I've spent the better part a month blogging about our trip to Jordan and we're now 2 weeks away from our next vacation to Sri Lanka! It's a tough life. At any rate, I'd better wrap this up or I'll be blogging about Jordan until summer.
After Petra, we headed south to Wadi Rum, which is a protected natural area of Jordan famed for its canyons and vistas. Through the recommendation of friends, we made arrangements to stay with a Bedouin guide named Mzied (pronounced Meh-zee-Ed). He was a gracious and accommodating host and we greatly enjoyed hearing his stories as we bumped along in his 4x4.
While in Wadi Rum we climbed on arches . . .
. . . we climbed sand dunes . . .
. . . we saw petroglyphs . . .
. . . and, perhaps the highlight of the week, we rode camels!
Camels are cool. In my mind, they are perfectly evolved for the desert. They have loooong legs that keep them off the hot desert floor. They have loooong necks to grasp the vegetation down below (interesting note-my hungry camel would walk past a greenish bush without even pausing but would stop the whole procession to eat the driest, deadest looking tumbleweeds. They must get enough nutrients from them to make it worthwhile!) and they have really cool padded toes that squish out when they walk so they don't sink in the sand. They can be really grumpy, though, especially when getting up from sitting. They make the most god-awful groaning noise! But they sure are cute. Camels are my favorite part of living in the Middle East. I'm so cultured, clearly! ;).
At the end of a long camel ride (note-people who actually know what they're doing don't ride a camel like a horse with one leg on either side; they ride it with both legs on the same side with one of their legs thrown up over the horn of the saddle [see picture in previous post]), it was nice to come "home" to a delicious, hot meal and a warm tent. Of course, the full moon meant a good opportunity for Jordan and I to play with our new camera which resulted in us running around like idiots with a flashlight in our hand over and over as we attempted to spell out legible words. We are geeks! :)
After 2 days of adventure in Wadi Rum, we headed south with another traveler that we had met at Mzied's camp-Bernard from Slovenia. We traipsed down to Aqaba which lies on the shores of the Red Sea. After being joined the following day by 2 other veterans of Mzied's camp-Cecilia from France and Robert from England-we all celebrated the new year by snorkeling the colorful reefs, drinking overpriced wine at a fancy hotel, watching the fireworks on the beach in Jordan at midnight and then watching another set across the bay when Eliot, Israel celebrated 2013 an hour later, and crashing a VIP party as it was winding down. It was the perfect ending to an amazing trip that we'll never forget!
After Petra, we headed south to Wadi Rum, which is a protected natural area of Jordan famed for its canyons and vistas. Through the recommendation of friends, we made arrangements to stay with a Bedouin guide named Mzied (pronounced Meh-zee-Ed). He was a gracious and accommodating host and we greatly enjoyed hearing his stories as we bumped along in his 4x4.
While in Wadi Rum we climbed on arches . . .
 |
| Burdah arch |
 |
| Rock bridge |
. . . we saw petroglyphs . . .
. . . and, perhaps the highlight of the week, we rode camels!
Camels are cool. In my mind, they are perfectly evolved for the desert. They have loooong legs that keep them off the hot desert floor. They have loooong necks to grasp the vegetation down below (interesting note-my hungry camel would walk past a greenish bush without even pausing but would stop the whole procession to eat the driest, deadest looking tumbleweeds. They must get enough nutrients from them to make it worthwhile!) and they have really cool padded toes that squish out when they walk so they don't sink in the sand. They can be really grumpy, though, especially when getting up from sitting. They make the most god-awful groaning noise! But they sure are cute. Camels are my favorite part of living in the Middle East. I'm so cultured, clearly! ;).
At the end of a long camel ride (note-people who actually know what they're doing don't ride a camel like a horse with one leg on either side; they ride it with both legs on the same side with one of their legs thrown up over the horn of the saddle [see picture in previous post]), it was nice to come "home" to a delicious, hot meal and a warm tent. Of course, the full moon meant a good opportunity for Jordan and I to play with our new camera which resulted in us running around like idiots with a flashlight in our hand over and over as we attempted to spell out legible words. We are geeks! :)
After 2 days of adventure in Wadi Rum, we headed south with another traveler that we had met at Mzied's camp-Bernard from Slovenia. We traipsed down to Aqaba which lies on the shores of the Red Sea. After being joined the following day by 2 other veterans of Mzied's camp-Cecilia from France and Robert from England-we all celebrated the new year by snorkeling the colorful reefs, drinking overpriced wine at a fancy hotel, watching the fireworks on the beach in Jordan at midnight and then watching another set across the bay when Eliot, Israel celebrated 2013 an hour later, and crashing a VIP party as it was winding down. It was the perfect ending to an amazing trip that we'll never forget!
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