Next Stop… Turkey!!

The morning we left Syria was an early one. We wanted to get to the Turkish border early, so we were on the truck before 6am, and were ready for one of the longest travel days of the trip. The border crossing didn’t take as long as getting into Syria, but we were still sitting there for well over an hour. After crossing the border we still had about 6 more hours on the truck, and didn’t get to Goreme until around 8pm. We spent time on the truck by reading, listening to music, and BSing with the other guys in our group. Once we finally got to Goerme, we quickly set up out tents and then the group went to a local Turkish rug shop in town. The shop owner provided an overview of Turkish rugs, how they were different from other rugs in the region, and gave the group dinner and tea. Rugs were available for sale, but, seeing as how we’re jobless, $2000 for a rug was a little out of our price range.

The next morning we had a tour around the Cappadocia region (the region of Turkey we were in).  This region is characterized by large rock formation known as “fairy chimneys”. They are tall, skinny rock pillars that were formed millions of years ago by volcanoes and have eroded over the years to look the way they do now. Over the past 3000 years, the people of the region have used these rock formations to carve out caves to live in, so when looking at some of the formations you’ll see hundreds of little black dots that when you get closer are manmade caves. There are also churches, mosques, and small castles carved into these formations. The campsite we stayed at even had rooms which were carved out of the mountain. It was pretty cool. For the tour, out leader took us to a bunch of the best formations to view these formations/carvings and then to an underground city. The city was used by early Christians to escape persecution. It was hundreds of meters deep and with hundreds of rooms and about 15 levels. Apparently, the entire region was littered with these underground cities and many of them connected, but now there are only a handful which are still intact and open to the public. Going down into the maze of tunnels was really cool. 

We got back to the campsite around 4 and had a few hours to relax and get cleaned up before we piled back into a minibus on our way to Turkish Night. Turkish Night is this big dinner theater type thing where you sit in stadium seating around a small stage and waiters dressed in traditional Turkish garb bring you all the drinks and traditional Turkish food you can eat for about 3 hours. While you are stuff your face with lamb, salads, veggies, and humus, there are a group of 10-15 dancers on the stage doing plays, dances, and knife throwing demonstrations. During breaks in the show they invite everyone down onto the dance floor to dance. You can definitely tell who was taking advantage of the unlimited supply of booze (we were the youngest people in the crowd of about 100 or so people, and some of the older European folks were really getting after it). The final set was a belly dancer who danced for about 10 minutes and then brought out guests from the audience to try their stuff. One of the guys from our group got selected and got to make a fool of himself. Later we found out it was a big set up and our tour leader made sure he was one of the people picked. It was great.

The plan for the next day was for everyone to just do their own thing and let the people who had a little too much fun the night before sleep it off (we didn’t see our tour guide until 4pm). I decided to take a crack at doing my laundry in the morning. It took me well over an hour to do very little laundry. I can do without TV, a car, and many of the other luxuries the States offers, but not having a washing machine suuuuuucks. Erin made sure to take pictures, so my mom will be proud that I am doing things for myself. Laundry is muuuch easier when all you have to do is take the hamper upstairs and shoot your mom the puppy dog face. Once all my socks and boxers were hung up in the tree next to our tent Erin and I decided to go for run in the hills around our campsite. Sure enough, as soon as we got about midway up a pretty high hill on our way to see a panoramic view of the town, the world’s biggest storm cloud appeared out of nowhere and threated to ruin my semidry laundry. We decided to just finish the run and hope people would be nice and pull my stuff down if it started to rain. We made it up to the top of the hill (not exactly the type of run you want to attempt having not ran for 4 weeks, but good nonetheless), got some pretty cool shots of the town, and sprinted back in time to pull down my clothes. As soon as I put the last of it in the tent, the sky opened up. Not only was it rain (I think the first rain we’d seen since the week before our wedding… we’ve had amazing luck) but there was grape sized hail that pounded us. Most of us (Erin and I included) were lucky enough to huddle in one of the cave rooms, but the cook group got pelted. They resorted to covering some of the food, letting most of the dinner get wet, putting pots over their heads, and running into the truck. After 30 or so minutes the weather cleared up and dinner turned out good, so everything turned out ok.

