A few days in Jordan

Here are some of the pictures I took from my trip to Jordan over the last few days.

This is a view of the Treasury in the ancient Nabatean city of Petra, which is a city carved into sandstone in the south of Jordan. There are building faces carved into the stone, as well as many caves. It's huge and we hiked for hours and hours through the area.d This view is early in the morning after trekking through a trail that we were guided through by a new friend, Shadi, who is a tour guide in Petra on his working days (this was actually his day off) and was born inside the city of Petra. Since '92 people no longer actually live inside because its become such a tourist destination but the bedouin people who inhabited it still live in a nearby village and spend most of their time inside. Many still keep caves and sleep there but its not an official village for residents of Jordan any longer. Below is a picture of Sheerlie, Shadi and I on the day we met him inside Petra. He offered to show us some places off the beaten track for tourists, and led us through the rocks, bounding around like a mountain goat.

Above is a carved doorway into one of the caves right off the main road, which is now a home to goats. The walls of the caves are black because the Nabateans collected tons of wood and built up big fires inside all the caves to make the sandstone much stronger. It worked, because these caves are still alive and kicking.

Below is a picture of me and the bed that broke when I sat down on it at the hostel we stayed at in Wadi Mousa, right outsite of Petra. The board just shattered. Into many, many pieces. Once we all recovered from laughing so hard we contacted our friend from the front desk and they put in some new board and I didn't break that one.

This is Sheerlie and I inside the Abdullah Mosque in Amman. She and I had to wear these long black coverings with hoods because all women must do it to enter the mosque. It was a beautiful place and a man who worked there took us on a secret tour to the King's meeting room - its for his private use when he comes to the mosque. I don't know why, but people kept approaching us and taking us special places.

Here is a picture of the ruins of the citadel on the top of the hill in Amman.

These are the new friends we made while walking around Amman. They tried out their limited English on us and insisted that I take pictures of them. They started calling over friends and suddenly we were surrounded by pre-pubescent boys. This was the first but not the last time that Jordanian boys came up and asked me to take their picture and then look at it on my camera.

Roman Ampitheatre in Amman after a really interesting cab ride with a non-English speaking cab driver who put Sheerlie on his phone with his friend in order to translate what we wanted and pretended to know where he was taking up but didn't actually and then tried to tell us we owed him for the phone call. We jumped out and sought refuge in the theatre.

Sheerlie and I on top of a small theatre in Amman.