Greece - Crete

Megs and I have been in Crete for three days now and it's been lovely! We spent the first couple of days enjoying the beautiful beach in Rethymnon, the water is so clear and the waves are great. Today we took a day trip to the other side of the island to go snorkelling, it was pretty intense, wet suits and everything, it was great. We saw some cool fish, and I even got to hold a sea urchin, very cool. It's so hot here, it's nice to be close to the water. Tomorrow we're going to hike the Samaria Gorge which is supposed to be the longest gorge in Europe, it's 18km. After that we're heading to Heraklion for a couple of days and then back to Athens.

We had a great Greek meal last night, hopefully we'll have good luck tonight too!

Greece - Santorini

Santorini is the one island that every book and every person we spoke to told us we had to go and it did not disappoint! It was beautiful, although it was a bit expensive. We finally had some great Greek food. Last night we went on a little cruise, we stopped at a nearby island with an active volcano and we climbed to the top. It was pretty neat. After that the boat stopped "close" to shore...haha they said we only had to swim 30 meters to get to the hot springs, but it was more like 100. Anyway, it was worth the swim, when we got there the water was orange from the rock in the area and it was really warm somewhere between 25-30 degrees. After we got back to the boat we watched the sunset. It was a great last night in Santorini.

Aaron left this morning, I miss him already! I'm catching a ferry in a few hours to Crete where I'll be meeting Megs!

Naxos-Part 2

It's our last day on Naxos, and like every other place so far, I wish we had more time here! We walked through the old town today and it was beautiful, there was an old castle and tons of little winding alleys and side streets and it was perfectly silent almost everywhere. Pretty amazing.

My only complaint about this island so far is the lack of good Greek food. We had a great meal in Athens of souvlaki and moussaka (sp?), but since we've been on Naxos the food has been pretty disappointing...kind of fast food quality. Anyway, we decided to try a "foreign" food restaurant tonight and it was lovely! We had Indian and Thai food and it was fantastic. Hopefully we'll have more luck with Greek food tomorrow on Santorini. We're catching a ferry there mid-afternoon so we'll be there in time for dinner and what is supposed to be the best sunset in Greece!

Greece-Naxos

We've been in Greece for a few days now and it's been getting better everyday. We spent the first day in Athens which was not bad, it was a typical big city though aside from the acropolis which was pretty amazing! The shopping there was fabulous too so it was a good thing we didn't stay for too long! On our second day we took a day trip to Delphi and saw the ruins there, they were pretty neat, however after seeing what we saw in Egypt, nothing seems quite as spectacular. The major difference was that the structures in Egypt were preserved a lot better.

Today we took a ferry (which we almost missed) to Naxos, we're staying on a pretty secluded beach which is really nice and our hotel/pension is adorable! It's nice to have some downtime. The water is crystal clear, it reminds me of Thailand but the sand is a bit grainier. We'll be here for one more day before we head to Santorini!

Jordan - Petra and Aqaba

I'm writing this from the airport in Jordan, we're just about to catch our flight to Athens. Jordan was amazing!!! It was so much better than I could have imagined. Yesterday we went in to Petra and saw the old city, it was beautiful. The rocks were all different colors, mostly different shades of pinks, and the carving was pretty unreal. Again, so hard to explain in words but it was great, I can't wait to post some pics, hopefully within the next couple of weeks. After seeing Petra we took a taxi to Aquaba which is about two hours south of Petra, there we went to a beach and did some snorkelling. The coral and fish were really neat, I've only snorkelled in one other place (Thailand) which was also really cool, but the neat thing here was that there was coral surprisingly close to the shore, so you didn't have to go far to see the good stuff. There were tons of bright colors and tropical fish, I wish I could have taken pictures! We also got to have tea with a out taxi driver's family which was really nice even though they didn't speak a lot of English, it was nice to see a traditional house in Jordan. My time is up so I'll end this here, but I hope you're all doing well!!

Jordan - The dead sea

We got to Jordan yesterday and it's been a great change of pace! We went straight from the airport to a resort at the dead sea. It was our one night splurge of this trip and it was more than worth it! We were staying at a pretty posh resort but in one of the cheaper rooms, but lucky us, when we got there we got upgraded to a deluxe suite...it was beautiful! We had a great view and the most comfortable beds I have ever slept in. The resort had tons of pools, great restaurants and a prime spot on the coast of the dead sea.

The first thing we did was go for a float in the dead sea, it was incredible! It stung a bit at first because the salt got into every little cut and scrape. After the initial pain it was really cool to just float around. You couldn't float on your stomach though and, as we found out, if you tried the water would force you to flip back over. We were 400 meters below sea level so the gravity and everything was really unique. After taking tons of pictures we ate at an Italian restaurant, and watched the most beautiful sunset...though the one on the Nile was nice, we found a secluded spot to watch this one so we got some amazing photos and didn't have to share the experience with anyone else, it was lovely! Tomorrow we're going to explore Petra.

Egypt - Luxor!

I really thought that seeing the pyramids in Cairo was going to be the highlight of my trip to Egypt, but I was proven wrong today! After two days in Cairo, Joy, Luke, Aaron and I flew down to Luxor.

The tombs and temples there were spectacular...absolutely amazing! Some of them were so well preserved, and some not so much but it was amazing. My favorite things were the obelisks, they were massive and carved from a single piece of stone, they were breathtaking, none of them were under 100 feet tall and every inch of them was covered with hieroglyphics, pictures etc...the amount of detail in every carving was unbelievable.

Also, the Karnak temple and the tombs we saw were unforgetable. My favorites were the tomb of Ramses II and Sety. Some of the tombs were fairly simple and shallow but these two were deep and so intact that you could see color on some of the walls. Most of the temples and tombs were full of color when they were made but that has since faded in most areas so it was pretty impressive to see an spots where it was still preserved.

We also took a sunset cruise on the Nile in a felucca boat, as you can see it was beautiful!

We head to Jordan tomorrow morning, I can't wait!