Category Archives: Travel

The posts when I travel.

Leaving Amman for Petra

Posted on by | Leave a reply
Sun 26/07/09 13:00
and taking the scenic journey

This morning was my last morning in Amman. At about nine, I headed out of the hostel to catch a taxi to the bus station for my trip to Petra. There was pretty much only two things that I wanted to see while I was in Jordan, and that Amman and Petra, but I’d be lying if I said that I felt like I wasn’t seeing enough of the country. One of the downfalls of traveling by myself is that to go on excursions that take a day or two is that with one person I’m not able to share the cost of transportation with others. So with some of the things that I wanted to see It was just too expensive… Well this morning as I caught my taxi to the bus station, the driver starts saying that he’d give me a good deal to see some of the sights in Jordan on the way to Petra. We haggled for a little while and although it seemed a little bit too more than I wanted to spend I decided that I would do it. My reasoning is pretty straightforward, I may never get back to Jordan again, and the extra money above what I thought I should pay will be eventually forgotten, but the sights probably won’t ever be, so off we went.

The first stop was Madaba… I think that’s the correct spelling, it’s a small town outside of Amman and a nice change from the hustle of the big city. I wish I could have spent a night there if not only for the change of pace. I went to a couple of museums and visited a church. What I really loved about the church was the chanting/singing by the monks, it was straight out of those horror movies.

Then I went to Mt Nebo. If you don’t know what Mt. Nebo is, don’t be ashamed, neither did I until I was there and walking around the “mount.” If you don’t know, it’s where Moses went to die. The view from the top of the mountain was spectacular, you could see rolling hills all around, and down in the valley was Jericho…I mean I never, ever, thought that I’d see Jericho.

The next stop was to visit the river Jordan, more precisely, the spot where Jesus was baptized. The tour was pretty good, but a bit too much of nothing, if you’re not a religious person, which I’m not. I think what I enjoyed the most was being about 5 yards from Israel. I just got the feeling like I was at the demilitarized border between North and South Korea, for all the ill will that is focused towards Israel. But there it was, Israel, no more that twenty feet away with a big Israeli flag blowing in the wind like it was taunting the Jordanians.

Next it was off to the Dead Sea. Of all the things that I really didn’t care to see, that was one of them. I don’t know why people make such a big deal about it, except for the supposedly super healing powers of the water, but for it to be a big deal to you, you have to believe those claims, and frankly, I don’t. I did go down for some pictures and went into the souvenir shop, which I might add sold medicinal formulas for every ailment that a person could possibly get. It would have been nice to go for a swim… or from what I’ve heard, a “bob” is more accurate since the salt content is so high that you float above the water.

After the Dead Sea, we went to Karak Castle. This was cool, not only for the fact that it is huge, but for the freedom that visitors get to explore it. There are chambers and hallways all open to the public, you can climb up on the highest walls and pretty much do anything that you want there. While I was walking around it struck me that I really respect the way the Jordanians do some things.

I’m in Petra right now and the town is really beautiful. If you’ve never seen photos of the town of Petra, which I don’t think I ever have, it a small town set on a very steep hill. In many ways it’s adopted the tourist trap mentality that I really don’t like. Everything is double the price, and it seems that every local is out to make a buck on the next tourist to come their way. I don’t know if that’s actually fair, but it sure seems that way. I mean, they even have a 17% tax on everything here. Oh well, I guess if you want to play sometimes you have to pay…:)

Tomorrow I head to Petra for a day trip.

I’m in Amman, Jordan

Posted on by | Leave a reply
Sun 26/07/09 12:46
and I finally am adding this entry

I got into Amman, Jordan yesterday about 11 am and got to my hostel by about 1, maybe a little bit earlier. Since then I’ve been hiking all around the city. Yesterday I spent the day pretty much just walking within a safe distance from the hostel. When I first got here and ventured out onto the streets alone, I was a little bit intimidated. There are cars everywhere and people hanging out in front of shops that sit on narrow streets that wind their way through the city. Most of the streets aren’t marked so I was a little bit concerned that I wouldn’t be able to find my way back to the hostel if I strayed too far away. Like I said though, that was yesterday, when I first got here. Today I started just walking, and went to most of the regular sites in the city. I went to the citadel, which is an old city that is being excavated and restored. I also went to an old Roman Amphitheater, and a couple of museums. All of it was interesting and for the most part lots of fun.

I also spent a large portion of the day just hiking from one part of the city to another. I think that was the most interesting to me. You have to see the city to understand what I mean, when I say that there is so much culture here, that it’s hard to believe that this is a modern city. From a distance all the buildings look like they were built hundreds of years ago, but once you’re actually on the ground walking along the streets you start to see a city that has turned it’s back on technology. Oh, there are a few Internet cafes, but for the most part my guess is that this city looks the same as it did fifty years ago, and maybe even longer. On my hikes earlier today, there were a few clues that where I’m staying in the city is not truly representative of the rest of the city. The further you get from the downtown area, you start to see nicer cars, malls, fast food restaurants and all the other things that most cities seem to have. I’m not saying that I like KFC or McDonalds, but it seems strange that a city of more than 1.5 million didn’t have them.

