Jordan & Petra

We just got back from Jordan, and loved every minute of it. I was really excited to go to Egypt, and I had some high expectations and kind of knew what to expect, but Jordan totally surprised me. Looking at the big picture of things, I think Petra has been my favorite site that we have visited thus far. Most of you probably know Petra from the third Indiana Jones movie. I thought that the temple that holds the Holy Grail, the treasury in real life, was all there really is to Petra, but that building really only scratches the surface. There is a monastery that is very similar in building to the treasury, and the monestary is a 987 step hike, that has ancient steps carved into the rocks part of the way up. It was awesome! The picture above is me and Erica in awe.

In addition to these two well know sites are some other massive tombs where we spent all afternoon exploring and hiking in and out of. We could climb all over in, around and on top of them, it was awesome just to explore and climb! The best way to describe it is Southern Utah with an ancient history twist. I absolutely loved it. Anyone and everyone that ever gets out to this side of the world should never miss Petra.

This is the canyon you walk through to get to the treasury, and the rest of Petra.

These are the 987 steps you climb to get to the monastery. Such an awesome hike!

This is what we climbed up those 987 stairs to get to...worth it? Maybe? It was way awesome. You could get down right in front of it and climb inside too. Most of them only had one big room, despite what we see in Indiana Jones.


This is one of the tombs along the canyon opening. This is one that we climbed all around and over. It was awesome. Once you get into the ruin, there are a bunch of random partial staircases on the cliff that we went exploring on.

Egypt

It has been brought to my attention that I have not blogged for quite sometime. I have to apologize for not doing so, but life gets pretty crazy. Anyway, most of you know that I am in Jerusalem. I am loving every minute here, and can’t believe how quickly the time has passed!

Instead of backtracking I am just going to jump into a recent update. Last week we went to Egpyt. It was quite the experience. As you would imagine, kind of a tourist place, so you have hagglers everywhere you go and they drive you crazy. They are the most persistent bums I’ve ever come across, shoving stuff in front of you, on you, and doing all but throwing them at you. Sheesh! We were all way sick of them after the first day. Our touring went really well, and everyone stayed healthy for the most part. Egypt isn’t exactly clean, it’s super hot, and the water is really questionable therefore, so a ton of people get sick. But we did alright as a whole.

Ancient Egyptian history has always fascinated me, so I really loved seeing a handful of the sights and items I always studied. Anyway I would love to give a play by play, but that would bore everyone, so here is a list of all my favorite sights and some pics. Also I thought I would a plug in for some insights I gained on my trip. Enjoy!

Favorite sights and events in Egypt:
§ The Pyramids—lets be honest, they are pretty sweet.
§ An hour long Camel Safari through an Egyptian town and village.
§ The Karnak Temple.
§ Ramases II mummy, the guy totally had red hair, crazy huh.
§ Ramases II MASSIVE statue at Memphis.
§ The Valley of the Kings, so cool!
§ The Nile Faluka ride.


Things learned from Egypt:
-I don’t like brown shower water, call me high maintenance, but I just don’t find it inviting.
-We have no idea just how good we have it.
-I hate being haggled, but actually kind of like bargaining. They are not the same!
-I feel all powerful and extremely intimidating if I have my sunglasses and a backwards baseball hat on (only when dealing with market peoples).
-We are so small.

This is the nile with a couple of Falukas in the back ground. On the horizon you can see some pillars and such, that is the Luxor temple. We went there and it was sweet! But I think I liked the Karnak Temple better.

This is the Valley of the Kings. There are a ton of tombs here, including the famous King Tut. Unfortunately they will not let you take any pictures inside the tomb. Anyway, apperantly the pharaohs were getting sick of grave robbers, so try try and avoid them from breaking into their tombs, they wanted a more conspicuous burial spot than the pyramids. The only problem was, they really believed in being buried under a pyramid, so their spirit could climb to heaven. Anyway then found the perfect solution when they found this valley with a pyramid shaped peak at the top. It was a nice try, but grave robbers still took all the treasures in their tombs.

The square building behind us is the holy of holies at the Karnak Temple. The Karnak Temple made the list of extra cool things because of all the really cool hieroglyphs and symbolism. In the background you can also see the Obleisk of Queen Hatshepset. It was a pretty sweet place.

I totally owned that camel...sort of. His name was "George Clooney," but I think this is what they tell all Americans, cause I talked to about three other people that had a camel named George Clooney too. Anyway, my George was the real one.