November 30. Caritas Egypt.

In the morning, after a good Egyptian breakfast, we visit Caritas Egypt as planned, and I ask a few questions about a center they are running in a more modest neighbourhood of the city. It sounds like they are doing real good work there so I decide to focus more on it and shortly after, we're on our way to the  caritas center in Mataraya. The director of the center is willing to guide us around, and shows us the different activities and services. Today is the last day of the festival so there aren't many people around. The atmosphere is good though and we get a nice insight in the role of caritas in this community.
First, we see a group of women sewing and smiling. They are making patchworked Christmas tableclothes. It's one of the programs the center is offering in the field of adult education. In a second room we are introduced to two mothers who are here with  their mentally disabled children. The children learn how to write and handle daily tasks in a coordinated manner, and their parents learn how to deal with their kids when they are at home with them.

We are also shown the clinic, that offers all basic healthcare services for free to the very poor, and for only seven pounds for others. Social workers assess the level of poverty by home visits. The clinic has won a prize for its level of hygiene.
We continue to see the workplace where professional craftsmen manifacture artificial limbs. They are glad to show us their work.

After work, Mohammed kindly brings me to the airport where I work on my writings while waiting for my 23.25 plane to Nairobi. There are long hours to kill, but I manage to do that successfully and update my internet presence from an overpriced coffee place after security.

November 20. All our presidents are underground.

The jagged contours of the mountainous Egyptian coastline reflect the bright sunlight that is waking me up. I am one of the many passengers that lie scattered on the carpet floor of the bar in hull of the vessel. There is no passport in my pocket, just a piece of paper that says I have passport number one. Of course I am worried. This is the last thing that can go wrong and there is bartalk law that says it will go wrong. But it doesn't. I get off the ship and have a friendly smile stamped in my memory by the immigration official. Then I walk off and get a ride in a red jeep to the center of Nueba. There is a roadside restaurant with Korean letters on it and I am curious enough to enter it. It turns out there is no Korean there, they live in Cairo. In broken English, I order a hamburger which I eat on the terrace, listening to powerful Islamic evocations that play very loud on the tv. It takes me only about ten minutes to catch a ride, or technically a minibus for which I pay a good price, that takes me 500 kilometer up the road to Cairo. I sleep most of the way, but on the stretches where I am awake I gaze at the sandy desert and the electricity poles that stand parallel to the highway. The sun sets beautifully when we arrive in the province of Cairo. We drive like madmen, passing cars left and right, claxoning constantly to find the smallest possible gap between two big fuel trucks. Arrival in Cairo, a crowded bus station, just like what I'm used to.

The reliable Cairo metro system takes me to "Mubarak". I see there are also stations called "Sadat" and "Nasser".
"Yes", says a passenger, "all our presidents are underground".
So I hop off at Mubarak and explore a side street that turns out to be a huge street market. I indulge in a delicious Egyptian drink made of chick peas, something very spicy, and a twist of lemon. Gradually, it becomes clear to me what I have to do: orientation. A tourist map from the train station, some helpful passers-by, a metroride, and a short walk later I sit inside a café and read my email messages. There are fewer than expected, not so many have replied my newsletter. I call a couchsurfer and there is a place to crash available. Happy that the money can go to the children's cancer hospital and not to the condo, lawyer-bill, facelift, tailored suit, Mercedes-Benz, or gooseliver paté of some rich hotel owner.

November 19. Petra.

