Toronto, Canada

We arrived back in Toronto safely.  We ended up carrying most of our souvenirs as carry-on, which turned out to be much better for fragile souvenirs.  We had bought a cheap duffle bag intending to pack it carefully and check it; but then found out it was $70 to check a 2nd bag.  So the airplane people suggested we take it carry-on.  I think we'll try to do this for future trips!

Overall Jordan was a very enjoyable trip.  There weren't any safety issues, even near the borders.  The biggest impression was the lack of hard-sell from would-be guides, vendors, etc -- all it took was a single "no thanks" and they would wish us a good time in Jordan.  It was very refreshing.

Petra was amazing, it's in my top five places to see in the world.

There were a lot of ruins in Jordan, and we did get out-ruined after a while.  Three weeks in Jordan was probably too much time -- normally, Jordan would be part of a trip including Israel, Syria and/or Egypt, which would provide more variety.

Also, there's not much tourist infrastructure. Outside of Petra, Aqaba, Madaba and Amman there is very little mid-range accommodation.  Out of 22 days in Jordan, we spent 18 nights in those four cities.  I would have preferred a little more variety, but there just weren't places to stay.

Here's our pics from the trip:

2012 Jordan - favourites

Amman, Jordan

We've spent the last couple days of our trip in Amman. There's not that much tourist stuff to see here.

Did the walking tour from the Lonely Planet, which took about two hours. Took a taxi to the top of the Citadel (the Roman ruins at the top of a hill overlooking Amman). It was okay, not as impressive because we were at Jerash the day before. There's good views of the Roman Theatre along the walking tour, so we didn't bother to go inside.

Wandered through the fruit and vegetable souq and some other markets.

Had lunch at Hashem Restaurant, a local legendary falafel place. It was okay, and I suppose you have to eat there once if you visit Amman. There were more locals than tourists.

Had dessert (kunafa) at a little place in an alley with a huge lineup. It was excellent, a honey cake on top of cream cheese smothered in a sweet sauce, sprinkled with crushed pistacios.

We had plans for 6pm to meet a friend of Brendan's (Mohammad) who now lives in Amman, so we got home and cleaned up.

Mohammad met us at our hotel, and we drove out to Rainbow St, a trendy street with lots of cafés and restaurants and galleries.

Mohammed grew up in the area, and actually wrote a book Old Houses of Amman, based on the history of the houses on and around Rainbow St. He gave us a walking tour (much better than the Lonely Planet), and then we had some tea at one of the cafés and chatted away. It was cool to get a local's view, it's otherwise a bit risky to talk about some subjects like politics with strangers while traveling.

The next day was Friday, so we planned the day around things that were open on Fridays (lots is closed). Unfortunately even though the hours said it should be open, the National Gallery of Fine Arts was closed. So we walked up to Rainbow St, had an excellent lunch at La Calle (an Italian place), and Turkish coffees at another place.

We returned to the area for dinner at Cantaloupe, a new restaurant on the 4th floor of some building. The appetizers were pretty interesting, we shared cantaloupe and feta cheese with pesto, and bresaola with roca leaves (tastes a bit like arugula). Bresaola is cured beef, there's no pork served anywhere in Jordan.

Today we had plans to visit the Art Gallery again, except it rained for the first time on our trip. Before the rain, we did get to Darat al-Funun, a privately funded art gallery. It took a bit of searching for the place. We ran into some other tourists walking around lost with guide book in hand who were also looking for the place, the Lonely Planet maps are terrible.

(The Lonely Planets have been getting progressively worse since they were bought by the BBC. The best thing I could say about the Jordan edition is that it had some blank pages for notes. We only bought it because the Rough Guide's updated edition for Jordan was published two days after we left Canada).

We're now back at the hotel, catching up on reading. Our flight is at 5am (all Europe departures are around this time) so we have a taxi arranged for 2am. It's sort of a waste of a hotel room, but really the only option.

Jerash, Jordan

Another day, another set of Roman ruins. Our hotel (Hadrian's Gate) is right outside the entrance to the old walled roman city. It was easy enough to walk down to the ticket booth (through a maze of souvenir stalls), buy our tickets and start our visit of Jerash.

We walked through Hadrian's Arch, a 13m tall entrance to the city. It was enormous. Over the next three hours we wandered through the site. The highlights included the Temple of Zeus, the Forum, the South Theatre, Temple of Artemis, and Cardo Maximus. There has been a lot of restoration work here -- there are some before and after pics that show a pile of rubble, and then the current state. It's by far the best set of Roman ruins I've seen.

Fortunately it's December, because it was about 15C and sunny. I couldn't imagine doing all this in 35C in the summer.

Had lunch at a roadside grill place, and then caught a taxi to our hotel in Amman, the final leg of our trip. We're staying at the Crystal Hotel in the business district.

