The goal is to bus from Cairo to Nuwieba (where we've been, if you recall from some posts back in October). From there we will take a ferry to Aqaba, a resort town in SW Jordan, right on the Red Sea. Once in Aqaba, we'll have to find a minibus that will take us the remaining 2 hours to Wadi Musa and ultimately Petra.

For those of you that may not know, Petra is an ancient city built around 3 BC. You should definitely Google it.

After spending two days in Petra, we're going to ferry back into Egypt and head down to the resort town of Sharm el Sheik. I've been told that the snorkel sites there are better than the Great Barrier Reef, and since I've done the latter, I'll let you know.

The current plan is to spend a few days in Sharm and then Bus back to Cairo (or possibly catch a ride with some of the other Nefertari staff members that will be in town) by next Monday or Tuesday. We'll see.

God Bless!

My Dad's Birthday.....

....is TODAY!!!

Happy Birthday Pops!


I miss you and I love ya big guy!