Since we left Syria a day early, we were able to check out Egirdir in Turkey’s Lake District for a day. The drive there was beautiful. We were in a valley for much of the drive surrounded by snowcapped mountains. Erin says it looked like Switzerland (I’m not sure if she’s ever been to Switzerland, but she’s been pretty much everywhere so I’ll just take her word for it). When we got to Egirdir it was kind of rainy, but we set up our tent quickly about 20 meters from the edge of Lake Egirdir. The landscape was beautiful. There were large islands in the lake across from us and mountains behind us. Due to the rain, we hung out in the hostel next to our tents for most of the day. It was then when we discover what would take up most of our time for the rest of the trip… hearts. We hadn’t really been playing cards since Egypt because no one could come up with a game that was the right mix of easy, fun, and interesting, but hearts was all of it. By the time our tour ended we were all pros, but this first night it was a lot of trying to remember how to play, teaching everyone new that would join, and figuring out strategy. For dinner, Erin and I walked to the local shawarma stand (shocker) then went to bed early. We had until noon to explore the town the next morning, so Erin and I trekked up one of the large hills to get a good view of the town and lake. About 45 minutes in the rain started, and about 46 minutes in I was extremely bitter we had decided to make the trek. We got back just in time for us to jump on the truck with a bunch of wet clothes, but it all worked out. We got some good pictures before the sky opened up at least.

The next morning we piled back into the overlanding truck and drove to Olympos, a small town cut out of the mountains on the shore of the Mediterranean. We got there late in the afternoon and were staying at a place with a bunch of huts and tree houses spread out around a central dining/relaxing area, so after we checked into our tree house (a small little cottage with electricity, AC, and our own bathroom) we just hung out. A few of us in the group had passed around our computers and external hard drives over the past few days in order to trade music, movies, and TV shows, so Erin and I decided to watch one of the TV shows we had just got on our laptop, Breaking Bad. I don’t know if it was a good idea or a bad idea to get TV shows, but I think we finished watching all three seasons before we left Turkey (about a week and a half). I’m not sure if it’s because we haven’t watched anything for so long or what but we loved the show.

The next day we had all morning to explore Olympos. We walked about 5 minutes from where we were staying, paid the entrance fee and were surrounded by old Roman ruins which were spread out long both sides of a pretty big stream. There was a necropolis, baths, ruins of one of the oldest Christian churches in the world, a Roman temple, and a house with intact mosaic floors. It was awesome. The coolest part, I thought, was Olympos is surrounded by forests and very green, so the ruins were like nothing we had seen yet on the trip (mostly desert). You would have to push branches out of the way to go along the paths and move vines and leaves to see everything. That and there was no one around so it felt like we were discovering everything for the first time. Once we got to where the stream meets the Mediterranean we could see the remains of an old castle in the distance sitting about halfway up the mountain. I think Olympos was one of my favorite places on the entire trip. After our walk we went back to the campgrounds for dinner. Dinner consisted of traditional Turkish fare (potatoes, veggies, and a whole fish (everything but the head)) which was amazing! The next morning I woke up early to see if I could stream the NCAA championship game. I woke up at 4am and was able to watch the entire game and talk to my mom and sister, Jackie, via Facebook.  I was tired the rest of the day, but it was great to talk to them and watch the game. It was a good taste of back home.

The next day we drove over to Oludeniz which is a beach resort town on the Mediterranean which is consistently voted one of the top 5 nicest beaches in the world. The water is crazy shades of blue, turquoise, and aquamarine. Just gorgeous. We set up shop at a campsite about a 10 minute walk from town. Once we got our tents set up we went into town for bowling night!!! We ate dinner at the restaurant above the bowling alley then went downstairs for some fun. It was a small little 6 lane alley and we were the only ones there. It wasn’t the nicest bowling alley in the world (we could just wear our regular shoes, flip flops, or go barefoot), but the bowling was fun and there was plenty of beer for everyone. The next day everyone just took it easy, walked around the town, hung out along the beach, and took pictures. It was very relaxing.

