Sun 26/07/09 13:05

So I’ve been in Jordan for five days and except for a half hour I haven’t had internet at all. It’s really starting to annoy me.

This morning I headed down the hill to Petra at about 830 after a cold shower. It was one of those excitement days before I get to see something that I’ve always wanted to see, like Red Square, the Eiffel Tower, or Tiananmen Square, and I was hoping that I’d get there before the massive number of expected tourists arrived. Unfortunately, that was not to be, I got there right when the first group, or wave, of people showed. Not to worry though it was everything that I had hoped for, the buildings, the paths, caves, and even all the people made for a great experience.

The weather started great and soon ended up being very hot, just like it should… but for some reason, and I’d love to hear if this happens to any others, sunscreen doesn’t seem to work very well for me. I put spf 45 sunscreen on three times today, and wore a hat most of the day and when I got back to the hotel I looked like I had been slow roasted. I guess maybe I should have put it on 10 times. J Or maybe it was just that hot, I did drink four liters of water while I was there, and the rocks are white so maybe the heat and the reflection off the stone fried me.

Sorry about the ramble, but back to Petra. For those of you who might not now what Petra is, it is a city that was abandoned about 1000 years ago, but while it was thriving it had a large population that built their houses and buildings by carving them out of the surrounding mountains. The icon for Petra is the treasury that was used as a backdrop for a scene or two in the first Indiana Jones movie. The treasury was in other movies too, but most people remember it in the Indiana Jones movie. It really is impressive, this ornate and huge building just carved into the side of a big rock. Other than the treasury there were many other buildings that weren’t as well preserved or not as large, but all were still really interesting. One of the great things about this place is that you basically can go anywhere you want. With only a few exceptions, if you saw some place that you wanted to explore, you just went. I took it to it’s limit and got lost twice. If not for a deaf Bedouin boy that guided me back to the path –twice, I’d probably still be wandering around the mountains right now. Okay so that’s a little bit of an exaggeration since there’s really no way you can get lost since almost everywhere you go you can see land marks, but some of the paths aren’t really marked, and it is really easy to start following a goat path and get to a spot where the path just ends, and like I said if not for the Bedouin boy that would grunt at me, walk about ten meters in front, stop and then wait for me to catch up and then start walking again, I really would have gotten lost. It was kind of funny though, he was really nimble on the paths, and I was like a lumbering giant trying to stay up with him. As I write this, another example is coming to mind, you know in LOTR when Gollum is leading the hobbits? That’s what it reminded me of.

So now I have to figure out what I’m going to do tomorrow. I’ve pretty much had my fill of Jordan so my next decision is to go to Cairo or to Lebanon. I want to go to Lebanon, but the visa to get through Syria can be a nightmare and if I try to get one at the border there is a chance that my ride will abandon me, at least that’s what I’ve been told. Most people can go through Syria to Lebanon with about an hour wait at any of the borders, but with Americans, it can take up to five hours and sometimes we may not get them at all. If it takes five hours I was told that the bus would just leave me and move on, and I’d have to catch a ride with the next bus, or by some other means. The thing is, is that once I get to Lebanon, I still have a problem getting to Turkey because I have to go through Syria again… but I could go to Greece from Lebanon, which would be really cool. I don’t really want to go to Cairo, mainly because I’ve been there before and once I’m there there’s no place for me to go. So I think I’ll try Lebanon tomorrow. Wish me luck.