Spring Break Trip: Pre-Departure and Expectations.

The plan for the trip is to take a bus from Cairo to Nuweiba, a port city on the Red Sea. From there, we will take a ferry across the sea to Aqaba, Jordan.
From there, we will go up to Wadi Musa which is 2km from Petra. We will spend a day wondering around Petra. Petra is an ancient city that was built into mountains (at least, that is my understanding of it). I imagine that it will be similar to Moria from Lord of the Rings, but we will see.

After Petra, we will spend two nights in Amman. One of those days, we will be making a trip over to the Dead Sea. I am not really sure what there is to do in Amman, but that is why we will have a day to explore!

Google maps turned up with a number of results for Petra, this is the place I chose it to be:

From Amman, we will fly to Beirut, Lebanon. Yes, fly. To get from Jordan to Lebanon you can either drive through Israel, drive through Syria, or fly. I do not want to get the Israeli stamp on my passport because that might cause issues with other Arab states. Syria is supposed to be a pain for Americans to get into- I could spend an entire day at the border to get a visa, just to drive through. Flying was the best option.

We are staying in Beirut the entire time, as far as accommodations, but we will be traveling around the country. One of the towns we will be going to is Batroun. According to Wikipedia, "Citrus groves surround Batroun, and the town has been famous, from the early twentieth century, for its fresh lemonade, which is sold by all cafés and restaurants on its main street." I am extraordinarily excited for that! There are several other towns that have ancient ruins in them from all sorts of civilizations- we will be going to those as well.

After spending several days in Beirut, we will fly back to Cairo.



That is a brief summary of everything. I am taking my computer because I have to work on a few papers during break (we'll see if that happens), hopefully I will find an internet connection and update this!