Jordan in Jordan

Search for the grail continues...

The treasury building of Petra. Awesome, awesome site.

The monastery building. A little more secluded, it takes about an hour to get to from the main site, but well worth the trip.

I left Cairo the night of the 29th and endured a 10 hour ride through the Sinai desert and right to the coast of the Red Sea. I must thank Allah for sitting me directly under the only speaker that worked on the bus, which blared Arabic love songs the entire way. That, combined with the weird Syrian guy who sat beside me wanting to practice his english meant that I simply didn't sleep. At 5am or so, there was a commotion at the front of the bus which made sure everyone else was awake. The driver was screaming at a departing passenger, who then spat in his face. A fistfight ensued, followed by some rock throwing and eventually degressed into the driver leaving the bus and engaging the man in a running rock fight around the vehicle, so strange, but hilarious.

I arrived in Nuweiba early in the morning and was greeted by a local policeman who quickly swiped the glasses off my hat and put them on. I tried to get them back to no avail and eventually had to get another cop to come over and get them back for me. The two guys argued, a shouting match began then it turned into a shoving/fist fight. I grabbed my glasses and b-lined it for the ferry ticket office.

Buying the ferry ticket was a process like no other. I arrived 2 hours before the office was even officially supposed to be open and found a massive line up of shouting men. I stood at the back of it for an hour without moving before realizing this wasn't how to get things done. Tried to budge my way up further like everyone else, but was met with strange arabic curses and hand gestures, so I returned to the back of the line. Few minutes later the ticket salesman had had enough. He exited his booth and starting throwing elbows into guys, the scene quickly turned violent with seperate fights breaking out all around the area. Finally another ticket window opened and a massive rush of humanity ran towards that in an attempt to be the first in line. Dozens of small fights broke out as these guys budged and kicked their way into the fray. 3 hours later I somehow came out with a golden ticket and headed towards the ferry.

The ferry was only 3 hours late, but when it did show up it was much nicer than expected. I finally arrived in Aqaba, Jordan sometime at 7pm. As expected the immigration guys and everyone else in the country love my name. Frequently after saying it I get some strange stares which I take as them thinking that I don't understand what they're asking, usually both parties leave the conversation a little confused. I was unable to find a dive shop open late in Aqaba, and instead of wasting a day there, decided to head right for Wadi Musa the next day.

Wadi Musa is the home of Petra, the ancient Nabataean city that served as a huge trading post during pre-Roman times. More importantly it's where they filmed the last Indiana Jones movie. I headed out there with Indie himself, actually a high school english teacher from Toronto, and we spent the day roaming around the site. The first experience of walking through the Siq (a 1.2 km narrow valley leading to the site) and coming out onto the Treasury (where Dr. Jones finally discovered the holy grail) was like nothing I've seen before and quickly put Petra above any of the other ruins I've seen on this trip.

Spending the night in Wadi Musa, I headed out early this morning for Al-Karak. Karak is the home of one of the more significant crusader castles (the one from the movie Kingdom of Heaven for anyone who's seen that) and was the scene of a massive battle between the crusaders and Saladin (the bad ass Arab fellow who ended up sending them packing back to Europe). Was a cool site to see and pretty much had the entire castle to myself. Leaving Karak I headed up to Amman on a 6 hour journey that should have been only 2 hours. Travelling in this part of the world is probably the toughest I've had to do, not only cause I'm without my normal companions but also because very few people speak enough useful english and I can't seem to pronounce the simplest town names properly. Showing them the english version of the word is useless as they can't read our alphabet, so I've resorted to luck...which proved rough today when I took a 45 minute bus ride from Karak to a town called Ahman, when really I wanted to go to Amman, the difference being a slightly more pronounced 'A' in the latter.

Not sure exactly what I'll be doing tomorrow, but most likely I'll be continuing my mideast blitz with trying to get to Jerusalem. I've talked to a few guys who have recently come from there and they've helped explain what to do, so we shall see.