I was up with my alarm yet again (what kind of vacation is this?) for a 2nd day of diving. Heather decided to spend the day relaxing around the hotel rather than snorkeling. However she joined me on the short walk to the dive centre so we could book the overnight excursion to Wadi Rum from a travel agency next door.
There were only three of us diving today. The Norwegian guy wanted to see the tank (an army tank scuttled in about 5m of water, perfect for a safety stop), so we went to that site for our first dive. The sun was out today, and visibility is pretty amazing. Maybe that's why the Red Sea is so highly rated for diving.
Froze in the wind in between the dives. Just as I stopped shivering, we were back the water for the 2nd dive, this one at Japanese Garden. It was okay.
Got back home and warmed up with a hot shower. According to the Norwegian guy (he had all kinds of dive paraphernalia), the water was 23C, the coldest I've dived.
Heather and I walked around the souq, souvenir hunting. We found a shop selling the antique coffee grinders! The price was much lower than we expected, and so didn't even bargain. It was the one-sided bartering like in the Monty Python movie, with the vendor arguing both sides. Heather also bought some jewelry.
Bought our bus ticket to Amman for Christmas Day, from where we'll take a taxi to Madaba.
Had a drink at the infinity pool at our hotel watching the sunset over Egypt or Israel (I'm not sure exactly where the border lies) (Saudi Arabia is 14km south from us as well).
We had dinner at Ali Baba's again. We had two mains and a couple appetizers, everything was amazing again. Split a bottle of Jordanian red.
...
Slept in (!) for the first time this trip. We just had to be ready for 1pm for our Wadi Rum excursion. Caught the tail end of breakfast, packed up and checked out. With the souvenirs and our boots in plastic bags (so we could put them on quickly in Wadi Rum) we looked distinctly like non-Hilton guests.
Had lunch in the souq, and would have timed it perfectly to be ready at 1pm except we forgot about the free tea at the end of the meal (it would be insulting to turn down) and so we were a few minutes late.
The weather was perfect for visiting Wadi Rum -- about 18C, sunny, and no wind to kick up dust storms.
We switched from a taxi to a 4WD in Wadi Rum (a Toyota, the favoured vehicle everywhere I've been on excursions because of its maintainability). Drove around the desert landscape (wadi means valley in Arabic, and rum is moon, so literally translates to Valley of the Moon). Took pics at all the appropriate places. It was cool, but I wouldn't rate it in the top 5 things to see in Jordan. I thought the landscape around Petra was more interesting.
Our camp was great, a tent with actual beds and comfortable mattresses! We were the only two tourists (the camp can hold up to 100 people in tents) so had the owner's attention all night. Had an excellent dinner, and chatted about travel. Heather and I crashed around 9pm. The owner pulled out his laptop and surfed using a USB stick. As he said, welcome to 2013. (Although, we did read on our iPad / iPhone before falling asleep).
We woke up a couple times in the night from the call to prayers. The Imams had excellent voices and the sound carried well in the desert. What didn't add to it was the howling of dogs off-key.
We got up at 6am to watch the sunrise. We were both comfy warm in our sleeping bags and a couple blankets (much warmer than our night in Karak!) but froze once we got up. It might have been 3C.
The sun was just starting to hide the stars. It was a great view to the horizon. Watched the sky change, at one point we could see rays from the sun like how a kid draws the sun. Finally we felt some warmth after an hour or so.
We had an excellent traditional breakfast. Learnt we were supposed to dip the pita in olive oil and then in the spice mixture. (We had had the spice mixture before, but didn't know what to do with it).
To emphasize that times have changed, the camp owner asked if we could give him a good rating on tripadvisor.
Our driver picked us up at 9am as arranged, and we returned to the Hilton. It was odd, with our backpacks and dusty clothes and looking like we just spent a night in the desert, to be greeted with a Welcome back, sir at the Hilton.
Cleaned up and went for lunch at Al Shami. It was excellent grilled food, done perfectly.
Bought a duffle bag to carry our souvenirs (we don't normally buy so many things this early in a trip, but we don't think we'll get Bedouin stuff up north). At least we'll look more respectable leaving the Hilton tomorrow.
