Cairo to Aswan to Abu Simbel to Luxor and a Touch of Alexandria

*Note: I can't get the spell checker to work and it's midnight and I'm tired and I need to be up in 5 hours, so ignore any spelling errors for now...I will try to fix them later

There's a lot to report since my last entry, but not a lot of time so I will try to to explain in brief all the chaos that has occurred within the last week.

Cairo the End

The last entry ended one day short of our exit from the capital city of Cairo. That night we ended up going out with two people from our hotel, a Brit named David and an Italian named Mikela. The journey that we embarked on proved that getting some where sometimes tends to be more fun that the actually destination.

Around 10:30pm we set out for the Cairo Jazz Club which is reputed to be a great little club with booze (a rarity in Arab countries), live music, charming atmosphere, and a thumbs up from the creators of my Let's Go Egypt travel guide. We were going to take a taxis because Mikela said that it was too far to walk, but when the taxi driver called a random pedistrain over to translate our destination (this happens a lot here as many people know only three phrases in English: Welcome! What's your name? and Where are you from?), the pedestrian told us that it was only a 10 minute walk. Assuming that this Carioian knew his stuff, we bade the taxi driver goodbye and started walking. What we soon found out is that 26 July St., where we wanted, was a 10 minute walk away, but the Jazz club wasn't. There are very few street signs and even fewer street numbers in Cairo and this makes it quite nervewracking to locate the correct address anywhere in the city. The four of us greatly amused the locals as we walked back and forth over and over again for an hour asking different people where this place was and watching them all point fingers in opposite directions. The funny thing is that no one had a clue in this part of town where we wanted to go, but it didn't stop them from smiling and giving false directions, with the comforting words, "Yes I know this place." Eventually we found a shopkeeper that knew the street number of his business and realised that we were at 9 July 26th St and wanted to be at 197 Jult 26th St. So a taxi was called and the order to follow the street until 197 was found was given. So around midnight we finally made it to our destination to find that the prices were sky high, there was no Jazz that night, and the place was packed. After originally walking out exasperated, we realized that there was really no where else in the vacinity to go and that we had spent about and hour and a half trying to find this place, so we owed ourselves the over-priced beer. This beer lead to a picture of a mixed drink and at the end of the night (early morning) we were all comfortably numb and quite happy.

Our late night outing lead to a late start to our final day in Cario and therefore we only got to spend about 3 hours at the Cairo museum. To fully enjoy this massive work of art in itself, you need about 5 hours. The Cairo museum houses most of the important finds from all of the archaeological sites in Egypt. There are rooms upon rooms of mummies, sarchopoguses, pottery, panels, jewery, statues, and tidbits of imformation. But the chaotic layout of the museum, the lack of air (no fans or air conditioning and about 1000 people swarming around), the inadequite amount of written descriptions, and the no so helpful (or friendly) staff make you a bit irritable by the time you emerge back into the sunlight. The King Tut room though is worth the visit. This is one of the few rooms in the place that looks as if a true curator designed the exhibt. The golden and jeweled items are neatly spaced and nicely labeled. King Tut for those that don't know, was the famous child Pharo. He ruled for only a few years (from I believe age 8 to 19, when he died), but what really makes him special is that his tomb was found in 1922 by Howard Carter, completely intact. This means that grave robbers had never invaded it and that all the kingly possessions were still there and now are on desplay for curious tourist.

We were told by many people that if you go to the Cairo museum you must so the special mummy room. This room cost twice as much as the amission ticket to the whole rest of the museum, but was rumored to be well worth the funds. This rumor proved to be over inflated. Although the mummy room is quite interesting it isn't worth the extra dough (expecially if you don't have a student card). Within the cramped room are the supposed mummies of 7 royal family members (4 are from the same family). These bodies are laid out in glass boxes and each contains a small label telling the visitor who they are, but in truth there was a lot of mummy mix up over time and they could be the bodies of anyone. The mummies are interesting to look at and don't look anything like other cadavers that I've seen. They look a little like a cross between the plasticized bodies I saw on exhibt in San Francisco and wax scuptures - with shriwled features and long bony appendages (the toes and fingers are the only ones that you can really see).

Evening brought about the Frigid Express to Aswan. After adjusting to the warm weather here, it was like being in Antartica while on the 15 hours air conditioned ride to Aswan.

Aswan and Abu Simbel

Stiff and frozen, we stepped out into the warmth of Aswan the next morning and were greeted by the representative of the tour agency that we have firmly sold out souls to. He deposited us at a hotel near the train station that could have been quaint if the creepy vibe wasn't so pervasive. The only people at this hotel besides locals that spent all day drinking tea and chatting in the parlour, were other saps that had been conned into this travel itinerary, and these locals viewed us transients as if we carried the plague. 15 minutes after arrival, we were bundled into a van and it was off to explore the Aswan High Dam and Philae. The High Dam is considered a huge work of art and comtains more than 17 times the material used to construct the Great Pyrimid of Cheops at Giza (that's a lot of material). It also created Lake Nasser, which is the world's largest man-made lake. It's a neat thing to think about, but not something that I felt was worth the admission price to see up close. But to know about the Dam helps one to understand the massive relocation projects that went on all over Southern (Upper) Egypt as a result of it's construction. The building of the Dam caused the flooding of many areas and buried numerous ruins, Nubian villages and Egyptain settlements. This also lead to a massive multi-country joint venture to locate many of the more spectacular momuments to higher ground. This relocation involved slicing and dicing these temples into thousands of pieces that could be easily moved and then painstakingly piecing them back together again. Can you image that kind of jigsaw puzzel. It's amazing to visit these temples (we saw about 6) and realise that this wasn't their original location, but to not really be able to see the cut lines.

Philae, which now houses the Temple of Isis, is one of the many ruins to be relocated. This Temple is important because it was the longest running Temple in Egypt. Even after the country was conqured by Christanity and monotheism was implimented, offerings to Isis were still allowed to persist here. Only in the 6th century BCE, was worship forbidden. This is also the supposed location that Isis found the heart of her dismembered husband, making it the most sacred of her temples.

The next mornig we were roused at the ungodly hour of 3am to head out to Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel is another of the moved temples, but it is even more spectacular than any we'd seen so far. A 3 hour bus ride deposits you at the enterance to this attraction. As a random side note, the cleanest restrooms in the whole country (even better than most of the hotels that we stayed in) are located here - go figure. After arguing with the clerk for charging an extra 8 LE for a ficticious guide we were allowed passage into the site (they charge you, but they don't give you a gidue, explain that one to me). If you travel let at the cobble stone road than you will arrive first at the Temple of Hathor. This Temple was built by Ramses II to honor his wife, Nefertari, and Hathor (fertility/sky goddess). This is one of the only temples in Egypt that is dedicated to a woman.

A few hundred meters from the Temple of Hathor, is the real reason that people come to this desolate area, the Great Temple of Abu Simbel. This is Ramses II's great masterpiece and supposively dedicated to the great sun god Ra-Hurakhti, but the focus is really on him and he puts himself on the same leave as the god. The higlight of the Temple are the four 22m high statues of Ramses that sit two on either side of the enterence and watch the sun rise over Lake Nasser. Inside the Temple are inscriptions and wall paintings that are still in good condition.

To our disbelief, we happened to show up on the day of a film shoot. But it wasn't just an ordinally film shoot, it was for the movie, "The Holy Family," the movie that Em and I have been unconscienously following for the pass month. We were three days behind in Um Quis (Jordan) and a day behind in Petra (Jordan) and lo' and behold, we caught up to them in Egypt. That's just too funny.

A three hour bus ride later and we arrived back in Aswan in time for some afternoon exploration of our own. We took the locals' ferry to the West Bank of the Nile, where we proceeded to climb 100-odd stairs to the Tombs of the Nobels. These are tombs of govenors and dignitaries from the 23rd to 18th c. BCE that were cut into the sandstone cliffs. The nicest tombs are those of Sarenput II (a garrison commander from the 12th c. BCE) and those of Mekhu and Sabni (a father and son from the 6th-dynasty BCE). Most of the tombs are carved out retangles in the rock, but the aforementioned tombs inlude numerous rooms (including the Holy of Holies - where only kings and preist are allowed to venture) and reliefs on the walls.

Later in the evening we ventured to the Nubian Museum and were pleasantly surprised to find it quite nice. This museum is the only place that you can find a complete timeline of Nubian culture, complete with detailed information panels, artifacts, dioramas, air-conditioning, and a outside park that includes more exhibts. If anyone makes it this far south, I recommend that they visit this place. This is how the Cairo museum should been designed.

