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Matt TaboneMatt Tabone
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traveled in 12 countries Read more Christchurch, New Zealand
  • Summer of 23

    Day 95 - Atlantis Aquaventure, Dubai

    October 12, 2023 in the United Arab Emirates ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C

    Today we woke up early and grabbed some breakfast at the hotel.

    We grabbed a taxi and headed out to the man made, Palm Jumeirah, and made our way to the Atlantis Resort.

    We brought our tickets for the day to Atlantis Aquaventure park, the largest waterpark in the world, it's packed with 105 different slides and rides, including some of the highest and fastest in the world.

    The waterpark's legendary rides include Medusa's Lair, Shockwave and the River Rapids – its attractions are spread across three towers, and the park also features marine and watersports experiences, animal encounters, private beaches and children's play areas for all ages.

    We spent the whole day here, as we had the fast pass tickets, we had to deal with hardly any queues, longest queue being 20minutes. We went on every main slide for Adults across all three towers and wen down multiple times on our favourites.

    We took the Palm Monorail back to the start of Palm Jumeriah, then the tram to the metro station to take it back to the Accomadation. Unfortunately it was around 6:30pm and peak time for workers going home. We were squished very tightly into the metro train!

    We had dinner at the hotel seeing we had such a big day and had to pack for our flight home the next day.    Read more

  • Summer of 23

    Day 94 - Dubai Souks, Dubai

    October 11, 2023 in the United Arab Emirates ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C

    Today we woke up and had breakfast at the buffet at the hotel, wheat pancakes was amazing!

    We took the metro after breakfast to Old Dubai and the Souk on the southern side of the creek, Bur Dubai Souk Market. We had a walk through the Souk then headed to the creek front to take a traditional ferry boat called an Alba across tho the northern side of Dubai Creek to get to the Spice & Gold Souk.

    We walked around the Spice souk making our way to the Gold Souk market which are next too each other. It was very hot and we caught the metro back to a mall near a station to grab some lunch.

    After lunch we went back to the hotel and spent the afternoon at the hotel pool.

    In the evening we took the Metro down to Dubai Marina and we walked along the marina and found a Poke Bowl resturant for dinner. We walked back down to Dubai Marina Mall to take the tram back to the Metro station and then the Metro back to the Accomadation.    Read more

  • Summer of 23

    Day 93 - Dubai Mall, Dubai

    October 10, 2023 in the United Arab Emirates ⋅ ☀️ 38 °C

    Today was an even more much needed sleep in, in an amazing king size bed with a room that has blackout curtains. Our room faced the 14 lane highway with the views towards Downtown Dubai buildings but there was minimal noise considering the 14 lane highway!

    We walked over to the Dubai Mall, which features over 1,200 retail stores, two major department stores and hundreds of food and beverage outlets, Dubai Mall covers more than 1 million sqm – an area equivalent to 200 football pitches.

    We stopped of first at the Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo, we saw all the fish, sharks, otters, penguins and Turtles they had. We had an experience of seeing three otters and patting their hands when they pushed them through little holes for us. We also go to feed the otters!
    We continues on afterwards to see behind the scenes of the penguins and see the crocodiles. We ventured down stairs to the Worlds largest suspended tank in the mall. This is where we could walk through a glass tunnel admiring 33,000 different aquatic animals in the 10 million litre tank.

    We grabbed some lunch at one of the many food courts and looked around at the many shops.
    At 6:30pm we headed out side to see the Dubai Fountain show that goes off every half n hour from 6pm.

    We are at Jamie Oliver’s resturant at the mall, we had a garlic bread loaf and a pizza.
    We slowly made our way back to the Accomadation after watch the Dubai fountain show again after dinner.    Read more

  • Summer of 23

    Day 92 - Transit to Dubai

    October 9, 2023 in Jordan ⋅ ☁️ 29 °C

    Today we had a much needed sleep in and just a really easy going morning.
    We had breakfast at the hotel and I had teed up a late check out of 1pm as our transfer to the airport is for 2pm.

