Amman’s not too bad. Got a room with tv. Internet is not too bad. Have a chicken place I go to every day. Plus they have some nice ruins right on top of the hill overlooking the city.

Right about here is where Roman architecture kicks in. Heading north it just gets better. Sure would like to go to Syria. Bastards. I am not done trying yet however. Just have to see.

Random shots of Petra.

A shot of the sunset over Wadi Musa the main town overlooking Petra. This was taken from the dorm room of the Valentine Hotel. They had an amazing buffet with grilled chicken, pilaf, baked potatoes, and 20 different plates of Mez (salads) all for $5US. Fantastic.

The ruins remained hidden to most of the world until the Swiss explorer, Johann Ludwig Burckhardt, disguised as an Arab scholar, infiltrated the Bedouin-occupied city in 1812. Burckhardt’s accounts of his travels inspired other Western explorers and historians to discover the ancient city further. The most famous of these was David Roberts, a Scottish artist who created a number of accurate and detailed illustrations of the city in 1839.

The first real excavations of the site were in 1929 after the forming of Trans-Jordan. Since that time, Petra has become by far Jordan’s largest tourist attraction, partially due to the exposure by the Steven Spielberg movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in 1989. Due to the fantastic engineering accomplishments and well-preserved dimension of Petra, the archaeological site was chosen in July 2007 as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.

You have just been cut and pasted. Oh well.

Petra was a quick three hour bus ride from Aqaba. On the bus was a Japanese backpacker named (I don’t remember. He actually told me but it was a Japanese name and I have a hard time with more normal to me English names. In my defense he couldn’t remember Steve so he called me Nakano for a while and then when he found out my middle name Kazuo, he had it no problem. So if it had been fair and his middle name was Bob or Chuck, I would have probably remembered it.) Anyways, we ended up hanging out for the three days we were there and taking in the sites of Petra. I do have to say that it was a bit trying, a bit fun, a bit hilarious, and a bit disconcerting. The guy was a smile and laugh kind of guy who didn’t have the greatest grasp of English, but he did try hard. It was good that he was not afraid to just walk up to people and talk to them, but he also had this weird thing about taking pictures of other people that got us some weird looks. He hadn’t quite gotten the jist that people would rip you off, so he was kind of an easy target. I quickly took away all negotiations from him as that would have killed me. It was good fun when people asked us where we were from. He tried to explain it to some Japanese tourists that we met, but they just didn’t get it. I just don’t fit in anywhere.

Back to Petra. Petra is a huge complex of tombs, monuments, and Temples. It encompasses about a six kilometer square and takes a few days to explore. We did most of it in one with the exception of a few walks that exited out of the site. We were blasted when we were finished. I guess a few pictures would do more justice so I will leave it at that.

I would have to put Petra down as one of the must-see things. It could have been better if there were more internal things to see like all the stuff they pulled out of the Egyptian tombs and pyramids. Most of Petra is strictly a look at the outsides which are still impressive.

Okay, celebration over. Onwards we go to stage four, the Middle East.

The plan is, well since I am here already, I took the Ferry from Nuweiba port, Egypt, to Aqaba, Jordan. It was one expensive ferry. $79US for a one hour ride, crazy. The boat was nice, more cruise ship than Ferry, and the price also included getting a free Visa ($20US value) as Aqaba is a free trade zone so entering there gets you a free pass.

I ran into a couple from Peru who were doing a tour through the Middle East so I got to practice up on the rusty Spanish a bit and also to trade notes about traveling in South America. I do miss it so. They were professional photographers and were looking to do some advertising for the Middle East in Lima, Peru where they live as there is not much information for the few Peruvians that travel. We also ran into a group of four Australian girls doing an around the world trip. They ended up having the same itinerary of wanting to get to Petra that same day, so they arranged a mini-bus from the port to take them straight there. I ended up hitching a ride to the city center with them as they had to change money. My priorities were a bit different. The closest thing that I have had to a shower was when I bought a six litre bottle of water and used that to do a very pretentious shower the night before I was leaving Dahab. My clothes had actually gone unwashed since I was in Cairo. Sounds scary, and it was, but not to the extent that it seems as I really did spend a lot of time in the ocean in Dahab (salt water showers as well), and a good chunk of the day in Nuweiba. That and the fact that I really didn’t wear a lot of clothes most of the time kept what I had fairly unstinky. So, the plan for me was to drop anchor in Aqaba where there was clean water in which I could take a shower or two, wash all my clothes, and use the cheap internet as I really wasn’t able to in Nuweiba.