The following morning, we and some fellow travelers set sail to see Kichener and Elephantine Islands. Kichener's Island is completely comprise of what is called a botanical garden, but in reality is a nice little park filled with trees and concrete walking paths. It takes about 5 minutes to walk from one end of the Island to the other. The tour drops you off at the enterance without telling you what exactly the place is and then picks you up an hour later at the other side. Although it is pretty and the greenery is nice after so much desert, I don't see the point of visiting this little park, except that it is a nice little money maker for the locals beacuse to get off the Island you need to pay to go through the park.

Elephantine Island houses the Aswan archaeolgical museum, a Nilometer, and a series of Temples. The museum is a bit archaic, housing a random collection of artifacts that are hardly labeled, and the Nilometer is really just a stone staircase that goes down to the water. The ruins though are quite nice. There are a series of Temples from different time periods and the remnants of villages that housed the devout. On the Island is also a currently inhabited Nubian village. On a quest to purchase water, I got invited to the Chief's home and was taken on a tour of his crocidile colletion (of which he was more than happy to try and persaud me to buy).

That afternoon we embarked on our two day Felucca trip down the Nile from Aswan to Kom Ombo. The felucca is like a sail boat but can fit 10 people on it comfortably. All bags and supplies are stored under wooden boards that create a floor for the passengers to lie about on for the two day voyage. We set sail at 2pm with a crazy Spainard named Juan, a hippy from Kansas named Paul, a brother and siter from Montana (Kristen and Ken), and a Brithish couple (Ian and Rosie). This was the most Americans that we'd seen in one place since leaving Israel. A felucca is a nice way to relax, beacuse there is little that you can do. You lay on the deck all day and read or draw or sleep, but that's about it. Since the whole mileage of the trip is really only about 15km, you spend a lot of time drifting back and forth or in port at a random island. We camped out at a sand dune one night and by a small village the next. The second night we all ventured into town in search of sugar and ended up creating a town spectacle as a soccer ball was produced and it was 6 of us foreigners against about 20 young boys. It was a lot of fun because everyone was there and the parents were smiling or pretending to be referees and smaller children were in awe and Rosie was giving out bubble gum which put smiles on a lot of kids faces. Paul also was a hit because he has dredlocks that go to hit butt and everyone kept asking if they were a wig. They'd never seen anything like it before.

Our two days past too quickly and soon we found ourselfs in a stuffy van headed to Luxor, via Kom Ombo and Edfu. Kom Ombo contains two symmetrical sides, one dedicated to Sobek (the patron of crocs) and one dedicated to Horus. The is also a Chapel of Hathor and a pretty neat face-your-fears chamber. Apparently the ancient Egyptains decided that some people needed to face their fears and as a result they would drop into a dark holes that deposited them below a level of crocidiles and required them to swim through some cruvy passages to get out again. This was all underwater and pitch black. I think Fear Factor had its roots here.

From Kom Ombo to Edfu we went. Edfu contains a magnificently perserved Temple of Horus.

Finally we were deposited at our three star hotel in Luxor and given the rest of the day off to relax by the roof top pool.

Seven AM wake up call and it's off to see the West Bank. The first stop on this jam packed morning was to the Colossi of Memnon. These is a pair of large statues that are all that remain from a temple that once stood here. The stautes are mis-named as no one really knows who they belong to (it's believed that they are dedicated to Amenhotep III), they were named by Romans that thought the rough picture on the side looked like Memnon.

From there to The Valley of the Kings. This is home to 64 known tombs (the last one discovered 3 years ago and believed to be related to the Tomb og King Tut). Our ticket granted us access to three of the eight tombs that were currently open to the public. We ventured into the Tomb of Ramses III which contains wonderful reliefs - depicting scenes from the Book of the Dead, the sacred barque of Ra, chariot race, etc - that are in full color and quite well perserved, but the experience is kind of ruined by the plastic that covers all the exposed walls to prevent visitors from touching the carvings. Then we visited the Tomb of Ramses I, which has the shorest entrance in the valley, but the most magestic sarcophgus, large and made of rose granite. The last tomb was that of Merenptah, which boasts the deepest burial chamber in the Valley. The Tomb of Ramses II was not open to the public.

Onward to Deir al-Bahri or the Temple of Hatshepsut. This was the temple that I had been waiting to see as I read about book about Hatshepsut and was anxious to see her masterpiece. This temple it was said was to have been carved into the surrounding rock in such a manner as to appear to come from it and not look out of place. When the temple was originally built, this might have been the case. But the temple was completely destroyed and only recently completely rebuilt by Polish archaeologist. It's still quite a site to behold, comprised of three different tiers and filled with statues that once depicted the female King (they were defaced by her Step-son, nephew, husband, Thutmose III, after he killed her to gain the crown back). There courtyards once held trees and small ponds, but those are no more.

Last on the list for the morning expedition was the Valley of the Queens that houses no only queens, but young royal children that died. This site is not much to behold. The gem of the place is the Tomb of Nefertiti, but it is only open to those that wish to pay 20,000 LE (about $5,000) and up. Nefertiti's tomb is supposed to be the largest and most beautiful in all of Egypt. What is open in the Valley are the Tombs of Titi (a favorite wife of Ramses II) and of Amonherkhepshef (the son of Ramses III). The latter tomb is interesting because it contains a sarcophagus that contained no body and a some box that contained a 7 month old fetus. The story goes, that when Amonherkhepshef's mother heard about her son's death see miscarried in her grief and that child is buried in the tomb.

A few hours to ourselves and then onward for the afternoon excursion.

We first went to the Karnak Temple, which is really a series of Temples that were built over muiltiple generations. At the enterance to the Later Temple is a double row of sphinxes that line the walk way. These sphixes go from Karnak to the Temple of Luxor, but most of the three mile pathway is buried under the street. Karnak is by far my favorite place in all of Egypt. Here king after king decided to one up the last and build things more spectacular. Ramses II built a whole courtyard with 134 giant colums that tower over the visitors and once were covered with a stone roof. Hatshepsut's two granite obelisks shine in the sunlight. There is the sacred lake of the preists and many, many smaller temples to various gods and goddesses. It's really a magnificent place.

The last sight of the day was Luxor Temple. Luxor Temple is like a smaller version of Karnak, not as grand, but still choacked full of add ons and adaptations. There is a 14th c. AD mosque that is built about 10m up in the air becasue at the time it was built, everything under it was covered in sand, and that was ground level. At the end of the walkway there is a Roman door and reliefs that have been painted over their Egyptain comtemporaries.

From Luxor Temple back to Karnak we went. We meet up with Kristen and Ken from the felucca and decided to attend the Sound and Light show at Karnak. This was quite the adventure. Like doeful sheep, we and the other 100 or so visitors, followed the tour guides from the entrance to the collanaded hall to the sacred lake. At each stop speakers blasting actors' voices told the story about the item and random colored light shone. It was set up like a story with each voice a different person, but was so terrible that we were laughing at the end about what a waste of time. The Sound part of the show was okay and we learned a few useful pieces of information, but the Light part of the shows needs some work.

Our last morning in Luxor we headed to the Mummification Museum. This doesn't deserve the name of museum. It is merely on room that contains a few reproductions from the Book of the Dead that depict the mummification of a body, and some glass cases with a few instruments and sarcophagus lids. It took about 15 minutes to go through and didn't really explain anything about the process of mummification (the sole reason we went there).

Alexandria

Another 15 hour train ride and at 3am we were deposited in Alexandria. After trying four hotels, we finally found a vacancy and crashed for the evening.

We ventured to Alexandria because numberous people told us that we could catch a ferry from here to Cyprus. Decided that knowing where the ferry left from was our first priority and we ask at the Tourist office. Here we were told that the only ferry to Cyprus left from Port Said (three hours from here). So we went to every travel agency in the area trying to find someone that could tell us the schedule. Finding this a fruitless adventure, we went to the internet cafe and spent two hours trying to locate a ferry online. This search proved fruitile as the last ferry running from Egypt to Cyprus or even Greece ran 1 and a half years ago. So defeated and wondering whether we were ever getting out of this country, we booked a flight for tomorrow on Egypt Air to Istanbul. We're going to skip Cyprus and just explore Turkey and Greece.

There were two good things to come out of this completely useless venture to Alexandria (our flight leaves so early that we don't even have time to see anything here) are: there are actual coffee shops here, and when looking for a obscure spice for my old boss I was directed to what turned out to be a modern, American like mall with the Egyptain equivlent of a Walmart Super Center. After seeing nothing but street markets and small stores selling cookies and un-refridgerated cheese for the last month, it was such an odd things to see a mall with a very nice and modern grocery store. It made the frustration of the mornig melt away.

So tomorrow we leave this country and head to Europe. Three weeks was a good amount of time. Just enough to see most everything, and just long enough to get jaded. Egypt holds a certain appeal for me, must have to do with it's history and ruins, that allowed me to love it, while at the same time hate it because of the constant harrasment, verbal sexual comments, touts, little kids trying to pickpocket me, and general un-friendliness of the masses. I still maintian that everyone should come here at least once and I think that I may sometime return in the future (although I'm the only one that I met that might come back).