    We got transferred to the airport, we got told Jordan airport security was a lot more relaxed than Egypt… it only has two security check points compared to Egypts three, but my checked luggage got stopped at the first security check, they went through it searching for a certain item but they wouldn’t tell us what they were looking for.
    Then they were curious about my GoPro and going through my backpack at the second security check.

    We had some McDonalds at the airport and the airport is very nice, the roof is meant to look like the local Boudin tent roofs.

    We flew into Dubai at 10pm, caught the metro to Dubai Central and walked to the hotel. The walk was only 15minutes but it’s very hot and humid still at 11:30pm!    Read more

  • Summer of 23

    Day 91 - Jerash, Jordan

    October 8, 2023 in Jordan ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    Today we had breakfast at the hotel and had to be on the bus by 8am to head to the other side of Amman to the city of Jerash. This drive across Amman should take one & a half hours of traffic is in favour to us.

    Jerash is a sprawling complex of collonaded streets, monumental arches, plazas, baths and theatres. One of the best preserved Roman sites in the world outside of Italy. It was during its heyday that its most impressive monuments were built, namely the temple of Artemis, who was the Greek goddess of hunting and the city’s patron goddess, and the temple of Zeus, which stood diametrically opposite, also upon a hill. The street of columns, in the exuberant Corinthian style, ran from North to South, connecting with streets that passed through East to West, all linked in at the South Tetrapylon, an ornamental construction at their junction through which trade flowed from the Orient to the cities of the Mediterranean and beyond. We had about three hours here and Omar guided us throw the area.

    After seeing Jerash we headed back to Madaba city to see the St George's Greek Orthodox Church. The church was only built at the end of the 19th century, but during construction workers uncovered one of the most important surviving artistic relics of the Byzantine era – the Madaba Mosaic Map. Laid out by artisans in the 6th century, it was once an intricate map of holy land sites covering modern-day Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Territories, plus Egypt’s Sinai. Today only a quarter survives on the floor of the church, but even this fragment shows astounding detail, covering Jerusalem, the Dead Sea area, and a small portion of the Sinai.

    After the visit to the church we said goodbye to our bus driver and Omar as this is where the Intrepid tour ends.
    We grabbed some lunch with the group at the local mall, I tried some Turkish coffee that I’m happy I didn’t spend a fortune on!

    The afternoon we relaxed at the hotel and organised to meet the group at 6:30pm for one last dinner together.
    We went too a local resturant suggested by Omar that was near the church we visited earlier in the day. It was a good meal & a good way to end the tour.    Read more

  • Summer of 23

    Day 90 - Dead Sea, Jordan

    October 7, 2023 in Jordan ⋅ ☁️ 31 °C

    Today we woke up and had to have our bags and had breakfast by 7.20am to get on the road towards the Dead Sea area.

    Our first stop along the way to the Dead Sea was to Karak Castle. Omar took us on the tour of the castle that was never taken by force and only surrendered by the Crusaders after being surrounded for two years with no one in or out. The Crusaders built this castle in the 12th Century.

    We had an hour and a half hour drive to the Dead Sea area from Karak Castle, which we had a booking at the Medical Centre, a four star hotel resort that features pools, a water slide and access to the Dead Sea with the mud.

    Once we arrived, we had lunch at the resort which consisted of a buffet meal. After lunch we got changed and headed straight down to the Dead Sea.
    Floating in the water was a very weird sensation! When you tried to stand you would just bob in the water and not go down unless you pushed against the water. We also tried the mud that is meant to do wonders for your skin, Katie tried a small amount, of course I went all in!
    After the Dead Sea we moved up to the resorts pool that had a water slide. We spent time with some of the group seeing who could go down the slide the fastest.

    We went back to the bus ready to start making our way to our next hotel in Madaba. On the way we stopped at Mt. Nebo, Mount Nebo is mentioned in the Bible as the place where Moses was granted a view of the Promised Land before his death. The landscape is home to stunning surroundings and one can look out at the Dead Sea, Bethlehem, and on a clear day, even Jerusalem (we could kind of make the outline of some buildings). The Memorial Church of Moses also rests at the summit that has intact mosaics from the original church on the floor and walls.

