Small Stuff

I'm now in Damascus and though I'll say some things about that tomorrow (glowing and positive things I hope) I just wanted to share a couple small moments with you that escaped the attention of my other posts. Every day I wander through towns full of people that I don't know, doing things that I don't understand, and saying things that I can't comprehend... it's like I'm a Martian watching them go about their business and I'm taking notes. Of course unlike a Martian I'm painfully obvious to everyone and people are pretty curious to hear my story. Maybe this curiosity is tempered in a tourist-weary place like Luxor or Petra but in backwaters like Deir ez-Zur the people have an insatiable interest in the lanky foreigner passing by and I like to indulge them. These are a just a few encounters that I've had, and a very very few I have pictures of.

Last night after walking out of the internet cafe I meandered in the general direction of my hotel and passed by a bakery. I heard some calls out to me and went inside after a moment's hesitation to see what they were up to. At this shop they have a clay oven that's used to make a naan-like bread and they were methodically cooking the stuff as fast as possible. I proceeded to introduce myself and this is a fairly simple thing to do because I only know how to say 4 things in Arabic. I start out with Hello (Salaam-Aleckem) and shake some hands. They don't usually shake hands around here but they all watch Hollywood movies and know that I do so they get a kick out of satisfying me. Then we move to my country of origin. Everybody knows how to say 'where from' and then after I say 'California' they invariably say 'welcome'. Saying 'welcome' to foreigners is like the national slogan of Jordan and Syria, and I believe that they mean it. Finally we get to names and his one is done my hand gestures only. I introduce myself and then attempt to repeat the names of the people around me. This is made easier by half of the citizenry being named Muhammed or Achmed or some derivative of that. Most other travelers can then move onto the universal topic of Soccer but I'm clueless about the subject.

After these formalies we get on to the fun stuff, making bread. One man pats the bread flat and the other takes it on a flat mitt and slaps it onto the inside walls of the oven. You can see some cooking bread in the picture above. That same guy also scrapes it off the wall after about a minute and you've got a crispy hot treat if you get it fresh or a slightly less crispy version if they're selling it later. I got to flatten some dough but I declined to put it in the oven myself... it was a little scary and I've got crappy health insurance at the moment. They pay for life threatening emergency treatment only, minor things like seared flesh and broken limbs are my problem to deal with. I got a free piece of hot bread and said 'shukran' in thanking them.

After an older man showed up and motioned that maybe I should pay them I played dumb and scampered off into the night shouting 'ma-salaam' as the standary goodbye. It means 'go in peace' and I like the way it sounds. I didn't get to use it this time, but when I tell someone that I might meet them again we both say 'in-sha-Allah' which means 'if god wills it' and it's a comon thing to say about sporting events, romance, and bus schedules.

When in Egypt I traveled with several groups of backpackers and if the group included a girl then you were sure to get offers of camels. The local men think it's cute to offer me herds of camels in exchange for my female companion and sometimes make direct offers to her of 10,000 or more humpbacked beasts. On one particular occasion I said that she wasn't for sale but I could be be bought for enough camels, to which he replied "I don't like, I give you one fish". Should I be insulted by that?

That's all fun and games but I really enjoy the obvious scams that people try to pull. If you take a horse carriage ride across town for for 1 Egyptian pound (20 cents), when you get off you're told that the agreement was 1 pound Brtish sterling and that they'll accept 20 Egyptian pounds instead. If you take a cab of course you must haggle the price before you get in because the meters are only for locals and you'll regularly be asked for 5x the regular price if you're not mindful to ask the hotel manager what the price should be. If you want to buy a red and white headscarf the opening price will be 1200 Syrian pounds when the locals pay 100 and god help you if you try to buy fruit without already knowing the cost. The one that annoys me the most is the short-changing that forces you to count every bill and that you get back because this one happens all the time. The easiest way to handle it is to just hold out your hand and wiggle your wingers like you want more every time and let them plead their innocence.