Jordan Valley, Jordan

We were up at 6:30am for a big road trip. Had breakfast, packed, checked out. Our driver met us at our hotel. Or so we thought. After getting our bags in the trunk and starting off, we realized with the driver that we weren't his passengers -- it was another couple who we going to Petra! So we apologized, found our real driver, and switched our stuff over to his car.

Today were the sights in Jordan Valley. We started at almost Dead Sea level. Heather was just getting into my cold, so now both of us had trouble equalizing with the altitude changes.

First stop was Pella, about two hours north from Madaba, through winding roads. Pella is supposedly the most historically significant site in Jordan, because it's been continuously settled for 7000 years. The ruins lie a scattered amongst farmers fields. At one point we saw a shepherd take a flock of sheep through the ruins site.

In a single view, we saw ruins from the Ummayads (760 AD), Romans (60 BC), Mamluks (1300 AD), Byzantine era (400 AD), and Canaanites (1270 BC).

Next was Umm Qais, in the northwest corner of Jordan. Umm Qais was one of the Decapolis cities of the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD. The Lonely Planet says Umm Qais is striking because of the juxtaposition of roman and Ottoman-era ruins, but after Petra with Roman and Nabataean ruins, the Ottoman stuff seems pretty plain.

What is cool about Umm Qais is its location on a hilltop in the corner of Jordan. From a viewpoint (and if it's not hazy like today) you can see Syria, Lebanon, the Golan Heights, and the Sea of Galilee.

The roman ruins are also cool, not yet restored, but pale in comparison to Jerash.

Last for the day was Ajloun Castle. This has been mostly restored, and is fun to wander around and explore all its rooms and levels.

We drove to Jerash to end our day. Checked in at the Hadrian Gate Hotel, and had dinner at the Lebanese House. Supposedly the Lebanese House is pretty famous (the menu has a page full of dignitaries that have eaten there). It was pretty good, but I wouldn't go out of my way to go there.

Salt, Jordan

We needed a change from ruins, ruins and more ruins, so arranged a driver for a day trip to Salt.

It was harder than we thought to arrange the trip, because no one could believe we wanted to spend three hours in Salt. Salt? Why go to Salt? was the typical reply when we tried to ask for a taxi.

Even our driver tried to turn the trip into a different outing. What about Wadi Mujib? No, we want to go to Salt. Okay, but if you get bored, we go to [insert other more interesting place].

So we got to Salt, about an hour from Madaba. Our driver gave us one last warning about how we couldn't possibly enjoy three hours in Salt, and then we started exploring.

Salt is an old Ottoman city. As the Lonely Planet describes it, it's an undiscovered gem. The Japanese have contributed grants to save the architecture, and so Salt has excellent tourist facilities, but no tourists. It has the best-signed walking tour I've seen. The narrow streets and alleys and staircase shortcuts reminded us of Portugal.

Had lunch in a busy grill place. They get so few tourists here that they don't even have an english menu to pull out. We ordered by pointing, a half rotisserie chicken, and beef kebabs. It was one of the best meals on this trip so far.

Salt was a great day trip. I'd only recommend it if you are in Jordan for more than two weeks - there's too many big ruins to see otherwise. But if you need a break from ruins, Salt is great.

We had an early start the next day, so wrapped up dinner at 9:30pm, just as everyone was starting to go out for New Year's Eve. Fell asleep well before midnight on NYE, I can't remember the last time that happened.

Hammanat Ma'in, Jordan

Woke up feeling none the worse for all the rich food and drink yesterday. It was the opposite effect of going to a high altitude.

We had arranged for a driver to pick us up at the Marriott, and do an excursion on the way back to Madaba, so we didn't lose a day to travel.

First off was the hot springs at Hammamat Ma'in. Because after a day at the spa, it's best to go to some hot springs to relax.

We could feel the pressure lift as we drove up to sea level. It was more noticeable than going down. It really felt like I could breathe normally again.

Hammamat Ma'in is the best hot springs I've been to. Water at 45C (65C in the summer) falls into a shallow pool. We stood under the waterfall, which was like a giant rainhead shower. Behind the falls are some caves, where water flows through. Sitting in the caves is like a steam bath. It was more enjoyable than I thought (I'm not one for spas).

Back on the road to Mukawir, the castle of Herod the Great. It's a 15 minute walk uphill from the ticket entrance to the top. It's kinda neat because it's so alone and empty up there (the ruins aren't much to see though).

Last for today was Umm ar-Rasas, UNESCO World Heritage ruins. The ruins themselves are still in ruins, spread as far as we could see. The main attraction were the mosaics at the Church of St Stephen. We thought we were out-mosaic'ed, and then we saw these. They are amazing. One of the top highlights of Jordan. They're not on the typical tourist trail, but they should be. It looks like a giant carpet covering the church floor, but in fact it's a mosaic.

