Petra


It's evening in Petra. Technically, the town we are in is Wadi Musa; Petra is the ancient Nabataean city, hidden among the rocks. The most famous 'structure' (or carved facade) in Petra is the Treasury. (If you've seen the original Indiana Jones movie, you should remember this image.)

This picture of the Treasury is from my visit here last year - I have a slight foot injury that prevented me from hiking today.

After their hike, the students and we professors gathered for dinner - a wonderful Jordanian dinner everyone referred to as "upside down". We're off at noon tomorrow for a lunch in a bedouin village, and then to Wadi Ram (or Wadi Rum), a valley cut through granite. The center piece of the Valley (Wadi) is Mount Rum, named the Seven Pillars of Wisdom by Lawrence of Arabia (and the Valley is the location for that famous movie as well).

As we'll be in the Valley/Wadi tomorrow and Saturday, and then off to the port city of Aqaba, expect no updates from us generally ... and stay tuned for Sunday, when I'm sure everyone will be posting their pics like mad!! "insha'allah", God Willing of course ...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You can't get there (Serbia) from here (Kosovo) - go to Montenegro!

Image
“You can’t cross this boundary from here [the Kosovo “border”/Administrative boundary]. You’ll have to go to Montenegro and then enter Serbia from there.” Thus sayeth the Serbian policeman at the boundary/border, yesterday (Thursday) around 3:30 pm. The reason? We had a stamp on our passports that read “Republic of Kosovo”, which Serbia does not recognize as independent nation-state (nor do a small number of nation-states of the international community – Russia, Spain, Greece, and 6 other members of the EU). “Kosovo is Serbia.” What he was proposing was for us to “re-enter” Kosovo (1/4 th of a mile back from where we came); return to the town of Mitroveca (where we just left 90 minutes ago); cut over to the West, and enter Montenegro (another 90 minutes-2 hours); then drive to the Montenegro-Serbia border (another hour); then drive until we catch up with the road we could have been on – only one hour from the point on the map where we were standing that ver
Read more

Student blogs - check them out!!

Image
on the right side of this blog, run your cursor over the second box down from the right - you should see "Student Blogs Balkans 2012".  As students send me their URL (addresses) for their blogs, I will add them here.  the students have unique insights into much of the same thing I discuss - but then again, so much more!  Check them out when you can. While I'm "here", I'll post just two more pictures from July 9.  First, a picture of our meeting with Ambassador Rod Moore, former US Ambassador to Montenegro, career foreign service officer, and now works as the 2nd in command at the OHR - the Office of the High Representative.  OHR is essentially the "authority of last resort" in Bosnia.  We met with Ambassador Moore just after we witnessed the ceremony honoring the 520 souls who were to be buried today in Srebrenica.  Here is one more picture, below, that shows the flowers that were placed on the 3 semi-trucks, carrying the 520 coffins that were
Read more