Fleeing Eygpt and into Sudan; end Jan 2011

So I am posting two updates at once as the earlier one I have been unable to post until now as the internet was cut in Egypt and then we have been travelling through the desert in Sudan.

Basics first:
• Yes, we got caught up in the troubles in Egypt. We witnessed rioting, tear gas, mob violence, the riot police etc. Other travellers had their 4x4 damaged by the mob and we all remained locked indoors terrified about our car.
• Saturday and Sunday evenings the violence and protesting on the streets began after evening prayers – about 5pm. We watched it all on Saturday evening (locked inside our budget hotel) and by Sunday decided to drive out of town and camp with some other overlanders we met.
• The troubles throughout the country meant that there was no internet and no mobile phone signal (the government cut both).
• All the government offices closed which meant we couldn’t get all our paperwork done in order to sail to Sudan. We were meant to do the paperwork on the Saturday but couldn’t, then same thing on Sunday. By then we had become firm friends with 2 other overland cars – also hoping to sail on the Monday to Sudan. We were all in various states of apprehension as it was not pleasant being in the thick of things and with no communication with the outside world.
• Finally on Monday morning we managed to rush through the various offices and procedures in order to get on the boat – “rushing” means we began the process at 8am and finally got on board the boat at 4pm. We had to drive from pillar to post to get clearance for this and a stamp for that. Then the customs guys (who we had heard are normally extremely overzealous) were so stressed by the amount of backlog they asked for a bribe of £6 and let us drive straight past them. Result! (we are carrying lots of illegal booze)
• Finally we had our cars on the barge and then we walked over to the total chaos of the ferry.

Before going onto the chat of the ferry here are some photos of sightseeing in Aswan....Mara holding a crocodile, and walking round the Nubian village....

And then onto the ferry....

We had booked a cabin which the 5 of us planned to squeeze into. It was basic and dirty and next to the men’s “washroom” which went like a fair the whole time as everyone was perpetually washing for prayers and the loos didn’t flush and rather overflowed onto the floors. Boy though, we were all just SO happy to be on the ferry and leaving Egypt!

We are somewhat acclimatised to the standards of the Middle east and grubbiness and whatnot by now – so I am trying to think of how to describe the ferry to anyone sitting in the UK. Here are a few photos of waiting in line, the other types of passengers and the chaos of everyone loading:

Our new friends Peter and Troudl (Austrians in a Landcruiser) and Polly and Greg (Londoners in a landcruiser), ourselves and about 8 others were the only Westerners on board. The ferry looked big enough for about 200 but was carrying 600. Only a few had paid the extra for cabins and everyone else spread out their rugs and blankets and slept on deck. These are Pieter on deck, homeschooling on deck and some pics of amazing Abu Simbel which we sailed right past....

It was chaos – every person had so much stuff and luggage lovingly purchased in Egypt and being hauled home to Sudan. So the deck was laden with twin tubs in their boxes, Chinese plastic food processors, boxes of pasta, bags of plugs and sockets, suitcases, bodies, prayer mats and shoes. Someone else suggested the only way to really understand the feel of the ferry is to watch the Michael Palin episode when he took it! We actually found it ok as we’re kind of used to it all now. We were all carrying various snacks but grub was also served up on tin plates in the basement – the usual scorched remnant of chicken, oily rice, pide bread, a great potato soup, cucumber salad and black tea.

The sailing itself was uneventful, Peter and Troudl had made friends with the captain in his jalaba and flip flops as they hadn’t managed to get a cabin and were sleeping on deck. He made a special place for them up in one corner and we all hung out there – somehow not fitting in with mass of bodies all lying around. We slept ok and early the next morning were up on deck to look out as we sailed past Abu Simbel – wow.

While on board we had to do our basic immigration procedures for entering Sudan. This meant squeezing along the corridors and into a cabin where there was a guy with a thermometer taking everyone’s temperature and recording it. Best not to think about the fact that he never changed the tip of it and goodness knows what bugs live in all the ears on board. Having proven we were all healthy we went next door into a cabin where two heavily henna-ed women were reclining on a bunk and drinking tea with another guy and chatting their heads off. A vaguely official man in the other corner wanted our papers and passports and he appeared to be the immigration officer operating out of a bedroom.

We arrived in Wadi Halfa in the early afternoon and it took about 2 hours to get off the boat – and we were lucky. It was disorganised chaos as about 50 porters jumped on board to start unloading the twin tubs, boxes, blenders, bags and assorted luggage.

At the same time Sudanese officials were wandering around in various directions and as usual only the men can complete the paperwork. Troudl, Polly and I are now completely used to being left behind (with the kids) while the 3 blokes have to disappear off to take care of procedures, paperwork, money changing, etc. The locals just don’t want womenfolk around.

Finally off the boat with our bags and sleeping bags we fought our way into a mini bus to get to the customs building....which was the only building around oddly alone by the banks of the Nile. Our bags were looked through and passed and we were out in the open and into Sudan. Hurrah. Once again, all so thankful to be out of Egypt. We squeezed 13 of us into an 8 seater mini bus and were driven to the village of Wadi Halfa proper. A bizarre and quirky wee village with little square concrete buildings that can be shop or house or cafe. No roads just concrete buildings deposited in the sand. We went to the poshest hotel in town - £10 for the 5 of us to have a room with 4 single cots. No bedding but sparkling clean floor. The shared ablutions were 4 squat loos with a shower over the top of them – pretty gross and only cold water but as we hadn’t showered in a while we were happy.