And that is where I am now. In Aqaba, freshly washed in clean water, with clothes which are freshly washed in clean water, typing on the internet. Tomorrow I should be heading off to Wadi Rum for some Lawrence of Arabia action (that was where some of the movie was filmed.)

Oh yea, the plan, I will head and hit the highlights of Jordan, and then I will definately not go to Israel, I repeat I will not be going to Israel via the King Hussein/Allenby bridge and not getting my Jordanian exit stamp and I will not get a Israeli passport stamp on a seperate piece of paper and I will definitely not travel around Israel hooking up with past travelers who invited me to meet them, and I will not leave via the same bridge getting a exit stamp on a piece of paper which will not accidentaly fall over the side of the bridge once I don’t have my entry stamp as I go back into Jordan and since I am definitely not going to Israel then I should be able to make it into Syria and Lebanon and possibly Iran. Did I make myself clear that I will not be going to Israel. Okay. That’s the plan.

Not much else to report except that Africa didn’t kill me, I survived. Okay, it almost killed me, twice, maybe three times, but still I made it. Good times, well except for that lady in Ethiopia that threw out my water (after extensive internet research, I still don’t know why she would do that,) and that Rat Bastard Immigration chief who tried to make me stay another week in Sudan (Kiss my ass).

Fast fact before I leave Egypt. Did you know that you can buy a Twinkie, HoHo, or a thing called a Tigers Tale which is a modified Twinkie where they make lines with Rasberry syrup, for the price of 2 for one Egyptian pound. In American money that is like nine cents each. Incredible. That discovery I rank up there with finding King Tut. Nine cents, for a twinkie. Nice.

Fast fact before I leave Africa. My main two reasons for visiting Africa were to 1) hear a lion roar out in the bush at night (accomplished a few times but most significantly in Zimbabwe when there were lions and hyenas howling and roaring. 2) Was to see and float down the mighty Congo. I did the Congo kinda and one of its sister rivers a lot. The third and unknownst to most and quite possibly politically incorrect is the fact that I wanted to go so that when I returned back to the states I can tell my “African-American” friends that they can’t use the race card against me because I am more African than them. I am now 1/39.5 African (if you go by time served.) It’s good to be African/Japanese/African with a little bit of Latin America as well.

Fast fact while I am in Jordan, they got MCDONALDS. Thats right MCDONALDS. Hell, there is 7/11 (which I don’t even know if they still exist in the states, a Burger King, Cinna Buns (sp) the big ass cinnamon buns they sell in shopping malls, a Days Inn hotel, crap, it was just like being in the states. The McDonalds thing was a shocker as I just wasn’t expecting it and then bam looked up and there was the big M just floating in the sky. Me and Jordan are going to get along just fine.

*Named Steven Nakano, middle name Kazuo, born in Fresno, started trip in May 2005, using a blue and black backpack, wearing black boots, survives on McDonalds… just to clarify the greatest ever.

Not just another sunset, this was my office after a hard days work.

Some shots of the Soft Beach Camp and the side of the bay with the other Bedouhin style camps. Soft Beach is all sand and definitely the best camp on the bay. My hut was the one right in the middle of the photo #10 facing the ocean.

You know when your in an exotic place when Camels just wander around aimlessly. Free range camels I guess you would call them. Good eating too. Tastes like salmon*.

Nura and Amira were my two playmates as well as co-parents to our ten puppies. They were from Switzerland on vacation with their moms. We had a good system as feeding eight exuberant and hungry puppies and two runts who were too weak to participate was a bit overwhelming at first. One would take the two runts and hand feed them while me and the other would keep the little food vaccuums fed. Swimming was pretty much the rest of the day.