This stuff happens with people who deal with tourists regularly and know that half the time the foreigners will not try to bargain but will instead pay the crazy price unknowingly, or out of embarrassment for the 1 British pound trick. Of course, most of the time the locals go out of their way to treat me hospitably, and this trend is more powerful the more rural you go. I get free tea, fruit samples, sweets fresh from the oven, local drinks, lunches, and some bus fares paid for by locals I meet. It happens every day and it's awesome. Some travelers that I've met have visited Iran and said that they had great difficulty paying for anything at all because everyone wanted to make a good impression on travelers. It's also considered a mark of honor in their religion and many people want to be associated with foreigners to raise their standing with their peers. This is why many locals host couch surfers I think.

I also want to address the American in the Middle East issue. Politics are a big deal here because it's literally a matter of life and death to so many people. America has a bit of a reputation around the world and I was a bit hesitent at first to share my country of origin because I didn't know enough about our historical interactions with the countries that I'm visiting. The fact is the people judge your government but still are not prejudiced against the citizens. They know something about crappy governing around here and don't want to blame themselves either. Most people watch American movies and are intensly interested to know a native citizen and maybe some day to move there to work. They tell me that if they help me now, maybe they will recieve help themselves when they come to our shores, 'in-sha-Allah'. The only thing you can really say to aggrevate them is to say that you have been to Israel as they really do believe that it's their sworn enemy and it's not just a bad government but a bad place altogether. It's best to avoid the subject completely but because I'm not going it's not too hard.

What other run-ins with locals have I had? The other day I sat to have tea and a hand gesture/city name conversation with a man who told me that he drives a cab, has 2 wives and 6 children, spends most of the day at the tea house to avoid them, loves America, and we discussed my itinerary and lack of children. Another time I rode the bus with a Syrian oil worker who summers in Croatia, studied in Yugoslavia, hates communism, and thinks that I should go into the oil business with him because we drive the same car. On another day I spent an hour discussing America's heath care problems with a Jordanian man who seems to know more about the issue than most Americans. The people here are informed, intellectually curious, and so hospitable that I'm constantly taken by surprise. The foreigners that I meet are interesting too, but I just love the people of these countries and I hope the trend continues throughout the journey.

Fast Times at Deir ez-Zur

It's fun thinking about the job as a tour guide that I was offered but I don't think that I'm going to take it. I want to keep making software and the main purpose of this trip is to get this wanderlust out of my system for at least a little while and I just think that working instead of covering ground, however interesting a new experience it would be, is not what I came here for. Besides, I'm doing just fine at locating and exploiting new experiences.

To that end I've moved on to the town of Deir ez-Zur in the East of Syria. It's an open flat farming community on the fertile banks of the Euphrates River that flows out of Turkey, through Syria and into Iraq. It's one of the four rivers that's said to flow from the Garden of Eden, and it's been a critically important river to human civilization. The ancients lived here and the name Mesopotamia means 'between two rivers' and this was one of those two referred to. The other is the Tigris. Much of the land here is irrigated by it's waters and supports crops of wheat, cotton, and vegetables of all sorts.

I got to town late on Sunday and met some Spaniards at my hotel. They said that they were touring the local ruins the next day so we agreed to meet in the morning; it makes planning a lot easier on myself if I do such a thing. I spent the rest of the evening exploring the local souq (market/bazaar) and got to write a couple emails.

The next day the other travelers (Roger, Alejandro, and Sergio) and I set out to reach a river fort an hour away and were not disappointed. The structure was a defensive tower built on a rocky outcropping of a larger plateau and had two walls extending down to the river below. I can't recall it's name or how old it was, but it was certainly picturesque. I could see shepherds grazing their herds in the valleys that led to the wide and calm Euphrates River. This is land that changed hands hundreds of times over 10,000 years of warfare and the landscapes are littered with forts, defensive walls, and crumbling mud brick homes. This particular fortification had some beautiful stonework done that gave some of it's walls a layered colorful effect.