We spent about 45 minutes wandering around the rest of the ruins. We saw three other church ruins with mosaic floors, covered with plastic and sand until they can be restored. Some day this will be a great site.

We got back to Madaba, pretty tired considering we had been at the Dead Sea and hot springs.

Dead Sea, Jordan

Today the trip went downhill, to 423m below sea level. Along the way from Madaba to our hotel on the Dead Sea (we booked at the Marriott), we stopped Mt Nebo. Mt Nebo is where Moses is said to have seen the promised land. It must not have been a hazy day when Moses was here, because we couldn't see much. The church was under complete renovations, and off-limits. So I took a couple pictures of the haze and then we carried on. It was a long winding drive down to the Dead Sea. I was still recovering from my cold and so couldn't equalize very well. It was a trip of plugged ears.

We arrived at the Marriott around 11am, and got an early checkin. Wandered around the hotel (we needed a map, it's pretty big), and had lunch at the Italian restaurant. It was very good. Next was the reason we came to the Dead Sea, to sit in the salty water. Got our beach towels and beach slippers (plastic slippers so you don't cut your feet on the rocks). They actually advise you not to shave before going into the Dead Sea, cause it hurts if you have a small cut!

There was a sign explaining how to enter the water -- walk in backwards, slowly, until you can sit backwards. So we did.

It was pretty cool to float without moving.

After a few minutes that got boring, so we got back on shore and covered ourselves with mud, like all the other tourists. You can buy small amounts for facials for large amounts of money. But here at the Dead Sea, the hotel has a big bucket of free mud.

I think you're supposed to wait 15 minutes, but it was getting icky so we went back in the Dead Sea and washed off the mud.

Watched the sunset from the outdoor lounge. Not as colourful as I imagined, because the sun disappears behind hills before it sets. Still hazy so couldn't really see much of Israel.

Later we had dinner at the steak restaurant. It was excellent.

For those interested, some details about the Dead Sea when we visited:

Elevation -423m
Salt concentration 31.5%
pH 6.0
340 g/L total dissolved salts
Density 1.24 kg/L

Madaba, Jordan

There's not much going on on Fridays in Jordan (it's like a Sunday back home), so we decided to take a down day in Madaba today (the relaxing part that we didn't get to yesterday). So we've been spending time in cafés, catching up on reading and blogging. Right now we're in Dardasheh Café having a Philadelphia lager, listening to classics from the 70's. (Amman was called Philadelphia around 250 BC). We have a couple big days of going to a spa at the Dead Sea tomorrow, and then the hot springs at Hammanat Ma'in, so we want to be well rested :)

Madaba, Jordan

The plan for today was to do some sightseeing, shop for souvenirs and relax in a café. There's so much to see in Madaba that we never actually got to the relaxing part. It was still a great day though.

Started at St George's Church. It has a mosaic, created in AD 560, the oldest map of Palestine in existence. Most tourists stop in at Madaba on an excursion, see St George's, and get back on the tour bus. However there is much more in Madaba, better preserved mosaics that look nicer.

We did a little souvenir shopping, dropped them off at the hotel, and grabbed some lunch from a busy little take-out place.

Next was back to sightseeing. We followed the suggested walking tour in the Lonely Planet. You really get a sense of the history in Madaba. It's the longest continuously inhabited place in the world -- people have been living here since 4500 BC. There are a couple archaeological sites where you see layer upon layer of buildings from different eras.

The Shrine of the Beheading of John the Baptist was really interesting. The church itself was okay. But you can climb to the top of the belfry for great views of Madaba (in Jordan there's not many high buildings where you can do this). And then under the church are tunnels and the Acropolis Museum, which has a working Moabite well from 3000 years ago.

After our touristing, we called in at the Black Iris to plan out excursions for the remainder of our trip. It's getting a little busier tourist-wise, so we also made hotel reservations for the rest of the trip.

Went back to Haret Jdoudna for dinner. They had another live band. The singer for this band had really great stage presence - we were both impressed with him.

Madaba, Jordan

Today was a day trip to the Desert Castles. We met at the Black Iris. We met the other person, she was an Italian working in England.

The desert castles were built by the Umayyads around 700 AD. I hadn't heard of the Umayyads before this trip, but they had the 5th largest contiguous empire in history, from Portugal and Morocco to Arabia and Persia.

It was a two hour drive to the first castle, Qasr Kharana. Heather and I both slept on and off through most of it. Qasr Kharana reminds me of the gates to Qoth in Game of Thrones. Wandered about and took a lot of pictures. There were a handful of other tourists, that we saw at each of the castles (the desert castle route is a common day trip).

