Back from Egypt and Jordan - February 2022

Once in a Lifetime Trip

Last week, we returned from our trip back in time to sights from ancient Jordan and Egypt. The trip guides were excellent in sharing their knowledge and we enjoyed the friendships of our fellow travelers - some of which we had met on previous river itineraries. 

When I refer to this trip as once in a lifetime, I'm fairly sure that, perhaps other than a trip focused on Israel, we won't be traveling to this part of the world again. Even though we've traveled in seven continents, there are still other places we'd like to visit before we hang up our travel shoes and put the large duffels into storage.

I'll post more detailed entries over the next few weeks. Here is a brief summary of the travel details.

From USA to Jordan

We started our trip with a United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Jordan, via Frankfurt. Arriving in Jordan, we transferred to the St.Regis Hotel in Amman. After a few days in Amman, we moved by coach to Wadi Musa, where we stayed at the Movenpick Resort Petra. This hotel is directly across the street from entry to historic Petra - a location that couldn't be more convenient for travelers. 

The drive from Amman to Wadi Musa turned cold and snowy. The coach slowly made its way through the mountain passes to the hotel - just before the road was closed due to snow. Luckily, the weather warmed up a bit, though still cold and windy, for our drive back to Amman two days later.

The cold weather meant that we missed an opportunity to explore the desert scenery of Wadi Rum via Jeep and a Bedouin tent dinner. If you're familiar with the movies, "The Rise of Skywalker," "The Martian" or "Lawrence of Arabia" you've seen this desert landscape. 

   

Moving onto Egypt

With negative PCR tests taken in Amman, the travel group flew from Amman to Cairo. The Four Seasons, First Residence, in Giza, was our home base for our first few tour days in Egypt. From here, we took an Egyptair flight from Cairo to Luxor and started the Nile River portion of the trip, aboard the AMADahlia.

The Nile River itinerary focused on four days moving upriver from Luxor to Aswan and three days downriver from Aswan back to Luxor. During the river itinerary, we made daily visits to historic temples and tombs along the Nile. From Luxor, Egyptair returned us to Cairo for a night at the Four Seasons for one night. 

Return to the USA

Before departing for our lengthy US return, the tour company arranged COVID tests for everyone. Despite the beginnings of a scratchy throat and periodic cough, our Egyptian lab antigen tests were COVID negative. We then started our return to the US, from Cairo to Heathrow to Dallas Ft Worth to San Francisco. Note that our ten-hour American Airlines flight on a 777-300ER plane, was the most comfortable business class pod we yet experienced and the pods had more than enough storage areas.  

Once back in the comfort of our house, we pulled out our COVID home test kits. Perhaps not a total surprise, the kits indicated a positive COVID result and we found ourselves in quarantine status for 5-10 days. Not the ending we envisioned for this trip but we recognized our travel took us through a third world country - where COVID infections were high and social distancing practices were pretty much non-existent, COVID vaccination rates were low and local use face coverings was rare. Plus, we entered a number of tombs and temples that were heavily crowded. Despite constant wearing of N95 face respirators and daily respirator changes, we understood that COVID risks were present. We were glad that we had three Pfizer doses prior to this trip which helped to keep our COVID symptoms on the milder side.