Next we drove to Pamukkale. When the tour leader was explaining what we were about to see I wasn’t very impressed. It was a big mountain that was covered in calcium carbonate, so it looked white, with a hot spring at the top. Once we got there and walk up to the entrance of the site I found out that it was a lot cooler than it sounds. It is this huge mountain that looks like a glacier from all of the calcium. And the hot springs run over all of it, so you have to take off your shoes when you walk up it. The water pools into these pools along the walk up that are all filled to about knee high with really warm water. The water in the white pools has a light blue look to it. It’s really amazing. At the top of the mountain is the ancient city of Hierapolis. There are a bunch of ruins at the top which you can walk through including city walls, and old street with archways, and an amazing theater. The view of the whole town from up there was pretty sweet too. For some reason Pamukkale attracts a lot of Korean tourists (we didn’t notice any really in any of the other places we went but nearly every restaurant had Korean writing on it as well), so we had some AMAZING ramen for dinner. Kind of random, but really good nonetheless.

The next morning we drove to Selcek which probably had the nicest hostel we stayed at in Turkey. We still were camping, but there was a nice pool and hang out area with a covered pool table. A few people upgraded to stay in the hostel, but we were fine with the tent. In town we were able to check out the Basilica of St. John which is the ruins of a church built in like the 600’s and has the grave of St. John the Apostle in the middle of it. I was on cook group that night and my group made some chicken risotto which, surprisingly turned out pretty good. The next morning we woke up early to check out the ruins Ephesus. These were some of the coolest ruins we saw. Ephesus was the second largest city in the world, behind Rome around the year 100AD, so there were a ton of ruins. There is a library there that is huge and really cool. There were tons of statues around as well. Many were missing their heads and we did the obvious thing and stood behind them and took their picture with our heads (internet sucks here, but we’ll def post pics soon). Also, there was the largest Roman theater we’ve seen there. We were there for a few hours and then went back into Selcuk for lunch. After lunch we walked around the market (it was market day) and picked out a few snacks (Turkish delights, pistachios, corn nut thingys) to eat for the car ride the next day… most of them didn’t make it that far however.

The next day we drove to Gallipoli, the site of one of the bloodiest battles of World War I. Our “campsite” here was the back of a bar called the Boomerang Bar. There was a beach behind the bar overlooking the Dardanelles Strait. The beach was pretty grimy, but the ground was soft so it made camping pretty nice. Erin’s cook group was up the first night there and made spaghetti with meat sauce which was really good. It was freezing in Gallipoli so a hot meal was nice. The next morning we drove through the site of the battle. The battle consisted primarily of Australian, New Zealand, British, and French soldiers against the Turks. Over 90,000 soldiers died in a few square miles here over the course of the 8 month campaign. Since our group was made up primarily of Aussies and Kiwis, visiting this site was very important. It would be the same as an American visiting Normandy. It was very interesting and we had an excellent guide who was a former history professor and is a world renowned Gallipoli historian.

The next morning we headed for Istanbul which would be the end of our organized tour.  Most of the people from the group stayed at the same hostel for a few days, but we really only saw them in passing the week we were there. Our hostel was awesome. It was the cleanest and nicest place we stayed since Paris. It was right on the main tourist drag too which was good and bad, but we really liked it. The only bad part was we would have to walk a little ways to get food for a cheaper price (most of the time we were lazy and just ate close by however). The first night we walked along our street and checked out a few of the restaurants and shops. Istanbul was a mix between a European city and a Middle Eastern city, so things were very interesting. We would see one place that looked like it could be in Paris right next to a place that looked straight out of Cairo or Damascus. We ate dinner at a place that was a few spots down from our hostel. The food was really good and the owner loved us. When we got there the place wasn’t that busy, so we got to talking with the manager. Throughout the night he would keep coming over to talk and joke with us. At one point he gave Erin a guitar and told her to play. She told him she had no idea how to play the guitar to which he just told her to hold it and pretend. Erin strummed the guitar for about an hour. I guess the place also got new menus recently and the prices weren’t written next to all of the items yet on some of the newer menus. He gave us each a filled in menu and a blank menu and a pen. After we helped him out by writing in a few prices he brought out a few free rounds of drinks. He was a really cool guy and pretty good representation of the people we met in Turkey.