Next up was Qusayr Amra. It's famous for the frescoes on the walls and ceiling, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Last up was Qasr al-Azraq. This is on a busy road in Azraq, unlike the other two sites which were in the middle of the desert. It's made from basalt, which doesn't look as black as I thought it would. The doors are single pieces of stone, but still movable.

Had lunch at another roadside tourist complex. It was so-so, I'd rather have had a falafel sandwich somewhere.

It took over two hours to drive back through rush hour traffic. I slept through most of it.

We cleaned up at our hotel and headed to Haret Jdoudna for dinner. It was pretty good. They had live music, a couple guys singing Arabic tunes, which was pretty cool.

Madaba, Jordan

Our bus to Amman was at 11am so we had time to get up, have breakfast and pack without being rushed.
We debated taking a taxi (it's a seven minute walk to the JETT bus station), because we had our big packs, day packs, a bag of food for the bus trip, plus a big duffle bag of souvenirs. Also I was starting to come down with a cold. It was a nice day so decided just to walk to the bus.

The bus was a double decker, and like in Morocco the seat assignments were treated a bit loosely. The bus was only half full so it didn't really matter.

The evening before, we had stocked up on food for the bus ride: pitas (from the bakery I took a pic inside), triangle cheese, mixed nuts, and bananas.

There was a bit extra customs to load the bus because Aqaba is in a tax-free zone, but they didn't pay much attention to tourists.

We slept through most of the ride to Amman. I was starting my cold and so didn't mind sleeping. The bus left promptly at 11am, and arrived in Amman without stops at 3pm right on schedule.

We quickly grabbed a taxi (20JD) to the Mosaic City hotel in Madaba. The traffic wasn't too bad because it was Christmas, a national holiday here.

Our hotel was an excellent mid-range hotel. It's fairly new, it was very clean, good shower and the heat worked.

The plan was to use Madaba as a base for day trips around northern Jordan. The excursion prices seemed a bit high at our hotel so we went to the nearby Black Iris Hotel to book out day trips.

The Black Iris owner was excellent at helping us plan out day trips. He's really knowledgeable about the area. He had another guest who wanted to do the Desert Castle tour the next day, so we signed up for that (JD 45 for the car, split between the three of us)

Walked down to Haret Jdoudna for dinner. It's the top rated restaurant in the area. It looked good, except all the diners were having a Christmas sing-a-long. I suppose some people like that, but it wasn't for us.

Ended up at Adonis Restaurant. It had a good atmosphere. We had a nice Christmas dinner with a bottle of Jordanian red (from St George, right here in Madaba)

Aqaba, Jordan

I was up with my alarm yet again (what kind of vacation is this?) for a 2nd day of diving. Heather decided to spend the day relaxing around the hotel rather than snorkeling.  However she joined me on the short walk to the dive centre so we could book the overnight excursion to Wadi Rum from a travel agency next door.

There were only three of us diving today. The Norwegian guy wanted to see the tank (an army tank scuttled in about 5m of water, perfect for a safety stop), so we went to that site for our first dive. The sun was out today, and visibility is pretty amazing. Maybe that's why the Red Sea is so highly rated for diving.

Froze in the wind in between the dives. Just as I stopped shivering, we were back the water for the 2nd dive, this one at Japanese Garden. It was okay.

Got back home and warmed up with a hot shower. According to the Norwegian guy (he had all kinds of dive paraphernalia), the water was 23C, the coldest I've dived.

Heather and I walked around the souq, souvenir hunting. We found a shop selling the antique coffee grinders!  The price was much lower than we expected, and so didn't even bargain. It was the one-sided bartering like in the Monty Python movie, with the vendor arguing both sides.  Heather also bought some jewelry.

Bought our bus ticket to Amman for Christmas Day, from where we'll take a taxi to Madaba.

Had a drink at the infinity pool at our hotel watching the sunset over Egypt or Israel (I'm not sure exactly where the border lies) (Saudi Arabia is 14km south from us as well).

We had dinner at Ali Baba's again. We had two mains and a couple appetizers, everything was amazing again. Split a bottle of Jordanian red.

...

Slept in (!) for the first time this trip. We just had to be ready for 1pm for our Wadi Rum excursion. Caught the tail end of breakfast, packed up and checked out. With the souvenirs and our boots in plastic bags (so we could put them on quickly in Wadi Rum) we looked distinctly like non-Hilton guests.

Had lunch in the souq, and would have timed it perfectly to be ready at 1pm except we forgot about the free tea at the end of the meal (it would be insulting to turn down) and so we were a few minutes late.

The weather was perfect for visiting Wadi Rum -- about 18C, sunny, and no wind to kick up dust storms.

