THE SINAI

Before to catch the crazy Ferry, we met in Aqaba, Florine and Ziat, and they invited us to eat in the house in the oldest part of the city; the menu: Bedouin rice, which we ate as the traditional way, by hand.
The staff of the Ferry told us that we had to be at the port at 22:00h. and the boat will departure at 01:00h. The people kept entering the boat without ceasing, and all of them were finding places on the floor, on the restaurant, mosque… to sleep. As we saw that the ferry didn’t departure, we also accommodate ourselves on the floor, and around 6:00am we departure to Egypt.

Afterwards the paperwork to do the visa, everything among the trucks unloading the staff of the people and throwing it everywhere on the ground.
Since we crossed the border in Jordan until we arrived to Egypt, passed 14 hours, and the boat trip only takes 4 hours. We avoid the mass of taxi drivers and a Bedouin offered to take us to a camp that we have heard, "Greenbeach camp", it is managed by a very nice Sudanese guy and he rents huts just 4 steps from the Red Sea for 10£EG, (1,25 Euros). We went just for a day, but we couldn’t resist it and we spent more time; Nuweiba is an authentic paradise in the Sinai. In front of the hut there are coral reefs, and just snorkeling, we could see lion-fish, moray, and plenty of colorful fishes.


Convinced of the possibility to travel by hitchhike, we went up to the main road, with a constant harassment of all the cars saying: taxi! taxi!
It was easy to stop to the cars but… each one has their fees to go to Dahab. After an hour fighting for traveling without paying, we realized that, ALL is for money…
We managed to travel about 15 km without paying, and when we were in the middle of the desert, and nothing around, we told to the drivers that we didn’t have any money, (to prove them), but it doesn’t matter!! If you don’t pay, you stay there…

In the end we pay to one guy the same price of the bus to Dahab. This city is totally different, here the loneliness and the paradise is finish, everywhere are restaurants and people harassing you to put you inside the agencies, the shops of groceries with European prices... and plenty of dive agencies.
The best thing of this place was when we approached to the "Blue Hole", a huge fossa in the sea of 127 meters that falls straight down from the shore of the coast.


Again a Bedouin stopped to help us on the way to the Blue Hole; he told us that he had a lunch with some friends in a canyon among the mountains near there; he offered us to go and of course we went. Talking with them, we asked them if they were Egyptian, and they denied clearly: We are Bedouins!!!


We saw that there are a lot of rivalry between them, turning back to Dahab, we stopped in a shop in the Bedouin territory, and the man told us the real prices, and he left us very clear that they are Bedouin and the prices are equal for everybody, they don’t cheat as the Egyptians do.

The prices of the buses are a big temptation, but hitchhike is adventure and much better, despite giving a thousand turns to find the exit road, we didn’t surrender and went out the city on foot; on the way… a great surprise, the Bedouin of yesterday!!!; he brought us up to the police checkpoint.
This is another story, in 4 days, the police asked for our passport daily, Egypt is a country for the organize tourist, and when the see two foreigners loose, they afraid and start to make questions. In this last checkpoint we told them that we were going by walk to Sharm (100 km), because if we say hitchhiking perhaps they think we are crazy...
We look for a good place, because we knew that we had lot of time to “fight” with the drivers. But no!, the one who stop was a Lebanese, a very nice man who didn’t want our money. He took us to a café with which he has business in Sharm el-Sheikh, he treated us as kings giving us coffee, laptop to use internet, and everything we needed…

We had made an appointment with Jay of CS in the afternoon, so we had plenty of time to see the city; but we didn’t like at all; we felt as two strangers among so much luxury. Massive tourism, an artificial city for relax and party; totally different to Egypt, everything is impeccable, new, as in Europe, even the prices.
We escape from there to eat something outside of the tourist places, because the beaches or places to sit are by payment, and which was our surprise that one guy came to throw us away, we cannot stay there, and we must go to the area where all the tourists are.
Discouraged we walked through the street of the beach in the fact of the looks of the people for our remarkable big backpacks, and suddenly, I felt a jostle on my back; a girl with a big backpack, asking us if we were hitch-hikers. Finally we found our company, a couple from Russia; Pavel and Maria, who have flown up to here to start their journey by hitchhike to Russia. Now even more we are the attention on the street, four backpackers among elegant people; it was great to find them!


