we love jordan!

the title of this post sums up our feelings about this country, its people and its sites. we would love to stay here much longer, but our time in the middle east is quickly waning and we have a lot more places to visit.

why, you might ask, do kylie and marc have only one measely picture on this post, amidst a blog known for its photographic largesse? let me tell you why... we brought our camera to a kodak shop today to burn our pictures onto a DVD and though the camera was working when we brought it into the shop, as soon as the employee plugged it into his reader it started sending error messages. now our memory card is corrupted and cant be read by any immediately handy source. this means that all our pictures from egypt, israel and jordan (including and most achingly petra) are currently GONE!! we tried for an hour to retrieve them, but the photo guy didnt speak english and our efforts proved futile and EXTREMELY frustrating. we cut our loses, bought a new memory card and walked out shaking. luckily we have our personal tech mavens darren s. and lowell on the case, and the memory card is being fedexed home for them to work their magic.

one the bright side, when we returned to our hotel, shaken and depressed, i opened our email to find a plethora of messages (we love communication). we found out that in addition to our known mkginbc afficianodos, friends and family theresa p., pam d. and nathan g. all read our blog. yaaay! thanks guys, knowing that really lifted my spirits. if any other readers (tuscaloosa alabama anyone?) want to comment and let us know that they are out there, rest assured that my spirits could still use further lifting.

anyways, after that small aside with large ramifications, i will tell you a little bit about amman. it is a beautiful city replete with the ubiquitous arab hospitality we have come to love, and without the attendant hassles of egypt. the argilaah (aka sheesha aka hookah aka water pipe) is smooth and the juice and baklava and falafels are cheap. you may remember amman from your old testament readings (nathan your dad could help us out here) as the capital of the ammonites mentioned numerously in numbers and dutifully in deuteronomy, not to mention sagely in 1st and 2nd samuel (i also really wanted to type genuinely in genesis, but i won't b/c that is going too far) in passages such as:

"and the lord god said unto them, go forth and smite all the tribes east of arnor, except for the ammonites as they are the descendants of lot and verily i say unto you that they are nice guys and stoke a mean sheesha"

deuteronomy 2:19

also in numbers 21:24

"Israel, however, put him to the sword and took over his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, but only as far as the Ammonites, because their border was fortified. Upon reaching the city of Petra, Moses saith unto the Lord, "Seriously man, do you want us to march around this place seven whole times? That's a crazy dynamic hike, and I've heard these guys make kickass baklava!"

near amman is the roman city of jerash, the best preserved of the ancient decapolis. even after petra ruined ruins for us, we still managed to wonder at the splendour of ancient rome this far from home. i would love to show you some pictures we took of jerash, but we've been over that (i'm serious about comments and emails lifting my spirits here folks!) so i found a couple on the trusty interhypersuperweb.

tomorrow we head back to jerusalem if the border guards will let us. we will stay in the old city and visit a few more places before making our way up to the galilee. don't worry, we will keep you posted. ;-)

beyond belief

petra has surpassed all of my (rather high) expectations for it. all i really knew about the place previously came from indiana jones, national geographic covers and recently lonely planet. let me tell you, it is beautiful! in addition to being a stunning archeological site, it is also a fantastic hiking/scrambling area. most of the pictures you see of petra are of the main temples, but the city is huge and spread across several valleys. we have been exploring it for 3 days now and we still did not see all of it.

let me give you some background. petra is an ancient city in jordan built into the rock of a protected valley in the first century BC and the first 2 centuries AD. the nabatean people located their capital city inside an eclosed rock valley that served as a fortress. the only practical entrance to the city is through the siq, a narrow canyon that precluded the entrance of any major military force.


the nabateans were adept at aquatic engineering and the city grew and prospered in the desert with the use of aqueducts, cisterns and canals to store rainwater for times of drought. unfortunately, the city was largely abandoned during the 5th century after 2 major earthquakes.

now the remaining rock structures have been eroded by the wind and rain into fantastic swirls of red and white and yellow and blue as the layered sandstone has been exposed.


what made petra for us was its rock temples and houses combined with fantastic rock formations and mountains. the main site areas were fairly crowded with tourists, but as we have found in many tourist attractions, if you were willing to hike for 5 minutes you could quickly find complete solitude.

every day in petra we climbed a different peak. first we would be walking up a set of beautifully eroded 2000 year old stone stairs.

then we would skip off the beaten trail to find some fantastic free hiking.