We switched from a taxi to a 4WD in Wadi Rum (a Toyota, the favoured vehicle everywhere I've been on excursions because of its maintainability).  Drove around the desert landscape (wadi means valley in Arabic, and rum is moon, so literally translates to Valley of the Moon). Took pics at all the appropriate places. It was cool, but I wouldn't rate it in the top 5 things to see in Jordan. I thought the landscape around Petra was more interesting.

Our camp was great, a tent with actual beds and comfortable mattresses!  We were the only two tourists (the camp can hold up to 100 people in tents) so had the owner's attention all night. Had an excellent dinner, and chatted about travel. Heather and I crashed around 9pm. The owner pulled out his laptop and surfed using a USB stick. As he said, welcome to 2013.  (Although, we did read on our iPad / iPhone before falling asleep).

We woke up a couple times in the night from the call to prayers. The Imams had excellent voices and the sound carried well in the desert. What didn't add to it was the howling of dogs off-key.

We got up at 6am to watch the sunrise. We were both comfy warm in our sleeping bags and a couple blankets (much warmer than our night in Karak!) but froze once we got up. It might have been 3C.

The sun was just starting to hide the stars. It was a great view to the horizon. Watched the sky change, at one point we could see rays from the sun like how a kid draws the sun. Finally we felt some warmth after an hour or so.

We had an excellent traditional breakfast. Learnt we were supposed to dip the pita in olive oil and then in the spice mixture. (We had had the spice mixture before, but didn't know what to do with it).

To emphasize that times have changed, the camp owner asked if we could give him a good rating on tripadvisor.

Our driver picked us up at 9am as arranged, and we returned to the Hilton.  It was odd, with our backpacks and dusty clothes and looking like we just spent a night in the desert, to be greeted with a Welcome back, sir at the Hilton.

Cleaned up and went for lunch at Al Shami. It was excellent grilled food, done perfectly.

Bought a duffle bag to carry our souvenirs (we don't normally buy so many things this early in a trip, but we don't think we'll get Bedouin stuff up north). At least we'll look more respectable leaving the Hilton tomorrow.

Now we're relaxing at the infinity pool again. We're yet again back to Ali Baba's for our Christmas Eve dinner.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

Aqaba, Jordan

It's a short 90 minute drive from Wadi Musa to Aqaba.  Heather and I fell asleep in the car for most of it.  We had decided not to include a day trip stop to Wadi Rum (of Lawrence of Arabia fame), even though it's along the way.

We checked into the Double Tree Hilton, for 89JD a night.  We're finding there's not much mid-range accommodation in Jordan.  Our criteria for hotels includes heat in the room, hot showers, and a comfortable bed.  The mid-range hotels (for what exists) don't meet all of those, so we may end up in higher end hotels for the rest of the trip.

Our room is pretty nice, with the hottest shower we've had on the trip so far (out of four places we've stayed).  It's the first shower we didn't have on full heat.  We also got a complimentary cookie when we checked in :)

Because we had taken a private car, we still had most of the day to tour around Aqaba.  Walked through the souq, which here is just the busy commercial area, and not like the souqs in Morocco.  Saw some cool antiques that we liked, especially some antique Bedouin coffee grinders.  Unfortunately these weren't for sale in the store we saw them in, but just "museum" pieces.  We think they were for sale, because they had Visa signs all around.  Anyways we're on a hunt for another one that is for sale.

We dropped by Dive Aqaba (I'm doing a couple days of diving with them).  Got some restaurant recommendations (one down side of staying at a Hilton is that they don't really know what we're looking for in travel -- we'd much rather find a street stall serving falafel than a fancy restaurant).  We had dinner at a seafood place called Al Moubrak.  It was good, but not great.  We stepped into a dessert place for something small, and they gave us samples which was all we really wanted.  But the samples were amazing so we bought a small platter of desserts for JD2.  Now we have enough desserts to last us a week.

...

Had to set my alarm yet again to get up for diving.  The breakfast at the Hilton was excellent.

We walked over to Dive Aqaba, just around the corner (the Hilton is very conveniently located in Aqaba).  Signed some disclaimers, got fitted for wet suits.  Heather was planning to snorkel, and I was diving.  They gave me two wet suits (a first for me) and dive boots.

The dive site was about 30 minutes out from the dive shop.  There was a couple from South Africa on the boat (he was diving, she was pregnant so was just snorkeling, so it worked out well with Heather diving too), and a family of three, learning to dive.

The first dive was just over coral.  I was a bit disappointed by the coral, it was mostly dead and not very many fishies.  Also the water felt darned cold, far colder than the advertised 24C.  We think it was maybe 20C.  The sun had disappeared behind clouds when we came up, so we were shivering for a while before heating up.  We were hoping for lunch before the second dive, but it was just a 45 minute break and then back into the cold.

The second dive was cool, it was a wreck dive through a tanker that had been scuttled.  We dove under the wreck (25m) and then through the ship, through some rather small areas.  I think the divemaster was using the first dive to gauge the South African's and my abilities, because it was a bit technical and I don't think everyone goes through the ship.  Anyways it was way cool.