We went to meet Jay, and he was very nice with Pavel and Maria, because they didn’t have a place to sleep and he offered them to pinch the tent in his garden. Finally we passed everyday all together in Sharm the- Sheikh. Near Jay’s house there is a small cliff on the shore of the Red Sea, which is full of coral reefs; there, we spent the last days; a summer, warm days just only a week for Christmas.


This night we depart to the Egyptian capital, Cairo; where a big surprise is waiting for us......
We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and happy New Year 2008!!

JORDAN

Jordan, a new country to which we arrived by hitchhike with a worker of the border. The taxi drivers of the border are really boring, they said that they don’t charge us, and try to cheat us with their stories. The Jordanian visa can be done on arrival, it costs 10 dinars, (10 €) and only can be paid in Dinar, they make you to do a really bad exchange at the border to be able to pay it.

After 4 km of border, we are already in Jordan and with the thumb up waiting for a lift. As we are in border area we must to be careful and ask if the car is a taxi… when a car stopped we asked him, and he thought it was a good idea to be a taxi, so he said, yes! We left, but in a second he said: - ok, ok, no money! He left us quite near of our destination, but we had to walk even more to take another road. The people like a lot the tattoos, and they stop us to see mine, they called us to drink tea and speak, we accepted again in a shop with a mechanics, a really good meant tea; the pity that afterwards we had to refuse other offers, otherwise, we will never arrive.
Without hitchhiking, a car took us up to Irbid, where we met the guys of CS, who live in the university area, in a street that is in the Guinness World Records Book, because in just 1km, there are about 120 Internet Café.
The guys of the club are Yemenis, and they introduce us their friends, a Syrian, a Kurdish and another from Gaza; with who we exchange our different ways of life.

From Irbid we moved several days to different historical places, a very important was Jerash. The student card in Jordan, it doesn’t work, and the entrance fee to Jerash ruins is 8 Dinars (8 €), of course we didn’t pay it; another thing not, but Roman ruins we have seen...a lot. Besides, we are thinking and saving money for the super-expensive entrance fee of Petra (21 Dinars each).
It was very interesting to meet and to speak with a young boy who sold postcards, and who is learning Spanish with the tourist. He was sure that those prices for us (Spanish) are very cheap, that it is nothing... this is the image that have the Europeans, Euros with legs…

We turned back to Irbid by hitchhike; here it is like “hitchhiking a la card”, we only need to wait to the vehicle that we need, and put the thumb. Besides, the man that picked us up, left us in our street in Irbid, such a good luck!

Another day we spent the day in Umm Qays, an ancient Greco-Roman city situated in the triple border of Jordan, Syria and Israel; due to this controversial area we must pass plenty of military checkpoints, which reminded us to our days in Kurdistan.
The city is much destroyed but we enjoyed the nice views over the Tiberiades Lake, (Galilee Sea) and the Golan Highs, a very troubled area, disputed between Syria and Israel.

We continue to the Jordan capital city by hitchhike; here it happens the opposite of other countries, if you are foreign it is easier that someone take you; we place ourselves after other local hitchhikers, and the cars that didn’t stop for them, always stopped for us. A nice guy brought us up to Amman, he insisted all the time to teach us Arabic, and all the way talked to us in his language. And once again, like a private taxi, he took us up to the door of the house of Nour, the guy of CS.

The days in Amman were very calm due to the shortage of interest of the Jordan capital, in the ancient part of the city, the houses are piled up on others, and among them, a small Roman theatre.

One of the days we went to the Dead Sea, placed at the lowest point of the planet, 395 meters below the sea level. The truck driver who brought us, chose a special place for us, a free beach, solitary, and with hot springs. As everybody knows, this sea contains so much salt that people float, it is impossible to sink; the stones of the shore are entire with crystallized salt and the water is like oily, very dense; the hot springs were perfect to bathe afterwards, because after swim in the Dead Sea, the body prick.
A man that came to give a bath too, brought a handful of mud from the Dead Sea, and cover us with it, people say that it is very good for the skin...