Cairo and the Western Desert

Cairo
We took a lovely bus ride - complete with the Arab world version of Bollywood films, the Koran on tape, people sitting in aisles, confused tourists, and smirking locals -from our paradise of Dahab to the crowded and filthy streets of Cairo.

After three days of relaxing, clean air, and breezy days; it was a tad disconcerting to be in this huge metropolis. Luckily we had our trusty "Let's Go" guide book (the only problem is it's 5 years old so the information, especially prices, is a little off) and were able to get a cab to a hotel that we had previously picked out. This way we avoided many of the touts (people that get paid on commission to lure you to a particular hotel or store).

We crashed at the Sun Hotel, which is appears to cater more to live-in Arabs than to tourists, but the place is clean, the staff are nice, and there's even a handy dandy travel agent built in. We got hit up within an hour of entering and after much debating, haggling, and quadruple checking we agreed on an itinerary for our time in Egypt. It seems ironic that in the one country where we buy a guide book with the intention of doing everything on our own, four days in and we've got the trip planned through someone else. The nicer thing though is that we made it so we have a day or two in every city that is just for us, so that we can check out the museums and markets that the tour doesn't cover.

Day one in Cairo started with a trip to the Giza pyramids. These are some of the most famous pyramids in Egypt and belong to a father-son-grandson set (Cheops-Chephren-Mycerinus). Each pyramids is smaller than its predecessor and each was covered in a precious stone that was pilfered by later denizens for use in other architectural creations. These pyramids, while impressive for their size and the work that went into them, are sadly anti-climatic. I was expecting something more exotic and revered, but instead these trophies of a time past sit in the backyard of a decaying part of the city and the ethereal trance that they inspire is broken by the continuous chorus of, "Buy this. Buy that. Do you want to ride a camel? Horse?" Also many of the entrances to the chambers are closed to the public or require more money.

Below the pyramids, is the Sphinx. That enigmatic creature that adds mystery to the Egyptian legends. While gigantic and an interesting piece of artwork, the scaffolding and fences, tend to distract from his natural beauty.

Em and I where tricked into thinking that we needed to rent horses to view the complex (everyone told us that it was a 13km area and couldn't be walked in a timely manner), so the driver dropped us off at a renter's shop a mile from the entrance and we acquired two horses and two guides (whom we didn't want and later found out that we were suppose to pay for)and set out. The only good thing to come out of having the horses, was that I convinced the boy guide (who was walking by the way) that I knew how to ride a horse and then went galloping a way while he ran to catch up. The other guide went with me (I think he was a afraid that I was either going to kidnap the horse or not be able to stop him). That was a lot of fun. I tried to get Em to do it, but she was afraid that she'd fall off. Ironically, it was I that fell off, but not until we were returning the horses and dismounting to give them back. It figures that I would look like I know what I'm doing when no ones around, but the minute there are a zillion people around, I get my foot caught in the stirrup, crash into the other horse next to me, and land on my butt.

After Giza, we made a trip to Saqqara where the famous Step Pyramid of Zoser I is. This is the world's oldest funerary monument and the inspiration for the pyramids. It was designed by the famous Egyptian architect, Imhotep.

At Saqqara, Em and I were once again duped. Em had convinced me to leave our guide book at home since this outing was arranged by the agent at the Hotel and we had no reason to believe what he told us would be wrong. As it turns out, this was a bad choice on our part. The admission ticket to Saqqara covers everything inside and the Step Pyramid is worth seeing. Out driver told us that it was extra and not worth seeing, so we skipped it. Everyone can shout out, "How naive!" and be done with it.

We did get to see two tombs though that were at least worth the admission price. These were the tombs of Teti and Merouka. Both have walls that are covered in hieroglyphics and other pictures. There are pillars and storage rooms, stellas and statues in the former, while there is a giant basalt coffin (empty now) in the latter. To get to the Tomb of Merouka you have to descend down a 25m ramp in a crouch and then through a tunnel (still in a crouch). We bribed a "guard" to let us take some photographs.

The trip was supposed to include Memphis as well, but the driver once again told us that this was no worth seeing. I later looked it up in the guidebook and it seems he was for once telling a whole truth. Memphis was the town where the pyramid builders lived 5000 years ago. Now the only thing of note is a 14m tall statue of Ramses II, that isn't noted to be worth the entrance fee to the small museum that houses it. The town was interesting to drive through as it was like going back in time (or at least to a simpler time). There where little kids playing in the street or riding their donkeys to the market, mothers with huge containers perfectly balanced on their heads, and men smoking hooka as the lazy day passed.

The above part of the blog is not meant to discourage anyone from visiting the Pyramids at Giza or any of the neighboring monuments. It's only meant to convey my version of the trip and to serve as a warning that you should make sure to view everything with your own eyes before believing what anyone tells you. Also don't give into pressure from a guide or driver, take your time and see everything there is to see. I think that I will one day come back here and do this the right way.

Western Desert

Day two of our trip had us on a 6 hour bus ride into the Western Desert to a place called the Bahariyya Oasis. This bus was worse than the previous bus from Dahab to Cairo, but the company was better. There were about 7 of us foreign folk and the driver wanted to keep us all together, so we sat and chatted amicably for much of the ride.

We arrived and were instantly surrounded by touts all clamoring for us to go too their respective establishments. Luckily we had ours already set up and the man himself greeted us. Badr's Safari Camp became our home for the next two and a half days.

Seeing as this was the low season, we were the only people in the camp while we were there. There was a couple from Oregon that was a day ahead of us and therefore we only saw them for an hour before they left on our second day, and there was a girl from London that came about an hour before we left to go back to Cairo on the third day.

The set up of the camp is that the guests arrive around 2pm, when the bus deposits them, lunch is served and then you stare at the shrubbery for about an hour before someone informs you that it's too hot to go anywhere until 5pm and therefore you can do as you like till then. The camp itself is nice in the "I've been cast-away to a tropical island" kind of way, until you realize that it's actually sand and not water that surrounds you. The area is filled with underground springs that the inhabitants tap into and exploit for water to use in their gardens and farmland. It also adds a sense of wonder to see all this greenery surrounded by miles and miles of wasteland.

A 5pm we set out for one of the local springs. This spring comes from about 1000m underground and shells out lukewarm water that felt wonderful after the heat of the day. We stayed there and soaked (the sulfur and other minerals in the waters are supposed to be healing and good for the mind and the body). Em made a deal with Badr that she would jump in the Hot spring if he would stop trying to throw her in this one. Little did we know that hot meant boiling. The water is about 40 degrees Celsius with roughly translates to 106 degrees Fahrenheit. So you can imagine just how fast Em jumped back out after going in. It was quite funny. Badr then proceeded to show us that he had no nerve endings left in his lower appendages by leaving his feet in the fryer for 10 minutes.

That night I got Badr to purchase some henna for me in town and we drew henna designs with sticks. They where awful (well the one that Em let Badr draw on her) so it was good that they only lasted for a day.

Day two at the camp sort of began like day one in that we sat around wondering when we were going to set out on the desert trek. This turned out to be 12:30pm, which really meant 4pm because we stopped at two small stores on the way out of town where we had tea and Badr talked with the owners for a long time.

Finally we hit the open road and visited many places. First stop was the Black Desert. This is known for its dark mesas that are littered with volcanic remnants from millenias past.

Next we made our way to Crystal Mountain, where the rest of the tourists happened to be. It appears to been on the "camp itinerary " of many camps. Crystal Mountain is a small hill right off the road that is filled with quartz deposits. It makes everything sparkle and is interesting, but not all that exciting. It was entertaining though to watch how our desert that previously had only held us, filled with a bus load of French, and jeeps carrying single pairs of tourists from Germany and Japan, made the desert seem that much smaller.

At the Crystal Mountain we left the comforts of the paved path and headed inland over the sand dunes. Here we stopped at the "Flower Garden." This used to bed the ocean floor (didn't everything) about 65 million years ago and as a result there are many fossilized coral and basalt stones in weird shapes. Many of these formations appear like many pointed stars or flowers and thus the name of the place. They are actually quite interesting and Em and I both collected a few or our favorites as souvenirs.

A right from the Flower Garden and a few twist, turns, and miles later you end up at the Magic Spring of the al-Wadi Oasis. This is a set of palm trees complete with mini hut and hanging flour and a spring. It looks straight from a cast-away movie or our of the mind of a person that has begun to hallucinate from lack of water. It's gorgeous, if a little theatrical.