The next few days were spent exploring the city. We walked around in the Blue Mosque, one of the most beautiful and largest mosques in Islam. We also went into the Hagia Sophia, was a huge church built over 1000 years ago which was turned into a mosque and is now a museum. When it became a mosque, beautiful mosaics were plastered over with Islamic decorations. These mosaics were preserved by the plaster and are now exposed. They were amazing. We also walked through the Grand Bazaar which is kind of like the souks in Syria or other parts of Turkey, but much more like a shopping mall. It was much more organized than other souks or bazaars, but still pretty chaotic. During down time at the hostel Erin and I discovered that we loved backgammon, so our mission in the bazaar was to find a nice board we could use in Africa and back home. After a few attempts to negotiate with some shop keepers failed (one guy even threw out an “F America” which had me laughing and Erin shocked) we finally found a nice one which I can take Erin to school on (Erin will claim she’s better, but just ask her what the current score is). We also walked around the old aqueducts in the city and Topkapi Palace where most of the Ottoman Sultans lived. Overall our stay in Istanbul was really great.

Well that brings us to the end of our Middle Eastern adventure. I was pretty skeptical about traveling in the Middle East when Erin brought it up a few months before the wedding. Why would I want to go there? Isn’t all that’s there suicide bombers and camels? I was totally wrong. I had a blast here and I would totally recommend anyone to check it out. I think Americans (including me) take what the media says as the total truth when it isn’t always the case. I’m so glad we made this a part of our yearlong adventure and I’m ready for the next leg. Next stop Uganda!!

P.S. the beard is coming in nicely!! 2months down… 2 more to go!

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Crazy Times in Syria

After our looooong wait at the Jordan-Syria border, we still had a few hours drive to our campsite in the suburbs of Damascus. We didn’t end up getting in until around 9:30, so all we did before bed was set up our tent and eat a quick dinner. Luckily neither of us were up for cook group, so we could just relax for the hour or so before dinner. The group whipped up some good beef kabob. After grubbing we hit the sack.

The next day a majority of the group went on a day trip to Lebanon. Erin and I decided not to go because a majority of the day you were on a bus and it was kind of expensive. Instead we figured we would get an extra day in Damascus. Well, with all the unrest that was going on, and because it was Friday (weekends in Syria are Friday-Saturday) as a precaution we were advised not to go into the city. We would go in as a group the next day. The tour leader didn’t think it would be particularly dangerous, but because most people go to the mosque on Friday, most demonstrations/protests would take place after because everyone was already together. Most of the violence that was occurring was in the smaller southern towns which we weren’t visiting, but better safe than sorry. Instead of going into town,  we just walked around the suburb for most of the day. There really wasn’t a lot going on. Around lunch time we had the best falafel sandwich to date. It was filled with all sorts of veggies, lime and lemon slices, and like 3 different sauces. No two bites were the same and it was as big as a Chipotle burrito. I think it cost like 45 cents. We walked back to the campsite eating this monstrosity… definitely couldn’t have waited until we got back. For dinner, we walked to a shawarma stand. Shawarmas are basically Arab gyros. Most are made with chicken instead of lamb, and instead of pita bread they wrap them in this thin bread that’s almost like a tortilla. They throw in some veggies, some pickles, chili peppers, and tzatziki sauce. After today shawarmas pretty much became a staple of our diet. There really wasn’t anything to do in this area besides eat so in between meals and after dinner we just hung out around the campsite and read in the sun.

The next day we woke up early and went into the Damascus city center. We walked the streets for a few minutes just taking it all in then headed into the souk (large covered market). In the market Erin bought what is, so far, the highlight of her trip: a huge vanilla waffle cone which was dipped in crushed pistachios. I got one too and have to agree with her. When we got to the other side of the souk we took a tour around Umayyad Mosque (the Great Mosque) which is the fourth holiest location in all of Islam. It was the first mosque I had ever been in and it was amazing. It is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world and was converted to a mosque from a Catholic church in the 600s. Erin had to wear this dress/head cover thing before she could go in. We’ve got pictures… don’t worry. Also in the mosque were a shrine which supposedly has John the Baptist’s head in it and a garden which has the tomb of Saladin, one of the most famous Muslim leaders during the Crusades. Inside the mosque everyone had to take their shoes off. There was a huge courtyard type space that was beautiful. Even locals were taking pictures as it is a huge pilgrimage location. After the mosque, we walked around the old city and souk on our own for a few hours. We walked along Straight Street which is an old street lined with shops and cafes. The Straight St. is so old that it is mentioned by name in the Bible. The city and souk were awesome. The souk was like a maze of narrow covered streets lined with shops and each section all sold the same things. It was crazy. You would turn down a random alley and it would be lined with sandal and shoe shops or men’s suit shops or hardware supply shops all selling the exact same thing. Competition in the souks looked tough. I don’t know how anyone made money, but with talking with some of the owners, they’ve been around for decades. The whole time we were walking around the souk we were eating. There was so much good stuff being hawked everywhere and with the exchange rate how it was, even though it was a major tourist site everything was sooooo cheap. We had the huge ice cream cones, huge shawarmas, some tasty baked delicacies like baklava but with pistachios in it, and these Danish like rolls with cheese. Oh man… we were in heaven. All that for like 5 bucks!

