Jordan

Jordan was a breath of fresh air after Egypt. As much as we enjoyed Egypt, it seemed like Jordanian people were not trying to take advantage of us quite as often, and the countryside was much cleaner and more modern. Our first stop in Jordan was Petra. Lonely Planet said to not even consider going from St. Catherine`s to Petra in a day. Seemed like that was silly, since the distance was not more than 120 miles... we took it as a challenge. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The 7 AM taxi from St. Catherine took some persuasion to get at the cost we wanted. The guy we negotiated with stuffed us in his truck then took us to another guy and another car, circa 1960, for the ride. We picked up the spare tire and were off to Nuwiba via 3 tourist checkpoints to catch the ferry across the Red Sea to Jordan. The 1 o'clock ferry left at the crack of 4:30. Once landing at the Jordan port, we spent a good half hour wandering through large shipping crates to find the arrivals gate to receive our taken passports (Insha'Allah). Then a group of six of us found a taxi to take us to Wadi Mesa (Petra). It was nearly midnight by the time the taxi arrived after making a couple of stops in the wide-open desert to make us all get out of the car and look at the stars\smoke break. Talk about feeling insecure, "here, get out of the taxi in the middle of nowhere." Yes, its dark, you are in the Middle East and there is not even a street lamp. No problem. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In the morning we walked to the place that words can not do justice: Petra. The ancient Nuwibian people carved massive tombs into the beautiful red sandstone walls. It is most famous by us layman as being the set of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The 100-foot high buildings tower over people, we had to do a mantle move (hands above head and thrusting body up) to get into the beautiful Monastery. This is a must do for everyone - check out our photos when we finally get them posted, we should have gotten a couple of good ones out of the 200+ photos taken.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Our next adventure was taken with our new friends, Annette and Warren from Breckenridge, Colorado to Wadi Rum. The village of Wadi Rum was located in a sand-filled valley with towering sandstone walls to the east and west of town and became famous by it being Lawrence of Arabia's stomping ground. It was a great place to spend a couple of days climbing. Beautiful patina faces, similar to Nevada's Red Rocks, except not as many bolts or anchors, and a much more adventurous feel (two rescue helicopters were needed the week before our arrival, and we heard that it did not go so well). We were able to get on the rock a couple of days for rock climbing and Bedouin route trekking. Also, we joined a nice British group (Haden, Rachel, and David) up the route Inferno. It felt like we were back in Vegas during Thanksgiving, especially when rappelling in the dark.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Going against the recommendation of the locals, we took the camel trek (5 hr) rather than a camel ride (1 hr) on the last day at Wadi Rum. I got a nice, petite, white, female camel named Bebe, Braden got a bigger, fairly mild-mannered, male named Alba, and our guide, Omar, got an ill-tempered, untrained camel who wouldn't sit so Omar had to jump off of him. Omar was a 12-year old, funny, friendly Bedouin who already had a smokers cough. However, he used that to his advantage to have a baritone voice and serenaded us all the way back to camp with Jordanian pop music. Omar thought he was hysterical when he repeatedly covered his face, except for his eyes, with his Bedouin scarf and made shooting motions at us with his hands yelling that he was a terrorist. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Our camel ride included four stops. The first to Bedouin inscriptions on the rock, the second to see Kasilli canyon, the third to hike a sand dune, and the fourth to look for Omar's dropped lighter. After 5 hours we realized what the locals were warning about. I was so saddle sore the next day that I couldn't sit on the bed and my underwear stuck to chafe sores on my butt. Check, camel ride off of the bucket list.