Our last stop of the day was in the White Desert. Here there are towering limestone protrusions that form random shapes and invoke the same imaginative skills as cloud-watching. In the White Desert we ran into two brothers whom we meet on the bus ride down. They ended up camping with their guide about five minutes by foot from us and trekked over around 10pm for entertainment. So for Em and my's 24th birthday, we danced like idiots to a hand drum, hung out with two brothers that look more like twins than we do, learned some Arabic from three bedouins, played games that had no purpose but to make us look like fools (which they accomplished many times over), invited a couple of foxes (that looked like scraggly cats with bat ears) to dinner, and camped in the middle of a beautiful desert. It was fabulous.

To put a smile on everyone's face, I will recount a few of the ways that we humiliated ourselves for the benefit of others. Firstly, we held our ear with one hand and then pointed the other directly downward. Then we turned in a circle in the same place, with the finger pointing down always on the ground, ten times and then tried to grab a bottle of water that was ten feet away. As you can image, this only lead to people falling over, some due to dizziness and others due to mirth.

The second game called for one person to stand with their back to everyone else and have one hand cover their eyes while the other faced backwards towards the others. One of those behind the person would touch the hand facing towards them and the blind person would have to guess who had touched them. This game reminded me of "Heads Up, Seven Up" from elementary school. Anyone remember that game? There's basically no logic to the game or point, but it's entertaining, especially when people start singing to distract you or using feet or trading locations and so forth.

The last humiliation of the night belonged solely to me and apparently will provide many with smiles for days, if not weeks into the future. The guide that was from the boys' camp set me and one of the boys, Nief (no sure on the spelling, but sounds like knife), in a line and then leap-frogged over us. After that he convinced me that I should try and he swapped places with me. After a nice warning and disclaimer from me that I take no responsibility for clocking him in the head with my feet, I got ready to attempt to jump over. Can anyone guess where this is going? Timing it perfectly, Mister Joker, flattened himself just as I was vaulting, which had the desired affect of causing me to face plant into the sand where he used to be. Pride shattered by peals of laughter I chased him and tackled him to the ground for revenge. This soothed my pride some, but the damage had been done and for the rest of the night and even the next day people randomly burst out laughing and then turned to me and said, "You should have seen your face. That was just classic." I hope that this retelling has brought a smile to someone else's day as well.

The next day we headed back to camp, said good bye, hopped the Koran singing express back to Cairo.

Cairo Part Deux
As per our wish, we had a day and a half in Cairo to ourselves upon our return from the desert. Today, the first day back, we decided to headed to the Islamic Quarter, filled with its hodge-podge or architecture, mosques, churches, peddlers, and cemeteries. We didn't realize tell last night though that it was Friday, the equivalent of Sunday in the States and thus many things are either closed all day or between 11am and 2pm for pray. So by the time we made it to the Islamic quarter (you'd be surprised how useless a map becomes when there are no street signs), pray had begun and everything was closed for the next three hours. We wondered around for a bit admiring the architecture and getting further lost, before hailing a taxi and asking to be dropped off at the Khan al-Khalili bazaar. Even here we got lost (why was our decent sense of direction abandoning us now?). We wandered into the locals bazaar instead of the tourist one and where wondering why there were no people and nothing but household products and clothing. No trinkets anywhere. We did visit a mosque here and climbed the minaret to get a grand view of the city and some pretty pictures.

Eventually we deduced, that we were in the wrong marketplace and went walking looking for the correct marketplace. As we left, we noticed, as any normal person would, that there were van load after van load of army and police, full with riot gear, lining the street for the as far as the eye could see (roughly a mile and a half stretch of road), as well as lining the streets. There most have been a few thousand of them and most of them were just crammed into van that looked like Holocaust boxcars. It was quite odd and we were trying to determine whether there was a planned protect or other that we should know about and subsequently avoid. This question was never answered.

After some wondering and asking for directions we, quite by accident, found the correct marketplace. I as eager to test my bargaining skills (as that's what the bazaars in Egypt where created for) and see what cheap trinkets I could acquire as gifts for those back home. I think that we did quite well, coming away with some "papyrus" (banana leaf) bookmarks, a soccer jersey for Em, a few stone pyramids, and a bunch of scarab bracelets and necklaces, plus a henna tattoo (with black henna though that's not too great for your skin and doesn't last that long) or both of us, for less than $25.

After some over-priced refreshments to reinvigorated ourselves we decided to head back into the heart of Islamic Cairo and visit the Necropolis. Although this place is called the City of the Dead (there really are two Cities as it's split into a North and a South Cemetery), but really is a city of both the living and the dead. There was a housing shortage in the 1960s and as a result lower-income Egyptians were given housing in the mausoleums of the dead. Yep, people actually live next to, atop, below, and surrounded by the corpses of millions. A creepy thought, but and interesting social experience nonetheless. Once again the lack of street signs helped us not at all and we found ourselves wandering aimlessly along a road that wasn't meant for pedestrians. As soon as we gave up on trying to actually find the Necropolis and just started heading in the direction of a mosque that we'd seen earlier in the day, we found the City of the Dead. Funny how that works. Even more coincidentally, if you believe in that sort of thing, is that the Necropolis was the area that we'd become lost in during the beginning of our day (in the morning) and we had found ourselves at the end of the road from which we'd hitched a cap five hours earlier. How's that for full circle?

So we wandered around the cemetery and took some photographs. We still didn't have a clue where in it we were (not even if it was the North or the South Cemetery) and thus couldn't find any of the landmarks from our guidebook. Yeah, we aren't utilizing our resources nearly enough.

We decided that we wanted to visited this mosque that we believed to be The Citadel, the home to many of the rulers of Egypt from the 13th century to 1876, including Muhammad Ali. After walking around it for 45 minutes and not finding an entrance, we admitted defeat and caught a cap back to the hotel.

So to sum up our day, we set out to explore what is stated to take 2-3 days to explore, got lost repeatedly, saw nothing that was in the guidebook aside from the market, saw more cops in one place than there should peacefully be, bargained, explored, took pictures, proved just how bad of tourists (or how good depending on you view) we really are, and generally had a good time. Next time I come, I think that I need to invest in a tour guide that knows where things are so that I can actually see some of these spectacular buildings from the inside, that and maybe not go on a Friday. We live and we learn.

This excerpt of the novel is now complete. I hope that if any of you venture to Cairo you will learn from our mistakes and have a more fulfilling trip.

Jordan Signing Off...Egypt by Way of Eilat

Jordan the Last Few Days

There was a slight detour in our plans of heading directly to Aqaba from Petra and as it turned out, it was for the better. Our last night in Petra, the proprietor of the hostel that we were staying out (I should amend my entry on it...it turns out it wasn't the worst place that I could have stayed in, just one of the weirder ones), hooked us and two other guest up with a "reduced" rate trip in Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is the name of the most well known tourist desert in Jordan. Most of the lower half of Jordan in desert, but Wadi Rum is actually protected by the government and is a natural preserve. During tourist season (August to October), the place is crawling with crazy people entrusting their lives to 16 year old bedouins that probably don't have licensees and Jeeping out to the remote parts of the desert. Seeing as it was low season, there were only about 15 crazy people in attendance for the day that we were there. Our trip included a 5 hour jeep ride through this hot, dry, arid climate in a rickety jeep that needed to be fixed three times (over heated I believe) during the trek, a teeth clenching trip up a hill at a 75 degree angle, a two hour nap in the shade of a rock face, a little freehand bouldering, a marriage proposal, dinner, scary toilets, strangling cat singing, and then the bribing of locals to get out of town the next morning (the bus was full and would take us). It was quite and adventure and I loved every moment of it and am very happy that I got to sidetrack there.

I'm sure that some of you caught onto the "marriage proposal" part above, so I thought I should elaborate. Arab men are very forward if they see a Western girl that is not accompanied by a male and is not in a relationship. Our driver for the jeep trek decided that since he was the last of 8 siblings that wasn't married and he wanted out of Jordan, a nice American bride was the ticket. But apparently no one taught him any lessons in finesse. This was the proposal:

"How old are you"
"24"
"That's old! My sister is 17 and already has two kids. You marry me!"
"No"
"Okay, we be friends then. You come and live with me. I cook for you and then in a few months, you marry me."

I hope someone got a good laugh out of that (I know Jenni did). Needless to say there will be no wedding anytime soon.

The next day we actually made it to our intended destination of Aqaba. To get there required a bus to the crossroads, an hour wait and then paying two separate drivers to take the nine of us (and all of our huge bags) that we clustered at the bus stop (probably the reason none of the buses would stop and pick us up) the 50km to town. It was an interesting experience. I have a picture of seven of us squished into the back of a extended cap (basically and area meant for three people).

Aqaba may be the resort area for the Jordanians, but it certainly doesn't give off a warm or fun vibe. Women are gawked at and don't dare go near the water in anything less than an over coat as the guide book states. It's also god-awful hot and only gets more stifling as the sun goes down. We were there for less than 24 hours and that was plenty too long. I wonder if going when there were actual tourist might have been better?

