Amman, Jordan

I am so glad it's the weekend. I started off this week by arriving home at midnight the night before our school week started. Last week, I flew from Muscat to Amman on October 20 for a math conference. The conference was only two days, but we flew out the day before and I stayed an extra two days to see some sights.
Petra and the Dead Sea were the top two highlights I had researched to visit and I was able to see both. I rented a taxi both days from the hotel and although it was more expensive than taking a bus, it was also more comfortable.
The cab ride to Petra was about 3 hours from Amman. There wasn't much to see once we left Amman and headed south. The desert highway is just as you might imagine, stark. Upon arrival, I payed the entrance fee, 21 dinars, which is about $30, and made my way to the siq while offers for horse rides were shouted to all the visitors. The siq is a long narrow passageway that leads to the city of Petra. To get to the Treasury, which is the first major feature, it took me 20 minutes to walk through the siq. The walk was well worth it when I came to the end and the Treasury appeared. After the Treasury, I wanted to see the high place of sacrifice. This trek was tough. I spent about 30 minutes walking up stairs and trails to reach it. The view was spectacular. You could see all of Petra and the people looked like ants. I walked around to the other sights and spent about 3 hours there.
I moved to a new hotel this night because the school was no longer paying for it and I knew I could find a hotel for a lot less than the $225 a night the school had payed for the La Meridien. Casa Bonita was where I ended up and it was a cool place. It had 6 rooms above a Spanish restaurant and tapas bar. The food was superb. The room was preety small, but I didn't spend much time there, because I walked downtown to search out the cheap DVDs and some other souvenirs. I bought a few DVDs, about 100 of them and ate at Hashem, which is a famous restaurant that is basically a bunch of tables in an alley. The hummos and greasy falafels were cheap and super tasty.
The next day, my last in Amman, I headed for the Dead Sea. I caught a cab for the 45 minute ride outside my hotel about mid morning. The driver was a young guy who knew some English and wanted to practice. We talked the whole way down. He was a student at the local university studying global position technology.
When we got there, we went in at the public beach, Amman Beach, for about $10. He took a couple of pictures for me and then took off for a while. I floated around until something funny happened. I was floating aroud as most people do and bumped into a guy. Well, he discovered that he could not touch the bottom and he could not swim! This is not a big deal in the Dead Sea because it is impossible to sink. But he grabs ahold of me and starts speaking in Arabic while pushing me under. I wasn't to worried as I knew I would not drown, but I couldn't get him off me. His friends swam over and I thought they'd settle him, but they grabbed onto me as well. So here I am in the Dead Sea with 3 guys from Jordan who are trying to hold onto me and I am trying to fight them off. While this is happening, I am watching my cab driver laughing hysterically on the beach as he knows exactly what's going on.Well finally, they figured out they could float and which arms were there friend's and I was able to push away. I wish he had grabbed my camera, but no such luck. Does this kind of stuff happen to everyone or am I just lucky?

Nizwa road trip

Back in September, Zach, Sara, and I took our first road trip in Oman to Nizwa. Nizwa is known for its fort and a happening goat market. We went on a Thursday and found out the goat market only happens on Fridays. We were however, able to see the fort and it was spectacular. It has been totally redone. The forts in Oman were usually built to protect a nearby water source. We went to the top and were able to see all over the city.

On our way out of town, we had our first camel sighting. It may become commonplace at sometime, but this was our first and we were really excited. We weren't sure how close you could get to them, so we kept our distance and took lots of pictures. Each camel had their front or back feet tied together and we guessed it was to keep them from running. Who knows.

Our next stop was at a nearby wadi. A wadi is the name given to anyplace where there is water. We new we were in the right place when we saw all the cars. Omanis and everyone else that lives here like to take a picnic and head to the wadi for the day. You see large families eating and playing in the water. Mostly just the guys playing in the water, but the ladies are close by eating and chatting. We walked around for a little while, but it was just too many people for us, so we left. On our way back to the highway, we ran across some abandoned mud brick houses that supposedly had been bombed during the last war in Oman back in the 7os, but not to sure if that was true. This last pictuture is of a date tree we saw on the trip. Oman is well known for it's dates and it is also one of it's biggest exports.

That's all for now, but check back next week as I am headed to Amman, Jordan for a conference and have made plans to go see Petra and float in the Dead Sea.