After that we hitched back to town and saw the archeological museum. I'd say that it was probably the best museum I've ever seen outside of the west in terms of presentation and English documentation though there were no standout pieces. I enjoyed the many Mesopotamian artifacts like clay cuneiform tablets, bone idols, and metal jewelry with many pieces over 8,000 years old. For lunch we wandered across town, crossed a suspension footbridge over the river and found a quiet place for lunch and a view. There we met an Englishman and spent the rest of the day chatting with him about his many travels. He'd been trekking in Afghanistan 15 years ago (after growing a huge beard and wearing local garb) and more recently visited the mountains of Pakistan where he said the beds are epically bad. He also gave some more background to the stories that I'd heard about Israeli backpackers being trouble. He said that most of them travel after serving their mandatory 4 years in the army and they can be pretty aggressive in all things thereafter. He's also seen many hostels in India that ban them outright. For reference, most/many countries outside of the West mandate 2 years in the military but that's not quite as severe as the 4 the Israelis must serve. Poor bastards.

Today the Spaniards and I visited the walled city of Dura Europos. It's a Hellenistic city founded in 280 BC and was mostly made of mud brick and soft stone so for the most part it's melted back into the land. The walls of the city were pretty impressive, only somewhat for their size but for me they were unique for their material. The local stone is a crystalline silica material that consists of large flaky crystals about 2-6 inches in length, glittering in the sun. In it's day the walls could have shone like a disco ball in the desert.

The city itself is in pretty bad condition but you can see the evidence of many homes, temples, agoras (open areas for congregation) and the port. My favorite part of it were the cliff views of the river and the farmed land below. I had some intestinal sickness that made parts of the day severely uncomfortable, but I'm back in town now and some hours have passed and I feel right as rain. At least I finally had an opportunity to use the squatter toilets and washing hose that the locals are so fond of.

Finally, the hotel owner that I've been seeing lately helped me make a reservation at the famed El-Rabbie hostel in Damascus that eluded me earlier, so I'm headed back there tomorrow and I might stay a while. There are some good day trips to be had and the city itself is supposed to be very nice. There's a local legend that the prophet Mohammed passed by the city but declined to go in because he 'only wanted to enter heaven once'. That sounds good enough for me, humble as I am.

Odd Night Out

After I wrote last night I got my ukulele and went back to the net cafe to hang out with my local friend Rami. It started raining again (3rd day in a row) and I played a couple songs outside under the awning. The rain was powerful and brought a cold to the desert town that I hadn't felt before. Thankfully the owner of the restaurant next door brought me a couple cups of hot tea and some sweets and after about 15 minutes he told me to come inside the restaurant and to bring the uke. I thought that he felt sorry for me being out in the cold where my fingers were cramping up but as soon as I walked through the door he announced to the room, packed to capacity with British tourists, that I was going to play a song for them. He also added that my dinner would be free.

My face went flush and I think that I took a step back but then I swung my uke into position and belted out my best rendition of Island in the Sun that my trembling fingers could manage. I earned an admittedly charitable applause from the half of the crowd that could even hear me over all the other racket and then I sat down near the end of the long table and played a few more songs. Between ballads I got some questions from nearby tourists who wanted to know where I was from, the names of the songs, and what the hell a ukulele is.

After the longest 10 minutes of my life I was told to move to the back room and play for another smaller tour group, 16 in size. Before I played I announced to them that I'm known as Steve, this is an ukulele, and yes, I was playing for my dinner. This got a lot of laughs and I played a few songs (Island in the Sun, Breakdown, All My Loving, On the Road) and learned a bit about the group between songs. They were an Australian group with a tour company called Intrepid. The also passed me a couple beers and I ended up spending the rest of the night conversing with them and eating my well deserved mensaf dinner. In Syria, mensaf is made with chicken and not lamb, but it was really good anyways. The Intrepid group is on a 3 week tour through Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey and several of them remembered me from the ferry from Egypt to Aquaba. I had played some songs at the ferry terminal that day. I didn't recognize them but then I was getting to know about 10 backpackers that day so it's not surprising.

The tour was lead by a Dutch guy named Mark who has been traveling intermittently for 12 years and leads tours half the year to pay for the other half of his year of backpacking. He's been to some pretty remote places but he was still impressed by my list of locales visited. I like that. Anyways, he said that his company is looking for a new guide and he thought that I'd be great at it. I got his card and I guess that I'll send an email and hear some more about this idea. Basically they're running tours through the middle east until November and I'd have a week or so off between tours. You make about $50 a day profit, a tip at the end of each trip, and per diem on the days off... he emphasized however that it's forbidden to take kickbacks from restaurant/shop/hotel owners though physical gifts like food and drink are ok. I think that I'd also have to file taxes in Australia. I can't decide if this is a great opportunity to try my hand at something new or a regrettable waste of my opportunity to travel unhindered for a large chunk of time. It does sound kind of fun though.