Our cars were not expected to arrive until the next day, at best, so the little posse of us had time to kill in the village where there is very little to do. We went for a meal at a street cafe – not bad and a pleasure to sit by the street and not be hassled nonstop. Euan drank a bowl of meat soup – greasy liquid with 2 big hunks of stringy meat in it – he loved it. Mara had a chicken leg (literally, that's all it was!) and Archie ate a bowl of rice. I had Fuul (now called fal but the same thing); Pieter had fish which arrived looking fossilised but was apparently ok.

Back in the Kilopatra Hotel (yes, really) there were tons of bikers – 2 Norwegians who have been biking the world for 2 years and a large group of Frenchies who were rather unfriendly and had a huge support truck, a support Landover and a huge support trailer. The 6 of us gazed at this assortment of new and expensive vehicles – and wondered how we had all gone so wrong with our 10year+ plus aged cars and lack of posh trucks and cooks and mechanics following behind. Na, not really. Bloody woosies!

Wednesday dawned and the men folk had to go off to the police station to get visitor permits and part with many dollars for the privilege. The rest of us sat in a cafe and drank tea and local coffee (weird grainy brown stuff with cardamom and cinnamon and not bad if you add lots of sugar) and waited. Something we have all become rather expert at. The kids amused themselves with home schooling books and playdoh. You see the obvious figure to mould!!....

When the remaining formalities were complete we got the good news that the barge would indeed arrive that day and sure enough, with very little hassle and no checks from customs, we had our cars back at 2pm. The Austrians and the 5 of us decided to pack up and leave town and wild camp; the Londoners decided to wait another night and catch up with us on the road.

So Troudl and I went round the tiny local market trying to get as much fresh produce as we good to keep us going for a few nights of bush camping. Then we stocked up with water and hit the road. Didn’t drive far as it was late in the day. Spectacular desert here and loads of places to choose from for remote camping. We set up camp and had a lovely meal under the stars in the middle of the desert.

We have altered the sleeping plan as for single nights of bush camping we don’t set up the trailer and up until now have been squeezing the 5 of us into the roof top tent. Not very comfy however so now we have set it up that one kid sleeps across the back seat, and we might even try getting another kids into the boot for extra space all round.

We continued in this vein for 5 further nights - bush camping in the desert as we wound our way towards Khartoum.

It got hotter and hotter the further south we got, until by Khartoum it is above 44 degrees C. We enjoyed fabulous nights of wilderness however - great big expanses of "nothing" and yet little settlements somehow still survive and there are a few basic veggies to be bought. A few photos of camels on the highway, the stalls where we buy our food and huts and settlements...

One night we camped next to a farmer and he had a trough of water to irrigate his meagre few plants with and he invited us all to bath in it. We were more than happy to; finding the dusty Lawrence of Arabia look not much to our liking. We camped also near some camels only to find the nearest inhabitants came wandering out of the desert to come and sit and stare at us - literally. Just sitting, staring in amazement as these bizarre white folk.

One night we set up camp next to the Nuri Pyramids one night at Jebel Barkal, near Karima. We were hot and dusty and tired after a long day's drive through the desert and i was desperate to wash. We had just finshed setting up the whole camp when along came the police and told we had to move 100m further away. ARGH! Impressive place though.....

The last night of bush camping (we stopped and filled up with water every day in whatever village we drove through - purely water for washing and cooking as it generally came from very dodgy sources) we camped right next to the Meroe Pyramids - Sudan's biggest tourist attraction. Tourist attraction obviously being in the loosest sense of the word! The kids even visited them by camel - as the guy with the camel was waiting for us when we got out of the tent the next morning. This was a very kind "treat" for them from Peter and Troudl! :

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Finally yesterday (Monday) we reached Khartoum and its blistering heat and found a national campsite where we can park and use mosquito infested showers. We are still with Troudel and Peter, the Londoners have flown ahead on a tighter time schedule. So we have a couple of days here to sort out Ethiopian Visas, paperwork for the car (complicated to take the car through Ethiopia as they want letters from the UK Embassy AS WELL as the carnet). HOwever i am sitting typing in a 5 Star hotel and i am clean - and somehwere in Khartoum there is a man with a misshapen face doing our 4 sacks of laundry - so some things work out ok!

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Back To Egypt after South Africa mid-end January 2011

Back in Egypt once more and already South Africa is a distant dream, we are back to hard boiled eggs and powdered milk! :(

We found our car safe and sound at the hotel, none the worse for wear for standing still for 3 weeks, just very dusty (which helps it to blend in a bit better anyway). We loved the 3 nights back in the big hotel and the amazing breakfasts. We seemed to be the only guests with kids and the only guests that made any kind of conversation with the staff – we were quickly rewarded. The chap at the egg counter at breakfast (in charge of making omelettes to order, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs, pancakes etc) disappeared off to the back kitchen to find a hidden stash of Nutella for Pieter (every morning); the kids were allowed a daily swim in the 15m Jacuzzi in the spa, which was officially out of bounds to anyone under 16; the Assistant Manager phoned us every day in the room to check we were fine and having a good time; the door porter would spend hours pushing the kids around the grounds on the luggage trolley; we all got to meet the Egyptian Soccer Team’s goalie (the team were training and staying at the hotel); the boys watched the Egypt and Sudan football teams train at the hotel and kicked around a bit with one of the spare balls.

