So, as much as I would have liked to have updated the blog recently I have at least got some fairly creative excuses as to why it has been on hold. First, my laptop managed to contract a pretty nasty virus about a week and a half ago which kept it for the most part completely dysfunctional.

Then, once I finally got that straightened out I was sitting in a restaurant in Dahab going through my photos when a waiter decided it would be a good idea to spill mango juice on my laptop's keyboard. Needless to say that didn't go over all that well and now the computer works fine minus the "A", "F", "G", "L" and "2" keys. So, now I am going to be forced to write updates missing all of those letters (which might be more interesting than past updates...) or do the whole thing from Internet Cafe's which will definitely cut back on my flexibility.

In either case, I promise in the next couple of days to write something to update everyone on my recent travels to Oman, UAE, Egypt and my current locale of Lebanon.

Steven

About halfway through my trip to Dubai I decided to take a brief detour and spend a week touring around Oman. I started out in the capital city of Muscat spending the better part of two days just walking around the city and enjoying the relaxed pace of life in this beautiful capital built directly into the mountains along the coast.




The only slight snafu in Muscat occurred when I tried to get some cash at a local ATM machine and the machine just ate my card without even giving me the opportunity to enter my PIN code. Prior to this my plan was to spend the next 4 days traveling around the south of the country but due to my ATM card having been eaten I wanted to make sure I was back in Muscat on a work-day to see if I could get it back which meant I could only spend two days down south. Because of this abridged timeline I signed-up for a two day pre-packaged tour of the south. When I called to book the trip I was told it would be no problem at all because four “western girls” had signed up for the same trip leaving on the same day and the Land Cruiser could seat five without any problems, so I was certainly not going to complain about that.

Unfortunately, when the car came to pick me up the next morning it became readily apparent that the tour-company didn’t account for luggage when they said five people would be no-problem, so I ended up having to squeeze in the back of the Land-Cruiser with five people’s stuff. After a significant amount of rearranging everyone's stuff I was able to make a big-enough space for me to sit during the five hour drive. One other up-side to the company was two of the girls were Swedes who were visiting Oman on vacation so I actually had the chance to practice my horrendously rusty Swedish.


On the first day of the trip we made a couple of stops at some old and abandoned towns as well as at two wadis which are riverbeds that have been carved into the surrounding mountains by the force of the water over thousands of years. The wadis where we stopped were particularly picturesque as the river was surrounded by date-palms all surrounded by giant red-cliffs on both sides. An additional bonus about one of these wadi’s was that we were able to take advantage of the beautiful weather on the Arabian Peninsula and had the chance to go swimming and relax in the sun for several hours before moving on to our next stop.




From the Wadis we headed into the desert where we were planning to stay at a “Bedouin-style” camp and where we could also take-part in some desert activities. When we got to the camp I realized that “Bedouin-style” was being used in a definitely generous manner since the accommodations were made out of concrete, each had its own bathroom with running water and they were all attached into fairly sizeable C shaped buildings. So much for camping…

Once we had checked into the “camp” we spent the next hour or so four-wheeling through the sand-dunes before stopping to watch the sunset and then eating a “traditional” Bedouin dinner at the campsite.




The next morning I decided to wake up at 5:30am so I could hike up to the top of a gigantic sand-dune near the camp to try and catch sunrise. A thick layer of fog prevented the sun from actually showing itself until around 8:00am but in the meantime I was able to take a number of really cool photos of the dunes.





The second day of the trip started off with breakfast with a mostly authentic Bedouin family and another hour or so of off-roading on the Sand-Dunes. After that we went on a tour of Sur, a port-city in the south of the country and then we convinced the driver to stop by another Wadi on our way back for some more time in the sun before our return to Muscat.




When I got back to Muscat I spent the next day killing time as the bank told me that they wouldn’t be able to get my card until after 3:30pm. Fortunately, it worked out and they were able to actually get me my card back which saved me some significant hassles. Finally, on my last day in Oman I snuck into the Intercontinental hotel and hung out at the pool taking it easy until I had to go catch my flight back to Dubai

After almost a month in Tunisia it was time to move on to my next destination of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Rather than a destination where I was planning to see a bunch of sites my only goal in Dubai was to relax, hang out with some friends, enjoy the beach and take it easy. In fact, during the five days I was there I only took my camera out once when I toured the old part of the city.

As I continue to try and update my blog with what I have been up to the past several weeks I figure at the very least I can put some photos up so anyone who is interested can at least see what I've been doing.

Trip to South Tunisia
More Tunisia photos

The next morning we woke up at the insanely early hour of 5:45am (this is vacation after all) so we could see the sun rise over the Sand Dunes of the Sahara along with the remnants of the Mos Isley Spaceport (from Star Wars). The Mos Isley set was just that, a Hollywood set, but it was quite impressive that it has survived this long in the middle of the Sahara desert. It was also neat to see Hollywood magic at work since in the movie Mos Isley definitely seemed more futuristic and impressive than it is in real-life.




As an aside for any Star Wars fans, a lot of the locations from the original movie (Episode IV) were filmed on location in Tunisia and many of the sets are still standing today. More interesting though is not only did George Lucas use Tunisia for locations but a lot of the background and story for the series was stolen directly from Tunisian culture including the Sandman and Jawa outfits and even names of places like Tatouin which is a city in Southern Tunisia. Oh, and in case any of you were wondering, yes, I am a nerd...

