Jordan

Jordan almonds! In Jordan!


We just spent a four day weekend in Jordan. Jordan was shockingly quiet, organized, clean and easy. But maybe that has something to do with the fact that the whole country has about 1/4 of the population of Cairo. We flew into Amman in the evening and left the next morning for Petra so that we could have as much time in the park as possible. Then we had a day and a half back in Amman on the tail end.

This is the main canyon, called "the Sik" that takes visitors to the ruins. Right at the end of this winding walkway is the Treasury.

Here is the Treasury late in the evening when most visitors have already gone home. Petra was the capital of the Nabatean people, who traded between the Persian Gulf, Egypt and the Mediterranean. Their peak was about the time of Jesus. They were polytheistic, and various gods, shared around the region, were depicted here. Petra was a major marketplace, and it was easy to imagine the one big street filled with stands selling frankincense and spices and jewelry. Petra stayed important after it was taken over by Rome, but after a major earthquake around 500AD, it never returned to prominence.

Petra is really a huge site. They have made it a protected park, and you can spend the day walking through various trails and pathways to see ruins high and low. The hillsides are filled with caves and chiseled facades.

Even if it was just a place to hike, it would be incredible. All the massive facades, made it that much better. It was the kind of place that made a person feel really small.

This is the Treasury, the most famous image that comes from Petra.

There were all kinds of beautiful trails to explore. It felt a lot like Utah.


Yet another giant building carved into the marbled rock hillside.

This is a narrow, winding, canyon called Wadi Muthlim. It serves as the conduit for the water that the Nabateans were trying to keep out of the main Petra area and is prone to flash floods. As we made our way through the sculpted rock, we would find huge objects (like a horse carriage) that were rushed in with the water and then stuck forming part of the scenery.


Caves in the hillside, possibly tombs.


A view from above. That is a Roman theater.

Gratuitous camel shot. They're just so photogenic.

It was surprisingly cold, hence the styly jacket and hat Zach picked up in a flea market on our way to the bus station in Amman. Go SF Giants.

We were walking out of our hotel in Amman, feeling chilly and underdressed for the weekend. We wondered where we would find jackets and an ATM and a taxi, and found them all together two blocks later at a flea market.


This is where lightly loved stuffed animals go to get reincarnated.

And shoes.

Humus in the background, a treat since it's not as common in Egypt. This is the special falafel of Hashem restaurant: stuffed with red onion and covered on one side with sesame seeds. Deelicious.


We're sitting in the smaller Roman theater of Amman, next door to the bigger one.. These theaters are apparently still used fairly regularly today.


Two classes of elementary school girls were visiting the Roman theater while we were there and it was fun to watch them climb eagerly all over the two thousand year old steps.


Produce market, not all that different from Cairo, but always an exciting barrage of colors and smells.

I (Zach) couldn't resist the cliche picture of the guy in full Gulf outfit sitting at a new Starbucks. I still can't get over Egyptians and Jordanians referring to men wearing long white shirts as "Arabs" even if those Egyptians and Jordanians know no other language than Arabic.

Looking down on the Roman theater from Roman ruins up one of Amman's many hills. In the foreground is what I believe to be a young Ailanthus, the tree that grows in Brooklyn, among other places.

a weekend in alexandria

Two weeks ago, we spent the weekend in Alexandria with our friends Rebecca and Walid. Alexandria is a quiet, urbane city on the Mediterranean Sea. It is a wonderful place to take a break from Cairo's intensity. Even the temperature was a major change as it has already heated up in Cairo to temperatures of 90, while in Alexandria we were bundled in our coats and scarves against the sea breeze.


Behind Walid is the coastline of Alexandria. It forms a wide bay, like a semi-circle, so we were on one end enjoying a delicious fish dinner, and we could see the main square and famous library across the way.


A small, very old, bar - called a touristic restaurant.


