Petra "A Wonder of the World"

Petra in Jordan was our last stop. It is considered one of the new 7 wonders of the world and I know why. It was amazing, unbelievable, incredibly impressive, massive and all carved out of stone. There is an entry fee and it is recommended that you use a guide when walking through Petra because the guides are so much more knowledgeable about the history of Petra. Once you enter Petra you can walk for about 1 km (.62 miles) along the Siq which is a pathway that takes you through a canyon of rocks.

Petra was originally built over 2000 years ago by the Nabataean's and many of the remaining structures were built as elaborate tombs that were intended to last throughout the after life. So the structures look impressive, but in reality are tombs. Over the years the Bedouins ended up moving into the area until the mid 80's when they were finally moved out. Most of the old homes have disappeared due to earth quakes, but the tombs remain.

But before we get to that I thought it was important to show you a shot from above Petra looking down at it in what I call the Jordanian Grand Canyon. Of course I'm in your favorite shirt.

I promise I'll go out and buy more long sleeve shirts that will protect me from the sun. I only took my hat off for the picture.
When we got down the hill and headed in we spent about 20 minutes walking through the Siq with our guide as he described some of the history of Petra and what we were looking at. This is a typical shot of what the Siq looks like as you're walking through, but every rock wall, every color from different angles seems to be different.

After your 1 km walk the guides bring you into an opening to view what is called the Treasury building, don't know why it's called that, but it is so I'm going with it. Some of these pictures might look familiar to you because Petra was used in the filming of one of the Indiana Jones movies. The treasury building, as you can see, is carved into a sheer face of stone. Muy impressivo as they say in some countries.

From the treasury building on out it is just one amazing site after another. Bedouin homes carved into the rocks so the families lived in caves all throughout the valley. This went on until about the mid 80's, 1980's that is. Finally the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) came in and declared it a treasure and moved all the Bedouin families out to a village they built up on one of the hills overlooking Petra with homes for everyone, electricity and running water. I know that because we went there for dinner after touring Petra. One of my co-workers is friends with one of the families and they invited all of us to their home for a typical Bedouin dinner. Years ago our dinner host's mother was visiting Petra from New Zealand and fell in love with a Bedouin man and married him and moved into the cave with him and ended up raising her three children there. She wrote a book about her life "Married to a Bedouin". Rami, our host, is her son.

I'm sure some of you are wondering what a typical Jordanian Bedouin dinner is and I'm going to tell you. They cut up a chicken into about 1/4's, cook it in a large pot, they add sliced potato's and eventually rice all in layers. They take the pot and flip it over onto a large tray to get everything out of it. Once it's on the tray they spread it out to cover the whole circle. Each person gets a small bowl with some cut up greens (salad) and a cup of yogurt. You have your own section of the tray much like a large slice of pizza. When you want, you add a little salad to your area, put some plain yogurt in there mix everything up and then simply make a ball of food with your hand and eat it. I didn't mention dishes or utensils, who has time to wash that stuff when you're living in a cave. The chicken and potato's you simply eat when you want, but only out of your section. Don't let your hands wander. The dinner was delicious just like comfort food you'd get in the east or midwest.
If I included all the pictures I took I'd be writing and you'd be reading for way too long , but further down the trail we got to the Monastery.

Just another massive structure carved out of stone. After a long walk to just get near there we then had climb 860 stone steps to get to the base of it. Then my little group and I went even further to be able to see all of the valley. Mt. Sinai in Egpyt has 750 steps to get up to the top after a climb of about 3000 meters.

As I said the group of students I went with decided to climb up to the top to get the best view in Petra and we were able to look back down at the Monastery and see where we came from and out even further into the valley.

This was by no means easy climbing and some of the folks in our group had problems due to muscle soreness from Dead 2 Red along with just not being able to climb or not wanting to. I was winded and sweating and I'm in decent shape right now.