    We ventured onto the hotel in Madaba, we checked in and headed out for some dinner locally. We had a walk through the Main Street and main shopping mall (McDonalds was the most interesting thing there!)
    At 9pm I had booked a hair cut from a barber directly across the hotel for 3JED! This was going smooth until we talked about Turkey and how he off handily mentioned he had lived in Istanbul but in Jail… still working out if that was miss communicated english or serious!    Read more

  • Summer of 23

    Day 89 - Petra, Jordan

    October 6, 2023 in Jordan

    Today we had a free day to ourselves to roam around Petra and see the sites. Omar gave us an option to see Little Petra by taking a free shuttle bus, then another bus towards the Monastery, with a bit of a walk to it. Easier and more picturesque than climbing the normal stairs.

    So we had breakfast at 6:30am and made our way to the visitors centre to take the shuttle bus to Little Petra (Triclinium).
    We arrived at Little Petra and walked through the valley admiring the many cats & kittens around the area. Little Petra is a smaller version of Petra with one carved tomb called Siq Al-Barid, there is also a cave with the remains of a fresco painted by the Nabataeans that represented grape vines, which confirmed the view that Beida was the area of wine production. We made our way to the top of the lookout point and then came back down to take the next bus to the start of the back trail to the Monastery.

    We climbed the 1750 steps along the trail and got some amazing views of the surrounding valley and landscape. Upon walking up towards the monastery from the back trail, you get first glimpse 5 minutes away and then you get to see it come into view for a couple 100 meters.
    We climbed up to a lookout point to admire the Monastery, I found this more amazing than the treasury, as everyone was spaced out and there wasn’t merchants everywhere trying to sell you something. The Monastery is one of the largest monuments in Petra, measuring 47m wide by 48m high.

    We started the downhill steps towards the basin, while we were had to dodge donkey & mulls either going up or down.
    We walked up to the Royal Tombs which were two different families with two different facades.

    It was a very hot day and not a lot of shade cover from the sun. We walked back to the Treasury and found it was a lot more quiet than when we were here yesterday. We admired it for a bit longer before turning and to start the walk out of the Petra site.

    We planned to go to the museum that is included in the ticket, though on the walk back we were felling hot & tired & opted to grab some food from the supermarket before going back to the hotel.
    We had a quiet afternoon at the hotel before 5pm, we had booked a Turkish Massage. The Turkish massage consists of a 15minutes spa bath, meant to be 15minutes in the sauna, (I stayed the longest awaiting to be called out) a scrub down and a massage. At the end they put you back into the spa bath for a while. It was good, we both thought the massage would be longer but good to get it after all the walking we’ve been doing.

    Tonight we had dinner with the group down locally from the hotel, then we turned in as we have an early start tomorrow.    Read more

  • Summer of 23

    Day 88 - Petra, Jordan

    October 5, 2023 in Jordan ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    Today we had breakfast at the camp and had to be ready to be taken back to the local town by 7:30am.

    We took the twenty minute drive to the local town and our bus was awaiting us to take us towards Petra today. We said goodbye to the Bedouins that had hosted us for the last two nights and set off on the two and a half hour journey to Petra.

    We arrived just outside of Petra & stopped to see Moses’ Spring. Moses' Spring is one of two possible locations in Jordan for the site where Moses supposedly struck the rock with his staff and water gushed forth to the thirsty Israelites. We got told we could fill our bottles here but the water wasn’t flowing to much so we opted to play the safe card. The locals of Petra made an 18km sealed water system to bring this water to Petra.

    We dropped the bags off to the hotel and walked down to the entrance of the Petra site with Omar. Omar gave us a tour of the site and took us on a 4km walk into the site. He ended the tour all the way down to the basin & he let us make our own way back at our leisure. We were very hot and didn’t have the most amazing sleep so we decided to slowly walk back to the treasury and then towards the exit.

