Egypt & Jordan

Egypt. The Great Pyramids. A bucket list item. Unfortunately Egypt was not a good experience for me and I've been told that my writing is much better when it is positive. Since I found this to be a dirty, noisy, chaotic country and a culture that I couldn't get away from fast enough, this will be mostly a photo blog post.

The positives are: being in the presence of such magnificent, ancient history, the food, some of the individual people I met and, the guesthouse in the Nubian village I stayed at in Aswan. I loved the children there and had the honor of attending day one of a traditional three day Nubain wedding. I also really enjoyed Dahab in South Sinai-it is the best part of Egypt because it is nothing like Egypt. It was definitely a loss for Israel and a score for Egypt when they gave it over to make peace in 1979. Diving in the Red Sea there was incredible and so were my accommodations with the morning view of the sun rising over Saudi Arabia and afternoon entertainment of watching camels getting bathed in the sea.

Jordan was a bit of a surprise. It's very expensive and the exchange rate is horrible: $0.70 to the Jordanian Dinar. I'm baffled at how the dollar is weaker but I guess that's a call the King gets to make. Although I only went to two cities, I was impressed by how clean it was and how harassment was mostly contained to blatant staring. But reminders that Islam rules here are very clear when you go to the beach and the men are wearing swim trunks and women can only be seen in full burqas and hijab despite the 42 degree temps. They even have to swim in them!

Petra, Jordan--one of the New Wonders of the World. Another bucket list item but the lost city almost remained lost to me because the cost is so prohibitive. The three-day two night trip to Jordan set me back almost $300-and that was on the cheap-but the Rose City is truly a sight to see! Photos can't do justice to the beautiful, swirling colors of the sandstone nor can they capture the magical mystery of this 3,000 year old city.