This gentleman keeps his small grocery store open all night and serves breakfasty snacks to his patrons. He served fresh cheese, eggs with pastrami, and home-made yogurt on family-style plates.

This friendly man is a professional wrestler. We couldn't help but notice that my head (Rachel) was about the same size as his shoulder. It was in impressive sight.

Here is Zach in front of some booksellers in the main square of Alexandria. We could pretend we were concerned with the books, but we were actually looking at the latest pirated movies.


Here is the famous Alexandria library. It is a beautiful, modern library comparable to the Library of Congress or the New York Public Library in Manhattan. In the background you can see a small stage that was home to an International Music Festival that was just getting started that weekend.

On our last day we took a side trip to Al-Rashid - the place where the Rosetta Stone was found. Al-Rashid is on the western edge of the Nile delta. The weather was much more humid and we even saw some rain, as well as fields and fields of crops growing.


Fresh fish.
Teenage boys hanging out on the street. People seemed so much more respectful when they saw the police escort who insisted on walking through town with us.
This is the main train station in Cairo. The trip to Alexandria was remarkably easy, about two hours in a cheap and comfortable train.

Spring Break aka Parent Invasion

So our parents, all four of them, came to visit over spring break. We went on some adventures together, and by the end, our parents morphed into a very funny comedic act reviewing our misadventures with overzealous tour guides and Egyptian craft (crap) sellers.


First stop was, of course, the pyramids. On that particular day, the park was filled with local Egyptian school groups. It was our (Zach and Rachel's) first time seeing the pyramids under circumstances in which the local crowd outnumbered the foreign visitors. It was hot and crowded, but we persevered.



The shopping is over: I (Rachel) have found the perfect stone sarcophagus for my burial chamber.


Adventure #2 begins. The Levinskys flew and the Bermans took the train, but we all arrived in Aswan at about 8:00 am. From Aswan, we embarked on a three day Nile Cruise floating down (which is North) to Luxor. We saw tons of temples (pronounced timble by our enthusiastic guide) and completely undecipherable Ancient Egyptian carvings.

This is the temple of Isis. It was actually under water when the Aswan dam was created to control the annual Nile flood seasons so that the Nile is a more consistent height all year round. They moved the entire temple to higher ground, but we had to take a boat to get to it. Seeing how intact it looked, it was hard to imagine how they moved it. You can see some staining from the water on the base of the temple (picture above). This is the boat we took to the temple (below).



Below, the ancient Egyptian god of fun.



This plant hanging from the fence, is the "loofa" plant - that is the natural object from which our loofa sponges are found. Apparently the plant is not too pleasant to eat, but when dried out, it makes a great body scrubber for the shower.
And now for some local flavor. When the boat was docked in town, we had time to infuse some modern culture with the ancient. This usually involved visiting markets filled with a lot of touristy objects that we have no interest in buying, and fending off the aggressively welcoming vendors.


This is a pile of dried hibiscus petals. Apparently the good hibiscus comes from Sudan, but I don't know the difference. It takes a couple of these petals to make a bright magenta tea.

Spices and something blue.



Back to the tour. Now we have sailed a little further north and we are visiting the temple of Horus.


The Ancient Egyptian carvings tend to show a little round belly for the men and women - some carvings look a little saggier than others.



Is she serving ice cream here?


Here we are floating down the Nile, and watching the river bank scenery through our cabin window. That felt like the most luxurious moment of the trip. Our air conditioned room, fluffy blanket, and the riverbanks of the Nile slowly gliding by.





After all those tours, we took a few days to rest at the Red Sea. We stayed at a small eco-themed resort/hotel that specialized in diving, and was very quiet and relaxing, though we were kind of a strange group there, not rushing in and out of the depths to log another dive. We enjoyed our chalets with the brick dome ceilings. We snorkled the reefs that were close to the hotel's bay, full of flourescent fish of all shapes and sizes.

On returning to Cairo we had a few more touristy visits with the folks before they returned home, a bit tanned, and probably very tired.