We didn't have time to explore every part of Petra and websites like http://visitjordan.com/ suggest you take at least 3 days in Petra and I can see why. You can see a person in this picture walking by the stairs, I walked that same path twice and never saw anything above the stairs until we climbed up to the site of the Byzantine Church across the way and looked down on all these ruins. We also went by a 3000 seat amphitheater carved into the side of a hill. From our perch at the Byzantine Church I was able to take this panoramic shot of one of the cliffs that becomes truly visible to you when you're looking back at it from the right height.

We never made it to the High Place of Sacrifice, which might be a good thing because the students might have wanted to sacrifice me. Never mind having the time to explore some of the caves and wide open spaces. Here's another panoramic shot of a whole cliff full of caves and if you look real hard at the caves on the left you'll see some camels in them.

I can tell you this. I will go back to Petra a few more times. I was simply amazed and can't wait to explore every place I can. I thought about buying my girls little gifts there like I usually do when I travel, but I realized I didn't want to because I want to take them there. If you have any plans to come to the Middle East you should carve out a few days for a side trip to Petra. It's a fairly short flight 2 1/2 hrs to Amman and then a 2 hr drive from there to Petra.

You need to be ready to walk and climb though. Check out the website and believe anything they say on it since I sometimes get stuff wrong on this blog.

These pictures don't do it justice. I've been to the Grand Canyon, I've been to the top of Mt. Sinai, I've been up in the Rocky Mountains, I've never seen anything like this. Girls get your passports ready, we're going to Petra, preferably before you get married so it doesn't cost me too much.

QOB: "The secret of being boring is to say everything". Voltaire

Well I guess I'm glad I stopped now.

I will leave you with two things.

1. Go to Petra.

2. Happy 23rd Birthday to my oldest daughter Rachael.

Dead 2 Red Relay

As I mentioned before I had the privilege of traveling to Jordan with 22 NYUAD students and 6 other faculty and staff as part of our Dead Sea to Red Sea 150 mile relay teams. There really were three parts of the trip, the Road to the Dead Sea, Dead 2 Red and Petra.

We left on Wednesday, March 2nd in the afternoon and flew through Manama, Bahrain to Amman, Jordan. Spent the night at a hotel in Amman and visited Columbia University's Research Center on Thursday morning and then went to a community center built in Jordan by a university professor and his students. They go into neighborhoods and literally start building a center and eventually the neighbors come out to help. Once it's built they offer programming for children and skills training and educational opportunities for women in the neighborhood.

One thing our Athletic Department does is purchase Futbol's to pass out to needy children when we travel to different locations. Here's a shot of a few of our students giving a ball to this little guy. He may not look it, but he was thrilled. The beauty of the balls is that they don't require air, they have a device on them that you can press and it sucks in air. So kids can kick and play with these for a long time. They are actually made out of the same material as Crocs and we all know how indestructible Croc's are.

Kids around the world play futbol with anything they can find to shape into a ball of some type so this will provide them with something for a long time.

Then we headed out of Amman towards the Dead Sea and traveled through some beautiful country, high mountains and deep valleys. My camera certainly doesn't grasp the magnitude of the landscape, but it gives you an idea of the natural beauty Jordan possesses.

A quick stop on the trip down allowed us to capture a shot of our students who were taking part in this athletic and cultural trip.

Finally got to the Dead Sea for a buffet lunch at a hotel. Some of the students ended up going for a dip in the water. The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth, 400 or so meters below sea level. The water is very salty and oily, but they wanted the experience. Us staff members didn't have the time we were packing up our 4 vans (2 for each team of 10 runners and 4 support people). 7 people per van for a 242 kilometer (150 mile) ride of course once in a while it was only 6 people because one was out running. The race started at 4:00pm on Thursday afternoon, the end of the work week. Everyone in every van got to know each other real well between listening to music, sweating, snoring, sleeping and using the desert as a bathroom we became pretty close.

One of our guys knocking out his leg just as the sun was rising.

Here's a shot of three of our students from our Hyundai mini-van on the side of the road about 8:00am on Friday after 16 hrs of the event. I don't know what was so funny, but they were enjoying themselves. We still had about 20 kilometers to go at this point.