My Tour in Ruins

I woke up Friday and it was clouded over in Palmyria and looked like it would rain as it had the night before. I started out by writing the last post in the internet cafe, exploring the tiny market at the intersection the town's two main streets, but after that I thought it would be best to walk a kilometer out of town to see the ruins of ancient Palmyria. They were much more extensive than I had expected and I ended up wandering around them all day as there was no admission cost.

Palmyria was a large and wealthy city state in ancient times (around 0 AD) and at some point became a province of Rome. It's most notable point in history centers around one queen, Zenobia. The king of the day died around 300 AD and his son was too young to rule so Zenobia made herself the commander of the territory instead of letting Rome send a governor as would be custom. Rome did not favor her decision and sent a detachment of the army to reason with her but she met them in battle and defeated the Romans. After that she headed south and captured many garrisons along the way and turned home after seizing territory as far away as Northern Egypt. That's a lot of ground to cover. Rome was willing to negotiate but when she minted coins in her image this was apparently an affront to the emperor personally and the army came and crushed her. She is remembered now by many statues and plaques around town. Fifty years after that incident the locals rebeled and killed a garrison of 600 Roman archers, so the Romans returned and leveled the town completely. It never recovered.

The ruins cover about 3 square miles and consist of the Hellenistic city, the towering crypts on the hillsides, and the nearby Arabic Castle that gracefully overlooks the town. I turned around after the clouds really got dark and reached my hotel just as the sky opened up around 5pm.

The next morning I futilely searched town for an ATM and met some American backpackers at my hotel when I came back to get some dollars to exchange. The group of them (2 guys and 4 girls) attend the American University in Cairo and are studying Arabic and Political Science. They seemed interesting enough so I agreed to tour the ruins again with them since I had skipped a few parts to avoid the rain. I acted as a bit of a guide telling the history that I knew, gave suggestions on haggling, and led the way to the best ruins. The lot of them were pretty disorganized and after touring the Temple of Bel at the near end of the main promenade of the Hellenistic city, I headed along the path with some speed because I really wanted to spend some time exploring the crypt towers and they were on a shortish schedule. One girl, Laura, wanted to move faster too so she and I walked and talked for the next 3 hours as we photographed the many broken columns and finally climbed to the top of a couple of the crypts. The crypts were above ground, built into the insides of huge stone towers 4 stories tall. There were ancient stairs that led all the way to the top and the views were breathtaking.

Later that afternoon they caught their bus to the next town and I stayed behind waiting for my laundry to be finished. Also, they weren't going the same direction as me so I would not have gone anyways. Later that night I had an entertaining episode, but I'll save that for the next post.

Welcome to Syria

Ugh, not a great day to be on the road. I made a pretty late start out of Amman for my trip to Damascus because I just wanted to sleep in a little longer. I left the hostel and got on a bus around 10am and made a new friend on the bus. I forget his name but he's a med student that had just finished his schooling and a final exam in Jordan and was returning to Syria to become a GP. Apparently the test materials are all geared towards practicing medicine in the US so if a question asks you to identify the most common cause of some particular symptom you must answer carpel tunnel even though on a world wide basis the most common cause is rheumatoid arthritis. Naturally he hopes to come practice medicine in the US. I can't really recall all the other things we talked about... but US policy towards Syria was part of it. He felt that Syria was the most liberal, peace loving, and mistreated country in the region.

When I got off the bus in Damascus I could see that it was certainly more liberal. More than 50% of the women here don't wear headscarves though it did seem to be a pretty poor place. Damascus is a city of 4.2 million and is twice as large as Amman. I caught a cab over the the small part of town that all the backpacker hostels are located had some lunch and went hunting for the best price. The first place is described by my guide book as one of the best hostels in all of the middle east and they only had one mattress available on the rooftop for $7. I declined and went hunting for more dorms but after 15 minutes had found all 5 hostels totally full and I went back for that rooftop spot. It was taken so I looked at some alternatives and the best I could find was a room for $20 in some dreary hotel. That's more than I wanted to spend and not a great place to meet travelers so I made a last minute decision to leave town on the next bus to Palmyria, 3 hours away.