The next morning we left the campsite and drove to Palmyra which is a small desert town that is basically in middle of nowhere. The guide hadn’t talked a lot about it before we got there and I had never heard of it before, so I didn’t know what to expect. Turns out it was a major caravan stop back during Roman times and there are just huge Roman ruins everywhere. We got out of the truck on the edge of town, walked for 5 minutes and were in the middle of huge standing pillars, a citadel, and a large theater. It was really cool. There weren’t a lot of other tourists around either, so it felt as if we were exploring it ourselves. We were able to get some cool shots as well. After an hour or so of checking out the ruins, my cook group had to buy food for that night’s dinner. We decided we were going to make pasta again, but this time we would make meat sauce. We bought the pasta and fresh veggies and headed to the local butcher. We found one after about 10 minutes of aimlessly roaming the streets. The only thing was that it was staffed by a 12 year old and an 8 year old, neither of which spoke English.  The shop was the size of a small bedroom had bare cement walls. There was only one type of meat in the fridge (at least I’m assuming that it was cold behind the glass) so we asked him to ground up 2kg for our sauce. While the 12 year old ground up the meat with a pedal contraption hooked up to the grinder, I attempted to figure out what type of meat we were purchasing. After a good 5 minutes of confusing the 8 year old, he handed me the label that was attached the meat. It turns out that we were going to have spaghetti sauce with ground buffalo that evening. Not exactly what you expect to buy in the middle of the Syrian desert!!

After a cold but comfortable bush camp, we woke up and drove a little ways to Crac de Chevalier, supposedly the most intact crusader castle in the world. It… was…. awesome! I thought it was the coolest. Erin was only slightly impressed.  I took about a million pictures, which Erin unenthusiastically had to sort through for her Facebook picture update. The castle had been occupied in some sense up until the early 1900s. The parents of our castle tour guide were some of the last inhabitants of the castle, which was really cool because he knew everything about it, having played in it when he was little. There were crumbling secret passage ways we were able to explore and everything.

After eating lunch at the café outside the castle (all you could eat chicken, 4 types of humus, a bunch of small salads, and French fries) we took Fanny (our overlanding truck) to Aleppo the largest city in Syria close to the Turkish border. Our hotel in Aleppo was great; we had a big room on the 4th floor with our own bathroom, TV with a dish that could pick up a few English stations, and a balcony overlooking a main city street. We got in around dinner time and our tour leader Dave bought us dinner at what he claimed were the best falafel on the trip. Now I have to tell you, we were pretty skeptical. Having gone throughout the Middle East like we have over the past month or so the moniker of “best falafel” is a title that shouldn’t be thrown around lightly and we needed to taste it to believe it. We got there and it was a little shop where the guy behind the counter would whip up a sandwich in literally 15 seconds all wrapped up and ready for you. The shop was so small that they had a table outside with chili peppers and other condiments. We added a bunch of peppers and dug in. Dave was completely right. Best falafel we’ve had. So good, even Erin got a second one. We walked around a little more of the city before bed and Erin got her customary ice cream cone. Typical…

