Glamping in Mars.. the Wadi Rum desert

The previous post in this series is here..

We raced out of Petra towards Wadi Rum desert to catch the sunset there. It was supposed to be the highlight of the evening.

We stopped at the mountain sides to see the desert from a distance for two minutes. Rest of the time it was just driving. We saw the original railroad that the Ottoman Empire had that was bombed out by the locals to help the British divide and conquer them.

After 2+ hours we showed up at the camp.

The terrain here is out of this world.. a lot of Alien movies are shot here. Martian was also shot here. Everything has a red glow to it. The sand eroded rocks formations look unique.

The person at the reception told us that we were the only guests in the entire camp for the night, thanks to flight cancelations and state department warnings! He was sad. He said normally the place is full two days before Christmas. Today we were the only visitors for not just this camp but most of the camps on this section of the desert.

Our guides realized there was not enough time to catch an open jeep ride or camel ride to go see the sunset from the dunes.. So they said "just go up to the top of the hill in the camp and you will get the view!".

We walked up, took pictures, saw yet another group of cats there and walked back down. It was eerily silent.

They would turn on the hot water for 30 minutes to an hour just for us given the camp was empty. We agreed on a time and it worked out. There was a dining tent and a post dinner fireside tent. We were the only visitors. The cooks were from Egypt and both of them did a wonderful job serving us vegetarian dishes. Did I mention the cabins were really nice inside! 

Got my paruppu sadham and roti (the Jordanian version) and was happy! We had some good tea next to a fire, joked around for 30 minutes and it was time to go sleep. It was freezing outside and the cats kept trying to get into the cabins. Some of us were already showing signs of allergies thanks to the cats and we were running low on Claritin supplies!

The night sky is supposed to be amazing here.

We were able to see a star studded sky with our naked eyes after they adjusted to the dark, but there was simply too much light pollution from the camp itself. They refused to turn off the flood lights. Then there was light from all the other camps. We spent an hour sitting above the last cabin on the hill to take these pictures. Most of them are 10 second exposures..

a sample..

A gallery of night sky portraits..

By this time we got worried texts from the ladies on why we didn't come back. I tried to clean the skylight filter on my SLR as it was showing hazy images.. only to drop it on the floor in the dark. That "clink" sound of glass breaking was not good. Guess San is going to find out that I broke a 50$ filter by reading this blog..

We had a good nights sleep but we all had to set an alarm to catch the 30 minute hot water window before breakfast. I woke up earlier and ran up the hill again to catch some golden hour photos before sunrise. They were "meh".. and by the time everyone assembled, the sun was up!

A candid shot of a scared San.. she is afraid of all dogs and cats and animals in general.. these cats were very aggressive and woud hiss at us and try to scratch!

A better pic after I shooed the cat to the side.. 

A video highlight of Wadi Ram!

we drove out of Wadi Rum (Valley of the Moon is what it means) after saying bye to the camp..to some amazing views in the haze after a simple breakfast. There was no milk for tea. Apparently cows milk in an alien concept here. The cheese they have is all goat cheese. It was good.

It was a 3+ hour drive to our last destination..

A slow day in Petra

The previous post in this series is here..

We woke up at 3:30 AM and drove to Cairo Airport from our hotel. Then caught a flight to Amman. There was a pre-paid Visa (thanks to Latif) which we had to get and then clear Immigration and customs. It was a decent airport but the smoking room door was wide open! So the whole area smelled of cigarette smoke. I went to the restroom and found cigarette butts in the toilet. 

This cannot be happening was my first thought. It was an international airport for crying out loud! Came out of that area and once we were out of the airport away from people, took a few deep breaths to calm down. 

We met our driver and guide Zaid. Between him and Ala, our other driver, they were going to drive and guide us for the Jordan leg of the tour. Not all of us could get on the same flight. So six of us made it on a 6:30 flight and the other two were on a 8 AM flight. Given our rest stop break, they made it to Petra within an hour after we reached. 

Most of the folks dozed off during the three hour drive. I was trying to stay up and take videos and also talk to Zaid to understand the area. 

Once we reached Petra, we were all hungry so we went straight to a restaurant suggested by our guides called "My Mom's recipe restaurant". It was walking distance from our hotel and the Petra site entrance and Museum.

The rooftop restaurant was well decorated and cozy!

 

Mom's recipe apparently included too much salt. The lentil soup was good but very salty. The rest of the food was amazing. They had a lot of veggie options. There was even french fries in the menu!

After all of us ate, we went and checked into the Le Maison Hotel. We all got a 2 hour nap. 

We started for the Museum at 4PM. It was a really quiet and nice museum. It was all self explanatory. We spent an hour in the museum, then took pictures outside as the sun started to set. Most of the museum is covered in the video.. I also thought some of the museum claims on plaques were exaggerated..

