Big Trip ‘09, Day Seven: Driving and Riding and Walking

So we still don’t have the sleeping arrangements sorted out.  I’m starting to think that there’s just something fundamentally uncomfortable about laying down on dirt and rocks, even if you have a couple of blankets, no matter how you arrange the people and blankets involved.  Yesterday night we tried laying all four of us together, with a couple of blankets under us and one on top.  It turns out, though, that sharing a blanket with three other people means that there are three people who are likely to steal your blanket in the middle of the cold desert night.  I’m not going to name names, but I’m pretty sure it was a guy whose name starts with L.

Anyways, we woke later today, around 6am.  After a tasty breakfast of bread, some sort of nougat that Lars informs us made from sesame seeds, and some pre-packaged Swedish pastries with jam (yes, really), we headed out for today’s travel in the back of a pickup truck.  For the first couple of hours, we cruised around the Sinai in the back of the truck, stopping to do some side hikes or to visit presumptive relatives of our guide, Friej.

For lunch, we camped out at a beautiful cave at the top of a gorge.  We sat around from about 12:30pm to about 3:00pm, mostly just resting, doing some reading, and eating a food native to the Tih people for whom the Jebel El-Tih plateau we’re hiking on is named for.  Sorry for the tortured sentence structure there, but you get the idea.  Our guides also provided some almonds still in shell, and we learned to crack them with rocks to get at the very tasty fresh almonds inside.

Around 3pm, we headed down into the gorge to a farm, using the term loosely by western standards.  This place is pretty barren and is apparently in the middle of a drought, even by Sinai standards.  But we did sit in some shade and eat some amazingly tasty grapes and another pomegranate.  There’s not a lot growing here, but what there is is really, really good.  We also got to talk to Friej a bit more and learned a bunch about his family and how modern Bedouins deal with cities and schools and whatnot.

After resting there we hiked some more, eventually meeting up with the camels again.  We were offered the chance to ride again, but opted for walking instead, and we walked along with the camels for maybe an hour or two.  After yesterday, we were all pretty paranoid about water, so we had plenty and were able to stay plenty hydrated.

The camels eventually went on ahead, and we stopped by a local well to collect some water.  We’re mostly drinking bottled water, but the Bedouin use 5 gallon containers to collect water for cooking and for them to drink.  If we were more hardcore we’d use that water, too, and we may at some point.

Around 6:30pm, we got to tonight’s camp, which is another fairly rocky plain.  We’re going to try improving the sleeping arrangements again, since so far we haven’t hit on the right combination of blankets underneath, de-rocking, and blankets on top to keep us warm and sleeping comfortably.

On a gear note, it turns out that the combination of the Brunton 26, iGo Everywhere85, and Lenovo S10-2 don’t really get along for solar charging.  So the laptop is running out of battery.  I expect we’ll be able to post again tomorrow, but it’s not a sure thing.  So don’t go thinking we’ve disappeared if there isn’t a post for a few days.

*crinkle*