Crossing the desert towards the south, we stopped at Petra, an obliged stop in our journey. We knew that the prices are exorbitant, so we were investigating how to "pay less". Nour, the guy from Amman told us about the existence of a shop in Wadi Musa (Petra) that organize clandestine entries in Petra; this shop is find by a sticker over the door; and we went there without think twice. We didn’t know with whom we should talk, but it was supposedly to the shopkeeper; after buying something we talked to him, but the guy didn’t speak English well, and didn’t understand us. When we thought that everything was lost, we went back at night to the shop and we found another person that told us "I am the one who keeps the secret of Petra"; we organize everything, and we made an appointment at 5 am. The car left us in one side of Petra, and in the middle of the night, we went down through the rocks of the mountain in a great descent.

Our "guide" got lost for a while, and the daylight was coming over us; finally he managed to find the canyon that broght us to the heart of Petra. When we arrived to this point we had to be more cautious, because at that point of Petra, the tourists hadn’t arrived yet, so we hid in one of the tombs, and later we went up to a hill to control the main canyon until we saw the first tourist. It was amazing when we saw the most important monument of Petra from the top of the hill!

Later, we introduce ourselves in the touristic group. In 9 hours we visited all Petra, a visit that normally is done in 2 or 3 days. Here we leave the photos of the Eighth Wonder of the World, which the Nabateans left us 2.200 years ago.

The day after, we left Wadi Musa by walk among the whistles of the taxi drivers, all of them wanted to bring us, even they cheated us telling that we were going by the wrong way to Aqaba. The last taxi driver came with another passenger, and started to talk to us in Spanish, of course we didn’t listen to him... but the guy insisted, and talking with him, result that he lives in Spain and he is married to a Cantabrian girl! (Where we live)

In Aqaba, we finished the Jordan travel; the city is in the south end of the country, in the only exit to Red Sea, and where 4 countries are together in very few coastal kilometers; Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt. The people of the HC received us as old friends, and in these days Mohammad, Ahmad and Shameh, showed us all the area, they even took us by boat to see the corals and they prepared a lunch in the sea.

We did some shopping and we saw 100% how the sellers cheat the tourist. We went with Mohammad and he asked first; when we went alone after him, the price of the product increased 75%, and the quality of it as well... Knowing the real price, we tried to bargain, but they don’t want; the tourist have a different price, that’s all. So we made the shopping as the rich people, seating in the car, and Mohammad helping us to buy it…

This night we pass to another stage of the journey, we change the continent in a very expensive boat. There are only 7 km from Jordan to Egypt by Israel, but if we tread this country, it means not to go to many Muslim countries, so we had to take this boat for 50 US$.

DAMASCUS

Damascus, another chaos of city, with a dense traffic, taxis crossing in front of you, the loud sound of the horns... We had to move by buses up to the centre, a work that requires a lot of patience, because there are dozens of minibuses, where the people shout the destinations, and everything is written in Arabic. This time we had to look for a hotel, something that we are not used to; first we locate the cheap area, and after visiting 9 hotels, we found the cheapest, with the bargaining we got it for 8 € the double room. The city is of the style of Aleppo, very, very, old, Damascus is divided in several quarters, Christian, Jewish... We saw lot of mosques, churches, luxury palaces; and a market of extraordinary dimensions. We also saw the car of the firemen…

In the interior of the walls is the mosque of the Omeyas; it has a big interior courtyard, with a much decorated facades; and inside a tomb, where like always, the people fight to touch and kiss.

Before leaving the country we must go to the immigration office, although the visa is for one month, we have written on the stamp 15 days, and we are already 21 days in the country... We know that it is simple thing, only is a stamp for another 15 days and finish. But when we arrived... we saw the people doing the papers over the cars on the street, and in the office, a big pile of people with papers and passports everywhere. We were lucky to find a translator that helped us; without his help it would have been very complicated. We did as everybody; pushing and putting the papers in front of the officers to be attended. In a moment we only saw passports all around us, most of them of Iraqi nationality. Finally, almost two pages of passport only for Syria...

To go out of Damascus we were well prepared with the name of the next city written in Arabic to find the minibus, but once in front of all the minibuses, we started to compare the symbols…, and it is impossible, we have to ask to the people.

Near Jordan, we stopped our last day in Syria in the city of Bosra, where there is one of the best preserved Roman theatres, and an ancient Roman city where even the people live. Casually we met here Zacarías, who has a restaurant, and he let us sleep in a Bedouin tent that has outside; and not only that, he took us to his traditional house in the Roman city, to eat with his friends.