July 3, 2007

Travis' blog

Miraculously, we woke up this morning right on 7 o'clock. Why is this a miracle, you ask? Because we had a lot to do before 8:30 when we were supposed to leave, and I had somehow messed up on the time when I set my alarm clock. Oops? So we got up, started packing, then headed down to the Internet, to see if we had a place to stay in Jordan. Luckily, we did. Yay! (Somehow, in booking our hotel in Amman, Travis had put the night down for the 4th... which is when we were going to be in Petra. So we had emailed the hotel in Amman, begging to switch the date to the 5th, and asking if we could also tack on the 6th as well.) Then it was down to breakfast, where we discovered which was honey for our french toast as opposed to whatever weird syrup we had tried yesterday, but in the process, I broke the plate the honey was sitting on. ~sigh. (Brad, in a very small scale, I now know how you feel. :D Minus a few hundred plates...) Then it was back upstairs to finish packing, then down to meet Mohammed, who was taking us to the bush station.

Mohammed dropped us off at the gate, and left us to figure out the station on our own. Fun. There was a bus there, so we went over and asked if they were going to Nuweiba. No such luck. We looked around, hoping for some clue as to which building to enter or which person to talk to. At this point, we had no idea who, what, where, when, or why about anything. Finally, we spotted a sign in English for Ticket Office, so we headed over. They told us we had a half hour more before the bus came. So we sat down and waited. Slowly, other people joined us, most going to Taba. So we weren't sure if we were the same bus or not. So when their bus came, we didn't know if it was our bus, too. So we asked, and sure enough, the same bus was going to both places.

Upon entering the bus, we were assaulted by a very rotten smell. Can body odor ferment? It was going to be a long ride. Luckily, there was an adorable little baby girl across the aisle that loved looking over at us. It was very easy for me to get her to go from crying to the most adorable smiles. She made me very happy. But really, she was the highlight of the trip. The rest of the bus was worse than any bus I've ever been on. And yes, that includes China and my previous trip to Egypt. It was rather dirty; I had to convince myself that it would be an awfully long ride if I didn't rest my arm on something or touch anything around me. But, by the end, I had no qualms with becoming as comfortable as possible. Funny how very long bus trips will do that to you. Our bus driver was also the worst honker I have met yet. Perhaps it was only because I'm convinced that they installed the horn the wrong way and it honked inside the bus instead of outside. Every time he honked (which was quite often, long, with multiple individual honks), I thought my ear drums might burst. It also had a very ... sharp edge to the horn. This wasn't a nice little beep beep. ~sigh. Then, the icing on the cake. Our first bus trip with a movie. The bus driver pulled out his collection of VHS tapes and stuck it in for our entertainment pleasure. I'm not sure if these movies are really describable, except that they were very reminiscent of China... but only Taralyn would fully appreciate that description. First, they were all in Arabic, so we couldn't understand what they said. Make it up as you go, really. They were also ... weird. I don't know. They were just awful. Chalk it up to experience, right?

Every time we made a stop, the bus driver would get on his intercom and speak in very rapid Arabic. (Also raspy... I'm pretty sure he's had 10 kajillion packs of cigarettes too many.) Having no idea what he was saying, we were pretty lost. Luckily for us, the man in front of us spoke English, so he would translate for us when we asked. He also let us know when our stop came, which was rather kind of him.

The luckiest part of the trip was that I had decided to take another 1/4 pill of Dramamine. So I easily slept for the majority of the Sinai. hehehe. Lucky me! Poor Travis... Though, he did a bit of sleeping himself.

We got off the bus in Nuweiba, really having no idea where to go or where to stay. We had the name of one hostel that we thought might be reasonable, so when a taxi driver approached us, that's where we told him we wanted to go. There was another family on the bus, from Belgium, looking for a taxi, and since he could fit all of us, he did. At this point, we decided that perhaps we could stay wherever they stayed. They told them their hotel, he told them it was closed. Ok, let me pause in my story to tell you the economy of this place. As we drove down the shores of the Red Sea, we saw resort after resort in the process of being built. It appeared to be a thriving beach. Upon reaching Nuweiba, however, and talking to our taxi driver, we realized that it was becoming more of a ghost town than anything. My guess is that when Israel controlled the Sinai, they started building Nuweiba up and it was booming. However, when they gave it back to Egypt, the economy died again, leaving half built resorts, and other resorts that had to close during the off season, leaving only a few open for people like us who came during the wrong time of year. Ok... back to the story. Hearing that their first choice of hotel was closed for the season (they didn't have reservations either), we went to the next hotel down the street. La Sirene. Having no idea if the other place was better, we decided to stay with them.