I got there at 8 and it rained the whole way over so I was more than thankful that I had not chosen the rooftop mattress. The dorms were all full here too but I got a nice double room with private bathroom for just $9 and was pretty happy about it. In the entry of the hotel a young guy was chatting with the manager and I sat to drink tea with them for a couple hours and just talked. He lives on the Mediterranean coast in the town of Tartus and he told me that if I made it out that way I could stay at his house and we'd go out to visit Syria's only island. I got his mobile # and maybe I'll head out that way some time. The next morning it was still raining but I got a picture of the local market and went in to a cafe to blog. Turns out that in Syria they filter the internet so I can't access Facebook directly and must use a proxy server like www.letsproxy.com to view it, but I can't seem to get through the captcha check so I don't know how the hell I'm gonna fix it. PayPal has issues too since Syria is under some kind of US sanctions. Lunch time!

One More Day in Amman

Yesterday I loafed around Amman to have a quiet moment for myself and I think that I succeeded pretty well. I already mentioned that I'd visited the Roman amphitheater and afterward I spent a record 5 hours in an internet cafe finishing up old posts, doing some online banking, and ordering a netbook from Dell. Erika can bring it to me in May when she visits. It's a good thing to have because it allows one to email frequently enough to use CouchSurfing.org, a social networking website where you can find people who have an unnatural interest in letting strangers sleep for free at their homes and to share stories and information. It's a great way to get closer to the real local culture and to make friends, also to save money. That would be most useful in an expensive place like Greece. Note that Greece is only really expensive relative to all the cheap places that I'm going like Syria.

Anyways, after the blogging I went out and got a great Bedouin dinner of lamb cooked in camel milk and served over rice. It's called mensaf. It came with a fresh salad of tomato, cabbage, and parsley with no dressing as is common in the middle east. Usually a squirt of lemon juice is added to bring out the flavor of the vegetables. After that I went back to the hostel to continue reading my book, Flaubert in Egypt, and made some real progress. Eventually couple American girls (Abby and Jenny) interrupted me and invited me to go with them the next day to visit Madaba, Mt Nebo, and some hot spring. I've already seen the first two, but it was hazy on Nebo last time, the whole trip was to be under $11 per person, and I liked the sound of swimming so I reluctantly agreed.

First we went to Mt Nebo, where Moses died after seeing the holy land. He wasn't allowed to go there himself as punishment for breaking the first set of tablets, but I still don't know what happened to the second set. Oh yea, there were in the Ark of the Covenant right? I learned that from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The picture is of the 3 of us trying to roll a fortified door of the old monastery on the site. They're building a spiffy new church there too, but it's not completed. Other than that the only thing there was a hazy view towards Israel and a very strange sculptured tribute to Moses called the Christiological Symbol.

Next stop was Madaba. I didn't care for the mosaics there the first time, so I just picked up some lunch to go and we eventually continued on to the hot springs. They were located near the dead sea and there was a rather spectacular drive down a canyon to reach them. Once we got there I was very annoyed to find out that it cost another $14 to enter the springs and I did not have the optin of sitting it out because you paid at a checkpoint on the road. Oh well. The springs were really great. Hot but not too hot and a huge waterfall dropping on your head. I had a good time talking with Abby and Jenny, but when we got back to the Hostel I declined to go with them to Jerash tomorrow. I don't really want to spend the money to see some OK roman ruins and I want to move on to Syria to meet up with my friend Min. So, tomorrow morning I'm headed out there and we'll see what I find.

