We made it to syria

Willie and I crossed the Jordan-Syria border on Thursday. We spent about 5 hours at the border waiting for our visas to be made, but they were very cheap and the border agents were very nice. We have spent the last couple days in damascus eating good food and walking around the old city. Apparenty Damascus is the longest continuously inhabited city in the world. Its easy to see too, with buildings built on other buildings and roads built over and under existing ones.

The people in Syria are much less conservative than the people we have met in Egypt and in Jordan, even though there government is the most controlling. To even make this blog post i have to use some hacking software to get past the governments filters. They block everything from myspace and facebook to even my blog. Weird...

Anyway tomorrow Willie and I are heading north. We hope to be in turkey by next weekend.

Our travels to Amman

We left Dana, the stone city to head north, but since it was independece day and hot out, the buses were not running so we decided to hitch. We took a car out to the Desert Highway where we held out our hands palms down (the middle east version to the hitchhiker thumb). In no time a semi truck pulled over and the diver offered us a ride. So With all 4 of us in the cab of the truck we headed of to amman (300 km away). I dont think i have ever had or ever will have a more pleasant hitch hiking expereince. Our friend Mohammed bought us sodas and candies and went out of his way to drop us off downtown. We chatted about his family and country. Discussed Arnold movies like terminator and learned that if you're the biggest car on the road you can go where ever you want.After arriving in Amman, we drove to the dead sea to do the "been there done that expereince". We attempted to swim around for a while, which is tough when you float so high out of the water. With out treading standing upright in the water you float at armpit level and its tough to get your head under. After the sea we went and jumped in a pool where all of us struggled not to just sink to the bottom. A very strange comparasion.

Jordan

We have just arrived in Amman, Jordan for their independence day. This follows a week of travel though the desert landscapes of Wadi Rum, the canyons and carvings of Petra and the high mountain deserts of Dana nature preserve.

We left Dahab traveling north to Mt Sinai were we started climbing the mountian at about 2 am. We managed to make it to the top for a beautiful sunrise. For the climb down we took the 3000 steps of repentance, a real quad burner, and very exhausting on no sleep.

We then traveled north to Nuwebia to catch a ferry across to Aquaba, Jordan. Basically the worst day of the trip so far. After hours of government redtape, relentlessly swarming flies, the dirtiest bathrooms known to man, terrible arabic pop music all on no sleep, we finally made it to Jordan. We then got a hotel and slept for 16 hours.

The next day we jumped in a taxi and headed north to Wadi Rum, a large desert reserve. We talked to some local bedoins who agreed to take us on a desert tour in a old broken down land cruiser. We stayed 2 nights under the most amazing stars, and ate great food and drank tea. Basically experienced bedoin hospitality at its greatest. One of the coolest experiences I have ever had.

Chicken Rock

our camp

After 2 days in the desert we traveled north to Petra, basically an ancient city carved into the sandstone cliffs connected by deep canyons. We spent 2 days and one night hiking around the city. very cool. Basically as cool as the pyriamids without the endless vendors, camel merchants and burger kings.

We then traveled north to a stone mountain city of Dana where we spend a night and a day of hiking.

Jordan Phone #

Its a Jordan number so im not sure of the prefixes from the states

776 905 496

(the guy at the counter told us that adding a 962 in front of it woulf make it work outside of jordan.)

DPV'ing

Well I have made it to Jordan with Willie and Lacie, but the picture uploading isnt working so I will save the last week's stories for later. Jordan is amazing. But in the meantime I found some of the DPVing pictures from a couple weeks ago.

Completed the Divemaster course

Willie and I finished our divemaster course today and Lacie arrived last night. It feels strange to be done diving for the rest of the trip, being that we have averaged 2 dives a day for the last month. We almost wish we had planned for a longer stay in Dahab. We are planning on hiking Mt Sinai in the next few days. Then we are off to Jordan with Lacie for a couple weeks to see petra.

As promised we have more diving pictures. These are from a local underwater photographer who works for Poseidon sometimes. The pictures are from a couple of different dives over the last month.

Thistlegorm and Shark Reef Pics

Deck gun

Exiting captains quarters

Sharks Reef/Yolanda Reef

heavy surf and current makes exiting pretty tough

Thistlegorm and DPVs

So here is another update on my diving adventures without any underwater pictures (coming soon). So in the past week I got the chance to try using a DPV and was lucky enough to dive the SS Thistlegorm, both 2 of the coolest things i have ever done underwater.

Diver propulsion vehicles (DPVs) are basically like a very maneuverable torpedo you hold on to while diving. They make diving very exciting and fast, you can do barrel rolls, zoom around coral pinnacles and try to keep up with fish. But unlike normal diving dpvs make you feel like your moving in an evironment with no gravity, very disorienting but super fun one you get the hang of it.The SS Thistlegorm is a 420 shipwreck in about 100 feet of water off the coast of Sharm el Sheik. It is supposedly one of the preimere shipwrecks in the world. No pictures or description can do it justice.

Boats arriving at the dive site

A very popular site

I dove the wreck 2 times, the first swimming around the entirety of the ship and entering the capain quarters. On the second dive we penetrated the hold of the ship which i can describe as only Indiana Jones underwater. The hold is filled with military trucks, ammo, airplane wings and hundreds of motocycles. It is also the first place i have ever felf claustrophobic. 80 ft down inside a shipwreck in a hallway quickly becomes almost overwhelming (side note, can someone just be "whelmed" or do them have to be overwhelmed?) Around the wreck there is some of the largest schools of fish and tuna i have ever seen.

We finished the day with another dive at Shark Reef hoping to see some of the bigger life the red sea has to offer. We didnt see any sharks, but like the wreck, the schools of fish were abundant, and we got to see a giant moray eel getting its mouth cleaned by some cleaner wrass'.

Ill have the underwater pics from the wreck and the DPV up as soon as I get them.

You can now call or skype me on willies Egyptian phone. (a replacement for the phone I dropped in a taxi.

This is the number to use if calling from states. (20 10 659 3449)

If calling from the west coast the best time to call me is from 7am - 1pm this is my afternoon after diving.

or from 10pm - 12:01am your time (this is my morning before diving)

Tamer the King of Love

Pimp My Ride Dahab edition...

Tamer one of the main drivers for Poseidon divers is quite the interesting man. He probably would be excited to hear I was putting him and his pride and joy on my blog (a little exposure). He is quite the pre-Madonna, full of himself and extremely cocky. He is a huge complainer and somehow always gets his way. So Willie and I give him a hard time, but also feed his ego, the following pics show the result of his hard work. (note he made all the mods to his car and placed all the decals himself)

Some of willies pics

Dahab Sunset From Assalah

On the way to Diving

riding on the spare tire since the jeep was full of gear