Jordan

Ok, so alot of you have been asking about my trip and I know I've been home almost 3 weeks so I should'vr blogged by now, but I'm kindof having a blogging block (it happens often). My problem with blogging about this trip is I feel like it's hard to explain how cool it really was, it was a life changing experience for me and I have a hard time putting it into words. I'm starting with Jordan because that's the easiest for me to describe. Jordan is very different than Egypt and Israel for different reasons. You'll understand the difference when I get to the Egypt and Israel post. I'll just post some pics and hopefully it will sound half as interesting as it was.
This was one of the first stops we made in Jordan to eat lunch in the desert in a Bedouin tent. The Bedouin people are people who have lived in the desert off the land for thousands of years. There are alot of Bedouins in Egypt and Israel who still live in tents or basically shacks they built out of scraps of metal, wood, etc. (some of them have satelites on the outside!), but Jordan government has been trying to get the bedouins in Jordan to build houses and stay in one place so they can get an education. The bedouins in Jordan also have these tourist camps, like the ones we visited where people can come and camp out with them (you can see the tents are more modern) or come for lunch and a jeep ride (like us). They cooked the food underground that's why they are digging in the sand. The food was good, we just ate alot of the same foods most of the trip, pita bread, hummus, meat and rice.

Here's our jeep ride through the desert (basically we sitting in the back of pickup truck). Everyone was so nervous about me going on the jeep ride, but then when it was time to get in the trucks I was at the very end. The lower picture is Greg at the bathroom. We were all taking pictures of the guys because it just seemed so funny to us that we could see them while they were taking care of business. I guess some of us will just never grow out of thinking stuff like that is funny!

The jeep ride was beautiful, it actually reminded me of Moab and St. George, but it was all through sand. Lawrence of Arabia spent alot of time with the Bedouins and so they kept telling us the highlight of the ride was the face of Lawrence carved into the rock. I guess I had my expectations sortof high, because when we got out, I was thinking, "that little face! That's what we came to see?" Good thing Petra was the next day. At least the scenery was beautiful.

These next pictures are of Petra, which is one of the seven wonders of the world. It was seriously amazing! You hike through this cool canyon and there is this beautiful stone city that has been there for thousands of years. One of the temples is where they shot some of the Indiana Jones movies. For those of you who don't know Greg he loves talking to anybody! He made friends with a guy that was trying to sell us a ride on a donkey up to the Monastary (3 mile hike roundtrip), but ended up hanging out with Greg for awhile, notice another picture below of donkey guy. He also talking alot to some Bedouins who lived on the very top of the mountain and just sold stuff to tourists to make a living. It was so interesting to think of what there life was like just living outdoors all the time. Plus, to see the kids just playing on the edge of cliffs was just weird, but that's just how they live.

Here is a picture of a little boy and a pigeon. This kids was so cute and he just kept swinging this pigeon around and turing him upside down and stuff. It was pretty funny! It was probably one of those things you had to be there.

I don't know why you wouldn't want a picture of a camel drinking from a water bottle?

The top picture was a view of Israel from Jordan. And the bottom is of a girl making a mosiac, which are very popular in Jordan. We ordered a mosaic of Jesus' baptism in the river Jordan, but we still haven't gotten it. Hopefully it will turn out. The last picture is of Greg riding on the bus,obviously, we rode on the bus ALOT.

Stay tuned for Israel and Egypt.