Are We There Yet? Travel Log

We started our last day by packing up our stuff and leaving our bags to collect later in the day. We then finished our Rampart Walk by going in the other direction. As we got near the end, which is right by the Western Wall, we heard what sounded like a parade. Then we saw a boy being lead to the wall under a hupa. We surmised that he was having his bar mitzvah. A few minutes later another boy came through. Then another. Apparently it was bar mitvah day at the wall. But it only seemed to be non-orthodox Sephardic Jews. I wonder if different sects have their own days?  The wall plaza was full of families and boys on their special day. People were setting up tables and covering them with sweets for their families. Everytime we come to the Wall we seem to see something new and exciting. It is a very busy place and obviously a dynamic center for Jewish life. After we left the Wall we started up Mt. Olive to do the stations of the cross. Talk about a diverse religious education for the kids...

Jerusalem is a cacaphony of noise, and not just because my children are here. There are mezzuns 5 times a day. Church bells ringing at all hours. Fireworks at various times. Our hotel is right in the middle of it and we are on the top floor so it is all very loud here.  We went exploring today. No destination, just wandering in the old city. It is very compact but easy to get turned around because of all the souks that run through the middle of it.  We ended up at mt Zion and David's tomb. That was also the sight of the  Last Supper and a beautiful church with amazing mosaics. Steve then gave the kids a lesson on how Popes are elected.  It's been crazy the way topics come up and where we have been when things have been explained. Things like eclipses, the history of the formation of Israel, condom use, how everyone wore hats in the 50's, and the freezing point of salt water. There has been a lot of togetherness and we are on the verge of cracking because of it.   We ended u...

We took the early bus from Ein Gedi and arrived in Jerusalem around 11. I don't know if we are getting better at this or we just got lucky, but we had no problems getting out of the bus station, finding our city bus, getting off at the right stop, or finding our hotel. In fact, when we went out to find the market later we also got there without getting lost once. Weird!  I say it is because Israel is so easy to travel in. The buses are marked, the stops are labeled, there are schedules, and the roads have signs. There are also a lot of tourists here so I guess they have to make it easy. Lots of American tourists too. That is something strange for us.  The market was packed with people getting ready for shabbat. Many of the Jewish shops will be closed tomorrow. Some sights too. I did pretty good getting fruit and bread and nuts. Our room has a fridge and the hostel has a kitchen so we ate challah and hummos, tomatoes, almonds, olives, and strawberries for dinner.  We wandered into t...

No problems getting back to the Jordanian boarder and crossing into Israel. It was strange though. Once we arrived in Eilat we were suprised to see men and women(!) in shorts, tank tops, t-shirts and flip flops. It could have been any US city in the summer. We also saw women's hair, which we haven't seen in a while. Not a headscarf in sight. Things were very modern too. The facilities were clean, organized, and made sense to our American sensibilities. And, one of the most shocking things of all, the cars stopped for us at crosswalks. Even seemed annoyed with us that we hesitated to cross in front of them! I knew that where we were going was an isolated place so I jumped at the chance to go to a grocery store before leaving Eilat. This grocery was very much like the US and had checkstands and scanners and carts and everything. I bought water and food stuff to get us through a few days at the Dead Sea. Good thing too. There are no stores at all so you are at the mercy of the hos...

We got up early this morning so that we could enjoy walking through The Siq and see the Treasury in the morning light. Less people too. It was a pleasant morning except that we were too early to see the Treasury in full light so we spent a lot of time sitting around waiting for that to happen. Not a problem though. We had a full day of hiking ahead of us and the rest was good. We did several climbing hikes today. This area is a lot like the Grand Canyon and the terrain is all up and down. The first hike lead to the High Place of Sacrifice where the Nabateans did, obviously, sacrifices. The view was amazing and we were awed by the number of tombs up in the hills. From there we did a different hike back and it was exhausting. There were not many people on the trails and in one area we were the only ones at an ancient banquet hall and tomb. There were columns lying on the ground and crumbling walls around us. It was like we were the first to discover a forgotten city. I'm ...

Jordan is an extremely friendly country. The people are so nice and willing to help without expecting anything in return. You can tell that it is wealthier than Egypt. The people dress nice, the cars are new and you can tell that people are not trying to eek out a living. It is as expensive as Europe though. A dinar is equal to a euro so way different than egypt. We can't be as free with the money. We went to Wadi Rum yesterday and it was amazing. We spent the whole day climbing and looking a beautiful scenery. Our guide, a Oaudi, was great. The kids really had a great time. Oaudi let them build fires and race the other car that our tour was with. At one point he did set us off in the desert and told us to walk to a canyon by ourselves. We were confused as to how that happened. We didn't know we agreed to the force march! We watched the sun set from a high outcrop and then went back to the camp to prepare for the night. After getting settled we went in the Bedouin ...

Yesterday was a day of rest. We spent the day lazing around the guest house, swimming in the Red Sea, reading, and eating. We barely moved. It felt good. The guest house is clean and modern so it felt good to pamper ourselves a bit. Again, it's all relative. It was really windy here so we didn't spend much time in sea. It was 85 degrees, but the wind made it feel cooler. The snorkeling was pretty good. A different look than the Caribbean. We also did our traditional "dos desnudos en el mar" but I was nervous about it because of the culture we are in. Now it is 7am here Sunday (11pm Saturday in Missouri) Valentine's Day. We are getting ready to eat breakfast and then taking a taxi out to Wadi Rum to spend the day and night in the dessert. No reliable busses go out there. Probably a product of a strong taxi lobby here in Jordan. Anyway, Wadi Rum is the setting for Lawrence of Arabia. His house is there along with the 7 pillars of wisdom rock formation. ...