not to mention excellent rock jumping topography

and just when we thought we were in the middle of nowhere we would turn the corner to find an abandoned temple or tomb.
or a bedouin family living in the hills and raising little goatlets

or selling jewelery on the side... "only 1 denari! i give you good price my friend!"
suffice it to say, petra is in fierce competition with lamu island for my favourite place in the world thus far. i highly recommend a visit to this stunning city. tomorrow we head to amman, the capital of jordan and after that, who knows? we are really loving the friendliness of this country. crossing the border was an extremely enjoyable experience, with the border guards teasing kylie and welcoming us wholeheartedly. we are not ready to leave.

joshua's shot from the hip

Mish Mash

We haven't blogged for a while so we have quite a bit to post about. We are currently in the country of Jordan to see Petra and just arrived here this afternoon. In the last few days we spent some time in Mitzphe Ramon which is in the Negev desert in southern Israel. We plan on being in Jordan for a few days before heading back to Jerusalem and then Turkey which will probably bring our first snow in well over a year!

Before we left Jerusalem we headed to the Israeli museum. We saw some of the original Dead Sea Scrolls as well as a model of Jerusalem in 66 AD before it was destroyed by the Romans.


We also saw an exhibit on modern Chinese art that was probably our favourite part of the museum. Nothing to do with Israel but extremely interesting and provocative nonetheless.

Sorry this is sideways and since it took so long to upload I am going to post it anyways. This artist had someone write an ancient Chinese legend about a man who tried to move a mountain on his face as well as different Chinese words about fate until he was completely covered in black.

After leaving Jerusalem we headed to the desert where I thought of a post I could do. Since we haven't had internet access in awhile it will be lumped in the middle of this one. The title is:

You know you're in a militarized country when:
1. The girl in front of you in line at the Burger Inn has an M-16 on her back. (Sorry I forgot to rotate the picture but I think the gun is still visible.) ;)
2. When hiking through the desert (on a very beautiful hike I must say) you hear several fighter jets above you and then see some dropping pretend bombs.

3. At the museum there is a place for you to check your weapons. Marc also got asked by a security guard if he forgot to check any weapons he had in his bag. ummmm no.

4. Your hostel (that cost $100 #$**% per night) looks like a jail cell.

5. The hiking sign is riddled with bullet holes. I am almost out of time here so I can't upload this picture but I'm sure you all can imagine it.

Tomorrow or the next day hopefully you will see some beautiful sandstone picture on this blog o'ours. Also please keep Kenya in your thoughts and prayers. We have been watching the news with extreme sadness the past few days. The church that was burnt to the ground where over 50 people died was the city that we always did our shopping in. Hopefully some sort of settlement can be agreed upon soon!

the west bank has redeemed israel

ironic but true, at least for us. granted we have now met some more friendly israelis... the guys at the coffee shop below our hotel know exactly what we like and a really nice camping store clerk sold me warm socks today and recommended a fantastic restaurant, but thats nothing compared to palestine...

on christmas day we decided to head to bethlehem to see the churches there and catch the christmas spirit. only problem was, bethlehem is in (gasp) the west bank! we had been warned not to go there by our friendly (sic) neighbourhood border agent.
being totally contained behind a giant wall, the west bank is like a different country, but even though it was much poorer and dilapitated it felt extremely safe.

we visited the church of the nativity and st. katherine's on the spot where they think jesus was born. it was a little crazy with tourists of many nationalities jostling to kiss various objects, but interesting nonetheless.

this monk was getting quite frustrated continuously shooing the same people out from the roped off area where they insisted on getting their kids to kiss the baby jesus doll.

we then had a fantastic christmas dinner of falafel sandwich, hummus and mint tea. venturing 2 blocks away from the big churches, the tourist crowd fell to almost zero and we were in the middle of a mass of celebratory palestinians (a large fraction of palestine is christian) and being wished merry christmas left right and from behind.

when we have asked people in jerusalem for directions, we have felt lucky when we recieved a grunt and a pointed finger, rather than an irritated look before shouldering by. we asked 2 palestinians for directions. the first was named pachs and we ended up at his house for coffee and sheesha and playing with his precocious daughters. he then payed for our taxi back to bethlehem and gave us a quick tour of the old city.

we also met his good friend jamal, who took the time to show us his bullet wound courtesy of the israeli army. all of the people we met at pachs' place had been in jail or had their family members in jail at one point or another. these people were so friendly and cheerful that it was difficult to remember which were the ones trapped behind a concrete wall.

on our way back to the checkpoint an older man named jebeel noticed us consulting our map and stopped. we asked "which way to jerusalem?" jebeel initially pointed, but then thought better of letting us out on our own and hailed us a taxi, paid for it and took us right to the checkpoint. to our surprise, he then pulled out his pass (most palestinians cant leave their own city) and after removing half his clothing and being fingerscanned with a crazy sci fi laser like device, escorted us through the checkpoint and jumped in a cab on the road which took us all the way to jerusalem. all this even though jebeel doesnt speak english and we couldnt even communicate!