The next morning we had a guided tour of the old city of Aleppo. Our guide was awesome and he showed us through the souk which is the largest covered souk in the world (even bigger than Damascus which was humongous) and took us to a traditional Turkish bath. He also took us through a traditional soap shop where they boiled the soap and poured it into a huge area on the ground and cut it with a contraption that looked like a farming tool from the early 1800s. It was like a cutter with 5 or 6 blades that went into the soap, a kid stood on top of it, and 3 other guys pulled it with ropes. Looked weird, but the soap smelled good. The end of the tour was at the Aleppo citadel which is like a huge fortress at the top of a hill in the middle of the city. While we were walking around we saw a ton of people carrying Syrian flags and cheering and it seemed like a lot of people were watching a big rally on the TVs in their shops. At the end of the tour, we asked the guide what it was all about. Turns out there was a 100,000 person pro-government rally going on about 2 blocks from our hotel. During the rally the President announced he was dissolving of the government which pleased the crowd a great deal. The rest of the day while we were walking around the city groups of people (including groups of kids as little as 5 or 6) were walking around cheering, waving flags, wearing t-shirts with pictures of the president on it, and chanting “Syria, Allah, Bashar al-Assad” (Bashar is the president). On the walk home, people were so happy that a falafel stand guy handed Erin and I some sandwiches and refused to take payment. The Middle East is awesome! We walked around a little more in the newer (still pretty old, just not 2000 years old) part of town. We walked around where the rally was but people were already gone for the most part. We went back to our hotel to relax for a while. Around dinner time we decided that it was pretty much a necessity that we walk back to the falafel place from the night before. On the walk we saw large crowds running through the streets chanting the same thing from before. They were so many of them they would stop traffic for pretty long stretches. It reminded me of when the Hokies beat Miami in 2003, only the streets of Blacksburg are a little bit less crowded…. even on game days. We got the falafels and decided it was probably best to head back just in case things started to get out of hand. We watched for the next few hours as these large groups would stop traffic on the street we could see from our balcony. What an exciting time to be in Syria!

We were supposed to be in Aleppo for one more day, but as a precaution we left a day early… just in case. It was kind of a disappointment seeing as nothing bad had happened, but seeing how crazy (in a bad way) things have gotten it was probably for the best. It is really unbelievable what is going on there now. Syria we easily our favorite country we visited in the Middle East. The food was the best, the people were the nicest, and we had a great time visiting all the sites. It is a shame that such poor leadership can hold back such a great population. Erin and I hope that the violence stops soon, so more Americans can visit this country. Before we left everyone was worried about us going here. I think people need to get out of their boxes and check out more places in the Middle East. It is much safer than the media makes it out to be, and the people and sites are some of the best we’ve encountered.

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Travels through Jordan

Internet has been pretty hard to come by for the last week or so, so here’s the post for our trip through Jordan. Syria should come in a day or so, and then Turkey!!

Once the ferry docked on the Jordanian side of the Red Sea, we met up with Fanny, our large yellow overlanding vehicle, which will be our primary mode of transportation for the remainder of our Middle Eastern travels. Picture a big yellow Penske moving van with a modified rear end and that’s pretty much what we’re going to be riding in. The sides of the inside are lined with seats which can be lifted up to store all of our bags underneath. Towards the front is the “beach” which is the ledge area of the moving van which has a foam mattress on it and a removable roof so you can check out the view while we’re driving. The sides of the truck have windows cut out with clear tarps that can be raised or lowered depending on the temperature. It’s a pretty smooth drive.

Fanny and our driver, Nev, picked us up from the ferry and we drove about a half hour to our first camp site of the trip. Nev already had our tents set up so we unloaded whatever we needed from the truck and began the part of the trip where we’re going to be “roughing it”… respectively. The next morning we woke up early and drove to Aqaba. This town was much more modern than any city in Egypt. We stopped at a Safeway to do some grocery shopping. The plan for the rest of the trip is to drive Fanny all the way to Istanbul. Along the way we will be stopping at a bunch of different cool cities and sites. Most of the time, we will be camping in tents at night. Most of these nights, we will be in campsites which have showers, bathrooms, and some sort of internet (hopefully). Other nights, we will be “bush camping”. Bush camping involves driving until about 30 minutes before the sun goes down then turning off the road and driving for another 30 minutes. As the sun goes down we set up our tents in the middle of nowhere while the tour guide and driver pull out all the stuff for dinner (e.g., the gas burner, hot water kettles, and all the food bought by the cook group up). We were all assigned to a cook group with people who we weren’t originally travelling with, so Erin and I got split up (when it comes to cooking, probably a good thing). So, we were at Safeway so the first cook group could buy food for later that night. Erin’s group was up first, so I was sure to pick up some contingency PB&J just in case. After we were done shopping we were free to roam around town for an hour or so. A bunch of us walked over to a pretty clean and really nice looking American restaurant (Burger King) for lunch. Turns out, the deliciousness of the Whopper transcends all international borders.

