Sinai to Jordan - 28 May to 2 June 2009

Mt Sinai
Waking up at 1:45am to climb 7km's up a mountain...

Even tho i went to bed early to have energy for the climb, it didnt help. I swear there was a swarm of about 200 mossies biting the living piss out of me all night, and the air con was set to hot. We couldnt find the remote for the air con, and couldnt open the windows for fear of letting even MORE mossies in. hahaha i dont think i have ever prayed for my 1:45am alarm to go off ever in my life.

(That photo was taken on the way back down, it was to dark when we were climbing up to take photos of the distance we had to climb.)

We got to the base of the mountain around 3am and began our climb, apparantly the time to the top was 3 hours, but i was in my usual competative state of mind and was giving it all hell, even tho we were forced to take some 5 minute breaks because the guides we have were paranoid of either me falling off a cliff because they werent with me, or the slow people getting left behind and falling off a cliff because the guides werent with them hahaha

Anyways, i ended up burning up the mountain in 1 hour 38 minutes, and thats including the stupid 3 x 5 min breaks.

The hike to the top was all worth it tho, as the sun rise was off the mother flippin chain.

There were also alot of pilgrems and religious old people that hiked up there in groups, because at the top of Mt. Sinai is a church because apparantly Moses hung out there or something. But mother of god, one dude was flippin the script. He was doing some crazy ass prayer and swinging his arms around and basically convulsing standing up. Religious people are nuts. ahaha

And then the sun rose, and the long walk back down began. 1 hour 8 minutes to be precise. *phew*

Click through to the; Cairo to Sinai to Aqaba Photo Gallery

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Desert Bashing
4wd's through Wadi Rum in Jordan

Ok, so now we are into the tail end of the tour and everything seems to be a bit of a set filler in Jordan. Just activites to fill time. One of these set fillers was 4wd'ing throuh the desert, one of the only set fillers that were actually not boring hahaha

We got to a point where there were a few big ass sand dunes against some sand stone cliff faces and we were told that if we went to the top we would get a good view of the desert and surrounding cliffs and as per usual my competative nature kicked in and even tho i was wearing thongs, i raced to the top burning the shit out of my feet on the burning hot sand along the way. But, once again, it was worth it for the view!

For more photos, click through to the; Cairo to Sinai to Aqaba Photo Album

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The Ancient City of Petra
The reason why we came to Jordan in the first place!

Seeing wonders of the world like the Pyramids and the Sphinx are mind blowing, because they were built out of stone, by people without any machinery to help them lift 100 tonne limestone blocks and build 6 metre high columns and errect 500 tonne Obelisks.

And then theres The Ancient City of Petra. Carved into rock faces in a valley hidden away for thousands of years until a french man changed his religion, learnt Arabic, grew a beard, made himself seem like an authentic Native Bedwin and then betrayed them when they showed him where The Ancient City was in the 1800's and went back to France and sold the location to the highest bidder. What an asshole.

But then again, would we be seeing Petra today without him being such an asshole?

Walking through the narrow valley leading up to the most preserved and first building you see, The Treasury Building, is amazing in itself. The people of the area constructed dams and pipework to lead the water away and around the narrow valley so that they could use it as a trading route into there stone city.

And then, there it is.

For more photos, that you HAVE to see, click through to; Aqaba to Amman Photo Gallery