Now we're relaxing at the infinity pool again. We're yet again back to Ali Baba's for our Christmas Eve dinner.
Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!
There were only three of us diving today. The Norwegian guy wanted to see the tank (an army tank scuttled in about 5m of water, perfect for a safety stop), so we went to that site for our first dive. The sun was out today, and visibility is pretty amazing. Maybe that's why the Red Sea is so highly rated for diving.
Froze in the wind in between the dives. Just as I stopped shivering, we were back the water for the 2nd dive, this one at Japanese Garden. It was okay.
Got back home and warmed up with a hot shower. According to the Norwegian guy (he had all kinds of dive paraphernalia), the water was 23C, the coldest I've dived.
Heather and I walked around the souq, souvenir hunting. We found a shop selling the antique coffee grinders! The price was much lower than we expected, and so didn't even bargain. It was the one-sided bartering like in the Monty Python movie, with the vendor arguing both sides. Heather also bought some jewelry.
Bought our bus ticket to Amman for Christmas Day, from where we'll take a taxi to Madaba.
Had a drink at the infinity pool at our hotel watching the sunset over Egypt or Israel (I'm not sure exactly where the border lies) (Saudi Arabia is 14km south from us as well).
We had dinner at Ali Baba's again. We had two mains and a couple appetizers, everything was amazing again. Split a bottle of Jordanian red.
...
Slept in (!) for the first time this trip. We just had to be ready for 1pm for our Wadi Rum excursion. Caught the tail end of breakfast, packed up and checked out. With the souvenirs and our boots in plastic bags (so we could put them on quickly in Wadi Rum) we looked distinctly like non-Hilton guests.
Had lunch in the souq, and would have timed it perfectly to be ready at 1pm except we forgot about the free tea at the end of the meal (it would be insulting to turn down) and so we were a few minutes late.
The weather was perfect for visiting Wadi Rum -- about 18C, sunny, and no wind to kick up dust storms.
We switched from a taxi to a 4WD in Wadi Rum (a Toyota, the favoured vehicle everywhere I've been on excursions because of its maintainability). Drove around the desert landscape (wadi means valley in Arabic, and rum is moon, so literally translates to Valley of the Moon). Took pics at all the appropriate places. It was cool, but I wouldn't rate it in the top 5 things to see in Jordan. I thought the landscape around Petra was more interesting.
Our camp was great, a tent with actual beds and comfortable mattresses! We were the only two tourists (the camp can hold up to 100 people in tents) so had the owner's attention all night. Had an excellent dinner, and chatted about travel. Heather and I crashed around 9pm. The owner pulled out his laptop and surfed using a USB stick. As he said, welcome to 2013. (Although, we did read on our iPad / iPhone before falling asleep).
We woke up a couple times in the night from the call to prayers. The Imams had excellent voices and the sound carried well in the desert. What didn't add to it was the howling of dogs off-key.
We got up at 6am to watch the sunrise. We were both comfy warm in our sleeping bags and a couple blankets (much warmer than our night in Karak!) but froze once we got up. It might have been 3C.
The sun was just starting to hide the stars. It was a great view to the horizon. Watched the sky change, at one point we could see rays from the sun like how a kid draws the sun. Finally we felt some warmth after an hour or so.
We had an excellent traditional breakfast. Learnt we were supposed to dip the pita in olive oil and then in the spice mixture. (We had had the spice mixture before, but didn't know what to do with it).
To emphasize that times have changed, the camp owner asked if we could give him a good rating on tripadvisor.
Our driver picked us up at 9am as arranged, and we returned to the Hilton. It was odd, with our backpacks and dusty clothes and looking like we just spent a night in the desert, to be greeted with a Welcome back, sir at the Hilton.
Cleaned up and went for lunch at Al Shami. It was excellent grilled food, done perfectly.
Bought a duffle bag to carry our souvenirs (we don't normally buy so many things this early in a trip, but we don't think we'll get Bedouin stuff up north). At least we'll look more respectable leaving the Hilton tomorrow.
Now we're relaxing at the infinity pool again. We're yet again back to Ali Baba's for our Christmas Eve dinner.
Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!
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