Alright, so when I last left you I was heading to bed at 9pm.

The stars were all out as the sky was crystal clear and there was no light pollution way out here in the desert.

I bundled up in my clothes, three blankets, and even a touque and went to bed.

At 2am I woke up with this urgent need to pee.

And thus enters the dilemma.

I mean, how badly do I really need to pee?!?

Do I really want to get out from under these covers and walk outside?

Eventually I did but then, as usual, I just couldn’t go back to sleep.

It didn’t help that my mind has been racing all week thinking about different ideas I want to implement for both this blog and another travel project in the future.

So, yeah, I woke up at 2am and just stayed up.

Soon enough 6am came around and it was time for a sunrise camel trek!

Camel Trek at Sunrise

Hammad, my guide for the trek, had told me last night to come by the main communal area where he’d be sleeping and wake him up to take me out to the camels.

I entered the building and, sure enough, there was Hammad sound asleep on a mattress on the floor.

I felt a pretty big tinge of guilt waking him up from his sleep.

The poor guy literally woke up, rolled out of bed, put on his coat, and walked with me outside to where the camels were.

What a way to wake up!

And then he had to walk 2.5km all the way out into the desert and then the same coming back.

Imagine you’re woken up from your slumber to walk in the cold desert for 5km first thing in the morning.

So, yeah, I felt pretty guilty.

But, a camel ride is what this guy wanted and a camel ride is what this guy got!

After trekking in the dark for close to 45 minutes, we finally reached our spot in the literal middle of nowhere where we’d be watching the sunrise.

I got off the camel and Hammad started a little fire to warm us up.

And then, magically, the sun slowly rose and the stars that had been so abundant in the sky disappeared.

In total I took 33 photos and videos but, comically, I also deleted another 91 because I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to take photos from atop a camel but it’s hard to get that shot!

Saying goodbye

At 7:45 we had arrived back at the camp and after we all had breakfast, it was time to say some goodbyes.

The Malaysians kind of kept to themselves but I really enjoyed my time with both James and Raphael and I was sorry to be leaving both of them.

But, goodbyes were made and a little later I was back in my car heading back up north.

A three hour drive

It’s was 9am when I started driving and I had a long 3 hour drive ahead of me.

Back to the Jordanian roads with all their fun speed zone changes and randomly place speed bumps.

I was keeping a close eye on my fuel level since I had to return the car with the fuel gauge at empty so I was trying to calculate how much gas I needed to get me to the airport where I’d be dropping off the car later.

I put another 15JOD ($30) in the tank bringing my total to about $184 for the 6 days I had the car.   With the rental cost of 22JOD ($44) per day, it ended up working out to about $75 per day which seems pretty reasonable to me.

St Stephen’s Church

My flight wasn’t until this evening so I had a couple stops planned on my way to the airport.

At noon I had arrived at my first stop, the town of Um al Risas where the St Stephen’s Church presides.

I’ll be honest, I probably could have done without this stop.

After seeing so many ruins during the week, my ability to be impressed by even more ruins has kind of dissipated.

The Church is famous for it’s 6th century mosaic so that was kind of cool but, honestly, I was just ready to move on.

Madaba Craziness

The main pitstop for me today was to be the city of Madaba where I’d have lunch, check out yet more ruins, and just hang out til I had to drive to the airport at 5pm.

As I pulled up to the city I was taken aback by how big the city was.

I guess I was just expected another small town with ruins as their main attraction like all the other places I had visited in the week.

Nope, Madaba was a full out city and with it was all the city craziness.

So much traffic.   So many people.   So much stress.

Keep in mind, I had been up since 2am which was almost 12 hours ago.

Let’s just say I wasn’t in the best mind space and the last thing I wanted to do was be drawn into this swarm of craziness.

So, I did what I have now learned to do through trial and error…

Reset!

Yup, sometimes you just need a reset!

I’ve learned this lesson the hard way during my travels but it’s something I’m not afraid to do now.

You just reset everything and figure something else out.

Take a moment and breathe.

So, the reset today was to hop back in the car and drive the 30 minutes to Amman, find that gluten free restaurant I love, have lunch, and just go to the airport a little early.

I went to Ketolicious, had another turkey and cheese manakeesh and just sat there for over an hour putting together yesterday’s epic blog.

By 4:30 I had done the blog and I got back into my car heading to the airport.

My flight didn’t leave until 8:30 but I didn’t care, I just wanted to hang out at the airport, use their internet, and just relax.

Lost at the airport

It took about a half hour to get to the airport but just cause I made it to the airport, didn’t actually mean I made it.

I still had a car to return and, hot damn, that was not as easy as it should have been.

As I drove towards the airport, I slowed down, and kept a keen eye out for signs directing me to car rental returns.

I found a sign but it was ambiguous where it was pointing and the gate I was about to go through had a “do not enter” sign with a note that only authorized vehicles were allowed.

So, I took the other gate and, well, I ended up in the general parking area.

Sonofabitch!

I meandered my way straight out to the exit and, thankfully, the attendant let me pass without charging me whatever the minimum ticket cost was for my 1 minute drive through.

I did a uturn and tried again.

This time I went to the “only authorized vehicles” gate and inspected a little closer.

Yup, it turns out that was my gate.

So, in I went.

I drove past a bunch of cars looking for some kind of entrance to the rental car parking area but just ended up right back at the exit gate again.

Oh, cmon!

I just wanted to return this damn car!