Outside of hotel we took deep breaths and ventured into the constant fleecing – went to the Egyptian Museum and saw all the contents of the pyramids (this is us outside the museum) ...

, including all the gold items from the tomb of Tutankhamun (and the famous gold mask); went to the pyramids and marvelled at the sprawling city all around them, the camel touts, photo touts, even the official ticket guys were touts.

The Sphinx is also right there next to Khufu’s Great Pyramid – an impressive site marred by the touts getting in the way of every photo you want to take and hassling you non-stop.

Then to a papyrus “museum” - more shop than museum. 2 minutes spent having the history and techniques of papyrus explained, then the hope is you will buy one of their many papyrus paintings. It was everything we had been expecting through the Middle East but hadn’t found in Syria or Jordan. Constant constant hassle, in the eyes of Cairo we are simply 2 wallets walking around waiting to be emptied. Draining....then to add into the joys we had to find our way to the Sudanese Embassy. We had a quick visit to the UK Embassy first to get a letter for the Sudanese Embassy. Then we handed in our paperwork and sat patiently in one room with stray cats running across the floor and tried to entertain the kids for 4 ½ hours, only to have the man behind the desk tell us at 4pm that actually they wouldn’t be ready today and we should return the next morning.

On leaving the hotel we returned to Fiona and her lovely family, who we had visited briefly on our way to the airport back in December. We ended up staying 3 nights with them, enjoying the life of a family in Cairo – Pieter went off and sorted the passports while I remained behind in a lovely top floor apartment and the kids were in heaven with other kids to play with and toys and games. Staying with Fiona and Mohamed was a great way to have all our questions answered about life in Cairo and things we had seen. On the one hand there are so many elements of any huge modern capital city (like being able to order in bagels and lattes) and then on the other hand Fiona explained that the reason that every restaurant and take away delivers (even MacDonald’s) is that traditionally women cannot leave their home without their husbands. Of course Cairo has many very westernised women; however the bulk of the community is still very traditional with woman staying at home (literally) with the children. Mohamed helped us enormously with technology things we needed to sort out and Pieter and he spent hours holed up in his workshop and loving every minute! We were very sad to say goodbye to them – Mara had made huge chums with their wee girl Sara who is the same age, and our 2 boys had developed total infatuation with their 2 older boys who let them play on their laptops, stay up late and use their Wii, and Pieter and I felt we had made new friends.

From Cairo we headed west into the desert rather than the more common routes directly South to Luxor or South on the coast of the Red Sea. Once again we are feeling that as we are here with our own car we should make the most of it and explore out of the way places. We are also ready to try and get away from the hustle and bustle a bit and see if away from the tourist crowds the local people are more agreeable. So we headed first to the Bahariya Oasis. From here we picked up a guide and drove off-road into the heart of the Western Desert, first through the Black Desert and then immediately into the jaw dropping White Desert.

Sharif was our guide for 24hrs, travelling with us in our car. We drove quickly around the dusty Oasis village collecting the supplies we needed – one dead chicken, Bedouin tea, vegetables and rice from the “Supermarket” – actually room the size of the Beechwood downstairs cloakroom which sells one of nearly everything (and the same as all such wee shops through Africa, except in South Africa whites don’t shop in them!). The two shops near the front left of the picture are where we bought everything..

The car handled the desert brilliantly, the trailer was a disaster and thanks to it we got stuck twice.

We then stopped trying to race up sand dunes for amazing views and took more sedate routes and ended up camping in the midst of the amazing rock formations in the White Desert.

Sharif, our guide,was a lovely chap, married to a local artist, but proved a little rusty and forgetful – having forgotten tomatoes to make salad, onions to make soup, mint to make Bedouin tea, a torch, his gas bottle was broken and he drank beer nonstop (apparently to help his gallstones). However we are resilient and prepared and apart from the fresh produce were carrying everything else he needed. We loved sitting around the campfire with the amazing stars and we played noughts and crosses in the sand and chatted. The 5 of us slept in our one roof top tent and cocooned ourselves in our sleeping bags as it was really cold.

Sharif slept on rugs and mats and blankets outside, which afforded amazing views of the night sky. Next morning we were up and had broken our part of the camp quite early, we made coffee and breakfast and finally had to wake Sharif – something we found rather funny as traditionally the guide is supposed to get up early and have breakfast waiting. We finally made it back to the village in the early afternoon and drank tea with Sharif before saying goodbye. We went off to a local hot spring (which provides the water for the oasis) to let the children splash around, however it was too hot and we disturbed a wee man on his motorbike who was bathing. Next day we headed further south, now completely off the tourist trail, through the next Oasis and onto Dakhla, the 3rd oasis out in the western desert. We are back to the basics again – pide (form of pita bread) bread, water, boiled eggs and fuul (local hot dish of beans).