For dinner I went back to the fantastic felafel place from the other day, Hashem. They've got pictures on the wall from the many times that the royal family has eaten there and it's considered the best in the city for that kind of food. I should mention that the royal family here is greatly beloved and pictures of the king and prince are absolutely everywhere. Part of the love comes from the general prosperity of the country, and part of it comes from the fact that the royal family created a lasting constitution in the 50s and led the elections of political parties and a representative government in the 90s. They also have banned the Islamists from running for power and have reaffirmed peace treaties with Israel and the US, despite losing the West Bank to Israel in some war a while back. The efforts have paid off for the people of Jordan. The people also love Queen Rania, a serious hottie, and last night someone struck up a conversation with me on the street about how much they admired her. Back to the food. The dish is felafel, a mixture of ground chickpeas, fried into balls. Served on the side is a salad of raw tomatoes and sweet onions garnished with mint. Also I was given hummus, pita, and some sugary tea to wash it all down. Very filling and only $2.

Road to Damascus

Hello again. Today I'm writing from the capitol of Jordan, the hilly city of Amman. It's home to half (2.2 million) of Jordan's entire population and is pretty darn urban as you might guess. Actually I quite like it and I've found a cheap hostel to stay at for just $7 per night, but that comes with breakfast, free Internet access, and it a lot less loud and crowded than my last place in Wadi Musa where I shard a room with 9 other people and had a single toilet/shower. Compounding the problems, some of the backpackers were very obnoxious and would do their cooking in the bedroom, make an unholy mess, and talk loudly while everyone else was sleeping. I'm talking about some Israeli guys... they're famed as being the worst nationality with which to share a room. Of course if you run into a solo Israeli they'll prove to be fun and respectful. Shalom.

After the full on assault on my wallet that is Petra, it was time to move on to greener pastures. Min decided to go his ow way and I got a private taxi with Patrick and a rare Indian traveler named Pusan. First stop was Shobak Castle, built by the crusaders in the 12th century and eventually sacked by Saladin, famed Muslim warrior king. It was pretty ruined despite its very long history of use by Muslim forces. The most interesting feature was an escape tunnel that snaked very far down through the earth to emerge at the bast of the hill that the castle was built upon. I don't have any pictures of it, but it was dangerously steep and slippery going down and thankfully 2 of the 3 of us had headlamps.

The next stop was Karak Castle, built around the same time by the crusader king Baldwin I and famed for having one very cruel Frenchmen running it. He would not just throw his enemies off the fortifications to roll down the stony hill but would also have their heads protected by a wooden box so that they could not be knocked out before feeling every bump on the way down. Saladin was famed for showing mercy to his captured enemy leaders, but this guy was deservedly put to death. The castle itself was built on top the foundations of an ancient citadel that successfuly defended itself from the biblical armies of Israel. After that siege the Israelis went north where King David sacked Amman and had many of the residents burned alive in brick ovens. Anyways, the castle today is in decent shape to get an idea of what it would have looked like. The three of us made friends with some kids that should have probably been in school that day and took some pictures.

It was pretty cold in the morning at the higher elevations of Wadi Musa, but it was getting quite hot when we approached the lowest point on Earth, the Dead Sea. It's very salty as you probably know and supports no wildlife at all. It's fed by the river Jordan but that water is under increasing demand so maybe the sea will eventually dry up when it's totally cut of from its water supply. People go there because the minerals in the water are supposedly good for your skin, but also because it's so much fun to swim in. Your body is super buoyant in the salty water and you float higher than normal in it. It feels like magic laying back and having you hands, feet, and shoulders all above water without any effort. A lot of older people in the water floundered for their balance in a comical manner as you don't really sit in the water as much as on top of it. After that we showered and got back on the road.

We stopped in the town of Madaba, famed for its mosaics, but I wasn't very impressed by their size of quality so we quickly moved on to drop us off at our hostel(s) in Amman. The hostel that I checked into (the Mansour) is mostly populated by Japanese backpackers it seems and has a very extensive manga library that I'm sure not to look at. I spent the night and the next day, today Tuesday the 23rd, I'm just wandering around town relaxing, checking out the Roman amphitheater, blogging, and having some quiet time away from other travelers. I'm also looking into ordering a netbook that my sister could bring me in May as there is free wifi everywhere and I'd like to do more blogging in a convenient manner. Also, a lot of people do what's called couch surfing and it's much easier if you have a laptop to frequently access email from. Couchsurfing.org is a website where you can meet people around the world that offer to let you crash on their couch for several days for free. It's a great thing because it gets you closer access to the real culture of that country unlike staying at a hostel filled with foreigners and also you can save a few bucks. One of my friends, David, stayed at a Bedouin's home in Wadi Musa and found that the owner lets half a dozen people stay at his house at a time for entertainment. Maybe I should offer up my couch when I come home?