Some of our babies. Since I was leaving and didn’t want anyone else to play with them I had them all put to sleep*.

*Okay, two lies. 1) Camel doesn’t taste like salmon. 2) The puppies are still alive and ready for adoption if anybody is willing to go to Nuweiba to get them.

The rest of the day is spent on the hammocks which are on the beach until the sun creeps past the overhang and starts heating up my legs. Then it is time for a quick mid day swim in the sandy cove. There is a bit of reef inside the bay, and the main reef line on the outside. A couple of hours is enough in the crystal clear stuff and then it is off for a shower and some reading time before I fall asleep in my hut. Around mid-afternoon I am up again and can tell by the position of the sun through the thatch roof about what time it is (not time as in the time but as time in the time of the day.) I usually wait until it is one foot above the craggly mountins that are behind the city and which the sun sets. That leaves me about an hour to play in the water until the sun sets behind the desert mountains and another hour before darkness sets in where I almost have the whole bay to myself (for some reason my rumor about sharks keeps people out of the water in the late evening.) I take a swim out into the middle of the bay and just hover there looking across at Saudi Arabia and trying not to dare myself into going for it. The other way I see the setting sky, the mountains, and the city lighting up. There is a few turtles that will pop around to see what I am doing and no shark sightings. After that, I am pretty much pooped and lazily drift back in with the current.

An hour of reading to keep up my quota of at least one book a day ( I started at two books a day, but that just started feeling like a bit much.) Around 8pm I head into the restaurant area to my personal table where I splurge and get some better than ordinary fixings as I am not spending my money on anything else throughout the day. After dinner it’s a lie out on the beach reading under the stars. There is a new batch of puppies that a couple of girls and I are feeding and playing with. After that it’s a few more hours of reading and I doze off without even worrying about leaving as after day 6 I just gave up telling myself that I would leave the next day.

It does help that there are other groups of people like me. An American couple also had great plans of doing this and going there, but in the end they are still here and even our joke about getting ready to leave the next day has ended as they have understood that to fight it takes away from the beauty of it. They even sleep on the beach at night. I am not quite that zenned up to do that, but I am close.

So thats what I am up to. In Nuweiba zenning. I don’t know when I am leaving and don’t really care or worry about it. I am one hour away from leaving Africa (Egypt) and arriving in the Middle East (Jordan). So what can I say? It’s good to be Zen.

Besides, I went through steaming Sudan and dealt with that “Rat Bastard” Immigration guy who I would just like to ….. ZZZZeeeennnnnnn….. Oh it’s nothing, all is okay.

This one is for you Erica. Yes, I am a lucky bastard.

I believe this is number six on my itinerary with “M” taking the photo.

More of my fat cat. Got pissed off and pouted because I wouldn’t give him any of my food. He was a good target for throwing rocks at though. Just kidding Cinderella. He he he.

Like my itinerary says I had breakfast every morning at 8am sharp. Alright, maybe 11am, but its still my itinerary.

Thats Saudi Arabia right across the way. It would be cool to be able to go to Mecca. Would be swimming in virgins after that. Now, now, thats not me, thats Islam. Also, if you take a look at the ocean, where the water starts is the drop off, straight down to about 10-15 meters with very nice reef. It extends through pretty much the whole side of the ocean. At high tide the top bar is covered but still only knee high.

The Blue hole which is just outside of Dahab. Pretty nice as the mountains run right down to the sea. I am kind of suspicious though as I thought the real Blue Hole was in Israel. It’s a really deep crater and there are side tubes that you can swim through if you are certified. Supposedly there are a video of a guy who went solo through the tubes, got disoriented, panicked, and drowned. This was all captured on video as he was taping his own dive/death. That ought to be pretty challenging to watch that video and then do the dive.

Snarky, Snarky, Snarky, are you sure that it possibly wasn’t you plaguirizing me. “Shingles”, now can you come up with cutesy names for my Syphilles, Gonorrea, Genital warts. (just kidding, I’m a one STD kind of guy.