Onwards again to El Kharga the next day, where instead of just passing through all the Police check points we found that at the entrance to this town the police got into their van and followed us – about 4 uniformed guys and one in plain clothes. When we pulled over for me to hop out and go and buy some snacks at a street stall i was followed by the plain clothes guy and the police van covered Pieter. Then we stopped at a cafe to drink a cup of black tea and the van dutifully followed, pulled over and a uniformed guy sat at the front of the cafe waiting for us to finish. They didn;t speak a word of English and we couldn;t understand why they were following us. At one point i ran into a wee street shop and asked the person in there if they spoke any English. They replied “yes, some”. So i asked if they could tell me why the police were following us and they quickly answered “sorry, no speak Eengleesh”. As we left the town the finally stopped following us as the next police check point, leaving us feeing a big weird. We decided that night to wild camp out in the desert by ourselves. It was too far to drive all the way to Aswan, our next stop and the deset was still beautiful inviting and very quiet. About 4pm we pulled off the road and drove behind a rocky sand dune and set up tent.

We ate early (our last packet of stuffed pasta from Lidl....sniff.....) and after it was dark we jumped into the car and all watched a movie together - we hadn’t found any fire wood to make a fire and it was too cold to sit outside without it. By 8pm we were all squished into the 2-man roof top tent once more and slept for 11hrs cocooned right inside our sleeping bags to stay warm.

Next morning we had breakfast and finally managed to persuade Euan that it was ok to use a pit loo which Pieter had dug. He had been quite determined that i should drive him to a sit down toilet and then we could drive back to finish breakfast. Not quite grasping the concept of the Western Desert it seems! Anyway, on reaching the point of sheer desperation he caved in and discovered that a desert pit loo is actually far easier than a filthy squat toilet.

We drove on and discovered a whole new road all the way to Aswan - not on any maps we had - but a pleasure all the same! After driving around following our GPS for a couple of hours we discovered that all campsites (there were 2) have closed down and thus the only option was to drive into the centre of the town and find another budget hotel. We have found one – a real cheapie costing £18 a night for the 5 of us including breakfast (you guess it – hard boiled eggs and pide bread again) – the sheets seem clean though and we try not to think about why we appear to have a rug on top of the sheet and then old mangy blankets on top of that. The kids have had military training now in how NOT to let anything other than the sheet touch your skin!

Aswan is kind of crazy – tons and tons of tourists, most staying in posh resort hotels or on the luxury cruise liners which line the banks of the Nile which flows through. There are caleche’s everywhere (horse drawn carriages – although horse is a stretch to describe the poor boney nags and carriage would exaggerate the quality of the transportation) who shout out at us non stop all the time, hoping for business. Then there are all the felucca guys standing around (feluccas being the sail boats which meander around the river rather romantically, but only romantic once you have gone through the hassle of picking a reliable guy and enduring the harsh negotiation over price) everywhere asking you constantly to take a felucca ride and they promise “best price”, “best captain”, “best journey” etc. We negotiated one last night with a guy named Mohamed Ali (got to be kidding right?) – 55LP (about £6) for a whole morning sailing around the various islands in the vicinity. He made us shake his hand repeatedly to make us promise that we would hold to this deal, he even made the kids promise, which was unnecessary. We got there this morning at the agreed time and he couldn’t remember our names and was adamant that we agreed 50LP per hour for the morning. ARGH. By this time we were already sitting on the boat and about to push off. A heated discussion ensued and finally we paid 60LP for 2 hours. Once in the middle of the Nile and having cooled off from the attempted rip off AGAIN Pieter and i really enjoyed it.

Without an engine you are at the whim of the wind and it is slow and peaceful and a welcome break from the constant traffic, horns, hassling of the river bank. We sailed around Elephantine Island which homes a huge and luxurious Movenpick resort, along with Nubian tombs. Then around Kitchener Island where Lord Kitchener built himself a botanical garden which sort of remains. On the furthest river bank are tombs built into the mud caked mountainside, mausoleums, and an ancient Coptic Christian monastery. As we enjoyed lazily watching it all from a peaceful distance and referring every few moments to our guide book our “enthralled” children wrestled on deck, made dens out of the seat cushions and munched on wafer biscuits. Some things never change.


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From Turkey, through Syria, Jordan and into Egypt. Dec '10 -mid Jan '11

So much has happened and I have tried to write this blog update once already and lost the whole darned lot when the laptop crashed ......grrrrrr...... so, I will summarise as much as possible.

We travelled from Eastern Turkey and the dreadful weather over the border and into Syria – and not without some trepidation as various people had warned us about Syria – the secret police, the military state, the obsession with the King, the security checks, the coldness of the people. The only aspects of any of this we found to be true were that our emails couldn’t download (google and gmail are banned). Every other aspect was entirely the opposite of what we had heard. The Syrian people were astoundingly hospitable, friendly and happy to see us.

From the freezing cold border post (5 degrees outside) we headed directly south with the first stop being the 12th century Crusaders castle, Crac de Chevaliers. The weather continued with torrential rain so hard most cars had to pull off the road. We just plugged slowly on knowing that ours would not slip and slide, but visibility was about 40cms in front. We finally found the correct road up the mountainside to Crac de Chavaliers, by now in the pitch dark, with the same awful conditions. No street lights, no houses, no moonlight, it felt as though we were about to drive off the edge of the world. We finally found the little hotel recommended by the Lonely Planet – and actually the only option in the area. It was run by 4 local men and we were the only guests. There was no hot water, an ancient heaving radiator that tried to pump warm air into the tatty room, no plugs in the sink (but no hot water anyway so why bath?), the paper thin curtains had tears from top to bottom and the bed linen had holes bigger than 50p pieces. However the men were so kind and one of them made a feast of a dinner for us out of what was left in the kitchen – pide bread (pita), hummus, halva, chicken kebabs and rice. We did a jogging tour of the castle first thing in the morning – jogging because it was sleeting and near freezing and we were frozen half to death. Amazing place with the moat and battlements all intact.