We entered our room and was accosted by the smell of mustiness. It was quite obvious that this room had not been opened for quite some time, in a highly humid area. Upon appraisal, we found that the ceiling was cracked, the pillowcases were dirty, and overall, was reminiscent of a hostel—not the hotel price we were paying. Outside the room, however, more than made up for it. Our room was right on the beach. We had a little sand front yard with wooden chairs, then within a short walk, we were on the beach. All along the beach were little wooden huts with wooden beach chairs. We found a sea kayak and oars partway down the beach. There were nets set up for badmitton or volleyball. Really, it all made the price well worth it. I could just imagine the joy it would have brought to my fellow students. So, Travis and I decided to take full advantage of the beach and headed out to take pictures. Sadly, we had decided not to bring swimming suits, since we had decided not to go snorkeling. We had no idea that swimming (in water easily shallow enough to stand in for quite awhile) was going to be such an easy option. Which is a pure tragedy. Oh well. While Travis took pictures, I took a chair out into the water and let the water wash over my feet for awhile.

After awhile, Travis decided he needed my help with a Moses picture, so I went over to help him. At one point, Travis had to run back to the room for props, so I sat on the beach, playing with sand. Lo and behold, I found a gorgeous sea shell! Brilliant! It made me very happy. When we finished Travis' picture, I started a quest to find more sea shells. It seemed logical that if I could find one quite by chance earlier, surely I would be able to find more if I were looking for them, right? Turns out that I was very wrong. Which is a pity, because I would have loved more sea shells. I never found another.

Finally, the sun set, and it was time for dinner. Oh, perhaps I should have mentioned that Travis and I, and the Belgian family, comprised all of the guests at the hotel. All 7 of us. Wow. Craziness. So, instead of them telling us what time dinner would be, we had told them that we wanted dinner around 8 or 8:30. Travis and I showed up just a bit past 8 and started eating our dinner. At least, the soup and bread and salad that made up our appetizers. I felt bad, because our salad was all fresh veggies (duh), and we had decided not to eat fresh veggies while in Egypt. Sinai was still considered Egypt. We weren't sure what to do, so we each ate a bite or two, but that was about it. When the guy came to take our plates, he looked a bit hurt. "You didn't like the salad?" It about killed me to say it, since the salad really looked good (tomatoes, cucumbers, the normal salad here), but I decided to tell a half true white lie. "We don't like tomatoes." This is half true because Travis doesn't like tomatoes. I love them. Oh well. We got our main course of chicken, rice and french fries about the time that our Belgian friends showed up. We talked a bit, which is much more difficult with people who speak English as a second language. But we managed. All the while, as we ate, there was a momma cat and 4 kittens that roamed the table, hoping for a handout. When Travis and I had finished our meals, we took the scraps of chicken and I went off the patio to feed the cats. I just miss kitties so much... especially since they're everywhere here, but I can't play with them due to diseases and such. I couldn't help but feed them. It was probably a bad idea, though, because then they tried to get up on the table even more. hehehe. Oh well. It was kind of fun anyway. For dessert, they brought out some rather delicious watermelon. Somehow, I got about twice as many pieces as Travis did, but he finished his and claimed to be too full to eat any of mine. Bother. I couldn't let good watermelon go to waste... so I ate it. :D

After dinner, Travis and I went back out to the beach to admire the stars. Being out in the middle of nowhere, we had relatively little light pollution and could even see the Milky Way. (Jessica! I'm so excited you're going camping with us when I get home so that you can finally see the stars!!!) Travis set up his camera to get star trails, then took off in the sea kayak. I warned him not to go too far, just in case it had a leak or something, then I laid down on a beach chair. The cushion was kind of gross from sitting out on a salty beach for too long, but by this point, I was too numb to grossness to really care. Turns out, the kayak had a broken fin that actually let in water, but only slowly, so Travis didn't really notice until he came up onto the beach and tried to lift the kayak out, but it was so full of water he could barely do it. Haha! He came back to where I was laying next to the camera and stopped his picture, but before his camera could record it (it was an awfully long exposure), I had fallen asleep. After a bit, he woke me up and made me go to bed, which I did promptly.