Marisa- Sudan just might have been enough stress to kick it off. It also could have been going from the lowest form of travel to the lap of luxury in one hour Sudan-Egypt. It could be I am just plain getting old. My right shoulder is kind of aching a lot too, I think that comes from me being forced to throw curveballs and knucklers when I was like five years old.

Dan- Fresno or Herpes, hmmmmm. thats a hard one. Under two weeks, okay Fresno, more than that, give me back the burn.

Erica- I checked out your blog, very inspiring writing. I’ll have a Strawberry shake in your honor.

Alie-Another artistic website. Maybe we will cross paths in Asia if I can ever cross that stupid line that gets me out of Africa.

Frank- Nice to hear from you, it’s been a long time. I guess we might have crossed paths, maybe in South America. I think you were just ending and I was just starting out. I’ve been keeping up the hunting and fishing spirit as much as I have been able, fishing much more than hunting unfortunately. I checked out your pics, I liked the statue of Bruce Lee. I might get some hints from you later about Japan, Í’m not quite close enough to think about it at the moment though. Just might show up and flick through the phone book and start knocking on doors of families, Nakano.

Linda Ryan-Harper- Good old DRC/Kananga. That was the last stop for the first train I took. From there it went on to Ilebo. I did spend a few days there as it was a long train ride from Lubumbashi. I stayed in a hotel that was right by the train station. All the places there had no facilities as I don’t believe water or electricity were hooked up in that area. In town it was another one of the usual Congo scenarios. There were very big state of the art buildings back in the day, but with all the problems there had been no maintenance so they were basically just patched together shells. We are talking some pretty good size 5-6 story high buildings. It was a main hub so lots of shops and there was even water sporatically shooting up out of the broken water mains. Kananga is in the heart of the diamond mining areas so I got busted for no mining permit but got out of it after paying a fine and being escorted back to the train yard. Thats right, I was stuck there for a week as the train just would never depart. One other issue was that there was no food/restaurants except for one expensive place above a gas station. I didn’t notice that there was a big market place about a kilometer or two out of town which I am guessing where everyone went for the necessities. It was also a base for the UN so there were plenty of UN planes and vehicles rolling about, but they never stopped until they were in their compound. It was probably the third most modern city behind Kinshasa and Lubumbashi. I also got my water out of a dumpster, not a pleasant memory. People wise, the people at the hotel were fairly nice and like usual, “visitors” a relatively new thing. The churches there were pretty crazy with the stamping and yelling. No Tshiluba learned because I was already struggling along with just my French. There always seemed to be someone around who would pop up and knew English. I traveled through the area because one of my “dreams” or at least reasons to go to Africa was to visit the almighty Congo and Congo River as they exempify what most people think when you say Africa. I traveled alone because I am very confident in myself to manage any situation, but with someone else along I have to second guess my actions which are never a good thing. I screw up, I get screwed up, no worries. The government situation is pretty much the same every where outside of Kinshasa. The people are just trying to get through the day with enough food for the kids and a place to lay their head. There is a lot of police and military presence, but it was actually less intimidating as I believe they were just trying to get along as well. In general, I enjoyed my trip through the Congo as an experience only. I wouldn’t go back as there are too many other places that I would want to see first, I wouldn’t recommend it to other people as it is a bit of a sketchy place to go if you don’t know what you are doing and realistically there is not a lot to see. If you have a reason to go there that is a different story. I do however hope the best for the people and hope the Government like most Governments starts to think about whats best for the people and not just themselves and their friends.

Daniel- re: Drafts. The best solution and resolve to the whole thing is to go to Egypt. Air conditioned buses. Simple as that. Now I am a window closer as well. Plus with the window open it makes it harder to listen to the onboard movie. The little stick jammed into the window track so that the window can’t close is my solution to any further places that have the same issue. That or a well placed rock.

Carole Clark- A fan, whoo hoo, I have a fan. Thanks for the inspiring comment. Sorry about the mascara, just tell people your dog just died and to go away. Although, you have joined the group of people that enjoy my misery. I wasn’t making up that stuff about the busses. I’ve got a little bit of baby hair still stuck in one of the zippers on my backpack. “Welcome”, as they say in Egypt, man what a great word to teach as the first word for locals to learn.

Mom- still fine.