We left Damascus early the next morning and headed to the Dead Sea in Jordan which is the lowest point on earth at 400 metres below sea level.  We got there just before lunch and spent the next few hours bobbing around like corks and topping up our tans.  The Dead Sea is very salty which makes it easy to float, you can lay in the water and read a newpaper and if you float in a standing position the water line only comes upto the top of your belly!  Very Weird.  It is also very slimey and the water has the consistency of baby oil, but it stings/burns you when you get out, so you have to have a shower straight away.  We left the Dead Sea at about 4 and headed off to our hotel in Wadi Mousa which is the town next to Petra were the famous caves are that have been carved out of the rock.  We had a slight delay on the way though as Prue reversed into a mercedes and we had to wait for an hour for the police to turn up and then sort out the insurance and fines, so we did not make it to our hotel until 10ish.  The following day we had to ourselves, so we had a late start and headed into town for lunch, but there was not much there apart from a few restaurants, hotels and supermarkets, so we came back up to the hotel and spent the afternoon watching Laurence of Arabia and Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade, which were both filmed in Jordan, Indiana Jones being filmed at Petra down the road.

At 8 the next morning we headed into Petra which was stunning.  You enter the site through a high canyon which stretches for over a kilometre, but is only about 4 to 5 metres wide.  As you get to the end of the canyon the main treasury building opens up in front of you which is an incredible site.  From there you can walk around the whole site and take a mountain path which gives stunning views of the valley and all the other caves.  If you would like to see some pictures of us in Petra check out Martin's website at http://imageevent.com/poz123 and select The Trip.... Turkey, Syria & Jordan1 album.  After leaving Petra we went back to the hotel and spent the rest of the day in the pool before finding a cool English pub in the town at Petra where we proceeded to spend the best part of the night.

On the 23rd April we left Wadi Mousa and headed down to Aquaba were we were catching the evening ferry to Egypt.  This turned into a bit of an eventful day.  We got to Aquaba no problem and spent a few enjoyable hours strolling round and having a few beers.  At 5 we headed to the ferry port to catch the 8pm ferry - this is where it all started to go wrong!  The ferry did not board until 9:30 and then we all sat there in dock until 11.40pm when we finally left on the 3 hour journey to Nuweiba in Egypt.  We arrived at 2.30am and got oursleves stamped into the country, but all the officials that we needed to stamp the truck in had gone home for the night, so we had to sleep on the truck until 9am when the officals came back to the port!  We finally left the port at about 10ish and drove for a couple of hours to get to Dahab which is a beach resort on the Red Sea coast, arriving about 10 hours late! We spent the next few hours asleep in the hotel and then met up for dinner at about 7 in a cool bar which looked like a pirate ship from the outside.  It was happy hour so we made good use of it.  We spent the rest of the night in there drinking, playing pool and then danced the night away in the small club at the back of the bar, eventually hitting the sack at about 3 - what a fantastic night.

Yesterday I was up early and went along to one of the great beach side bars for a full english breakfast and a cup of english tea - beautiful (proper food again).  From there I headed up the beach and found a sunlounger with my name on it for the rest of the morning before meeting the others for lunch.  Because it was quite windy though I did not realise how red I was going until it was too late - shocking pink would be an understatement and I dont think I have ever been this sore in my life!  The rest of the day was spent rubbing in aftersun and swearing quite loudly!

I am a bit gutted, because the others have gone to a place called the Blue Hole today which is a coral reef just down the coast to go diving, but I am in too much pain so have come to the internet cafe to stay out the sun. The Red Sea reefs will have to wait for my next visit, which will hopefully be on the way back up so fingers crossed I can go then.  I did do a bit of snorkling yesterday before the sunburn, but it was away from the reef, so I only saw a few fish.

Tomorrow we head down to Aswan and Abu Simbel before making our way up the Nile to Luxor, Cairo and the pyramids which I cant wait for.

Internet should be all over the place in Egypt, so I will try and get a couple of updates going in the next week or so.