Easyopia

A wise man once said: "We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy." That wise man was Albus Dumbledore...

In most cases I would like to think that I choose what is right, but sometimes the easy choice is just too convenient. So when I was faced with the two options of either applying for a new passport and then a new visa for Sudan which would take a lot of effort and very long time or just flying over and landing in Ethiopia, the easy option proved too tempting. 
It's strange because when I started planning this trip I always knew Sudan would be a nightmare of a place to travel through, but over time it had really become a nightmare I was looking forward to. So it is quite dissapointing how much damage this one Israeli stamp can cause and being a rather stubborn person I hate breaking my own rules and not achieving my goals, but then another wise man told me: "Goals are deceptive, an unaimed arrow never misses it's target." Actually I'm not sure who told me that, it may have been on the inside of a Mars-bar wrapper, but still.
Anyway we did take a flight from Cairo to Addis Ababa, and that's where we are now.

Luxorious Travel

Founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and the capital of Cleopatra's Empire, Alexandria lies strategically on the Mediterranean coast. It was once the home of the world's largest library and the Pharos Lighthouse which was an ancient wonder of the world, however both landmarks were destroyed long ago and today the town offers more of a French colonial charm. We spent two days strolling along the corniche, seeing different sights and museums before catching the train back to Cairo. In Cairo we got on the night-train south along the Nile confusingly taking us from Lower Egypt to Upper Egypt, arriving in the Nubian part of the country and the town of Aswan the morning after. In Aswan we saw the world's third highest dam, aptly named The High Dam, and it was damn high. Then started our temple-run tour, seeing Philae and the impressive but hard to reach Abu Simbel. We stayed one night cruising the world's longest river in a felucca (traditional Egyptian sailboat) before heading north to Luxor where our temple-spotting continued. We checked off Kom Ombo and Edfu on the way up before adding: Hatshepsut, Luxor, Karnak and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings once we had gotten to the city. So we have now seen thousands of hieroglyphs and our study can only come to the conclusion that there is not a single one which depicts the classic "Walk like an Egyptian" pose, and this must therefor be a myth either started by The Bangles or of unknown origin. After two days in Luxor we caught the night-train back to Cairo, where we now have a day to kill before moving onto new destinations...

In garnment related news: A testament to how much walking we've done is the fact that both of us have worn out the shoes we started the trip with, and thus have had to reward ourselves with new footwear, suitingly on or slightly prior to Christmas, which should hopefully last us a while.

Walk like an Egyptian

Port Said lies at the northern most point of the Suez Canal where it meets the Mediterranean Sea. It was good to see this marvelous feat of mankind, but in all honesty there wasn't really alot to see, so the next day we got on a bus to Cairo. In Cairo we found a hostel just a stones-throw (pun intended) from the famous Tahrir Square which has been the center of attention during the recent Egyptian Revolution. There were alot of people gathered in and around the square, but the demonstrations we witnessed seemed peaceful allthough there were apparantly some bloody clashes with several fatal casualties during our time in the capital. We spent our time here walking around the crowded, messy  streets and crazy traffic. We had a full day of pyramid scheming, going to three different sights including the only remaining ancient wonder of the world, the Pyramids of Giza. It was very impressive to finally see these incredible structures which were somehow built here over 4000 years ago, but the experience was slightly hampered by the pestering camel-touts and hustlers lurking everywhere. The Egyptian Museum was also an interesting experience and it's incredible how well preserved everything is, however the large amount of exibits, over 100,000 items, including: tombs, mummies and the golden treasures found in Tutankhamen's tomb, make it almost too much to take in. After four days in the huge city we moved on to Alexandria.

They tried to make me go to Dahab...

I'd like to start by appologising and adding two corrections to my previous post.

Nr 1: The Tajik city of Dushanbe has erected a flagpole which is 165m tall, also there is a North Korean flagpole which stands at 160m and therefor the flagpoles in Amman and Aqaba have been knocked down to fifth and fourth place respectivley.

Nr 2: I wrote that we would take the ferry across the Red Sea to the African Continent. Technically I think the African continent starts west of the Suez canal, so even if we have now reached Egypt we are still in Asia on the Sinai Peninsula. 

Now back to business. After some more Amazing Race style running we just managed to catch the ferry following some contradicting information on departure times. Two hours later we were in the harbour of Nuweiba where we after some minor problems were allowed entry to Egypt. From here we got in a minibus which drove us to Dahab. Not long ago a quiet Bedouin fishing village on the shores of the Red Sea, backpackers found Dahab and converted it into a tranquil beach spot. Today it has once more transformed and now offers relaxation to a wider spectrum of tourists. We enjoyed our first real beach-life of the trip and wasted a few days just relaxing on the small beach and snorkeling in the crystalblue water. Unfortunatley it was in these clear blue settings I was tempted to experiment my camera's underwater features. It turns out my camera is not quite as waterproof as it claims to be, and doesn't function properly anymore. After getting our dose of sea, sand and sun we travelled north on the Sinai Peninsula through the desert and stopped at the Mediterranean mouth of the Suez Canal in the town of Port Said.