Waking up not too early since this is supposed to be a vacation day. We walk to the entrance of the archelogical marvel that is called Petra, and I buy a one-day pass (one day: 21 JD, two days: 26 JD as of november 2009. Be smart and buy a two-day-pass if you really want to enjoy the ancient city of Petra). With that pass, they let me walk around the site. I learn to ignore the many offers of horseback and camel rides and proudly stroll past the regurgitating ungulates and their mercantile owners. It is hot but the walk is quite nice. Rock carvings, niches, columns, chambers, decorative elements borrowed from many different cultures make the stones come to life. Horse chariots rush through the narrow As-Siq gorge to give their current passengers a good time or to pick up new once as the pedestrians gaze at the rock walls that are soaring up 80 metres. At the end of the 1200 m long gorge there is the Al-Khazneh or treasury, the best-kept monument in Petra and probably the picture that pops up when you google the place. A 43 metres high colonnaded facade dwarfs the unprepared tourist and bears witness of the Nabataeans architectural craftmanship and artistic touch. Al-Khazneh was carved in the first century BC as a tomb of a Nabataean king and perhaps used later as a tomb. I continue walking along the colonnaded street and past the Royal tombs, then up a hill for a breathtaking view of the surrounding landscape - alas, my breath is already taken by my running to the top. So I run into some Beduins that are guiding two Canadian girls. The Beduins, strikingly resembling the protagonist of Pirates of the Caribbean, don't like me and so I sit down on the mountain top, overseeing the valley and dozing away in the hot sun. Behind me is the Ad-Deir monastery, another marvellous structure carved in the rocks a couple of centuries ago. Architectural embellishments are sober compared to those of the Treasury, but it has a greater talent to blow you away (be careful not to fall off the mountain though). I am "dozing away", did I just write that? I don't like it. I am pondering, meditating, excogitating, reflecting, musing with rigor and vigor those two rugged Russian brothers. There, you don't read that in your tourist guide.
This is a tourist gathering, and I quickly get enough of it. Imagine me sitting there looking at the mountains, the donkeys, the waving Jordanian flags and the distant clouds, and being exposed to typical conversations like

"I traveled a lot all over the world. I think my life will be too short. I went diving in Australia the last time. Always if I'm traveling in poor cauntries I stay for three dollars the night."
-"Have you done Syria yet?"
"Yes, I've just completed Syria last week. It was awesome."
-"Where are you going next?"
"I want to check out Egypt, it has a lot of things to offer."
-"I did Egypt fifteen years ago. It's a great place."
"Thanks. Goodbye."
Take a homo sapiens, put him on an airplane, and put him in front of stones. Be careful alway to tell him how special and unique the stones are, otherwise he might get bored. How to make stones appear unique. 1) Tell their history in an imaginative way. Mention the many layers of ancient cultures involved. 2) Let the homo sapiens take photographs of the stones so that he feels like he is taking them in. 3) Raise an entrance fee that is high enough to make it look important.
Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy this place, but I have to move on. So I descend the mountain, have one more look at the Nabataean rock wonders and reach the exit on time. A taxi takes me a few meters up the road for too much money. Hitchhiking is impossible here, yet a private taxi is easy to find. And so I enjoy a beautiful ride on Jordan's road to the south, staring at the mountains one more time until the sun sets behind them. I tell my driver about my project and he gives me the story of his traveling to Israel. Of course he was harassed by the police, searched, called out of a nightclub. He knew some person working closely together with Sharon and so one phonecall was enough to make the police let him go. These stories are no exception; it happens to every Arab visiting Israel. Just to cut this short: I do not want to live in a country whose government is suporting Israel as long at the torture is going on, and that's final.

I am lucky again: there is a ferry to Egypt leaving that night and I can be on it. A visa to Egypt can be purchased at the border upon arrival. I spend a few hours in Aqaba with Mohammed whose dream it is to work in Germany of the Netherlands, yet fails to secure the necessary money due to an obstinate smoking addiction. His salary: 300 JD. His daily expenses: 10 JD. Two for the bus, three for cigarettes, one for a can of energy drink, four for lunch. I tell him to quit smoking and promise him help with documents should he really go to Rotterdam. It's easy for me to make that promise since very few people actually remember it and actually write me an email. We say goodbye and I take the bus to the ferry terminal. It is crowded. Formalities are swiftly dealt with and I sit down waiting and doing nothing. As a non-Jordanian tourist I get a carte blanche and they take me to the vessel like I'm some special person. At first I cuddle in my sleeping bag on the upper deck, then I explore the ship that will stay in the port for two more hours. I discover a hot shower and lock myself in for a while. The ticket is expensive enough so I decide it should come with a sauna and let the hot water vaporize in the shower cabin. Aaaghh.