Tomorrow I’m going to make my decision on when I go to Petra. I don’t know if I’ll go tomorrow or make arrangements to go on Sunday. I don’t have Internet here so I feel handicapped in making arrangements…

In Dubai and Bored

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Wed 15/07/09 01:51

So I’ve been in a little bit of a funk for the last two weeks. I was really disappointed that I wasn’t able to get to Cameroon and with my return to Dubai I felt that I have just wasted two weeks that I could have been doing something else. I did plan on going to India in the interim between my return and the reservation to Jordon, but when I finally applied for the visa they held my passport for five days. Those five days and the two days that it took me to get the information ready pretty much added up to more than a week that if I was thinking clearly I could have just headed out to Jordon. I guess there’s nothing I can do about it now, but I did finally reschedule everything. I leave tomorrow morning at 9 for Amman, Jordon and will be there for three days before I head to Petra and then to Beirut Lebanon for about a week. All I can say is that at least I’m not going to be back here in Dubai for about 6 weeks. Oh, and btw, the photo was stolen from the internet… not one that I took I hope that www.marilynsnyder.org doesn’t mind. :)

Masai Mara

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Wed 15/07/09 01:21

So I feel so fortunate to have gone on the Masai Mara safari. I didn’t think that I’d get a chance to see any of the big parks while I was in Kenya, if only for the fact that I was pretty much on my own and all the parks charge admission by the vehicle… which means that it is cost prohibitive for an individual to go.

The ride to the park was almost as fun as getting there, stopping at several small towns or villages along the way.

We had two treks into the reserve and each time we saw lots of animals. In fact there was so much to see that I think I’ll let the pics do the talking. One thing that we saw was cheetahs hunting down a baby gazelle, and the migration of the wildebeests…

Back to Nairobi

Posted on by | Leave a reply

Mon 06/07/09 05:59

We arrived in Nairobi about 7 in the morning and although we’d just been deported we were in good spirits. While in the airport we were kind of held, I say kind of because our passports weren’t given back to us and we were told to wait, but we were in the middle of the airport so we could wander around. I guess we were under something like house arrest.

We finally got our passports back about 2 hours later and then we started to try to figure out what we were going to do. We had a few options available to us, the first was to just go back to Dubai, the second was we could wait for the group in Cameroon to do something there, and the last option, which we chose, was to do a little bit of all. Nothing really was working out though, we called the US Embassy but they didn’t call us back, we got a hold of Sareh and Jim, but there wasn’t much they could do, so we finally decided to get a hotel. Even though our bags weren’t expected to be back in Nairobi until the next day, I wanted to find some place just to relax, eat, and gather myself.

The hotel was in the center of Nairobi, and it was kind of a nice hotel, but the location was, for lack of a better word, dangerous. When I think about it, it was the major problem that I had with Nairobi, it seemed dangerous, and the key word is “seemed” because I’m not really sure if it was or wasn’t, but you just get the feeling that you are prey when you’re walking along the street. The huge walls, double-locked doors, and the warnings to not go out at night all reinforce the feeling. So after getting snacks and some toiletries we went back to play some backgammon and to watch a movie.

We headed back to the airport to pick up our bags in the morning after breakfast and after talking to the guys in Cameroon, we knew that we were going to have to just hang out another day at least before we found out if our visas would come through. So we got a room at a hostel called Karen Camp. Neither of the girls had ever stayed at a hostel, but they trusted me. I liked the place it had a “western” feeling to it, and more importantly, it felt safe. It turns out that this hostel is a stopping point for the overland tours through Kenya… which means that I may have stayed here if I hadn’t gone to Cameroon and did the Africa trip that I had originally planned.

  

We went to a croc farm on our way to the hostel. It was fun. It also turns out that Mona, a girl in the group still in Cameroon got robbed, and both her and Peter had to scare off pickpockets.

The next morning we had decided that we were going to do something instead of just waiting for visas that were probably were never going to arrive, so we booked a safari through the game preserve, Masai Mara.

I really can’t explain how cool Masai Mara is. The best explanation is it’s the Discovery Channel in real life… except everything is smaller. I think watching all the shows on migrating wildebeests and zebras had convinced me that they were large animals, but in reality they’re fairly small. I digress though, the mere fact that we were there and could see them migrating was so cool.

The Flight to Cameroon

Posted on by | Leave a reply
Fri 03/07/09 04:37
Deported on Arrival

If you’re reading this, try to remember that I’m writing this after the fact, I couldn’t find internet access anywhere in Kenya… that’s not exactly true, but to find it where I could post information was nearly impossible. I was also having some problems with my battery so I couldn’t write “on the go.”