Back into the car then onwards to Damascus, which we reached by early afternoon, through snow covered highways and locals agog at snow on the roads (first snow in 25years apparently).

Once again, what we had been told proved incorrect, or grossly exaggerated. Driving in Damascus was actually ok, sure a bit crazy compared to Edinburgh, but not much worse than Venice or Athens. We drove about the city centre a bit to get our bearings and decided on a local run budget hotel with great reviews. Once again, threadbare- leaks and drips and torn and tatty, but the men in charge were just great and full of local info, help, chat, humour and hard boiled eggs (seems to be a national obsession). We dumped our stuff, put on all the extra clothes we had and walked to the Old City – right in the heart of Damascus and still surrounded by the ancient city wall. It was great, ancient wee streets all higgledy piggledy, store keepers, cafes, the famous Umayyad Mosque dominating a vast chunk, smells of schwarma (totally delicious and the best bet for 30p each!), and the total sensual overload which is the huge covered Souq (massive covered market area with tiny stalls and each section given over to different things- like the spice area (all dried fruits, herbs, spices and tea), the fabric area, the clothing area (Mara fell head over heels in love with a sparkly, shimmery, white shiny dress with lots of netting and a big hoop to ensure maximum princessness). We ate in a roof restaurant – more of the same local fare – delicious, then walked home in the dark and collapsed into bed. The next day we spent walking around some more and went into the Mosque (where I had to put on robes rather like a Jedi because I was a western woman)

and explored the old city further. At 5pm we headed to a cafe to hear (and see ) the last professional HakiWati in Syria. This is a story teller, and each day after dusk prayers he goes to this cafe and sits and regales the clientele with a story. The folk in the cafe listen or ignore him, depending on the story or the strength of their nargileh (I presume!). Pieter and I also had a nargileh (hubbly bubbly pipe), when in Rome and all that. We had the tourist strength version – the tobacco was flavoured with apple and cinnamon and it was very weak and along with a hot sweet black tea, and the hakiwati in the background, it was sublime. For the umpteenth time we were made a big fuss of – the hakiwati himself even came over to talk to us and a few others in the cafe came over to say hello and offered to translate the story if we didn’t understand.

Throughout the course of the day we were almost killed with kindness. In the Mosque a visiting Imam from Turkey gave each child a huge balloon on an elastic band which they bounce like a baseball. Then when outside again Euan burst his and a complete stranger got up from a nearby street cafe and went off and bought him a new one. Couples, families and individuals stopped us at least once or twice an hour to ask to take photos of the kids or to come over and shake their hands. Back in the Souq an older man just took each boy by the hand and walked off with them, almost immediately lost in the throngs of people and the narrowness of the alleyways. As he walked away he called over his shoulder “Don’t worry Mama, I just take them to give them a present”. Like hell muttered the paranoid western mother who charged after him and followed them through a maze of back streets, stairways and allies. Sure enough, we ended up in a tiny upper level shop where he sat us down, scratched around and found each boy a t-shirt, Mara a bracelet, a brooch, and a pair of earrings and we all had tea. We waited every moment for the hard sell – but nothing came, he just wanted to chat and compare stories and make our kids smile; he told us he really missed his grandchildren who had all moved to Algeria.

That second night in the cramped wee hotel (more like hostel) room we got the most amazing surprise. A Skype call to South Africa to say hello and let everyone know we were alive resulted in the most amazing Christmas Present – 5 flights to SA to spend Christmas and New Year with family. Wow! Pieter stayed up till 3am researching the cheapest and most viable routes and that turned out to be flying from Cairo. Hence some rushed planning to ensure we could drive from Damascus to Cairo in 5 days.

We left Damascus sharp the next morning, got horrifically lost trying to navigate OUT of the city and drove south, over the border into Jordan, and kept on going south. We hit Amman and got lost in outer city highways as there were not many signposts. 2 hours later it was dark and we were still driving around lost and trying to find the main road south. Sense of humour failure – we had broken our 3rd rule of camping – ALWAYS be off the road 1 ½ hrs before nightfall. We finally found the road and stopped at the town of Madaba. An unusually Christian influenced town with a budget hotel complete with Christmas tree – the kids were thrilled! Sadly no time to explore the town the next day as we had to drive south on our tight schedule.

We made it to Wadi Musa which is the village which has sprung up around Petra – all crappy hotels, cafes and shops. Still far too cold for camping we found another cheapy hotel, dropped off our things and set off to explore. Petra was made one of the Wonders of the World back in November 2010, so unfortunately for us we got the inflated prices - £50 per person (cue collapse backwards). For a start we booked tickets to do a Petra by Night walk where the entire walkway is lit by 1600 candles and once you reach the entrance to the ancient city you sit and listen to local music in the candlelight.