    We got freshened up and just chilled out in the room for a bit. We then headed to the Cave Bar for a drink, this isn’t a touristy bar that was dug out to look like a cave, this was one of the actual caves used by the locals once upon a time.
    After a drink, Omar wanted to see the group at 6:30pm for a meeting for the next day. We have a free day tomorrow to explore Petra so he gave us recommendations on how to see the Monastery & other locations throughout the site.

    We had dinner at the hotel which was a buffet meal.    Read more

  • Summer of 23

    Day 87 - Wadi Rum, Jordan

    October 4, 2023 in Jordan ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    We woke up in our cabins to a very quiet desert! Breakfast was pita bread with an arrange of hummus, beans & some boiled eggs.

    After breakfast, the three ‘Jeeps’ turned up to take us on a 3-4 hour jeep safari around the Wadi Rum desert! We got into Sammy’s V8 Land Cruiser for the trip seeing he likes to have a bit more fun in the sand than the other drivers!
    Through the trip they took us to 2 rock look outs where we either, climbed up the side via a sand dune or climbing the rock itself. At both stops for the look outs, we had local tea and I brought a Jordanian Keffiyeh head scarce at the first stop.
    The second stop was to a canyon between two rocks, this is the start to the river for when it does rain and gets up to 3m high. When it does rain here it is heavy for a couple of hours and the water lasts in the river for about 5 days after the rain. We saw some old carvings from the Bedouin locals in the rocks here as well.
    The last stop of the Jeep Safari was a look out point near the camp. This is where the son of the Sheikh taught us how to make hand soap from a local plant found here.

    After the Jeep Safari we had lunch back at camp and siesta ready for a hike through the desert at 3pm.

    We started the hike and did a loop of around 10km. We saw three camels and got very close to them, we fed two of them biscuits and got photos with them. At the half way point, Sammy had a small fire going with their local tea ready for us & some sweets he brought by car to us.
    We ended the walk with a view of the sunset close back to camp.

    We had a shower to wash off all the dust from the sand we had gathered on us and then had dinner.
    There was a small fire started and we sat out chatting looking up at the stars before bed.    Read more

  • Summer of 23

    Day 86 - Aqaba - Wadi Rum, Jordan

    October 3, 2023 in Jordan ⋅ ☁️ 22 °C

    Today we left Amman with a 5 hour drive ahead of us to the town of Aqaba.
    The town of Aqaba is on the Red Sea and has the border of Israel to the West of the town.

    We got two stops along the way to stretch our legs and go to the toilet.

    Once we reached Aqaba, our tour lead, Omar, pointed out where we could grab lunch, some supplies for our trip to our desert camp & some much needed cheap alcohol.

    Once back on the bus we headed for South Beach where we can have a swim in the Red Sea.
    The area of South Beach offers a good view of Egypt & Israel that shares its borders to the Red Sea. We were very close, 10minutes to the Saudi Arabia border as well!
    Katie laid on the beach while I went for a snorkel with majority of the group.

    We loaded back in the bus and headed for Wadi Rum where we will stay in the desert for the next two nights. We arrived at the visitors centre where Omar paid for our entry. We were greeted shortly by the local bedouins who would drive us to their camp in their ‘Jeeps’… A V8 Land Cruiser, an old triton & an old 80series cruiser… so many Jeeps!
    We arrived at the camp after a 20 minute drive through the sand desert with amazing sandstone & Granite mountains picking from the sand all around us! We later found out each of these have a name from the local Bedouin tribe.

    We got settled into out cabins and had some local tea while we waited for dinner. Dinner tonight was chicken and vegetables cooked in an earthen oven by the locals accompanied by rice and pita bread. We had the son of the Sheik of the local tribe come and talk to us about their way of life and stars they use to find their way. He then proceeded to pull out an app on his phone for the stars, so I feel like he’s pulling our leg on this start telling!

    We stayed out talking to everyone and then went back to our cabin that is made out of a camel hair fabric with a metal frame for the night, to get some sleep ready for the day in the desert tomorrow.    Read more

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