Anyways, this town is great. It's got loads of shops, the cheapest internet cafes I've seen yet ($1 /hour) and the fastest computes, and my hostel is right next to a very nice fallafel restaurant that I enjoyed lunch at for $1.50. It was great too, and I'll try to get some pics later as I'm sure to come back.

Lost in Time

Today I experienced Jordan's single greatest attraction (Petra) and I'm left in awe as is everyone who comes here. Petra is ancient city that was the home to wealthy merchants who controlled the frankincense trade and carved elaborate temples and homes out of the sandstone cliffs that snake through the local topography. The city thrived for over 1000 years and in its history was attacked by Alexander the Great and his Greek forces in 300 BC, the Romans in 300 AD, and eventually a great earthquake in 500 AD that destroyed half the city and precipitated its abandonment. It was rediscovered by the West in 1810 when some Swiss explorer, disguised as an Arab, ran across it and publicised its mysteries.

Since then a small town, Wadi Musa, has sprung up on the cliffs above the site to handle the masses of tourists who come here to see the city. It should be mentioned that it gained a lot of notoriety after it was used in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as the site of the holy grail. I checked into the only hostel in town with dorm accommodations, everything else in Jordan is unaffordable, and found it to be a well managed place. They have several 9+ bed rooms for about $7 per night and offer free shuttle service to Petra, packs fairly cheap lunch boxes to take, and offers a very nice dinner for $6 that served buffet style. That's cheaper than anything else in town, and they are the only place serving beer, so it's a no brainer to stay there and catch the evening showing of the aforementioned movie whose poster is prominently displayed all over town.

I went to the site with my new-ish friends Min from S. Korea and Patrick from Texas. We had spent the better part of the previous evening discussing Americas many triumphs and failing and Min told us more of S. Korea. The three of us actually met several days previously when we shared a van and happened to run into each other once more. It's a common thing on the backpacker trail. Anyways, at the site we found Petra to be very expensive... $45 for one day and it's scheduled top go up to $75 at the end of the year. That's pretty harsh, but what can we do? Petra rocks.

After a winding walk down into the canyon and into the hordes of other tourists we reached the first site and arguably the best: the treasury. It's called that because there's some dumb rumor of treasure hidden in the carvings that got a lot of it shot up by Bedouins looking for it to fall out, but other than some holes it's pretty spectacular and it's also the place used in the movie.

After that we hiked out to see more carved temples, went up narrow stone stairs high onto one of the plateaus overlooking the ruined city, and at the peak ran into my friend from the other day, David, who got separated from us when he went off to pursue a couch surfing connection. Instead of staying at the hostel he stayed withe a Bedouin family that takes in several backpackers at a time for entertainment and doesn't charge anything. I've got to try that some time in Syria. After that we took some pictures, lunched on pita bread, cheese, and fruit, and talked a lot. The hike back to the entrance was hot and then we rode the free shuttle back to the hostel in time to get a rare hot shower (they only turn on the gas 3 hours a day) and afterwards I ran out to write this.

The plan for tomorrow is to share a minibus with Min and Pat, and to ride to Amman, stopping at a dozen sites along the way, so that we can wrap up Jordan quickly and get on to Syria where everything is much cheaper. I'll try to spend some real down time there and soak up as much of that country as I can stand.

Sunburnt and Loving It

There's not a bird to be seen in Dahab thanks to the legions of cats. They wake you up in the morning with their yammering, smoke sheesha with you sitting in your lap, and see you off to bed as you trip over them. Not a one of them is an 'egyptian' sphinx cat though... just a bunch of mongrels like all the rest of the denzians of the beach. The first day in Dahab I took it easy blogging, eating, and drinking. There was hasheesh too, but I've sworn off of it... it makes me queezy since you must take it with cigarettes. Oh, also when I woke up that morning it was to the sound of a girl in my dorm puking. Lovely. When I came back that afternoon she was still there so I inquired into her doings and found that she had not in fact been drinking but had instead contracted some kind of illness so I went out and got some food and medicine for her. I also started working on a new song, Island in the Sun, and it's coming along pretty well. I finished up the evening at a Chinese restaurant with several S. Korean backpackers who told me all about their mandatory military service, the possibly impending war with the north, china's plant to annex the north, and many more benign subjects. After that it was sheesha, cards, and bedtime.