It was pretty special, although quite a long walk for the kids. Next morning we went back into Petra again, worrying about how to see as much as we wanted as the ancient buildings carved into the mountains are spread over a space of 8kms and there are 100’s of stone steps. No way our 3 could manage it all. As luck would have it we met a local Bedouin guy who offered us donkeys for the day for an extortionate sum. 20minutes later and after much bartering and negotiation we had 2 donkeys, 1 mule and a guide for the entire day PLUS he paid US £40.....we traded were our 2 adult bikes. So many thanks to Lesley and Simon – your 2 bikes have made a very chatty Bedouin very happy and we spent an awesome day plodding all over Petra and to the very highest peak (up 350odd huge stone steps) – without any whinging from the kids as they were too busy delightedly clinging to their assorted animals and Pieter and I enjoyed the exercise.

At 4.30pm we fell back into the car and drove straight on South to Aqaba. This is the most southerly city in Jordan, and on the Red Sea. Sadly our new tight time schedule meant we didn’t make it to Wadi Rum (where you can drive on the sand to the famous points where Lawrence of Arabia is said to have gone) – although others told us that if you are doing desert in Egypt and Sudan you will get the same idea. Just outside of Aqaba is a great camping and travellers hangout called the Bedouin Garden Village and this is where we rocked up just as night fell. We me up again there with Willem and Pam, Willem a South African guy doing exactly the same trip as us in nearly the same car.

We enjoyed spending a night chatting and drinking (been dry for quite some time by this point!) and sharing some of our treats from the car like Mrs Balls Chutney, cheddar cheese and Greek olives. Next day we had to sort out all the ferry arrangements to get from Jordan to Egypt the following morning, and I spent hours on the internet trying to book a hotel in Cairo which would allow us to leave the car for the 3 weeks we were to be in South Africa.

The plush looking ferry to Egypt from Jordan is all facade – you leave as and when the captain is ready to leave, our tickets (booked from the official ticket office the day before) were incorrect and we had to go haring out of the port to sort this out before rushing back for our place in the queue – terrified we might now miss the one and only ferry leaving that day. Once on board Westerners were pushed to one end of the boat and we were not allowed to move down to the “local” end – which was overcrowded, loud, hot and smelly. By this point we had made friends with the family in the car in front of us as we waited to drive on board. A lovely Egyptian family with 3 kids aged 16,15 and 11 who were driving from Kuwait (where they live and work and attend American school) back to visit family in Cairo. The entire family has perfect English, the kids have American accents and they are as Western as whatever such a stupid term could mean. However they were not allowed to sit with us and when the 16 year old tried to strum his guitar (with great talent) the staff onboard shooed him away and told him to be quiet as he was “disturbing” the Europeans. I was horrified.

Once we docked in Egypt the mayhem ensued, never seem customs and immigrations like it (and we’ve seen a few!), but our new friends took us completely under their wing and made sure we parked close to them. Pieter and Salaah (the husband) dashed around from shack to shack, with appointed local “helpers” who know what the hell is going on and can help you get the necessary paperwork such as a temporary Egyptian driver’s license, Egyptian number plates for the car, photocopies of everything, rubber stamps on everything else etc. Pieter’s “helper” was mute, so that made life additionally interesting! While I sat and guarded the car and tried to entertain the kids I had to take Mara to the loo. The worst yet. A hole in the ground in a room with a door which didn’t close. It was an eastern hole in the ground, i.e. no loo paper as you wash with a tap and bucket from the hose – except there was no hose or bucket and the tap was broken and there was excrement plastered to the floor, the hole, was just a bottom of the door and the walls. We were both gagging. We ran out of the “cubicle” and tried to wash hands – only to discover that the sink was just attached to the wall, there was no water plumbed in, no waste pipe underneath it, so the fact there was no soap or paper towels really didn’t matter.

Salaah and family then suggested to us that as it was now dark (we sat in the chaos of customs for over 3 hours) we should follow him to Cairo as the roads were not well signposted and they were headed that way. We thought it was a great idea – our first Western hotel chain beckoned and we had read it was a 5 hour drive – so following a guy who knew what he was doing made the possibility of a hot bath – and maybe.....just maybe.....the notion of a glass of room service wine....feasible. Hurrah. Naive Fiona and Pieter. Salaah drove at no more than 40kms per hour the entire way and we stopped twice at roadside shacks for hot, sweet, black tea. Now, don’t get me wrong, we loved the chance to stop and get to know such a wonderfully warm and friendly family better...but as it hit midnight, and later....and later....well....the hot bath became a dream and all I began to care about was whether or not the hotel would even hold our reservation. We finally said goodbye to Salaah and his family by the side of the ring road outside Cairo at 5am. An amazing family with incredible values we can really relate to and we dearly hope that one day we can meet them again. We then went on to try and find our hotel and finally arrived at 5.30am. We had left at 9.30am the day before.....tired does not even begin to describe it.

