A blog desperately seeking a new name.
This will probably be the best week of Project 365 photos all year — after all, I was on vacation. I tried to select pictures that aren’t in the Jordan slideshows I’ve posted, since I have so many to choose from. There’s no photo for Sunday, since it was lost to 12+ hours in an airplane.
March 23: The arrow-slit windows at Qasr al Kharaneh are very, well, literal.
March 24: A closeup of one if the Roman ruins at Jerash.
Just over a week after returning from my trip and I am already posting my next-to-last slideshow — I am very impressed with myself. (For me, this is practically overnight.) This batch of pictures is from the last three days in Jordan, when we went to Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea.
I think the Twitter message Farin suggested when we arrived at the Dead Sea sums up this batch of photos: “It’s impossible to over-state the contrast between the Bedouin camp and the Dead Sea Marriott.” The differences, however, were not just in our accommodation: it was also desert vs. sea, mountains vs. the lowest point on earth, sand vs. mud, and wind vs. calm. The one thing both Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea had in common was that both were amazing experiences. I’ll leave it at that, in the hopes that the 50, 000+ words worth of photos will sum it up for me.
Next up in the Jordan recap… Eating and sleeping!
Good news: my jet lag seems to have, at last, abated, and I am finally feeling normal again. I’m not sure this is going to translate into getting the rest of my pictures posted here today, however, since the nice weather is calling me outside. (But maybe there’s wifi in Lincoln Park? I don’t know…) I do have a batch I prepared yesterday, though.
The photos here are from the middle part of the trip, when we made our way along the King’s Highway to Petra. Along the way, we stopped at Mt. Nebo, Madaba, Wadi Mujib, and Kerak castle, laughing and snapping pictures the entire way. (In fact, we spent so much time that, upon pulling into Petra around 7 p.m., Emad said — both amused and slightly annoyed, I think — “Other groups get here 3 p.m., 4 p.m. You… 7 p.m.!”
We made it in time for Petra by night, which was our goal, and it was magical. As the group gathered for the walk in, the tour leader provided sage advice for both that night, as we made our way through the dark in the siq (canyon) and life in general: “Stop. Behold. Then walk.”
The following day was spent exploring Petra by day, first with a guide, and then on our own, when Farin, Alison and I made the arduous, hour-and-a-half climb uphill to the Monastery — quite possibly the most difficult (and, ultimately, most worthwhile) hike I’ve ever made. We were dusty and footsore by the end of the day, but still took Emad up on his offer to take us to a place where some friends of his were gathering and playing music (well, except for Lynn, who opted for some rest back at the hotel). It was a ton of fun and we had a fantastic time, as I think the pictures make clear.
The next morning, on our way out of town, we stopped at “Little Petra,” which we joked was Petra’s suburban sprawl, and Baida, a neolithic site nearby. Then, we were back on the road — to Wadi Rum!
And that is a story for another day.
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