The second day out I decided that I'd be more productive so in the morning I practiced my song some more and then went out to lay in the sun. There's a bar down the street from the hostel that will let you lay on their beach chairs for free (they offered a menu but I declined). I guess that there's got to be a free beach hangout because the competition at this so called 'backpacker's paradice' is feirce. The main strip along the water is about half a mile long and the beach side is lined with restaurants featuring bedouin style seating. That's where you lay against pillows and the tables are low to the ground... within cat reach. The other side of the street features shops selling shirts, masks, aroatic herbs, diving lessons, ATMs, bars, and the kitchens for the aformentioned restaurants. Nowhere is there open sand, but it's possible to step into the water from many of the restaurants. The town is crawling with lazy backpackers, guided tour groups, independant divers waddling down the street in full gear, older holliday makers from the UK, and of course cats. I thought there were just too many gringos. The touts in the town thought there were not enough however and they came from all angles to steer yu into their shops. They'd grab you by the wrist and tell you about their fresh fish, block your way to show you a shirt, and generally were pests.

Anyways, so I layed on the beach and along came Jowen to nap in the shade at the same spot, and Brandy showed up to work on her tan too. After some time, and some beers, we thought it was time to do some snorkeling so we went back to her hostel and worked out a trip to the nearby 'blue hole' dive location, a few miles up the coast. For $6 each we got a taxi that waited for us to finish, the snorkel gear, and off we went. It was a really dusty and windy ride up. We found the spot to be a very deep patch of waterright off the beach that was roughly hole shaped and certainly very blue. I only snorkeled for 20 minutes because the water was a little cold and the feirce wind upon getting out had me shaking for the next 3 hours before we left even though I was dry in minutes. The time was east to pass in one of the many restaurants loated at the otherwise very baren patch of coast and there were more camels than cars patrolng the road. I think that some of the tour groups use them to get back to town.

On the ride home we shared our cab with 3 egyptians serving in the military and we agreed to meet them later on for dinner. I talked the sick room mate for a while and then headed out to neet up. Jowen, Brandy, and I enjoyed their company very much and we swapped stories, took pictures, and laughed more than normal. They were a lively bunch and were headed out that night to return to Cairo. Their plan was to drive to Sharm al-Sheik 2 hours away, dance until 6 am (no drinking of course) and then to drive 7 hours back to Cairo. Tough guys. I declined their offer to take me with them and instead went to bed.

The next day (Friday the 19th) was a long travel day. I decided that I was done with the beach (the sunburn helped) and that it was time to head to Jordan and to meet a new crowd. I met some people on the ride out to the ferry... a few independent backpackers, a mother/son traveling pair, and after a LONG day of waiting around finally made it to Jordan around 6pm. I went to a hotel in Aquaba and shared the cab ride with the mother, her young son, and a man named David that I'd swear I've met somewhere. Some cabbies had a fist fight as they argued over who would take us to town and we went with a 3rd man. The city was nice... small but very clean, well built, and more expensive than Egypt. I shared a room with David and the next morning he and I set out to reach Wadi Musa near Petra.

The drive out was scenic, but otherwise an uneventful one. I played a few songs for the people at the bus stop and David and I got some free tea and a lot of interested looks out of it. I had played for people the day before too and I find that I rather enjoy it. I just need to learn some more songs now, but I've got Island in the Sun down cold. There's a hostel with a dorm here for just $7 per night which is the cheapest I've heard of in Jordan but stings after I got used to $4 in Egypt. At the hostel I ran into another American, Patrick, that I rode to the ferry with yesterday and we walked around Wadi Musa, played a game of pool, and we're going to meet up later for some drinks. Speaking of which, I'd better get going to that.