Finally, I did the loop around yet again and this time when I was where the rental car dropoff was supposedly supposed to be, I asked a man on street about it and he told me to just double park the car right there and an Avis guy would be around.

Well, ya know, some signage for that woulda been nice, just sayin.

Car return

I parked the car and waited.

And waited.

And no guy showed up.

So, I locked the door, walked back up to where I had talked to the guy and he led me inside to where the Avis counter was.

Yeah, I was supposed to grab my own guy to collect the car.

Man, this all seemed so ass backwards.

Thank God I wasn’t in a hurry to catch my flight.

Eventually the Avis guy came, inspected the car, signed the paper, and led me back to the counter.

Here was where I finally found out if that ticket I got the other day for the illegal turn was 15JOD ($30) or 50JOD ($100).

Well, it was my lucky day, it was only 15JOD.

Happy days!

Oh, and I also managed to pickup a speeding camera ticket on my travels too, another 20JOD ($40).

Oh, happy days…

Well, on the bright side, compared to tickets where I live, those fines are pretty damn small for those infractions.

So, yeah, I grit my teeth, pulled out my credit card and paid my fines.

So, in total, for 880km of total travel over 6 days, I spent 146JOD for the car rental, another 92JOD for gas, and 35JOD for traffic fines which comes out to about $550 or $92 a day.

After that was all done, I lugged my bags over to the security area, exchanged my remaining Jordanian dinars, and went towards my boarding gate.

It was 6:15 and I had just over 2 hours til my flight boarded.

I sat in a quiet area near the gate and started typing this blog.

As 8:00 rolled around, I suddenly realized there’s been no activity at my gate and the flight was due to leave in just 25 minutes.

Leaving all my stuff on a table, I walked a bit up to where the departures were listed and I panicked as I couldn’t see my flight anymore.

I went back to the table, packed up all my gear, and walked back to the board to take a closer look.

Oh, there it was.

My listing for my flight MS702 was alternating between Air Canada 2878 and Ethiopian 1458 which I guess it was also operating as.

And then I saw the big bright red “delayed” next to it.

My 90 minute flight to Cairo was delayed 70 minutes.

Oh cmon, make it make sense.

By now I had been up for 18 hours and I just kind of stared at the board cursing to myself.

What started off as a magical day with a camel ride through the desert was quickly devolving into a day that I just wanted to put behind me.

Hello Cairo!

Finally, at 10:00 we left for Cairo.

The flight was only an hour and a half and, to Egyptair’s credit, they passed out a tray of food to all of us despite the flight’s shortness.

We each got a chicken and cheese sandwich, a mango juice, and a kit kat bar.

Of course, with my gluten allergy, all I could do was pick out the chicken and cheese out of the sandwich bread, but, still, kudos to them for even feeding us.

By now I had been up for 20 hours and I was really starting to feel it.

I must have drifted off briefly because, the next thing I knew, we were wheels down in Cairo.

With a one hour time zone change, it was just after 10:30pm when we landed.

I purchased my visa on arrival with the $25USD I’ve been carrying around all this time and was given a sticker that the man at passport control then placed into my passport.

After another half hour, I was finally officially in Egypt.

Another new country off the list!   Number 62!

Taxi, taxi, taxi

As I exited the security area I was immediately bombarded by people asking if I needed a taxi.

I had read up about how to transport myself from the airport into town ahead of time and knew what to expect.

Normally I just opt to take local transit into town but given the time of night and the fact I just wanted to get to my hostel quickly, I opted to actually take a taxi.

Now, I had read that taxis go for about 150EGP ($4.25) and I also saw that Uber rates were in the same price range so I had an expected price in mind.

Before I could find the “official” taxi stand area (if there even was one), I was befriended by a man who started leading me to his taxi.

Wait, wait, how much is the taxi?   Do you have a meter?

Well, after hounding him a little, he told me his price was 1100EGP ($31) which, obviously, was way overpriced.

He immediately dropped down to 800EGP ($23) when I balked but, even still, this was way more than I thought I should be paying.

I eventually told him to just leave me in peace for awhile so I could figure things out.

Not less than a couple minutes later, another man approached me and told me he was an “official” taxi.

With a meter?   I asked.

Yes, yes.

I asked this man, again, how much the ride would be and this one told me 700EGP ($20).

Well, at least the price was dropping, I guess.

When I protested and showed him the prices being displayed on my uber app, he told me that uber wasn’t allowed into the airport.

Was this true?   Probably not.   But by now I was quickly losing my will to fight.

I just wanted to go to bed!

Eventually I went with the guy as they had successfully bombarded me into submission.

Finally, after being up for almost 24 hours, I checked into my new hostel around midnight.

I was shown to my 5 person dorm and got my choice of two beds.

Both weren’t idea and neither had an outlet near it or a locker to keep my stuff in.

I did learn that the person in the bed behind me would be leaving at 4am and I couldn’t help but notice his bed had that coveted power outlet next to it.

Yup, I’d be moving to that bed tomorrow for sure!

In the end, I didn’t even setup my electronics to charge or even unpack my backpack.

I just took my valuables out, hid them under my bed, and almost immediately drifted into a nice long slumber.

It was a day of ups and downs but that’s what traveling is alot of times and, you know what, I’m here for it because, at the end of the day, I’m out here exploring the world and I’m very fortunate to be able to do that.

Tomorrow, we start chapter two of this epic trip.

Let’s see what the next 10 days in Egypt have in store for me…