This was our eighth Explore holiday. All have in their different ways been hugely rewarding, but we thought we should write a review of this one because some of its qualities aren’t immediately apparent from the description in the brochure or on the web. The key factor is that the holiday is wonderfully varied. There is no point at which you become ‘cultured out’ or ‘walked out’, because each day brings different activities. The early stages of the tour, in Jordan, are at the sight-seeing end of the spectrum, and none the worse for that. Jerash is spectacular and huge and we were the only tourists there for the first hour or so which made it all the more pleasurable to walk round, and it was interesting to see the crusader castle at Ajlun although some in the group were dissapointed they hadn't seen Kerak which was on the original itinerary. But that’s followed by the weird experience of floating (you can scarcely call it swimming) in the Dead Sea. In truth, there is not much more to the Dead Sea than that: we were there for maybe a couple of hours, and that’s enough. The wow factor here was the most amazing sunset we had on the whole holiday. Shafts of goldern light pierced the clouds turning the sea into an almost oily shimmering kaleidescope of colour Then it was on to Petra, which perhaps epitomises the variety. The city is more extensive and varied than we had anticipated, and was truly stunning. But part of the delight for us was that quite a lot of it involved moderately demanding walking especially on the optional walk up to the high place of sacrifice on the seconf day, so there were both mental and physical activities all the time – it felt, as we walked round, that we were constantly discovering new aspects of the site. From there to Wadi Rum, which served as a fantastic introduction to the desert – and the unexpected joys of riding on a camel in absolute silence, apart that is from the grumbling of the camels and the constant chatter of the local guides!.The tea break for sweet sage tea made on a wood fire was another delightful detail and the night in the bedouin camp a worthwhile experience, especially for the unbelievably starlit sky which I luckily experienced as I felt my way to the loo block in the early hours after the moon had gone down and beofre the sunrise. Camping isn't my favourite activity but I was glad I had had the chance to experience this. Then it was on to Aqabar after an early morning walk through the sand (this was hard work) to the bus – worth a brief visit, which is what we had, and then to Dahab. We had stayed in Dahab before, and decided to give the Mount Sinai trip (which we had made on our previous visit) a miss, not because it isn’t spectacular, but because we wanted to spend an extra day snorkelling. So the three days there were spent snorkelling/the optional tour to the narrow and white canyons/snorkelling (well, actually the sea was too choppy on the final day, so it turned out to be pretty leisurely– no hardship when you’ve been on the go for the previous ten days). Then off again, to Cairo. Drawing a discreet veil over the driving, this was another stunning experience. The pyramids are jaw-dropping, but once your jaw has returned to its normal position, that’s more or less all you can say. The Sphynx was, we thougth, almost more impressive. The Cairo Museum is another matter – it’s a shambles, but it’s full of such rich material that you end up feeling like a kid in a sweetie shop. And exploring the streets was fascinating too. The whole holiday more than lived up to our pretty lofty expectations. For people who want a bit of everything, it was brilliantly thought out and planned. And the delivery was similarly first rate. Our tour leader, the excellent Ruth Buehnemann, worked tirelessly but unostentatiously to make sure that all the (rather complex) elements worked as they should, revising them as we went along to make the best use fo every day that we could, and the local guides were all as good as we have come to expect with Explore. The added bonus was that the weather was sunny and warm throughout and about 23-25 degrees, so a very good time of year to go. Unfortunately the unceratin political situation appeared to have put many tourists off (there were only 6 on our tour) and the locals were all keen for us to encourage visitors to return. In Egypt we were told that visitor numbers are only about 20% of the norm and we could see this wherever we went. We encountered no problems, seeing only one small demonstration in Tahir square against the Syrian ambassador visiting the Arab League of Nations offices, but that does not mean we are saying there might not be issues for future visitors. We are just glad we decided to go. In term of advice for others then you will get the most out of the tour if you participate in all the optional activities and if you do then perhaps it would be fairly strenuous , but even opting out of these will not detract from the variety of the tour. (PP - 29th October 2011)