Via Eilat

Due to the supposed meeting of two friends we'd acquired at Heritage House in Jerusalem that stated an interest in accompanying us to Egypt, and the fact that it was somewhat cheaper to cross to Egypt via Eilat (the party/beach town at the tip of Israel that sits on the Red Sea), we opted to spend a day in Eilat and pick our friends up there. The transformation from one country to another was amazing even though they are almost stone throwing distance away. Whereas Aqaba was drab and kind of freaky, Eilat was alive and gave off a youthful and vibrant vibe. We were quite happy we decided to stop by, besides we were really craving an Ice Coffee (like a frappacino, but cheap as in so far as Israel prices go and oh so yummy).

Sinai, Egypt

As it turns out one friend had a family emergency and the other got sick, so neither met us and we carried on by ourselves. At the border we ran into two Americans (quite ironic seeing as we hadn't seen any since leaving Israel the first time 2 weeks previous). On was going to the tip of Sinai for the weekend and the other lived in Cairo. We split a taxi with them to Dahab to save money and pumped the current denzien for information on what to see, where to go, what to avoid, and so forth. It was a nice chance occurrence.

So this brings us to our current location: Dahab, Sinai, Egypt. This town sit on the coast of the Red Sea and sport some fantastic diving and snorkeling. Almost everywhere that you turn, there is a dive company offering tours or certifications. It is so tempting to do as many of the locals have done: arrive as a backpacker, take an into dive course, and wake up on morning 6 months/7 years down the line to realize that you are now a dive instructor and you love it. This town is so laid back and reminds me of the depictions of the Caribbean Islands or Hawaii. You've all got to come down here sometime...especially those of you that dive.

We decided to take advantage of the various adventures offered and procured to 4x4 ATV. Got to love a place that gives you a fiver minute introduction and then sets you free to follow. I had no idea what I was doing and stalled the ATV out about 4 times. Apparently , if you try to change the gear at the wrong time, the vehicle hates you and refuses to move.

We road out to a place about 10 miles away called "The Three Pools." Here I took Em out of her element (she did quite well on the ATV and impressed the instructor) and dropped her in the ocean. She hated it. I loved it. We had rented snorkel gear (cause if I caved in to my desire to get scuba certified I might never go home), and went out to check out the reef. The water here is a beautiful turquoise and is teeming with life under its depths. The only thing is that you have to get past the first parts of the coral that are about 7in below the surface to get to the pools where you don't need to worry about scraping yourself up on the reef. We swam around for about an hour and invade the sea communities and then headed back to shore for the ride home.

The ATV that I had ridden out on broke (what is it with me and things breaking down?) so while we were snorkeling, the instructor went back for a new one. He ended up not being able to fix it, so him and his friend who came to fix the vehicle rode back with us. I think that the friend that was riding with me will think twice before riding with a novice in the future. We repeatedly asked that I not kill him and then thanked me when we reached the relative safety of the village. I swear, I'm really not that bad....I just need a bit of practice.

Yesterday, and technically today, we hiked Mt. Sinai. This is where Moses is said to have received the 10 Commandments from God. As we hiked up we all wondered why God couldn't have given Moses the Commandments on a little hill. The hike from the Saint Katherine's Monastery at the base to the peak where we watched the sun rise is a vertical climb of 1850ft and took about 3 hours to go up.

Our trip started at 11pm when we and 10 other sleepy passengers were loaded into a too small minibus and driven the two hours to the Monastery. There we bought our entrance tickets and joined the other 200 or so tourist that had picked this morning to make the daunting climb. You're supposed to have a guide lead you up, but it seemed ridiculous and all of us pretended to be part of another tour group to avoid the guide fee. The guides practically run up the mountain anyways and you're trudging along trying not to trip off the mountain in the dark, that a guide seems quite pointless anyways.

Em and I made friends with a Netherlands from Amsterdam and spent the hike chatting with him. He being in far superior shape, was often waiting for us to catch up. By the time that we had all become exhausted and decided it might be worth it to shell out the 30 or 40 LE (Egyptian pounds) that we thought a camel ride to the peak would cost, we found out we were at the top point that the camels could go to. Apparently camels aren't very good at climbing stairs, much less 750 crooked ones at that. We be dragged our tired bodies to the peak and rewarded ourselves with overpriced Twix and tea.

The sunrise was beautiful and many ooohs and awws ensued in between the flutter or camera shutters.

Now came to what was supposed to be the easy part, going down. But if any of you have ever climbing a really tall mountain before, you know that going down can be more painful than going up. Em and Will (the guy from Holland) decided that it was a good use of funds and time to take a camel the whole way down. If any of you have ever ridden a camel before, then you know this was a very bad idea. We paid our fare, and were jostled, bumped, dipped, and generally tortured by the animals for about a fifth of the trip down before we decided it was better for certain body parts to forfeit the money and walk down the rest of the trip. Camels are semi okay on flat trails, but walking down steep paths and occasional stairs is just stupid on the riders part. So we got off and walked down the rest of the way laughing at the faces of those that decided to tough it out and stay on the torturous animals all the way down.

At the bottom of the mountain we were rewarded with a quick tour of St. Katherine's Monastery. The Monastery is named after Katherine that was martyred for her believe in Christianity. She was tortured and then her throat was cut (because the wheel that she was on broke and actually killed over-zealous onlookers). Inside the Monastery is the Burning Bush where God supposedly talked to Moses, Moses' Well, A great wooden bell that rings 30 times once every morning to remind people of Christ, and a library containing great mosaics.

So that is the culmination of our first few days in Egypt. Tomorrow we head on an eight hour bus ride to the heart of the country, Cairo.

Alert and Well

This is just a quick blog to let everyone know that both Em and I are aware of the events that are unfolding between Israel and Lebanon and Other Middle Eastern Countries. We are doing our best to stay appraised of the situation and thank all those that have inquired about our safety in regards to the "war" that is happening currently.

We are currently in Dahub, Sinai, Egypt. This was a hotbed of activity a while ago, but now is like a very cool laid back diver (scuba) town. Most of the people here are Aussie and Japanese backpackers that came for a few days, took a scuba course and never went home. We are visiting Mt. Sinai tomorrow and then heading to Cairo. We will be in Egypt until the beginning of August and will try and update frequently or at least check email.

We hope all is well with everyone out there that is reading this.

Petra

Mehar, one of Faris's younger brothers was going to Aquaba, the local resort town for Jordan. It a beachy town near the bottom of Jordan right on the Red Sea. He was going to go down for five days and stay in an apartment with two of his cousins and said that he'd get a bigger apartment if we wanted to come as well. Thinking that this would be a good home base for things that we wanted to see in the south and a way to save some money we decided, sure and decided to tag along. This plan morphed a few days while we where staying with the family and in the end fell apart. This actually turned out for the best as the things tend to do. The "planned" trip was getting more and more expensive and Mehar was proving to be just as immature as other 18 years olds.

So Saturday morning we decided that we'd stayed long enough and didn't want to wear out our welcome, so we said goodbye and we kindly taken by driver to the bus stop. This turned out to require a trip to three different bus stops. Regardless of the fact that Petra is probably the only place that people outside the country know exist in Jordan (that's if they know that Jordan itself is a country), it's not that easy to get to from the capital city of Amman. Only tourist and people that live there (not many) want to go there, so the buses that go are mainly tour buses that leave once a day (around six am and therefore we missed it) or small transports. It was the latter that we ended up on. So us and about 15 other locals and one other backpackers (from some Asian country) boarded a mini bus and headed three hours south. Everyone was really nice and thought it was funny that our backpacks covered the entire aisle and one guy in front of us had to lean on my pack the whole way down to prevent it from smothering an old woman. What a great sport he was.

We were dropped off at the Petra Gate Hostel that we had researched (it got the highest rating from Hostel World - 92%) and then made a reservation with online so as not to be left without a destination once arriving. The proprietor was very nice and we were situated in one of the crappiest hotel rooms I've ever seen. It's low tourist season now and therefore they are doing some maintenance on the hostel. This means a lot of dust everywhere (I think the last time that the comforter was washed was last year during tourist season - maybe 10 months ago). The bathroom was about two feet wide and six feet deep with a rust like shower nozzle that we were almost convinced would squirt out brown water if turned on and a toilet that faced the wall so that you had to sit on it sideways. You're probably wondering why we didn't just say thank you and leave as any sensible person might have done (well except for the other 8 guests staying there). It must have to do with the fact that the manager was very nice and gave us new sheets and that we're too nice to up and go, besides we're traveling cheaply and this was $8 a night.

The manager told us that it was far too late to see Petra that night (it was about 4pm) and therefore he would drive us out to see Little Petra (if you haven't already guessed a smaller outpost that has buildings from the same time period and style). Little Petra was free and provided about two hours of leisurely strolling. We met a Bedouin who became our buddy and told us about the different ruins and their uses. He also helped us boulder up a cliff to see one of the more impressive buildings up close.