After our sojourn into the desert we returned to the hotel to pick up the rest of the tour-group who were not interested enough in Star Wars to justify waking up that early and then we continued on ouur way. After a couple of smaller stops we got to the southern most city in Tunisia called Douz. Fortunately, our trip coincided with the annual Berber Camel festival where the local people celebrate their heritage through parades and skill demonstrations including horseback riding, camel racing, music and food which we got to enjoy.




In addition to the festival while in Douz we also went on a camel ride into the Sahara and ate lunch in a Bedouin tent.




The next morning was the last day of our trip south. We started early and headed to the Mos Isley Cantina (also from Star Wars) which George Lucas made from a converted Troglodyte residence and which is currently is a tourist hotel.


The Troglodytes are the local people in the South of Tunisia who rather than building homes above ground lived in caves that they carved directly into mountains. After visiting the Cantina we went to the home of an actual Troglodyte family who still live in the traditional style to see what their life was like.


After the Troglodyte visit we were back on the bus for the eight hour return trip to Tunis. On the return trip we had just one stop at El Jem, the best preserved and largest Roman ruin in all of Africa. El Jem is the third largest Roman amphitheater still standing and one of the 10 largest ever built.




From El Jem we returned to Tunis and I decided it was going to be several weeks before I set foot near a bus again!

The next morning I woke up just in time to miss breakfast (which I heard later was probably for the best....) and soon after we were back on the bus for a 45 minute drive to get to a tourist train that was to take us around an area of the country with some nice landscapes. Despite the fact that we got to the train 45 minutes early it was already very full making it standing room only (although we did manage to get decent spots near some windows) and after only an hour and a half of waiting the train finally got underway. Later we learned that the delay was because several family members of Ben Ali (the semi-permanent President and somewhat authoritarian leader of Tunisia) decided to take the train and of course the train couldn't leave them behind despite their being so late. During the ride the train made a couple of stops at various panoramic views and on the way back a lot of our group managed to secure actual seats.




The train itself was quite nice having been built in the early part of the century for the French aristocracy and after Tunisian independence it was shoved into storage, only recently being revived for its current role of tourist train. Another interesting aspect of the train is it was still laid out in its original style so rather than regular bench seats, each car had its own style with a mixture of comfortable sofas and plush chairs. Even the light fixtures and details in the woodwork were quite artistic and still survived from the trains former glory days.


At the end of the train-ride our group split up into a number of Land Cruisers that were waiting for us at the station since the driving throughout the rest of the day involved going off-road. The first stop was at a beautiful hotel where we had lunch, although due to our earlier train-delays we didn't get there until 3:30pm so we were all starved by the time we sat down. By the time we left the restaurant it was 4:30pm and we still had three other stops planned and each of these stops were a decent distance from each other so obviously something had to give...

The first stop after lunch was the “Grand Canyon” of Tunisia. Despite its name this canyon was not nearly as Grand as you'd imagine but it was still a nice site where we spent about 15 minutes so we could at least attempt to see one of the other planned sites for the day.


The next stop was a vista overlooking the start of the Sahara from the top of some mountains. Unfortunately, since we got to the viewpoint 20 minutes after sunset we missed most of the view but even with just the afterglow of the sun it was still quite an impressive landscape (it was the same place that was used in the opening scenes of The English Patient). Since the sun had already set we didn't even bother trying to see the waterfall filled oasis which had been scheduled as our third stop for the day.

The day after Christmas I went on a four day trip to Southern Tunisia with a group of about 45 U.S. Embassy employees, families and friends. Unfortunately, Andrea found out just a few days prior to the trip that she had to work on the 29th making it impossible for her to join us. The trip started early in the morning on the 26th with a LOT of driving (7 painful hours to be specific), but on the bright-side we stopped every couple of hours at various sites which broke up the monotony quite a bit and the bus wasn't completely full which meant I could stretch out in two seats. Even better, the crowd from the embassy were a really nice and down-to-earth group of people that was fun to hang out with.

The first stop of the day was a town called Kairouan which is known as the "spiritual capital" of Tunisia. Kairouan has what is apparently the first mosque, and actually the first Arab building in all of Tunisia (and I believe North Africa). The Mosque was pretty cool as it was built with over 600 foraged roman columns that the Arabs had collected from all over the country making the mosque in essence also a museum of Roman columns.



Apart from that Mosque we made a few other stops in the city including a visit to the Medina which was kind of pathetic since its only claim to fame was a well in a small room where a very sad camel walks in a circle to get water that supposedly “comes from Mecca”.


The final stop in Kairouan was a Mausoleum for a famous Islamic historical figure (someone who was the Prophets barber and “best friend”). The mauseleum was built in the 18th century in Andalusian style and it was somewhat interesting but not nearly as nice as a lot of things in present day Andalusia.

After Kairouan we had lunch and then it was back in the bus for a few more hours of driving before we got to the ruins of the town of Sbeitla. The ruins were quite cool, and what was most impressive was how you could see the history behind the town's transformation from one religion to another over time based on the architectural remains. After about an hour or so at the site we were off again for the final stretch of two hours to our hotel.