So, in our new supposedly 5 star hotel (at best a possible 4 star on a gigantic American level – but I’m not complaining, we hadn’t stayed anywhere this fancy to date and are so localised we don’t even notice that the toilet leaks, the armchair is so stained we have to put a towel over it before we sit down and there is a rip in the bed linen) we sleep and sleep until our alarm wakes us at 10.45am – 15mins before breakfast finishes. We don’t want to miss this meal....it promises to offer something than more than black tea and a hard boiled egg, so we throw on yesterday’s clothes and rush to the dining room. Oh bliss and heaven and joy.....leavened bread in many shapes and sizes, even pastries, and .....to top it all.....PANCAKES! We sit and sleepily eat and overindulge in tastes of home....there is even fresh milk and palatable coffee.
We re-organise the trailer (by now we no longer have the kids bikes either – we traded them at the campsite in Aqaba for one night’s accommodation and you have never seen an owner so happy) and use duct tape to secure our underbed storage boxes which will now have to survive a flight and pretend to be “normal” luggage. I spend 2hours negotiating with the hotel staff about what they are charging us to leave our car (our baby, our home) parked in their secure parking area – the price I was quoted by the online booking company seems to them “impossible” and they’d far prefer to charge 17 times that if I don’t mind. At 4pm we leave and get a taxi to the home of the sister of a friend of mine in Scotland. She also has young kids and we have arranged to visit her en route to the airport. It take us 2 hours to do the 15kms journey (welcome to traffic in Cairo, where on the 3 lane highway we counted 8 lanes of traffic) to her house, but once there we enjoy a wonderful meal and wonderful hospitality and the kids are mad with joy being in a home again for the first time since the start of September. Our flight is not till 2am but we are flying Ethiopian Airways who seem to think you should be at an airport 3hrs before flight time, and our hosts tell us that it can take 3 hours to get to the airport in bad traffic. Hence at 9.30pm we pile into 2 local taxis and begin the journey to the airport. We are all exhausted; we have had 4 hours sleep and driven through 2 countries in the previous 24hours. We have spent the 5 days prior to that driving as much as possible AND still doing all the sights. We reach the airport and the sheer excitement of heading off to South Africa keeps us fired up until boarding time. By then the kids are whimpering and somewhere between sleep and balling their eyes out. But not to worry.....after a 5 hour flight to Addis Ababa and then a 2 hour wait and then a different plane and a 3 ½ hour flight to Johannesburg we will be with family....in a house...with hot water...and a toilet which flushes.....and real milk and fresh coffee and meat and chocolate and home comforts and familiar faces....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

PS: I am not going to write up the 3 weeks in SA. Suffice to say we slept a lot when we first arrived, it was WONDERFUL to see all the family again, we rested, relaxed, did a washing IN a washing machine every day and then a lovely black lady ironed absolutely everything, we drank chilled fantastic white wine, we ate too much red meat, we went to a villa in the bush with everyone and fed impala and kudu by hand as they walked past our door, we partied, we slept in beds, we visited shopping malls and the kids played and played and played with their cousins. My folks drove up from Cape Town for Hogmanay, the kids died of happiness to have all 4 grandparents in the one place.

We left this morning with heavy hearts and as I type we are on the first of the planes which carry us back to Cairo, back to our car (hopefully), back to the trip and back to the hardest part of the journey which is about to commence.
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Greece to Turkey, up to 12th Dec.