The beudions are well known for their hospitality and we were invited to Mohammed's home for tea and then to dinner at the camp were there would be music and such cause tourists (what turned out to be a group of Spanish and Jordanian Tourism PhDs and Archaeologists) were coming for dinner. Mohammed lived in a small town right outside Little Petra and everyone was pretty much related somehow. We met his whole family and Em gave then Altoid Sours. That was hilarious cause they would scrunch up their faces and make the weirdest noises and then mine (no English) that they didn't like it, but ten minutes later they wanted another one.

We were joined by Mochmod (not sure one the spell, but pronounced Moch-mood, which a ch like in lochness monster and hard D's), Mohammed's cousins and escorted to the Amarrin Bedouin camp. This is where I meet a bunch of Jordanian archaeologists and a woman was Spanish but had gone to get her PhD in Colorado and all of them know of Crow Canyon. That little place has World Wide notoriety.

Another conscience is that it turns out Mochmod and Mohammed (sometimes) work with Professor Levy on the excavation that I'll be doing in October. Now tell me can things get any more weird and consciencidental than that.

Today, Sunday the 9th of July, Em and I met Mohammed and Mochmod and went to Petra. Since they are Bedouins they get in for free and it I had my Levy excavation card already I would have too. The boys decided to be our tour guides and told us about the different ruins that we were seeing. If anyone has ever seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, then they've seen Petra. The building where Indie goes to find the Holy Grail is the Treasury. The building and all the others in the area are carved out of the natural sandstone rock faces and are intricately designed. Most of them contain giant square open rooms that once housed tombs. They say that only about 15% or 40% or 60% (depends who you ask) of Petra has actually been discovered. There's still so much out there.

Walking into the site involves walking between giant stone walls with a small space in the middle (about 50 feet across), it's just amazing. Then you come to the Treasury that appears out of the wall as if it had always been there. Walk a little further and you come out of the tunnel created by the mountains into to whats let of a Roman colonnaded street, the ruins of tombs, temples, and small homes. It's just fantastic.

Brown University has been working on an excavation to uncover the ruins of the Great Temple for the last 14 years and the lady in charge was kind enough to give me a brief site tour and explain the project. They have uncovered most of the Temple and are currently trying to uncover a Roman bathhouse that was built over a Nubattian structure.

We explored and then hiked up the side of a mountain so that we could view the Treasury from above. We didn't get to see the Ministry cause we were too tired to hike the 900 stairs after out 500 stair and then some climb. I will have to do it November and take pictures for Em.

And now my fans, you are all caught up on the latest and greatest adventures. Tomorrow we head to Aquaba, the final leg of the Jordan experience. Everyone watch the World Cup and vote for Italy (France cheats so we don't like them).

The Wedding Edition

This post delves a little back into the past as that event sort of relates to an event from the last few days and neither my sister nor I remembered to post anything about it. So without further ado...

In the month since we've been traveling in the Middle East (can you believe its already been a month?), Em and I have been to two very different weddings:

Jewish Orthodox Wedding

Apparently it is acceptable for anyone and everyone to show up to a Jewish Orthodox wedding. They apparently welcome it and make extra food just for that fact. So Chaya, the house mother at the Heritage House that we were staying in while in Jerusalem, invited everyone from the hostel to attend. It started with one or two people and eventually there for quite a few of us planning on attending. Never one to turn down food (how well some of you know us), Em and I decided it might be nice to see what all the hoopla was about.

So at 7:00pm Em, myself, Abby and her brother, Max, set out by taxi looking for this wedding. We should have known that this was going to be an interesting night from the start when the taxi driver pulls up to another taxi (this is after we've entered his car) and ask directions to the place that we're supposed to be going to. He gets the "directions" and after some life-threatening driving we are deposited in an orthodox area of Jerusalem where there are hundreds (must have been at least 600 or 700) people dancing in the street and there is a little car with a mini kiosk type top playing the most god-awful music at top volume. Our first impression is that Jews really know how to throw a party. Our second thought is wait all those people dancing are male and hassidic and therefore were not supposed to touch them (being female and all), so how are we supposed to part the sea to get to the other side where the wedding is supposedly at? We ask a woman who is on the sidelines watching where exactly the hall that we're supposed to be going to is at and get the nice "dumb American" smile and the reply, "This is the area Bet Israel, but the Bet Israel Hall is not here. It's on the other side of town. Just take a taxi and it won't be more than ten minutes ride." Curious as to what we did end up in the middle of, we asked and found out that it was the Grand Opening celebration for a 10 million dollar Yeshiva. That would explain why there were only men dancing in the street.

So we head back down the street intent on finding another taxi and see two more of our hostel buddies being deposited in the same wrong area (apparently this Bet Israel Hall is not well known). So to save them from making the same mistake that we made we run toward them shouting, "Go back to the cab...Wrong location." I think they thought that we were crazy, but they went back and then we all piled in. The driver didn't like that there were six people in four spots and kick 4 of us out.

Eventually we made it to the right spot. There we were greeted by overly happy Neve students (the girl getting married was a Neve student) that were overjoyed that we could make it to the wedding and more than happy to answer any questions. The boys were taken to the other side cause in Orthodox weddings they separate the sexes (I think part of the reason is so that women can un-cover their hair and people on both sides can dance without having to worry about touching someone of the other sex).

Once inside we realize that we've missed the Chuppa (not sure about spelling there), the actually ceremony and now it's food time. The ceremony would have been nice, but the four of us are starving and more than happy to chow down. This is when we're told that the families of the two getting married are not wealthy and they are paying for food by the plate, therefore they can't feed us. So four chairs are set out to the side where we can watch everyone eat and see all the empty spots and food that's already prepared go to waste, but we can eat. As a consolation, we get to listen to the Neve girls tell us all about the traditions and the room where the bride and groom are touching for the very first time. We later found out that the boys were given dinner. So not fair.

After everyone had eaten people danced...and danced....and danced...and danced...and then they did things that made them look stupid because if you make newlyweds laugh it's considered a mitzvah (point in your favor when being judged by God upon death).

Around 9:00pm about 10 more Heritage House people showed up, have of them had been pulled along for the ride without knowing before hand that they were coming and therefore they were in jeans and t-shirts and had their musical instruments with them and so forth. It was entertaining to watch them come and integrated into the black and white attire of most everyone else (on the men's side). About this time hungry and boredom (sorry can only see so much dancing) were winning out and all 20 or so Heritage people made a mass exodus.

So what I can say about this wedding is that people were overly friendly; the room where the newlyweds first touch is the best thing for those that aren't married yet; the food that we couldn't eat was great; I learned to dance in a circle that had so many people in it I really couldn't go anywhere; people know how to make fools of themselves quite nicely; and it was very entertaining to watch (for a bit).

The Rich Man's Jordanian Wedding

From a working class wedding, please now follow me as we see the flip side of the coin:

After wondering for two weeks whether we were actually going to Faris's Wedding (Em's friend from college), he finally emailed us back with a phone number. This lead to more numbers and eventually an meeting day and time. The place ended up being the poor part of town (where Em and I had wondered unknowingly after visiting some ruins and couldn't find our way out of). In Jordan there are no real street addresses, people either know what you're talking about or they ask someone and that person knows. It makes it hard to find places or give directions. Luckily, the local grapevine was helpful and Faris and his brother, Mohammad, found us and whisked us away to more familiar territories.

I never knew this, and apparently neither did Em, but Faris and his family are rich. They live in a very large and very nice flat (apartment) and have two maids, a driver, and the attitude that they are better than everyone else. They treated us very nicely and made us part of their family at once, but we also befriended the maids (two girls our age from the Philippines) and saw the way that they think of others that they feel our beneath them. I tried not to let this color my perceptions of the family too much, but it enviably did.

Being from so far away, Mom and Pop decided that we had to stay at their house for the wedding cause it wasn't right to send us to a hotel and besides there was plenty of room (nevermind the other 15 people staying there). So a surprisingly comfortable bed was made for us in the little nook over the living-room and here we lived for the next three days.

The first night that we showed up was the "Night before the Wedding" party and this started around 10pm (everything starts late here). The party involved more dancing (of the belly-type persuasion and therefore you can all image how awfully Em and I were), tons of food, enough smoking to kill us all (they all smoke like chimmenys here...it's really gross), and tons of questions about who we are and were we're from and so forth. It was actually really nice and a good way for us to get used to the family and vice versa. The younger kids and cousins and such took the most liking to us (go figure) and the grandmas (who didn't speak any English but kept trying to feed us and then make us dance).