Well, we head out for that night, all of us in good spirits, and although I can’t speak for anyone else in the group I think there was a mixture of pride and apprehension in what we were going to be doing.

It was a normal flight with all the great things like takeoffs and landings, and the annoying things like jostling with the person next to me for a small portion of the armrest. About half way through the flight I decided to find somewhere else to sit so I could have the armrest to myself… I know, it’s a petty thing but the woman next to me actually had her arm so far onto the rest, that her elbow was jabbing me in the ribs. No lie. For some reason though, it didn’t seem to matter to her. Anyway, I found a seat in an empty row at the back of the plane, grabbed a blanket and managed to sleep for a couple of hours.

We landed in Douala about 10 or so and stepped out of the plane into warm humid temperature, very much like Dubai, but not a warm. The place was dreary, and even through the darkness of night I could see buildings that were not kept up. We made our way to the passport control area. There was probably about a total of 20 people that were going through the line. When our group got to the start of the line, Jim went through, and I think Sareh, but then someone got hit with the news that no visa-no entry. That’s not what we were told by our contacts in Cameroon. Anyway, from that moment on things moved really fast, see, there was eight of us traveling, out of the eight three had letters of invitations, which we thought, or rather, we were told were sufficient to enter Cameroon. Unfortunately according to the rather rude guard dismissing our explanations, no visas are issued at the airport.

As you may have guessed right now, I was one of the three members of the group that had the Letter of Invitation instead of the visa. ☹

So the rude guard that I was talking about earlier asks for my visa and my letter and asks me to step to the side, when he was sure that there were only three, and we are separated from the others he asks us to follow him. That’s when Jim and Sareh went into action. Jim first tried to reason with the guy, and then headed to find our contact that was meeting us in Cameroon, and Sareh tried to explain the situation to the guard. Now you have to imagine this place, it’s old, it’s dirty and to top things off, it’s very dark. That kind of dark that feels like the lone light bulb hanging by it’s cord in the middle of a large room. So we follow him, kind of laughing as we go, I think partly because of nervousness, but it was also kind of fun. I had no worries that anything would happen to us, and I was convinced that we would get our visas. I thought that we may have to pay a fine/bribe or something, but we would get them.

We end up at the detention center of the airport. I keep wishing that I had taken a photo of it, because I don’t think there is anyway that I can explain the place. It was something straight out of the hell (almost). There were a few people around, some that left an office and some that were doing other things. At one corner was some decorative concrete or metal bars, that created a cell that held I believe one person… but as I write this I think I remember there were more people sitting on a bench inside the jail. Right below this guy was two people sitting on benches that rested against the wall of the jail, and not far away was a desk manned by a female guard/officer, who for some reason didn’t seem to mind that this one guy/prisoner/detainee was visibly trying to get his body outside of the bars and doing a pretty good job at it. There was a couple of motorcycles in the room which to me was confusing, I guess they were shipped or something, but we were like in a room inside the airport, it just didn’t make sense that there would be motorcycles there. The guard that we had followed to this area told us stay at the one spot and proceed to enter the office to talk to a commissioner, he comes out a few minutes later and then Sareh starts going at him again. I look over at the jail and the detainee that has managed to get his chest outside the bars signals me to get the attention of the two girls that I’m with… yeah, like I going to suggest they go talk to the guy. The guard at the desk is just staring straight ahead… not even at anything, just peering off into the distance. I’m telling you it was like this totally surreal event.

Christian shows up with another guy, both are our contacts while we were in Daoula and were the ones that were responsible for us during our stay in Cameroon. They had been waiting for us to arrive and when they heard from Jim what had happened they came up. It was pretty much “fun” for me up until that moment, like I said I thought everything would be straightened out and the two girls and myself would be on our way. That was until the customs guy barked an order at Christian and I saw the fear in his eyes. It was then that I started to think there may be more to this that I thought. I can honestly say that I didn’t really do too much studying up on Cameroon. I read most of the Lonely Planet stuff, and the Wikipedia entries, but I didn’t really know anything about the government or political environment.

Maybe 10 minutes have gone by since we’ve been waiting in the detention center when a official shows up, he’s not in a uniform, but everyone is giving him respect. He’s got our passports and paperwork with him and he tells us to follow him… or someone tells us to follow him, I can’t remember. We are winding our way along the corridors through the airport until we’re back outside next to the plane that we had just arrived on. The plane is full, there are flight attendants, guards, officials, and other assorted individuals all waiting for us. Meanwhile Sareh is not stopping, she’s fighting everyway that she can to convince the official to rethink his decision. He’s not budging, but she won’t give in and I have to say it was remarkable how she kept trying. Eventually though we stepped onto the plane and made the long walk down the aisle past all the staring passengers to empty seats in the back of the plane.