In busy season I can imagine that the wreck is covered with divers, but with tourism down so much, there was just one other dive shop at the wreck.

Lunch was onboard during the slow ride back, and was excellent.  Although, I find anything excellent after diving.

The dive excursion took up most of the day -- by the time we showered and changed, it was already 5pm.

The South Africans were cool to talk with, they are similar in travel style to us.  They highly recommended Wadi Rum, so we've decided to give it a go.  We looked around for tour agencies in the tourist area, but didn't see any -- I think they're all affiliated with hotels. We're going to check out a cheaper hotel for the tour, because we don't want to book through the Hilton :)

Had dinner at Ali Babas, it was the best meal we've had on the trip so far.  We split a number of appetizers and a main (sayadieh - a local specialty of fish layered onto rice with tomato, onion and pepper sauce), and we liked every dish.  We want to go back for the sayadieh, because by the time we got to it we were full from the other dishes.  Heather tried a local Cabernet Sauvignon that went well with dinner.

From the looks of it we might be spending Christmas on a bus back to Amman.  Oh well, everyday is like Christmas when we're on vacation :)  Also realized today was the day the world was supposed to end.

I'm reading a book called Redshirts by John Scalzi that Craig recommended.  It's written from the perspective of the ensigns that get killed off in Star Trek episodes.  It's rather funny.

Well we're off for a herbal tea and some Jordanian sweets.

Petra Day 2, Jordan

We were up again early for breakfast at 7am and at the entrance gate to Petra by 8am. We walked through the 1.2km long Siq (it's still one of the highlights of Petra, even though this was the 5th time through). There seemed to be less tourists today, at times we were all alone. Took some more pictures at the Treasury, and then through the Street of Facades and on towards the Monastery.

We passed by a excavation in progress, and wandered up the stairs to see what it was about. It turned out to be an amazing roman ruin, built in AD 106. Most of the site is still half-buried in sand -- excavation only started in 1993. Toppled pillars lie like fallen dominoes in the sand. It's really odd to be walking over rock pieces that are pieces of ruins 2000 years old. We hadn't done much pre-reading about Petra, so this was a cool bonus.

We reached the start of the trail to the Monastery, just past the Crown Plaza restaurant (?!). It was a 45 minute climb up an easy to follow trail, with more than 800 ancient steps along the old processional route. Finally we reached the top. It took a couple seconds to realize the Monastery was around the rocks to the right -- after the reaching the end of the trail, the first thing you see is a big sign in the distance that says "VIEW".

The Monastery is huge (45m high, 50m wide). It's my favourite in Petra. I actually had no idea that there was more to Petra beyond the Treasury, but it's way more than that. The Treasury is probably only in the top 5 things to see in Petra -- the Siq, the Monastery, roman ruins, Street of Facades and Royal Tombs are equally or more impressive.

We were the only tourists at the Monastery when we arrived. We climbed a facing rock formation to sit and relax and take in the view. We laughed as tourists slowly dribbled in, and did the same thing we did -- look at the view sign, and only moments later see the Monastery and then gasp in awe.

After our little break, we continued onto the VIEW sign to get a better viewpoint. We then trekked back to the Crown Plaza restaurant, and decided to have the buffet lunch. I was starved after all the exercise and poor dinner the night before.

We carried on back, and took a detour over a hill around the back of the roman ruins. There were great panoramic views of the Royal Tombs in the distance. We walked back along the hilltop, and saw more Nabatean caves and facades, that were tourist-free (even while the crowds filled up the main path below). Just like the day before, it was as if we had our own private tour of Petra. And it wasn't even that far off the beaten path. Using a Toronto comparison, it would be like everyone was walking down Adelaide and we decided to check out Richmond.

Back at the hotel, we cleaned up and then headed for dinner. We went to the Cave Bar in the Crown Plaza, which is built into a 2000-year-old Nabatean tomb. When we first saw the Cave Bar, we thought it was cheesy that they made the bar look like a fake tomb. It was only at lunch that we realized that it was a real tomb -- so we had to have a beer there. Because of the buffet lunch, we weren't too hungry and so just had some appetizers and called it tapas. (Oh yah, a couple pints of Tuborg).

The weather was excellent over the two days -- it was sunny and about 16C. We couldn't imagine doing all that trekking and climbing in the summer heat. Yet another reason to come in off-season!

Petra Day 1, Jordan

We were down for breakfast at 7am to get an early start with Petra.  We bought a 3-day pass for 60 JD. I thought we'd be Petra'd-out after two days, but we weren't sure if my ankle would need a break.  The 2-day pass was 55 JD so the extra day was just a 5 JD insurance.