Thursday was the actually wedding. This didn't actually start until 6pm and therefore we spent the whole day hanging out with the family. There even took us to get our hair done up. I got mine blown-dried straight (just the way I like it) and Em went for this curl look that ended up making her look like a house wife from the seventies. By 5pm most of the curls were gone and it was a messy look that we tried to fix to no avail and she look like usual (crazy) but with some nice partial curls at the ends. :~)

The wedding itself started with a traditional band coming to play at Faris's home. The band was a group of singers dressed as beudoins that clapped and sand and banged a hand drum. This led to dancing naturally and there was also a photographer and videographer that were pushing people around trying to get the best shots. About and hour of this and the singing and dancing progressed down the stairs and outside where Faris got to drive in the rented Audi TT to his fiancie's house a few miles away. The other 60 people pile in another dozen or so cars and honking all the way follow. Quite a spectacle.

At Nor's house (the bridge) the process is repeated and then we all jumped back in the cars to drive all over town honking. At every red light (and I think they purposely tried to find them) many of the drivers from the following cars got out and danced around the Bride and Groom and I think pissed off local traffic.

The actual wedding party was at this incredibly nice hotel. More singing and dancing and then the 2 hour reception where the newlyweds disappeared, everyone drinks juice (it's a Muslim country so no alcohol), Em and I are wondering when the actually ceremony will be, contacts made with the Bride's family and invitations extended to show us around Jordan the next time we're here. The best part was that two of the little cousins (I think they were 10 and 8) who didn't speak any English really wanted to talk to us so the girl (who was older) would send the boy to find the aunt or whomever that spoke English and ask for a word or phrase. The boy would then run back, tell the girl, who then asked us. The problem is that they would have to find someone to tell them what we said too. It turned into a great game of charades and was very entertaining.

Finally dinner and the food was wonderfully and enough to feed the whole country. This was followed by dancing for many hours and more making fun of ourselves trying to imitate the locals (really not possible unless you are really limber).

We found out that the actually marriage (signing the papers and everything) had occurred two weeks previously. The wedding is really only the party and the vows are done privately beforehand. I thought that was pretty interesting.

So two weddings down and who knows how many to go. Of all the weddings I ever been to, I've never been to a traditional wedding (in any culture). They've all been altered in some way. Even these two. The Jewish wedding not a lot, but some. The Jordanian wedding had everyone together (like orthodox weddings the men and women are usually separated) and was not held over three nights.

So I hope you enjoyed my making a fool of myself for others. One other thing that I'd like to note for anyone that knows my sister, she was wearing a skirt. It was a hippie skirt with many different colors and patchworked together, but a skirt none-the-less and she actually enjoyed it. I even go the pictures for blackmail later on. Sorry I can't post it now.

Jerusalem Act Two, Jordan Act One

First off, I'd like to wish everyone in the States a wonderful Fourth of July. We almost forgot the holiday here as you can image it isn't very well known or celebrated in this part of the world. I hope that everyone had fun, watched a parade or two and ate themselves silly. And now on to the recap...

Jerusalem

I was just re-reading my other blog and apparently went over Sunday (in less detail), but I put so much into this that you can read it again (I don't feel like deleting it).

The first Sunday (well really the only Sunday) that we spent in Jerusalem, we let the Heritage House (the free hostel that we were staying at) cart us along to Neve Yeshiva for girls. This place is a religious school for girls that want to learn about Judaism and have no real background or at least a background of varying degrees. This is also the place that I have an all expenses paid vacation to in September, if (I stress the IF), I decide that that's something I want to look into for a long period of time. So that being said, I decided it was a good idea to check the place out while I had the chance instead of rushing in head long come September. Neve is a very nice little school that's situated a top a hill in one of the more religious suburbs of Jerusalem and as such prefers that its students see the wisdom in covering modestly - three-quarter length shirts and long skirts everyday...in a desert climate this is in my opinion crazy, but it does protect your skin from the sun.

We attended three classes in the morning and then after lunch which was by far the scariest experience (imagine a mental institute where everyone has little plastic plates and utensils and you go up to the counter to see what the food is...there there is a big man that stares at you intimidating and when you ask what is what, grunts and replies "Food!" So you basically point at the more friendly gruel of choice which is then un-ceremonially dumped on your plate and you retreat to a far corner to double check that it really is dead and possibly edible) we spent and hour arguing with the head Rabbi about emotion verses god's will in having to shoot someone. Quite a weird topic you'd think, but we were with another girl, Brittany, who was talking about wanting to maybe join the Israeli army as a sniper, but didn't think that she could deal with killing someone like that. The Rabbi was talking about how if the person were evil then god would sanctify the killing and it would be okay. The rest of us didn't really agree with that.

Basically Neve is a nice place and I think that I could learn a lot from them about Judaism and my heritage and from an Anthropological point of view it would be a great experience, but to put it in Amy's terms, "They're a cult, but they're so nice about it that you won't notice until it's too late." Everyone that I met in at Heritage House (which is associated with Neve) and in the religious Jewish community (that Em and I were apart of for a week) all talk about how they were like us (interested in learning and didn't understand much), but now two/three years later, they are able to see god for what he/she is and to understand the religion and that the Jewish people are the chosen people and will eventually be the only true religion. It's thinking like that that tends to scare me away from learning. I don't want to be only wearing skirts and long shirts, praying non-stop, and believing that the messiah will come and raise the Jews high, and believe that I need to not touch males that aren't immediate family members or that I need to cover my hair after marriage, in the next three years. I understand that this way of thinking gives solace to a great many people, but I still think that they are missing out on a lot that life has to offer because of that same line of thought. Still, who knows, I might end up there in September, and use the experience to learn.

Monday, we convinced Brittany to ditch Neve (she was going for the whole week to make up for some religious classes that she'd missed in Be'er Sheva when attending college) and come tour the city with us. We called up our cousin Chuck and he most graciously offered to give us a driving tour of the city. We ended up seeing a great vista point, a Jewish market place and the botanical gardens (which were really quite dead seeing as it was summer). It was a very nice day and allowed us to see something outside the old city (we didn't venture much outside on our own because there were too many things inside to do).

Tuesday, we got suckered into a walking tour of Mt. Zion (a Catholic church, King David's supposed tomb, a yeshiva, and a mosque), Oskar Schindler's grave (in a very decrepit cemetery), and King David's city. King David's city actually made the tour worth it. We got to go down into the old water system which consists of about a 3/4 mile underground tunnel that was created to hide the water from invaders so that if the city was ever under siege it could survive for a time. This tunnel is about 1 1/2 ft across and varies in height from four feet to about 15 feet. You're also walking through the water the whole time and its pitch black if you forget your flashlight. But it's amazing and I wish we could have gone through a second time. To make the experience better, we turned our lights off and walked in the semi-darkness (using the illumination from the light about 25 meters in front of us). This is definitely a place that you should check out if you're ever in Jerusalem.

The tour also provided us with the location of Hell and the Hill of the Evil Council. Hell (there is a Hebrew name, but I don't remember it, is one of the valleys right below the old city and it got its name because there where a group of pagan people that lived there long ago and used to sacrifice their first born sons to this god to appease him. They had a statute of him where the baby was laid in the out stretched arms, that then retracted into the fiery belly of the statute. And thus you have Hell.

The Hill of the Evil Council is where Judas betrayed Jesus and now is (possibly ironically) the home of the United Nations. Many in our group found that funny.

Wednesday, Em and I we told that if we went before 11am we could go inside the Temple of the Rock, which is the Mosque that was built on the site of the First and Second Jewish Temples and where the Third Temple will one day reside. The Mosque is built over the creation rock, the rock from which many people of many religions believe life was started. That's also why the location is so coveted and so many societies had battled to destroy each other for the chance to built their own house of worship on the spot. We were unfortunately turned away at the door with the explanation that only Moslems that wished to pray were allowed to enter (later in Jordan we were told that that's not right and if we were properly modest we should have been allowed in). So we looked around outside and tried to eavesdrop on tours in the area, but had little success since the ones we found were in Hebrew, German, and Portuguese (I think I understood ever 20 words or so in this language). We wandered around the Moslem quarter for a bit (went through the Shuk) and then went back to the Jewish Quarter where we hit up the Jaffa Gate Museum (aka Tower of David Museum).

At the museum, there was a free tour that we hopped on that lead us through the history of Jerusalem and all it trials and tribulations over the last 300 years. It was very interesting to see how the city was conquered and destroyed and then rebuilt a number of times. And every group that came through left its own distinguishing mark(s) upon the ancient city. We learned that the Tower of David (for which the museum is named and the only tower still standing wasn't even built by David because it was built a thousand years after he died. Many believe that the real Tower of David was just recently discovered in the City of David, further down the hill).