The first two pics were taken before we went into the museum.. the next two after we came out an hour later..

golden hour makes such a difference..

This was followed by some shopping in the stores next to the museum. We were debating having dinner at one of the other places when we saw that the menus were identical with slightly higher prices. So it was decided that we go back to the rooftop at Mom's recipe in hopes that mom uses less salt for dinner.

Turns out Mom is consistant and they like to make their soup that way! The folks tried a bunch of other veggie items and they all turned out great. The soup was okay with rice, so I made a daal chaawal out of it. It was a win win for the group!

My BIL had planned a surprise cake cutting for my co-sister and Zaid and Ala arranged it nicely. It was a happy moment for the entire group on what was an otherwise long and tiring day. 

Also Jordan was expected to by much colder, but it was pleasant in the evening! 

A video highlights of our first day in Petra..

We made it back to our hotel and for once we had to be at the breakfast area only at 7AM and start sightseeing at 8AM.

That made our day! Finally a night of rest and sleep!

Wrapping up the Egypt leg

The last post in this series is here..

We had finished the Karnak temple sunrise, visited the tombs at the valley of the kings, seen the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut and were on our way to three more stops before being dropped off at the airport.

Our bags had been in the back of the van since the morning.

The next stop was to see the giant statues of Memnon. However the group was tired and did not want to get down. Only I made a dash for it with Walid. He explained the place to me and I took a quick photo and video and we jumped back and and moved. 

We were in West Luxor and had to cross the Nile to East Luxor to get some Egyptian cotton and or linen. We crossed the Winter Palace hotel in Luxor where a lot of celebrities had apparently stayed over the years.

We were told Egypt had the worlds best cotton and linen and shops in East Luxor were authentic for quality (might be pricier than the street shops outside every attraction but autentic and great quality).

Walid stopped at one such shop and we did see the quality and price. We all shopped for what we thought was a good deal given the time. We were given 40 minutes and we came out exactly in 40 minutes. 

The last stop was at an Indian restaurant. We had told Walid that we wanted Indian food at least once. He told us the only Indian place that he knew was in East Luxor and it was the New Taste of India.

We were almost going to be disappointed after reaching that place. They had been reserved for lunch for a group coming from India in one of the ships. That group was late. We got lucky. There was only a buffet with fixed menu (as they were catering to a group). So we had that same fixed vegetarian menu.

The chappati ended up being Pita bread (same as in the cruise) , the gulab jamun was the local egyptian sweet that has a hard shell and no syrup! Still the vegetable dish, channa and daal were Indian. The owner was Egyptian but his father had opened the restaurant after learning desi cooking or so we heard. The lassi was good per family. 

We gobbled up things as fast as we could and were off to the Luxor airport which was on this side of the city. 

The desi group from our ship was waiting outside the airport and told us "bad news. flight is very delayed". Fortunately they were on a different flight and our flight to Cairo was not delayed. 

We were harrassed a bit by the security folks at Luxor aiport. We were security checked every 10 feet by a bunch of folks who had nothing better to do. We questioned why were being checked just after being checked and there were some irate guys who were trying to show they were boss of their station. We just shook our heads and went through with these checks and pat downs. 

The saving grace was the small lounge at the airport which had wifi and charging stations and hot water. We made some Wagh Bakri chai with the hot water and sat there for an hour. Then we were off to Cairo for the night.

There are no direct flights from Luxor to Amman in Jordan. So we had to go spend the night in Cairo and fly out the following morning. 

We said buy to Walid at the airport in Luxor and were met by Latif again in Cairo airport. There was no time for dinner. So we wanted to pick up some veggie falafal sandwitches and rice. Had to wait a good 40 minutes for the order to be made.

We were to go stay in a hotel a little away from the airport. It was more of an apartment type hotel.

The facilities were great with the rooms having a fridge, kitchen and microwave. We ate the dinner in the breakfast area of the hotel. Some rooms away from the freeway were great. We got a room facing the freeway and the noise was deafeneing. It was a bad room. We complained but they had no other rooms or rooms with similar noise! San decided to sleep in the kitchen area in a fold out bed. I was too exhausted to care. It was going to be a short stay anyways as we had to wake up yet again at 3:30 AM to head to Cairo airport at 4AM for a flight to Amman. The drive was a good 20 to 25 minutes and we had to load all the suitcases.

We gave Latif a list of things that were great and the few things he could change for future guests and he was appreciative of the feedback. 

A video highlight of the last few things we did in Egypt..

and that was that..  it was bye bye to Egypt!

If my family allows me to stay glued to the laptop later tomorrow, might finish blogging about the Jordan leg as well.. that is another 1200+ photos and videos to review.