Crystal Hotel Aqaba

... beers, a 5% lager called Philadelphia (the old Roman name for Amman) and a whopping 10% Petra (just add alcohol to a 5% lager beer and that’s it). Aqaba is a duty free city and the prices are quite good (a bottle of Teachers Scotch, for example, is only 10 Jordanian Dinars (or $15 US) for a litre.

It is really getting late and we are very tired given all that has happened today, when the topic of tomorrow’s excursions is brought up because of ...

... burka-dames met hun voeten in het water zitten.

Vrijdag zouden we de sights doen: een opgegraven Romeinsetijd dorp namens Ayla, een Schloss, en een enorme Flagpole die aan de Arabische Opstand doet denken. En continue aanboden voor tourtjes met een 'glass boat' afslaan.. Wel grappig, vieze mannen in witte hemden en jongetjes duiken zo tussen het afval het water in, de vrouwen en meiden duiken dr in jeans of in burka in. We wilden nog een taxi nemen naar ...

After Petra, we headed for more chilling out in the desert. Wadi Rum is absolutely stunning, vast and the rock formations that are ther have to be seen to be believed!! We spent the night camping under the stars with the locals. Had some great sunsets and sunrises and saw lots of ancient petroglyphs.

From there we headed for Aqaba for the epic mission of the overland ...

... of the desert for more than an hour before driving by us as we found some shade in a nook. We finally met up with our guide and then drove to a couple of rock bridges. One of these rock bridges we were able to walk across for a nice photo opportunity. By this time the heat of the sun had taken its toll and we were off to the Bedouin desert camp. The camp was simple, but impressively had running water. We sat around a camp fire, played cards ...

... on his hotel in Sharm, he is the only one with a private dock - hence the 5 big boats. We didn't stay long as we had come unannounced, and we wondered if after the invite to stop by he might have thought maybe he shouldn't have invited us. Oh, well, it was a nice time and we got to see this end of the Gulf of Aqaba, the water is just as blue and clear and the boats just as nice.

We left and stopped to talk to a chap from Belgium sitting on a ...

... sand in the Rum. It was a peaceful ride in the desert. It was time for something fast paced. 4WD in the Rum. Loading into the back of the utes we were off, with the cold air freezing our faces and hands we entered the dunes for a little bit of hooning around before stopping to take in the surroundings. Deep red sands, dry low lying scrub as far as you can see....our guide Hussain, smiled at us with his gappy black stained teeth, picked up some ...

... of about four or five long, low, black bedoin tents with the requisite mats and pillows like you would expect. The food was excellent as well, but the star of the camp was the nice setup of carpets and pillows that they'd created to hang out on underneath the stars. Our guides were both competent lute players and their picking and singing added to the atmosphere. It was like our private desert accompanied by expert bedoin guides. They offer week long trekking, house ...

... special and unique, but surprise surprise- my guide ruined the entire trip. None of us paid him and of course I reported back to Hamdi.

After Mt. Sinai I we went directly to Nuweiba. None of us spoke the entire van ride. I was so angry and upset, Hamdi was ****** because I was obviously having a bad time, and all I wanted was to get out of there. I was also scared shitless about the next part of the trip, all on my own. Once he dropped me off at ...

Nick and I met up with three Brits and one American on the ferry ride yesterday (one of whom, Joe, we had previously met in Cairo.) The six of us went out to Wadi Rum on the 1st. We called a guide from the guide book, who called his cousin, the driver one of the two daily public buses, to find out what time ...

· Aqaba, Jordan
· GMT +2:00hrs







Ok so we've made it. Finally. We've escaped. We're free. We've been liberated. We are no longer in Egypt. That's good. We're in Jordan. That's even better.

This is an extract from our guide book on travel in Jordan and on the Jordanian people -

'Veterans of travel in Egypt or Morocco will be pleased to learn that, as far as hassle from the locals goes, Jordan is a breeze: your experience of ...