We finally left Alexandroupolis last Tuesday – having made good friends with Rachel and John who are cycling from London to Istanbul on a tandem! - and drove straight to the Turkish border. Our first border crossing for real – all the others have been within the EU and have been plain sailing. It was rather chaotic and lots of little booths with men feeling terribly important and all wanting different pieces of information from us. A sure sign we were leaving the familiar and heading deeper into the unknown – we made big efforts not to get frustrated as it is only going to get worse from here.
3 hours later we had the right documents, with the right stamps, in the right order, shown to the right people and were on our way. We decided to drive as much as we could and took the southern route from the border – not to Istanbul, but south down to Gallipoli. Much to my amazement Pieter had never heard of the Gallipoli campaign and we had a brief history lesson in the car (don’t think my history was perfect, it’s just that I hold the book) – this made me realise that much as Brits of our generation don’t seem to be taught the Boer War, South Africans don’t seem to learn about Gallipoli (antipodeans would be horrified). We made it to the ferry to cross the tiny stretch of the Sea of Marmara, already dark by this time, and made peace with our position as point of interest for everyone else on board (no tourists this time of year). Mara is getting better with public toilets and much more able to take them in her stride – she was the toilet monitor for a long time, refusing to wee in anywhere dirty, without a lock, no loo roll etc. She has relaxed however and even managed to go in the long drop on the ferry – which was on the car deck, without a lock, or glass in the shoulder high window and with about 12 Korean ladies queuing right outside the door. Progress!
From the ferry we drove on south down the coast and had picked out a tiny village off the main road to camp at. Incredibly picturesque spot – a tiny hamlet of Assos, about 6 ancient stone building converted into hotels and restaurants. We squeezed down the tiny wee lanes and had no idea what we might find round each corner – we were hoping to find a panysion (cheap guest house) which reportedly allowed camping . We found it – closed up for the season but with the friendliest man and his pregnant dog. He was insistent there was “no problem” and we could camp in the dusty area right outside his restaurant (also closed). We only set up the roof top tent on the car and decided we’d all squeeze in as it was only for one night. We had a basic toilet, a cold shower and a very crap night’s sleep – but we were 1.5m from the seashore and it was beautiful. Next morning he gave us some boiling water to make coffee and we hit the road and made it as far as Selcuk (pronounced Shelook) where we found an open campsite. We arrived late and felt a bit ripped off by their charges and the fact the electricity didn’t work and she’d turned off the hot water as there was no-one else there...however Pieter found the fuse box and sneakily turned on the water for the next morning, they finally fixed the power and all was well. Next day was our 10year anniversary, spent at Ephesus – the most amazing ruins we have seen yet; even the kids were impressed and managed NOT to say “not more stones”. Then we wandered in Selcuk – kids first experience of pide (pita) pizzas, round the market, an old man joined us for a cay (tea) while we sat and ate – turned out he’d been in catering for the Royal Guard in London for 35years. That night our anniversary was celebrated with a bottle of bubbly crap from Lidl and a movie!!
On the advice from one other camper on our 2nd night we changed our route for getting through Turkey. We are looking for the shortest route to try and make up time. So, we drove inland to Pamukkale – which was indeed as we had been warned – a very sad old tourist trap. 10years ago it had amazing naturally occurring thermal springs cascading down the white travertine terraces. Now the water has dried up and it has the feel of a place trying to grab every last penny out of you before it closes shop. I did take the kids for an explore on foot while Pieter set up the tent and we had an illegal clamber on the white travertine rocks – interesting but not worth the £20each to see more of the next day. We all slept in the roof top tent again (getting the hand of 5 in a 2 man tent), in the car park of a motel. To our joy there was one other lot of people there – an Australian family with 3 kids who are travelling Europe for 18months in their caravan. Our kids were beside themselves and we all stayed up late chatting and letting the kids enjoy other company.
Next day we drove to Antalya where we knew we had a villa booked – heavenly bliss and the same price as camping! Actually even better when you consider this villa as a washing machine included and campsites charge about £5 a wash (if indeed they have a machine at all). Ah, it’s the small things – Mara was thrilled to discover we had an oven (craving pizza), the boys gasped to see they had a bed, and I was so happy with the washing machine and bath. Pieter was in love with the dishwasher as it seems to fall to him on campsites to deal with this chore (although Mara is learning). While we are hot footing it through Turkey as fast as possible we knew we needed to get the car serviced and it made sense to do it here while we could also relax a bit. We also had our Carnet to collect at the nearby DHL office. Thank God we were in a villa, I got the mother of all stomach bugs for 5 days, which Mara and Euan got their own versions of. For every moment I felt miserable, or was trying to deal with a child’s vomit while holding back my own, I kept thinking “at least we are not in a tent”.
We have become Master sneaks at getting wi fi. The villa didn’t have any so we took to carrying the laptop with us wherever we went and I would have it on in the car and yell when I saw an unsecured wi fi signal. Then Pieter would pull over and we’d send and receive to our hearts content! ON the day the car was being serviced I couldn’t face another day in the villa, so despite everyone feeling a bit ropey we all went to drop the car and then spent 5 hours in a nearby shopping mall. We haven’t seen a shopping centre since leaving home – nor have we seen Burger King or Starbucks since August either! Wow, I couldn’t eat or drink from either but Pieter enjoyed it all!
Now our Christmas time checker (Mara) reminds us that there is only 15 days till Christmas and we are to be in Egypt. Had to stay an extra day in the villa to recover from the bugs, so lots of time to make up and a lot of ground to cover.

Thoughts on Turkey??????
1. People are exceptionally friendly outside of the main tourist hubs (where they seem to want to fleece you) – one day we pulled over at a petrol station just to picnic at the back of the car. The garage attendant walked over to us with 2 free cups of tea, no other hidden agenda. At the villa an old man walked down the path every day to feed a dog which was tied to the fence. The 2nd day he appeared at our door with a bag bursting with home grown peppers, chillies, tomatoes and mandarins.
2. Once again it is the women who seem to run the businesses – campsites, pensions, etc – the men are the public face but it is the women who take the money, drive a hard bargain etc.
3. The street food is as great as the Lonely Planet said it would be (although I haven’t had much chance to try it yet, being sick most of the time)
4. Turkey has immense poverty, much like Greece but we think a shade worse. Bread at least is only 35Kurus a loaf here (about 17p) – whereas in Greece it was Euros 0.90.
5. We hear the Mosque wherever we are which bears witness to the fact it is a 98% Muslim country, however there seems to be quite open views – beer is readily available and there are huge billboards of raunchy bikini clad women all over the show.
6. We have absolutely not seen enough, but will come back.


PS: Just made it to Antakya last night (11th Dec) – we drove from Antalya to Antakya (confusing eh?) in one day – about 790kms which took 11hours and horrific conditions. At some points the road just stopped as they appear to be building a new one, but in the meantime you must just hit the mud and drive around the dumper trucks. Not so very awful if it was dry and sunny – like the other 10 months of the year – but we are in RAINY season and have had 48hours of thunder and lightning and torrential rain. Repeatedly we thanked our lucky stars for a 4x4 and we made it through. We arrived generally buggered, into a busy Eastern influenced town, at 9.30pm. By sheer luck we found the Lonely Planet’s recommended hotel – a jaded French colonial building converted a long time ago into a jaded hotel. Friendly though and next door to a huge restaurant which was packed with locals and had a kid’s play area (with a lady to LOOK AFTER THEM!!!!!) and we ate pide, kebap, drank Efes beer, unwound and collapsed into bed at a ridiculously late hour..........
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