We took our time going down the Siq. Because we'd already seen the Treasury last night I wasn't in a big rush     

There weren't too many other tourists. The situation in Syria has caused a huge decline in tourism here, even though its a different country. I used to think traveling in shoulder season was the best way to travel; now it seems to be going to a country adjacent to a troubled country.

All the shadows of rock formations we had seen on the night trek were now in full life. It's so surreal it almost looks fake, like a Disney impression of Petra. Except it's real.

We spent a few minutes at the Treasury. There were more workers than tourists at the site. The whole of Petra is kept impeccably clean.

We have been pleasantly surprised at the lack of aggressive sales pitches from guides. Just saying No Thanks once is enough, and they wish you on your way. Much different than any other country I've been too!

We followed the suggested walking tour in the Lonely Planet. After the Treasury is the Street of Façades, where the Nabateans cut 20m high façades into the rock around 2000 years ago. Petra has survived earthquakes because it's not built, but carved out of solid rock. Everything is one piece.

We had the street to ourselves - there were no other tourists in sight.

Next on the LP walk was a climb up to the High Place of Sacrifice. I thought it would just be a short climb, but it actually goes all the way to the top of the 200m rock formations. There were amazing views of the surroundings.

By the time we descended, it was close to noon, and the tour bus tourists had arrived. We waited for tourist free pics of the 8,500 seat Theatre. We had to keep remembering that everything was carved, and not built.

We walked up to the Royal Tombs across from the Theatre. By this time we were getting hungry and tired. Had a box lunch from a restaurant facing the Royal Tombs, which was pretty good (pita bread, cheese, tomato, cucumber, orange and cookies) for 6JD. There are also excellent toilets inside Petra -- much better than we had expected.

Rejuvenated, we headed back to the Royal Tombs along a path we had observed from our lunch seats. It ran above and behind the ground level row of tombs. We had this to ourselves - it's hidden from a casual view (especially if you're checking out the Theatre). It was amazing, with great views looking down on the Street of Façades.

We debated doing some more sightseeing but it had been a long day and we didn't want to push my ankle. So we headed back to the Treasury, took some more pics, and then walked back through the Siq to our hotel. 

We showered and headed out for dinner.  It was a choice between identical mediocre restaurants and we didn't choose well. Went to the Mövenpick for a celebratory beer. 

Petra Night, Jordan

We went on the Petra by Night tour tonight. It was amazing! The 1.2km Siq (the canyon that is the entrance to Petra) is lined with candles. There's enough light to see the canyon walls (200m high) all the way to the top, where the sky is lit by thousands of stars. The walk down the Siq is almost as impressive as seeing the Treasury. The Treasury is lit by hundreds of candles. There's a musical performance (flute, and some stringed instrument). The 150 or so tourists are seated in the floorspace. The acoustics are pretty good. I'm sure it's a much different experience from the day (we'll find out tomorrow!)

I managed to get a decent pic even with the low light (see the Photo Album link under Jordan in the right sidebar). The performer asked every to take a pic at the same time. I took a long exposure pic, and all the flashes that went off lit up my pic :)

We have an early start tomorrow to catch the early sun, so we're off to bed.

Wadi Musa, Jordan

This trip we've taken our iPad along. One benefit is the ability to download pics from my camera, edit them and then upload to Picasa. So I can create our vacation album on the go! I'm using Photogene to edit the pics and Web Albums to manage uploading. I'm quite happy with both apps.

I also finally made the header pic random, using a php script running on AWS. If you refresh the page you should see a new pic.

Wadi Musa, Jordan

We took a private car to Karak, about 90 minutes south from Amman. As with almost all private cars we've taken on trips, it was an older Mercedes, but still in great shape.

Our driver explained the road we were taking was historically the route to Mecca for Muslims from the region and Eastern Europe. (In fact the road goes all the way to Sanaa, Yemen, which is on our list of places to see).

We stopped at a touristy roadside place for lunch (the "Petra Tourist Restaurant"), and arrived at Karak around 2pm. We looked at a couple hotels, and settled on the Karak Guest House, right beside the entrance to the castle.

Karak Castle is the main attraction in Karak, a sprawling castle in varying states of disrepair. After paying the JD1 entrance fee, and politely declining a couple guides, we spent the next three hours exploring the linked tunnels and vaulted rooms, some buried deep into the hillside. It was pretty cool. It wasn't as well preserved as castle in Tomar, but still fun to explore.

After we wandered down the main street, and saw lots of trades at work in their shops: someone working a loom (a loomer?), butchers, someone working with animal pelts (a pelter?). I bought a scarf cause it's getting cold at night (3C).

Had dinner at Kir Heres restaurant, which was really good. I really liked the fried haloomi.

We were back at the hotel by 7:30pm. I was exhausted, apparently not over jet lag, and was asleep by 8:30pm. Unfortunately I was also up at 2am and couldn't fall back asleep.

