Mohammad, Moses, and Eminem

Hello everyone! It has been a little while since my last letter, so I guess I have a lot to try to catch up on. Right now I am in Amman, the capital of Jordan, and after I write this I am going to attempt to get into Syria.

Literally every other person you meet here is named Mohammad. Sometimes I feel like people are just joking with you when they tell you that their name is Mohammad, because you have met so many Mohammads, but it really is just the fact of that matter that about 60 % of people in the Middle East are named Mohammad.

After I wrote last I went to the Sinai region of Egypt. The Sinai is a hot, rocky desert that has been contested and fought over due to its strategic location and proximity to the Suez Canal. It was occupied by Israel for a while, but it now belongs to Egypt and a peace agreement has been signed. From Cairo I took an overnight bus to Dahab, a town on the Gulf of Aqaba that is renowned for its relaxed atmosphere, world-class Red Sea diving, and hippies. Across the Gulf you can see Saudi Arabia --- just a long swim away. The place is nothing like the rest of Egypt, to be honest, I didnt even feel like I was in Egypt anymore. It was the first place I was able to wear shorts and feel comfortable in a month, and when I saw a girl in a bikini I think I went into a state of reverse culture shock. People say that you go to Dahab and get stuck there due to its incredibly relaxed atmosphere, and I would say that it is quite true. I met people who had been there for months. I only planned on spending 3 days and ended up staying nearly a week. The highlight for me was the diving. I took a refresher course and then spent several days (and several $$) diving the gorgeous coral reefs and checking out the extrememely diverse aquatic life --- it was like Finding Nemo in reality. Seeing as I have only dove in cold old Canada prior to this, it was quite a special experience for me.

I also climbed Mt. Sinai in the middle of the night to watch the sunrise from the top. This is where ol' Moses saw the burning bush and got the 10 commandments from the big man upstairs. There is a monastery at the bottom where the burning bush is still growing... though it doesnt look very burnt these days. Our bedouin guide to the top of the mountain was named Mousa, which is Arabic for Moses, which I found quite fitting. I wonder if his name actually was Mousa...

In Dahab, everyone is your 'brotha'. In the place that I stayed, Eminem was one of the brothas running the joint. Shaggy was another. Around town I also met Zorro and Dr. Sheesha. It was kind of wierd.

When I finally did get out of Dahab, I went to a town called Nuweiba, to catch a ferry to Aqaba, the port city on the south end of Jordan. The ferry was a bit of an operation worth noting, and gives one final example of 'foreigner protection' measures employed by the Egyptians: there are 2 daily boats, a fast boat and a slow boat, both of which are quite expensive, the slow boat being slightly cheaper. Somewhat excited for a boat ride, I wanted to take the slow boat. I went to the ferry ticket office in the morning to buy my ticket, where a very rude fat man told me that I could not buy a ticket for a the slow boat; it had already left. So I purchased a ticket for the fast boat. I then went to the ferry, where you go through Egyptian exit customs and enter a large waiting hall with all the other passengers. I was in this waiting hall by 11:30 AM. At about 3, a boat arrived, and everyone got up to rush to the gate. I did so as well, and a police man asked to see my ticket. This was the slow boat, I was told, I have to wait for the fast boat... Indeed, the slow boat had not already left. So I waited longer, and at 6 PM the fast boat finally arrived. All foreigners were rushed aboard, where our passports were taken for (free!) Jordanian Visas. Then the Egyptians and Jordanians were let aboard, where they had to line up for Jordanian Customs to get their passport stamps. Being as there were hundreds of Egyptians and Jordanians on the boat, this process took 2 hours, and we did not depart until 8 PM. We arrived in Aqaba at 10 (Jordan is an hour ahead of Egypt)... probably about 5 hours after the 'Slow Boat' had arrived...

Jordan is much more laid back than Egypt, and much more wealthy than Egypt. The Jordanian Dinar is almost 1:1 with the British Pound, so things are shockingly pricey here after Egypt. The country apparently gets a lot of its money from Israel (Jordan and Egypt are the only 2 Arab countries that recognize Israel as a nation) and from other foreign investment (there are TONS of different banks in the country) and from goods shipped to Aqaba... because really it does not seem like there is an exceptional amount of anything being produced here... most of the country is arid desert.

The majority of Jordanians are actually Palestinians, who have migrated (mostly by force) from the Palestinian Territories and Israel. I have been told that Amman is actually 80% Palestinian. I haven't had many discussions about the fact with locals, but I think there is some resentment between the Hashemite Jordanians (who are supposedly part of the bloodline of the Prophet Mohammad out of Saudi Arabia --- the King, King Abdulla, is a Saudi and part of the Hashemite bloodline) and some Palestinian Jordanians... but I do not know enough to comment on it in detail.

After a night in Aqaba I came north to Amman, where I met up with my friend from Istanbul, Turan, who took a week off to join me. Amman is a cool city, very relaxed compared to Cairo. It is incredibly hilly and the streets do loops and curves around the hills, making it quite difficult to navigate around. Unfortunately, there is little to see here in terms of tourist sites, except for a stunning ruined Ummayyad citadel on top of one of the hills and a gorgeous Roman amphitheatre carved into the side of one of the hills in the middle of downtown. And the cool thing about downtown is that it literally is downtown --- it is at the bottom of all the major hills, so you wander down any steep street heading down and the chances are that you will arrive in downtown.

From Amman we went to a town called Madaba, from where we went and floated in the Dead Sea, which is 400 m below sea level and so salty that you can only bob like cork in it. We also went to Mt. Nebo, where Moses first climbed and saw the Promised Land in Israel below. From there we could see the Jordan River, Dead Sea, Jericho, and Jerusalem. Spectacular views across these famous biblical landscapes.

We saw several fantastic crusader castles, on our way down the King's Highway, which was traditionally the main north-south traderoute from Gulf of Aqaba up to the north and across into Europe --- sort of a crossroads with the the Old Silk Road, and it was also the Easternmost Crusader frontier.

Back in the south of the country, we went to Petra, the ancient capital of the Nabateans (300 BC - first few centuries AD) and one of the most breathtaking archaeological sites I have ever seen. Here beautiful tombs and temples are carved into red sandstone cliffs... the whole site is accessed by a 1.25 km walk through a narrow rift, only a meter or two in width in some places, called the Siq. If you've watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it is the site where he finds the grail in the end. Petra is absolutely massive, and you can hike around anywhere - up to the cliffs above teh city with beautiful views of the surrounding landscape. It feels endless. We spend 2 and a half full days there wandering the ruins, and I still could have used another full day.

After Petra we went and camped in the protected desert area of Wadi Rum, where bedouins have set up camps and take you around of Jeep tours. Sleeping under the stars in the red desert was quite relaxing, and the landscape was breathtaking.

But now I am heading to Syria, where officially I am not supposed to be allowed to enter as I was supposed to have arranged my Visa back in my home country, but unofficially everyone is eventually let in at the border. I am pretty confident that I will get in, and quite excited to see the ancient cities of Damascus and Aleppo, which I am told have a lot more atmosphere than Amman... From Syria I will move back to Turkey, and my next move is still in the air after this, but I am still holding out on getting into Tajikistan for some archaeology.

I know most of you are probably going crazy with exams and papers these days, so I wish you the best of luck on all that, and if you get a chance please write, I would love to hear how things are going back at home and around other places! All the best of everyone, and all my love.

Bryn