Thursday we hit up the Southern Wall Excavations. These were fantastic and the extra 5 shekels (about $1.25) that we paid for the audio guide was well worth it. We wander around this great ruins, crashed through a kid's bar mitvah (at the Western Wall...pretty neat place to have it if you're religious), eavesdropped on some Aussies talking about their idea of the perfect woman, and generally had a good time. The excavations a great and there are many great feats of human kind that were created that many engineers would have a hard time replicating today. For example King Herod, built the Second Temple and created a grand plaza, Arch, and staircase to lead to it. The arch was destroyed by the Romans, but to just see the remains and think about how it was made is astounding.

Friday, we went to the Wohl Archaeology Museum (if you haven't caught on yet this romp through the Middle East is aimed primarily at Archaeological and Historic sites) and the Burnt House. The Wohl museum sits a top the remnants of 6 dwellings from ancient periods. These homes were part of the Herdonian quarter (second Temple Period) and housed upper-class citizens. Each house had at least two ritual baths and three other bathrooms, water-storage rooms or other purifying decor. Today's bathing conscience citizens have nothing on the olden time Jews.

The Burnt House is a 25 minute video presentation that is situated in the ruins of what is believed to be the home of one of the Top priest during the Second Temple Period. The video tells the perceived story of the Kathos family that lived in the home and how the city was torn between the Zionists and those that thought it was easier to go with the Roman rule as long as they could still practice their religion. This apparently lead to the Zionists sabotaging their own people to get them incised about the Roman invasion that was imminent. In the end the Romans invade and kill everyone in the city and destroy the Second Temple. The Israelis love their drama and the video was entertaining although quite cheesy.

Friday night began our second Shabbat in Jerusalem. This time though we already had families that had request our presence. Rabbi Eli (pronounced El-ly), the Rabbi that Brittany was making classed up for, invited us and about 15 other people to dinner. There we ran into two of the people that we'd meet at the Shabbat Experience three weeks previous while on Birthright. Weird conscience.

Saturday, Chaya, the house mother for the Heritage House, invited us for lunch and so we went. There we met another nomad, Jessie, who is going to go with us and Yanina (another hitchhiker) to Egypt.

Jordan

Sunday, we said our goodbyes and headed to Jordan. We had read online that there was a direct bus from Tel Aviv to Amman, so we headed back to Tel Aviv. When we arrived, not only could we not find the aforementioned bus, but everyone that we asked about how to get to Amman told us that we were crazy and that we'd get killed here. Naturally, we thanked them and went on to ask another person. Eventually we were told to take a bus to Afula, a small, dusty town in the north, where we repeated the question and answer exercise that we'd perfected in Tel Aviv and we told to take another bus to Beit-Shein. There we paid an outrageous fee to take a cap to the border (all of a mile away). At last, the border.

The Israeli side of the border was nice and courteous. They took our money and then left us on our own wandering around wondering where the Jordanian side was, until someone took pity on us and directed us to the bus that takes you the 200 meters or so to the other crossing. There the Jordanians were more than happy to confuse us some more and to offer us outrageous fees to get anywhere in the country. Luckily we found a Tourist Police office that was more than happy to explain where some nice ruins could be seen. One of the officer's told us that he would call his friend in Umm Quis and get us a nice deal on a room. Seeing as we had no real plan of our own we said sure. So Hiring a taxi for a very inflated fee we set off first for Pella (one of the Decapolis...ten great Roman Cities) and then on to Umm Quis. This is where things get interesting.

We had told the taxi driver that we needed to find a bank cause we didn't have much money and he said no problem, so when we get to Umm Quis, which is a very small village he demands his fee and we tell him where's the bank. This leads to.."There is no bank here or anywhere for 40 km." Of course we don't know what to do a the driver says one minute and disappears. In his place two locals show up carrying the worse coffee I have ever had (not even the addict Emmy liked it) and told us in broken English "Don't worry, it be fine." Not knowing what else to do, we forced the black sludge down our throats and waited. A few more rounds of this, interspersed with "We call Essam" (our contact from the Tourist Police) and eventually we give the cab driver all the money we have and take a 3 dinar loan from a local, and are let in the middle of no where with a overly jubilant local as a guide. Our guide (can't remember his name) lets us store our packs in his shop and then takes us to town where we meet who we think is Essam (but later find out is really Essam's friend Abraham). Abraham shows us the place, which essentially is an apartment that has been converted into three different bedrooms each with locking doors and there is a common room, kitchen and bathroom. A pretty nice place. We say we'll take it \, but we have zero money (and I mean nothing...the cabbie took the dinars, American dollars, and the shekels that we had). Essam (who has joined us by this point) and Abraham got into a short debate in Arabic that includes light punching and that we interpreted as "You idiot, you bring people without money here. What were you thinking?" The seem to remember that we are there and smile and say, "Not a problem, we have Visa machine and can charge it, plus give you 10 dinar extra." Then Abraham shells out 10 dinars. They tell us we are their guests, that they will be back in an hour to show us the ruins (at night the park is free and where all the locals hang out) and to relax. We are left to think that either everyone is crazy and have never seen fish-out-of-water tourists before or that they are just extremely nice people. We opt for the lather explanation.

Around 2 hours later, Abraham (who at this point we still think is Essam, cause he answers to that name) shows us the ruins and being that he is an archaeologist as well decides to tell us about them and about all the other ruins we need to see. We end up at Essam's restaurant where we had a great Italian meal and then continue on our tour of the site. Apparently we arrived three days late to see the filming of an Italian movie called, "The Holy Family." For this film, they company built a very convincing set that looked like the ruins, but was made of plaster and wood. So Abraham is going, "Isn't this nice and old? Ha, it is fake" and then hits it so we can hear the hollowness to emphasize his point. It was very funny and Em got a kick out of it.

After the ruins, we were again deposited back at the Hotel and two hours later Abraham and Essam invited us to tea on the roof. I had heat exhaustion (and I've learned my lesson so I'm drinking a lot more water now) and went to bed, but Em joined them. She had a great time and apparently got a little tipsy on local specialty called Arad (a more pungent version of Jaeger...the licorice flavored alcohol). She tripped down the same stairwell twice and broke one of their nice glasses.

The next day, I think we're on to Monday now, we went back to ruins to see them in the light and to travel this colonnaded road we didn't get to go on the night before. Half was through wandering around the place we were joined again by the local that had let us store our bags in his shop the night before. He showed us a couple of the sites we might not how seem otherwise, including a crypt and an ancient Roman gate. He also wandered into a field and returned with what turned out to be a type of cucumber. It was a sweet gesture.

We said goodbye and headed back to the hotel for lunch with Abraham (whose name we knew correctly be now) and Essam. They made us pita with salty pesto (that's what it seemed like to me) and tea. We chatted for a bit, were given a contact in Amman o look up upon arrival and them set out again. We took one of the same buses (really vans) that travel on set routes but pick up and drop off wherever people want. It was interesting cause everyone was looking at us and wondering what two white girls were doing in essentially the middle of no where. So the bus deposited us in Irbid (which is the second largest city in Jordan, but doesn't have much - well that we could see from the bus depot). After finding a bank and then realizing that my back card had expired 3 days previously (at the end of June) we found a bus to Amman.

The contact that we had for Amman wasn't off work for an hour so we wandered around wondering where to go and where there was a public phone to call this guy. It turned out that we stopped a guy on the road who talked to Abdul, our contact, figured out where we needed to be and drove us there. Aren't Jordanians nice? So we meet Abdul who showed us where a moderately priced hotel was located and then took us out on a tour of the town. It was interesting cause, here we are two days into a new country where we knew no one and spoke one words of Arabic and now we have three friends, who have contacts everywhere, and we're getting a tour of the capital city. And for all the worriers out there, we know not to just get in anyone's car or take the advice of just anyone, we sized everyone up first.

Well, Abdul called his cousin, Hussian, who picked us up and continued the tour. They took us to this restaurant that is famous in the area for sharwma and showed us different parts of the city. Apparently it is normal for everyone to pull off the highway and just chill out...watching cars or having bar-b-ques. I'm glad they were driving cause to me it appears that there really aren't any rules to driving in this country. More of a do what you want and hope you don't die kind of mentality.

Hussian decided that he would accompany us to Jerash the next day, another of the Decapolis and the most well preserved. So we set out and explored it. It's amazing in that there are two long colonnaded roads where most of the columns are still standing. Under the road is the old sewage system, and there are temples and churches and towers that are still standing. I know that I'm not doing any of these sites justice with the few meager words, but I can't really post my pictures ye and might not be able to ell I get home in December. So use your imagination or look these sites up online.

Today, Wednesday, Em and I got a ride from a nice tour guide that was staying at our hotel up to the Amman Archaeological Park and Museum. This is another city from the Decapolis. We toured around and even got to see some of the Dead Sea Scrolls (probably just replicas, but still i was cool) and then headed in to town. And that brings us up to the present, where I have been typing this book for the last 3 hours for the enjoyment of all of you. So I hope you have enjoyed it and will leave me a comment or two.