Each of the 40 or so running teams that enter have 24 hrs to obtain an official finish. Our NYUAD Purple team finished in 17 hrs and 48 minutes while our NYUAD Black team finished in 18:48. Both teams had a great time and enjoyed the whole time we were on the road. Then to finish at the Red Sea a true seaside resort and to be able to go swimming in refreshing water and nice weather was an extra treat. Here's a nice shot of the Red Sea resort and that is in fact my right foot in the photo.

Students, staff and faculty involved really got to know each other on different levels. We got to run through a beautiful country and meet some wonderful people. There was a big celebration dinner to honor all the participants and pass out awards. Our NYUAD Purple team won the award for 1st International Team. As would be expected the staff all went to bed after dinner just to get some sleep. Some of us had been up all night driving the teams and we were beat. I think most of the students went out for a while.

This trip is still being talked about by the students that went and all the ones, along with staff, that want to join us next year. The students we did have running had to qualify based on standards I set since there was a time limit on the teams I wanted to make sure everyone we brought was going to be able to last the distance. They all came through with flying colors.

Interestingly we were considered an international team in Jordan because we came from outside the country, but our teams consisted of citizens of the US, UK, Russia, Ecuador, Lebanon, Korea, Bulgaria, Thailand, South Africa, Australia, India and Argentina. A very interesting group of students and staff.

I promise a blog about Petra is next, but I've been trying to get my taxes done today while following the news about Japan and the tsunami moving across the Pacific. It sure makes you think when you get an earthquake in New Zealand (actually 2 in 5 months), the volcano erupting in Hawaii and now this in Japan. The Ring of Fire is on fire.

If the earth cracks in an earthquake how much of the ocean disappears down into the void?

QOB: "Love yourself for who you are not who you one day hope to be..." Erin Brockovich
This is meant for a good friend of mine that reads my blog faithfully.

Stay warm, stay cool and stay dry.

Wayne

Prices

Price check from Abu Dhabi.

Gasoline is and has been $1.77 a gallon since I got here. They keep it low here.

12 0z can of Coke or Pepsi has been 1 dirham for the last 20 years. I believe on January 1st the government allowed the price to be raised to 2 dirhams. So now I have to fork over 2 dirhams for a Pepsi...which is equivalent to 73.4 cents.

QOB: "A high quality life has a lot more to do with what you remove from your life than what you add to it." Cheryl Richardson

And yet another guest...

My good friend Keith Roberts made his first foray into the Middle East on February 19th and he chose to come see me. Again I'm not sure if it was actually to see me, enjoy the beautiful weather or his wife Karla just needed a break from him, but he came, we ran, we ate, we saw some sites, we drank some beer and then he left.

Keith and I have known each other since 1993 when I first moved to the midwest and settled in Battle Creek. We met at a Battle Creek Road Runners meeting and have been running together ever since. Some folks think I'm a running fool or fanatic, but Keith is the original. I can't even think about running the miles he does, my body wouldn't last.

Many of the pictures you will see of him here are in the same spots I've shown you with pictures of Kathleen, Fiona, Lisa and me already, but he made the flight so he gets the same treatment. One thing you will notice is a lot of sand and that Keith has only one shirt and it appears to be from Albion College, a small liberal arts school in Albion, MI. Or as Keith likes to say "The Harvard of the Midwest".

We did do a lot while he was here and I didn't even take time off from work. Here's Keith in his favorite shirt at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. When you get here despite your protestations that you've seen enough pictures of the Grand Mosque, I'll still take you there. It must be seen up close and in person.

We also went out to Manarat Saadiyat so he could see what the total plan for Saadiyat Island is and where our new campus fits into it. Then stopped out at Yas Island to run on the track on Tuesday night and here's a shot of him with the Yas Hotel bathed in blue behind him. We got in about a 10k run, but believe it or not the weather has certainly changed recently and you can feel the heat and humidity increase and even I'm not used to it so we took our running easy all week.