Were you starting to worry about us? We have been very busy the last few days and on the move so it has been impossible to write. I"ll catch you up. We took an organized tour to the West Bank of Luxor. We had a great guide, Nana, and were with only 13 other people. Some groups have 30 or more so we were fortunate. Nana was very good at explaining things to us, she kept everyone on schedule, and her english was very clear so we were quite happy with her. We went to Valley of the Kings and went into 3 tombs. You are not allowed to take cameras in there so we don't have any pictures but we did buy some postcards. The tombs were amazing. The colors are so vibrant still and the level of detail is fascinating. From Nana's "lesson" when we first got there we were really able to pick out some neat details in the tombs and their significance. After that we went to Hutshepsuts Temple. She was the female pharoah. When Nana was explaining the history behind Hutshepsut, Cora ...

I am typing this on one of, I think, the original computers ever so bear with me. The keyboard is different too so if I make a lot of mistakes don't be surprised. We took a taxi through some absolutely terrible traffic to the Giza train station last night. We had seats on the first class night sitting train to Luxor. Remember, the sleeper was sold out. I expected worse than we found but people not used to traveling in poor countries would be shocked. Anyway, after I convinced an old man that he was in my seat (took about 5 minutes) we were all genuinely pleased with how comfortable the seats were. Until we tried to sleep in them. They did recline back, but some of the people were loud, they never turned the lights down, and a few people were smoking. The train was very jerky too. Sometimes violently. It makes me laugh to think how to describe it. Imagine yourself just falling asleep and someone comes along and shakes you as hard as he or she can. It was very random too....

We slept late again, enjoyed a late breakfast, but no friends for conversation. They have already left for other destinations. We took a taxi to Al Azura Park. It is an oasis in the city. Green grass, clean walking paths, a playground for the kids and Little Ceasars pizza for lunch. Not your tpical pizza--chicken and mushrooms--but the kids enjoyed it anyway. They played at the park for several hours and made friends, of course. Not hard. We attract a lot of attention here. So much so that it gets overwhelming. Kids are always coming up to us and trying out their english. The park had excellent views of the city. It was so neat to see the minarets all over and the cupolas from the mosques. We could also see how packed this city of 8 million is. I'm pretty sure we met most of the while we were here. After the park we walked from one of the ancient city gates to the other. It was neat to read about the history that went on here. The giant doors and towers have seen ...

Maybe. We are leaving by train tomorrow night but I don't know if we will have time to send a post. Today we had to have a Come To Jesus with the kids. The whining and complaining reached an unbearable point. We know they are tired. We know they are out of their element. But enough is enough. Every complaint now costs them a dollar. Three complaints in one day it goes up to $5. Harsh? Yes. Necessary? YES. We got up late again this morning, had a lazy breakfast with good conversations with the other people in the hostel. That is why I love hostels; you meet people and make friends. After a while we got a taxi to the bus station and the difference between getting bus tickets and the train tickets was night and day. So easy and so clean. After that we wondered over to the train station to get our bearings and then took a taxi to Islamic Cairo. I would like to say that it was a good experience but the kids whined and complained incessantly. We bought them treats. We gave them choices. ...

I was so tired last night that I didn't get around to writing so I have two really full days to report. First of all, we are still struggling with jet lag. Steve and I go to sleep around 10pm local time but then wake up at 12:30 and our bodies think we have had a nice nap so we can't go back to sleep until 3:30 and then sleep to 10am. The time difference is 8 hours ahead. Last night we thought would be the night that we would sleep, but no. Same thing. Maybe tonight... Friday morning we had to be up early to meet our driver that was going to take us to all the sites south of Cairo. Mahmood took us to Dahshur, Saqquara, Memphis and Giza. In Dahshur we went to the Red Pyramid-the oldest pyramid of traditional shape-and we got to climb inside it. There were no steps, just a ramp with wooden rails place every foot or so. The opening was only about 4 feet high so we had to stoop as we walked down this ramp. It was very long too, about 100 feet or more. When we got to the bottom it o...

Either we are getting better at this or we are learning to roll with the punches better. I bet on the later. All went well with the flights. A few delays but nothing crazy. We did make quite a site sleeping on benches in the Rome airport, which, by the way, is not nearly as nice as you would expect. That is what you do, though, when you arrive at the equivalent of 2am after having only slept in fits and spurts on the plane. As ususal, we cannot do the normal thing so we didn't take a taxi from the airport. We had read about a bus and were determined to take it. By miracle or good kharma (we paid the $15 visa fee for a Brit that did not have Egyptian or American dollars) we found it and took an amazingly long and harrowing ride into downtown Cairo. That's when it got crazy. Actually, that's when it got normal crazy because, of course, we went the exact opposite direction from the bus station and ended up at the Nile (but that is better than spattered all over the roa...

It't time to head out again. In a few hours as a matter of fact. I was hoping to get this done last night but that's what happens when you leave things until the last minute. This morning we are heading to the St. Louis airport and then heading to Philly. From there we take an overnight flight to Rome--cool, huh? But we have to spend it all in the airport. 5 hours in the Rome airport! Steve and I thought about taking a train into the city for a few hours but when we arrive there it will be 9am Rome time but 4am our time. We decided to NOT be insane and drag two jet lagged children around Rome. Maybe next time. After the long layover in Rome we fly EgyptAir to Cairo. Arriving there at 5:30pm Cairo time. 8 hour time difference so 9:30am our time. So that is about 24 hours from our house to our hotel in Cairo. Should be fun with Tate. Ha! The entire adventure will have us in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. Some things we will be doing are: they pyramids, Valley of the Kin...