tours | Jason Around the World

Tour of Cairo, Egypt

Egypt, hotels, New Years 2011-2012 No Responses »

Feb 082012

As I mentioned earlier, we’d hired a tour company here to maximize the one full day we had. I’m usually pretty opposed to organized tours, but in this case it sounded like a good idea to fit as much as possible into a one day transit. This turned out to be an excellent choice, especially when we saw how terrible the traffic was in the city. I’d highly recommend the company we used (Memphis Tours, linked in a previous post) to anyone wanting a similar experience.

Pick-up was at the hotel in the morning, and it was just down the road to the Pyramids and the Sphinx. Anyone who wants to visit Egypt, I highly recommend that you do it soon. The tourist hoards are terrified and staying away at the moment (well, maybe not this week due to the riots again) but this is definite time to go. Things are quiet, you have the place to yourself, and you can really enjoy things. On top of that, lots of the touts and salespeople have given up, and it’s possible to really enjoy things and have a completely un-harrassed experience. For all the negative experiences I’ve had people tell me about Cairo – we really enjoyed it! So – the pyramids and the sphinx:

Two days in Djibouti

Djibouti, hotels, New Years 2011-2012 No Responses »

Jan 242012

So…Djibouti immigration. Turns out 99% of our fellow passengers were in transit to the Daallo Airlines flight to Dubai (I suspect on another plane, since I don’t think the IL-18 has that kind of range) so they were shunted off, and maybe 10 of us went into the immigration queue. Where they took our passports, told us to have a seat, and we waited…for 30 minutes or so.

Eventually, we were ushered into a small office, where for a charge of $60 each, we got a collection of stamps, stickers, and glue in the passports that passed for an official “visa” to enter Djibouti. We had heard $55 in advance, but with exchange rate changes were not about to argue over such a small amount. Before the trip, for some reason, I suspected Djibouti Airport would be much much bigger. It’s not. it’s essentially one giant room with a few different areas…this place is tiny!

Got outside, and the Sheraton shuttle was of course not there as we’d asked for. Taxi was cheap, and soon we were off to the Sheraton…where they had absolutely no record of our points reservation, and were completely clueless how to deal with it. Check-in took nearly two hours, when you count the time to figure out what to do, get us to a room, get us a stocked minibar, and have everything sorted. Oh, yes, about the minibar. Due to local “sensibilities” they leave it empty. However, for platinum guests, they are happy to deliver a more-than-adequate FREE minibar:

Day 2 in Hargeisa, Somalia

New Years 2011-2012, Somalia No Responses »

Jan 212012

Woke up, and decided to do what everyone else in the hotel was doing – have breakfast delivered! Can’t go wrong with coffee, eggs, and toast…and we had the hotel set to arranging a tour around the city before our early afternoon flight. Of course, this involved going to hire an armed guard of course, but we negotiated to give him a few wads of the Somaliland Shillings this time, everyone was happy, and we were off to see the city of Hargeisa itself.

The Ambassador Hotel is set just near the airport (presumably so frightened NGO types can flee the country asap should things go bad) and maybe a couple miles out of the downtown proper.

First stop was the Somaliland Independence monument – even if things get better in Mogadishu this part of Somalia has no interest in re-joining the federation.

Day and New Years Eve in Bujumbura, Burundi

Burundi, hotels, New Years 2011-2012 No Responses »

Jan 172012

When I started planning this trip, my goal was to complete the trifecta of three years with New Years Eve in unusual places. After Iraq and Afghanistan, Somalia was the logical choice. No matter how much I played with the flight schedules, however, it just wasn’t going to work. So, I had to settle on Somalia being part of the trip and then building some fun stuff around it. That’s how we ended up in Bujumbura for New Years Eve.

Talking to a few friends and colleagues who had spent lots of time in Buj, it was quickly apparent there wasn’t too much to do. But, with just over 24 hours, we were going to make the most of it. We found a good driver online, hired him, and it turned out to be a great idea. Quite on the expensive side, but the amount of sightseeing we crammed into just over six hours was insanely impressive.

We got to our hotel quickly thanks to the hotel’s complimentary airport pick-up, the “Hotel Club du Lac Tanganyika.” We got offered an upgrade to a “junior suite” for very little, and took it for the awesome view onto the beach plus the bigger room:

Tour of Aruba with Madi

RTW 40th Birthday Trip No Responses »

Aug 272011

When I was looking around online for things to do in Aruba, the one thing I kept seeing over and over to do was a visit to the Natural Pool. This is a group of rocks at the edge of the island that form a bit of a ring and create a sort of nature-made “pool” at the edge of the island. When looking around for ways to get to it (it’s on the opposite side of the island from all the hotels) I came upon a few big tour-bus type operations, and also a rather unique tour operated by a lady named Madi. All everyone would say about Madi is that she was a “bit of a free spirt” and a native Aruban who was as much a part of this island as the land itself. I was sold!

There was only one complication – every review I saw of Madi online said she was notoriously difficult to get ahold of – both by phone and e-mail, but that persistence would pay off. I decided to put the American Express concierge service to work, and eventually after two weeks they reached her, and had everything booked – we were all set.

Madi had told AmEx that she would meet us at the hotel at 9:00am and to be expecting her big red Jeep. True to word, she was exactly on time, and we were off. She couldn’t remember if she had two others for the tour or not, but we would swing by their hotel on the way to see – otherwise, it was going to be a private tour for us!

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