Once we left Aqaba, we drove for an hour or so to Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is a huge desert valley which has humongous rock formations and sand dunes all over the place. We jumped in that back of a Jeep for a quick “safari” around there area where we saw Lawrence of Arabia’s secret dessert hideout and got the chance to go sand dune boarding. Erin, using all the technique learned during our New Year’s trip to the Poconos, got mistaken for Shawn White coming down the dune.  That night, Erin’s group cooked mixed veggies, rice, and ground beef. It turned out pretty good, and everyone celebrated the first bush camp with a few beers.

The next morning after Erin’s group cooked up some delish eggy bread (what you call French toast when it’s made with pita and there isn’t a maple tree within 5,000 miles), we drove in Fanny for a few hours to Wadi Musa (the Valley of Moses) which is the site of Petra. The plan was for the group to stay up on the enclosed rooftop at a hostel, but after checking out the accommodations, most of the group, including us, splurged for the upgrade of dorm rooms. The next morning, my cook group was up for breakfast (lucky us it was served at 5am, so the group was treated to granola, yogurt, and bananas) and at 6am we shot over to Petra to get there as soon as it opened. Petra was amazing. Erin had a great time despite the fact that I was humming the Indiana Jones theme song the entire time. It is a few thousand years old city that is carved directly into a mountain side. When we got there, we were the only tourists there besides this random old Asian-American couple who enjoyed taking photo after photo of themselves using their supersized camera, tripod, and remote (don’t worry, Erin and I took notes!). After walking around the mountains all morning (walking is taking it lightly, Mt. Sinai trained us well because there were two mountain trails with 350 and 800 steps, respectively, we climbed up to check out panoramic views and this sweet carved cathedral) Erin, Tim from my cook group, Jordan (a new addition to the group we picked up in Dahab – a cool dude from Australia who contributes insightful witticisms to conversations, such as, “I hooked up with the nastiest chick to this song”), and I cabbed over to downtown Wadi Musa in order to find lunch and food for my group’s turn at dinner at the bush camp the following night. The cab driver drove us to a local restaurant where Erin and I split a Bedouin staple, mansef, which is super thin flat bread covered in rice, a leg of goat, and this milk/yoghurt sauce stuff. It tasted much better than the description…. I promise.  Because we couldn’t find bags of ice anywhere, all we got for dinner the next night was fresh veggies and rice. No meat for the group the following day. That night, Erin and I were pretty tired and decided to throw the TV on for the first time since the one night in Paris where we were able to catch some EuroSports coverage of Alpine skiing.  We were much luckier (depending on who you talk to) this time and were able to find the Will Smith classic Hitch in English with Arabic subtitle. Say what you will about the flick, but Kevin James dancing cracks me up every time.

The next day was another early morning and after the third cook group’s scrambled eggs, we jumped on the truck to drive to the Dead Sea and another bush camp at Mt. Nebo. The Dead Sea was cool for the fact that it’s the lowest point on earth and you float like whoa, but it really sucks for the fact that if ANY of the water gets in your mouth or eyes you’re pretty much finished. We all jumped in and took the obligatory pics, but we were on our way after about 20 minutes. Once we got out, salt was everywhere….. everywhere. Rather than taking a nice warm shower to get cleaned up, we decided to drive a few hours to Mt. Nebo, where Christians believe Moses is buried, to give the group a chance to have a salty sleep under the stars and eat the best veggie spaghetti sauce this side of the Italy (I was cooking, remember). The stars on top of Mt. Nebo were amazing. The wind, however, was another story. Luckily, we brought an extra blanket in one of our 6 bags (finally starting to see some benefits from the extra luggage!).

The next morning was border crossing day. We were going to be crossing into Syria, but first we stopped at St. George’s Church in Madaba, Jordan, an Eastern Orthodox church which has a mosaic built into its floor portraying the oldest known map of the Holy Land. It was pretty impressive. Afterwards, we headed for the border. We were told this could take a while or we could just breeze right through. Five hours later, after sufficient palms had been greased (seriously), we were in Syria. Prior to our trip this was the part of the trip which legitimately worried me. After making it this far and meeting tons of locals in the region I really wasn’t too nervous. We had been following the news as best we could and knew there were some protests going on in the country, but they were primarily located in small villages in the southern part of the country… not anywhere near where we would be going.

That’s all for now. I’ll have a post about our adventures through the Syrian revolution in a day or so. We miss everyone. Peaceee

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