Petrafied

Being one of the modern 7 wonders of the world, made famous by Steven Spielberg in the third installment of Indiana Jones and perhaps even more famous by Karl Pilkington in season one of "An Idiot Abroad," Petra had a whole lot to live up to, and it really did. We got to the town of Wadi Mousa early on Saturday morning, found a hostel and got straight to the ancient sight. Petra was built by the Nabateans around 2400 years ago and most of what is still visible today was originally tombs carved out of the sandstone cliffs. We spent the first day trying to see all the major points of the vast landscape and then got an early start on the second day walking off the main trails getting away from the busloads of Japanese and American tourists and within a minute you are all alone walking amongst tombs and mountains with incredible views of the valley shifting in different shades of red, orange and yellow. Petra may very well be the most beautiful place I have ever seen and who can put a price on seeing that... Well somebody did and apparantly it is 50 Jordanian Dinars (500 kr) for one day, however a two-day pass is only 55 JD so taking an extra day is well worth it. I could have spent weeks walking around the unbelievable scenery but we decided to get a move on and made our next stop the Wadi Rum desert. Once again this required an early start as we first got a bus to the desert entrance and then spent the whole day being driven around the red sand landscape in a 4x4. After that we got to our Bedouin tent-camp, watched the sunset and had a huge dinner. It gets pretty cold at night around these parts, but seeing all the stars and the fullmoon in absolute silence made the freezing sleep worth it. The following morning we got a taxi to the nearby town of Aqaba, where we saw what was once the world's tallest freestanding flagpole (today in second place at 130m high with the same flag dimensions as the flag in Amman, the tallest flagpole is located in Turkmenistan so this should be the last I write about it for a while at least.) I also managed to complete my trio of Med, Dead and Red for the trip by taking a quick dip in the waters off the Aqaba coast. Tomorrow we hope to get the ferry across these same waters and with any luck finally reach Egypt and the African continent.    

This is Amman's World

The trip from Jerusalem to Amman should have been pretty straight forward, just crossing a bridge over the river Jordan and then arriving in the capital an hour or so later, but you know how things go. After taking a minibus to the Allenby-Bridge border we were told they couldn't issue visas for us there so we should go to the Sheikh Hussein bridge a few hours north. Our problem was that we had passed a checkpoint two minutes drive away, something the taxi-drivers knew, and thus they could charge us 50 shekels (roughly 100kr or 10£) for the short ride. Our luck changed for the better short after as the first car that passed turned out to be driven by a friendly Israeli named Roy, who had done some backpacking and felt sorry for us. Roy gave us a lift half the way up north, where we could catch a bus. After about an hours wait the bus arrived and we were on it for a while until the next checkpoint, where Israeli soldiers found us suspicious and decided to search our luggage and interrogate us in the pouring rain, after we were cleared of any possible crime we got back on our bus for a bit more. When we got off the bus we asked the driver how far the Jordan border was and he told us 5-10 minutes walk, this turned out to be 90 minutes (carrying about 1/3 of my bodyweight on my back) Finally we reached the control and had no problems on either side, then we got a 2 hour cab-ride to Amman and managed to find a bed and some food, 10 hours after setting off. The following morning we walked around the city, seeing the ancient citadel, markets and what was once the worlds tallest freestanding flagpole (today in 3rd place with a flag measuring 60x30m waving off of a 126.8m high pole.) Other than this there didn't seem to be all that much to see so we caught the earliest bus to Petra on Saturday morning. 

Everyday's a Holyday

We kept on following Jesus footsteps but opted for the bus to Jerusalem rather than hike. Jerusalem was an exciting place and we spent a jampacked week exploring the city and nearby locations, here follows a brief explanation of our excursions.

Jerusalem: To use a cliche, it is a place steeped in history, the old city confined inside the old city walls dates back about 3000 years and is home to some of the holiest sights of the three major religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam, today it is dived by these three groups and the fourth quarter belongs to the Armenians (of course.) We stayed in a hostel just outside the old city which turned out to be a good option as once again there was an interesting crowd of people here and the nightlife was entertaining. Jerusalem also boasts the new Holocaust Museum which was very moving although it leaves you slightly drained after spending almost an entire day inside the complex.

Hebron: A very complex situation, today most of Hebron is Palestinian, but Jewish settlers have claimed a portion of the town. So now 4000 Israeli soldiers control the border and try to keep the four hundred Jews (who appear to be the worst troublemakers) apart from the 150 000 Palestinians who live on the other side of the occupied territory.

Bethlehem: Oh little town which is in the West Bank and part of the Palestinian territory, another place very important to the life of Jesus as according to the fairytale this is where he was born. However I was more impressed with the huge wall erected by the Israelis to separate themselves from Palestine and the graffiti upon it amongst many artists I saw my first Banksy pieces in Bethlehem.

Dead Sea: We went to Ein Gedi beach at the lowest point on earth to enjoy a relaxing day at the spa, but when we reached the spa we were told they had no running water so we chose the free public beach to take in this fascinating experience which words can't really describe. Floating effortlessly in the extremely salty sea completely blew my mind.

However after more than a week, we felt we needed to get moving again and wanted to get out of Israel before the Sabbath (or Shabbat) which falls roughly between Friday sunset and Saturday sunset, and completely shuts down the entire nation, including transport. So Thursday morning we started our trip towards Jordan...

Nazareth of fresh air

We got to Nazareth and The Fauzi Azar Inn, which is probably the most beautiful hostel I have ever seen, without any complications. Then we spent two full days exploring what Jesus former hometown had to offer. There wasn't as many tourists as I had expected which was nice, and it was interesting visiting places where fictional events I've heard about all my life took place, kind of like visiting Hogwarts or Narnia. We hiked around town and the Lake of Galillee seeing the church of multiplication, the basilica of annunciation, the small village of Capernaum and loads of other scenes from the best-selling book, then decided we were done with Nazareth and got on the bus via Afula to Jerusalem.