in short, we love palestine and are enjoying israel more. the arab hospitality/inherent friendliness is tough to beat. hope you all had a good christmas.

merry christmas!

we have made it to jerusalem just in time for christmas. after we arrived in israel i almost turned around and fled back to egypt. the only thing stopping us was our lack of an egyptian return visa and our hotel booking in jerusalem. people in israel are extremely rude and unfriendly and after coming from hyperfriendly egypt it really hurt. our first 4 major interactions with people (border, taxi, information desk, bus driver) were so shockingly unfriendly that i was actually shaking by the end (being the only 2 people left on the road after a full bus drove away, even though we were about midway in line didnt help).

anyways, today has been a bit better and we are starting to find our way around the city. here i am at the western wall (middle right, white yarmulke), the last remnant of the original temple.

we also visited the church of the holy sepulchre where jesus was apparently crucified. one thing that we havent yet gotten used to in israel is half the young people walking around with automatic weapons strung across their back. even soldiers out of uniform (we hope they are soldiers) carry their guns over a sweater or t-shirt or whatever and none of them look much over 20. even when they are wearing uniforms often their pants are super low, their shirts are untucked and (firearms as fashion) their guns are slung lazily almost down to the ground. this group outside the church were much friendlier than most civilians.

finally, as a public service announcement we would like to inform you about our friend sam. we met him first at an oasis in the western desert with ty and kelsey. we then met him again on the top of mt. sinai and a third time in dahab... it was this third occasion that convinced us that we should be friends, so we hung out in dahab a few times and hope to reconnect in turkey. he is a good guy and a great storyteller (he's irish)... if you see this man, please let him sleep on your couch. he is not planning on coming to canada on this trip, but who knows how long he can stay home in ireland?

we also met a cool dutch couple that we got along with very well. sana is in the above shot, but we dont have any pictures of bart. luckily they plan to hook up with us again in amsterdam so it is not too late.

so merry christmas everyone! we are thinking of heading to bethlehem tomorrow for christmas day, but perhaps it will be too crowded. we will be thinking of you (family and friends) so eat some turkey for us and we will put in a good word for you if jesus comes back on his birthday.

mt sinai

kylie and i are now in dahab on the red sea coast and planning on heading to jerusalem just before christmas. we just got in from the sinai desert where we stayed at a fantastic bedouin camp and climbed gebel mose aka mount moses aka mount sinai.
the mountain can be pretty busy, especially in the morning b/c many people climb it early to watch the sunrise. we decided to climb it in the afternoon and had the peak to ourselves for over an hour.

it was not an isolated wilderness peak like we are used to in the rockies, as someone had built a chapel at the top, but the views were spectacular nonetheless. the whole moses getting the 10 commandments thing, as well as the burning bush didnt really seem real and was difficult to grasp. i did however get a feel for the israelites complaining as they had to wander around this desolate landscape for 40 years.

we left the peak before sunset, which was too bad b/c when we were almost down the mountain, the sky turned into this:

in the evening we were entertained by our bedouin hosts telling riddles and stories and teaching us various dances.

finally a note about cats in egypt: they are everywhere! they are also a bit different than the typical canadian cat... their ears are longer and their eyes are somehow a bit deeper. it is every cat for himself, and today in dahab a cat snatched a piece of pizza out of kylie's hand. i got a picture of this beautiful cat by holding my camera at knee level beside a newspaper stand. total fluke that it framed so well and that this guy's brother was posed in the background.

oh, one more thing. we just got an email confirming that the package we mailed home with our new bedspread has arrived in lethbride!!! wow. 4 days. 3 cheers for egypt express! now i wish that we had shipped home some lamps as well.

It's my birthday and I'll buy if I want to . . .

Buy if I want to, you would buy too if you were in Egypt and things were really cheap and you found a beautiful bedspread and you hadn't been shopping for 10 months . . .

So I had a wonderful birthday on Sunday, Marc rented a room at the Hilton (at a very reduced price after a lot of haggling) and we had a beautiful view of the Nile from our balcony.

We spent the day (after an amazing buffet breakfast) purchasing and shipping a beautiful new bedspread that I had fallen in love with two days previously. I also bought a new sweater that seem to be all the rage here in Egypt.



We spent the day today climbing Mount Sinai but that is another post altogether! Off to get warm in our camp (it is freezing here! Well maybe not like Canada cold but cold nonetheless).