There was a professional tennis tournament taking place in Dubai so we ventured down there Wednesday night with a plan of seeing Roger Federer play, but by the time we got there tickets were sold out. The venue is great and there were probably a dozen restaurants right beside and between the courts so we sat down and had dinner and a beer or two. Then we headed over to the obligatory viewing of the Burj Khalifa and the fountain show. Here's a shot of the big building at night.

I'm just postponing the inevitable here. I mentioned in my previous blog about the "Empty Quarter" and the vastness of it. I had planned on making this trip with Keith and a couple of friends Professor Jeff Jensen and his wife Christina (also a Phd). So let's get to it. Personally I've travelled a decent amount and seen some incredible things in my life in different parts of the world probably more than some and less than others, but I have never seen anything like this.

Sand, Sand and more sand as far as the eye can see. It goes on for 225,000 square miles. Or a square 474 miles x 474 miles. This sand would cover France it's so huge. So we packed up the car with water and sun screen and extra shoes and headed to Liwa and beyond. I say and beyond because Lisa and I got to Liwa, had lunch at the hotel saw some sand and headed back. This trip was to take the road leading to Moreeb Dune which is supposed to be 300 meters high, or about 900 feet. Of course that's subject to change based on the wind I would guess.

There is a paved road that you follow into the Empty Quarter which eventually ends at Moreeb Dune. It's about 30 km long or 18.6 miles. The whole week Keith had been whining about wanting to see camels and get a few pictures of them so on the drive we finally saw some that were close enough to snap pictures of. I pulled over and Keith and Christina hopped out and wandered over to where the camels were to say hello. It seems the camels wanted to do the same thing so Keith and Christina got their photo's.

Back in the vehicle and heading further in and it was only going to be 20 miles into 225,000 square miles of sand. Well we finally came to the end of the road in a huge sand valley. There were actually parking lots, a children's playground, a helipad and a large recreation area where people could bring motorcycles and 4 wheelers out to race up the dunes. We drove around the area on the hard packed sand and finally parked the car way down there.

Keith is pointing out to Jeff and Christina just how high the other dune is compared to the little thing we climbed. At this point we were probably only 1/2 as high as the Moreeb Dune and we worked to get that high.

This area is known for great sunsets and wonderful star shows at night so it gets alot of campers who head out in the afternoon to watch the sunset, God's light show and then sunrise. At this point all we could see was sand. And we could barely see my car, as a matter of fact it looks like a little model.

Here's a shot of Keith and I in our favorite shirts, his an Albion College cotton t-shirt (so 15 years ago) and me in my ever present Boston Marathon "Adidas Climacool" moisture wicking, long sleeve special.

We spent about 25 minutes climbing up this one spot and it only took us 10 minutes to get down. I think rolling down would have been faster, but I probably would have gotten sand in my hair and I never would have gotten it out. The sand is incredibly fine as it should be since it's been blowing around out there for thousands of years. It has a copper tint to most of it and the waves and peaks and valleys it forms are amazing. It was considerably warmer out in the desert and I'm sure the sand gets so hot you can't even touch it in the summer because it was very warm to the touch in February.

Keith was not posing for this picture, but he was trying to lead us out of the desert and we made it. I'm sure I'll head back to this area with any other guests that visit because it's not like a lot of other things you see here or anywhere, it's constantly changing. I was just amazed by the shear beauty of nature. I've been to the Grand Canyon and the Rocky Mountains and Mt. Sinai and the Pyramids (I know they are man made) and Haleakala and Volcano National Park and I'm not sure if any of them can match what I saw here. Just amazing.

QOB - "However good or bad a situation is, it will change." Regina Brett

I thought this pretty appropriate based on the changing sands I witnessed last week.

Blog preview.... I leave tomorrow for Jordan to accompany 20 students and a few other staff for the 14th running of the Dead 2 Red 150 mile relay race. So you should be reading about the race in the next blog along with the obligatory pictures of the Dead Sea and the Red Sea along with Petra an ancient bedouin community in Jordan.

Stay Cool, summer is on the way.

Wayne