Heather was also up pretty early. The mattresses weren't the most comfortable, and it was really cold in the room, so we decided to get up and were ready to look for breakfast by 7am.

We found a local eatery and sat down for an excellent Jordanian breakfast of hummus, omelette, salad and deep fried eggplant and falafel, with a mint tea to drink. It only cost 6JD ($8 CAD) too!

We had originally scheduled a driver for 11am, but since we were up so early changed it to 9:30am. First was a stop at Shobak, another Crusader castle ruin. It's in more of a ruined state than Karak - the attraction of Shobak is its location perched on the top of a steep hill.

Next we were on to Wadi Musa to see Petra! It was less than an hour drive from Shobak.

We checked into the Petra Moon Hotel. It was one of the few places we had reserved ahead, because we weren't sure how busy Petra would be at this time if year.

There's a night walk to Petra along the Siq (that's the crescent moon in Raiders of the Lost Ark) three nights a week, fortunately tonight's one of them. So we'll be seeing Petra (or at least the Treasury) in a few hours!

Amman, Jordan

This was the most rushed we've been to leave on a trip.  Heather had an appointment at 10am with her back specialist to see if she could get clearance to dive.  Heather has a couple partially ruptured disks in her back and the water pressure from diving can be very dangerous to ruptured disks. Unfortunately the advice was that the risk is too great, so diving is off the list. That took a couple hours out of the morning, which left us rushed to leave.  Poor Craig, who drove us to the airport, had to wait 40 minutes for us while we finished packing.

The Air France flight was full to Paris. The line up to check in had a lot of people but it moved fairly quickly, it only took us about 20 minutes to get through to the gate.

I had made sandwiches for dinner, which we ate before boarding. That was a mistake because Air France had pretty decent food, and lots of it.

There was also too much on-board entertainment -- it almost seemed like the seven hour flight wouldn't be enough time to read our books, watch movies, listen to new CDs and read the in-flight magazine. I watched The Bourne Legacy (pretty good) and Prometheus (not so good).

We arrived at 7am in Paris. The wine and cognac with dinner had left me a little worse for the wear. As we deplaned, I heard someone call my name, which I ignored because I wasn't expecting anyone to know me in Charles de Gaulle. But it turned out my cousin Tyron had been on the same flight, he on his way to Mumbai!  We chatted for a bit. His connecting flight left shortly so we parted after getting through security.

Heather and I had six hours to wait. After freshening up (a bit more planning required post 911 to take airplane sized toothpaste, mouthwash and contact solution), we found some really comfortable lounge seats at the very ends of the terminal. They're hidden from view until you're right up on them, so most passengers weren't aware they were there. We napped for a bit.

The flight to Amman was on a smaller A320 and the seats were more squished. We slept on-and-off on the 4.5 hour flight, in between eating another good meal from Air France. There was a bit of turbulence, but nothing too bad.

On arrival in Amman, we easily withdrew Jordanian Dinars (JD) from an ATM, paid our 20JD fee for the visa, and got our passports stamped. The immigration officials were very friendly, only asking which hotel we were staying at in Jordan (and also where I was from originally, out of curiosity).

Next was picking up our  luggage which was already off the conveyor so Heather didn't have time to get worried (she has a long history of lost luggage). I had arranged with the hotel for a pickup from the airport, but we didn't see anyone with our names so we took a taxi from outside the terminal. Heather and I are now 0-4 for airport pickups on our last four trips.

We reached the hotel around 9pm, about 20 hours door-to-door from home. We're staying at the Hishamm hotel, a self-described "boutique style" hotel. As a boutique hotel, it has the requisite popular bar and restaurant on the ground floor. We cleaned up and went downstairs for dinner. The food was yummy (although the Arabic food was listed on the back pages, behind the western food). We also had a local draft beer, which at 7JD was the same price as the main.   Smoking is allowed in bars and restaurants, to which we'll need to adjust. It's hard to believe it wasn't that long ago that that was the norm in Toronto.

We crashed pretty quickly after dinner in a very comfortable king sized bed.

This morning I was up at 5am, which isn't too bad for jet lag. The room is pretty quiet so I could just barely hear the call to prayers. Heather noticed a sticker on the ceiling which we couldn't figure out until Heather noticed it pointed the direction to Mecca.

Today we're headed south to see a couple ruins along the way to Petra.

Toronto, Canada

We arrived back in Toronto earlier this week.  All our souvenirs made it back too.  I thought winter would be over by the time we got back, but oh well.  We were very lucky with the weather over the six weeks, it didn't rain at all (drizzled a couple days, but not enough to get wet).

Here's our favourite pics:

2011 South America - favourites

Also here's my attempt at being artistic:

2011 South America - artistic