UNESCO World Heritage Site: Petra

Ahhh, Petra.
Words fail to truly describe one of my favorite places on the planet adequately. In short, this is a place that dreams are made of.

Take a photo tour of Petra:

 A horse buggy makes time, galloping to the top of the Siq to pick up a new visitor.

Behind it, mausoleums carved into the hillsides.

The past two years have been busy for Petra. The local Bedouins (Jordanians) have made structural, landscaping and safety improvements to keep the site, and you, safe. There are also cleaning crews constantly on the job to keep the paths clear after the army of horses, camels and donkies on site. The improvements are vastly noticeable in comparison to the state of the park during my last visit. The downside is that it feels more like a park than a discovery. But don't worry, there are still plenty of places to explore to get your Indiana Jones on.

I just can't get enough of these amazing, wind-carved walls.

 The Treasury reveals itself at the end of the Siq path

Another new development is an abundance of locals dressed up in period costumes...

 Transportation options...

 The Treasury from another angle...

Driving Through an Active War Zone

A serendipitous moment at the pizza joint at Caesaria led my happy group of travelers to meet a gentleman and his two kids, who also had a hankering for some pizza pie. As we sat, eating the cheesy goodness (Cheese was the only available variation of said pizza at said pizza joint), we all chatted and we found out that the British man had actually fallen in love with, and married an Israeli woman, after which he became an Israeli citizen and served his mandatory two years' military service. Ahhh, amore! The couple now lives in Britain, but were traveling in Israel for their holiday. Good ol' Dad had opted to tour the kids around Caesaria that day (lucky us) while his wife attended to a pressing family matter.

Meeting fun people is half of the greatness of travel. We played with the kids, chatting about food and their experiences with Camels and gelatto, related as only six-year-olds can do, with an untainted and wholly fresh attitude. And then we mentioned that we had no plans and no place to stay that night (This being the second night we ought to have spent in Tsafed/Safed/Tzvat, which is NOT near Masada, which is why we left early) and asked if the man could recommend anything in the area.

The closest city to us was Tel Aviv, merely 45 minutes by car. But we immediately agreed, as a no-brainer, not to stay in Tel Aviv, which was being bombed by Hamas at that very moment.

"We stayed at a Camel Ranch in Negev last night. It was lovely. Cheap prices, lovely meals and Camel rides."

A CAMEL RANCH? We all gawked, and immediately accessed the website using our rented ipad. Lovely! Sold! Exciting!

And then the gentleman *may* have mentioned that we would be driving along the Palestinian partition wall for a bit, but with the impending cease-fire (scheduled for that very night at 9pm), that freeway corridor should have calmed down and we'd be fine. And then he  *might have* told us a story involving a helicopter and a car that may have been blown up two days prior on the freeway, but really, nothing to be concerned about... right? Right.

So, off we set, right past the Wall that stretched for miles. It was a quiet drive, and many of the other cars on the freeway with us were military vehicles and transports, which wasn't intimidating at all... And then we saw a sight that made our jaws drop. Military helicopters, fully loaded with missiles, flying over us. A wave of "WhatTheHeckAreWeDoing?" flashed briefly through my body. I'm tellin' you what, that doesn't sound like a real feeling, that "WhatTheHeckAreWeDoing?" but IT IS, I can assure you.

And then, being the driver, I had the passenger snap a photo from her window:

We arrived at the Negev Camel Ranch just in time for sunset. The lovely family who ran the camp had no other guests that night, so they graciously offered to accommodate us. One of the hostesses' best selling points was this: "No bombs here." Great! But as we hadn't booked in advance, there wasn't any dinner, and we were hungry!

 View from the Camel Ranch, just in time for sunset.

A military blimp, floating directly over the Camel Ranch. 

Another, impromptu round of "Interpret that sign" 

NB: a friend recently asked me why there was a symbol for ovaries on that sign... 

As we were walking back to the car to go for dinner, one of our group, who has serious allergies, began to wheeze and cough - the desert dust was just too much for her. So a few miles down the highway from the Camel ranch, at a diner, we decided to revise our non-itinerary once more. We'd drive the additional two hours (in the dark, along the dead sea, which I'd already driven once and was not thrilled to do at night) to Masada and try for a room at the Masada hostel.

The Not-Really-Mt. Sinai

The actual location of Mt. Sinai in the Egyptian desert seems to be a place of some confusion. Among the tourist circuit is a well known spot set up to visit, complete with a monastery and a "burning bush". Amongst the locals, that tourist spot is known as St. Katherine's.

Well.

"Mt. Sinai" (the touristy one) is not REALLY Mt. Sinai.

As I found out recently. (Which explained some lingering questions I had when I was standing at the top of it...)

Here's what Wikipedia said about the institution of Mt. Sinai: (because we all know Wikipedia is the end-all-be-all of information sources)

According to Bedouin tradition, this is the mountain where God gave laws to the Israelites. However, the earliest Christian traditions place this event at the nearby Mount Serbal, and a monastery was founded at its base in the 4th century; it was only in the 6th century that the monastery moved to the foot of Mount Catherine, following the guidance of Josephus's earlier claim that Sinai was the highest mountain in the area.

 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Sinai)

SO. What do you think about that?

I think I had a fun afternoon of hiking to a contrived spot of invented religious importance. That last statement may or may not be somewhat controversial, I realize.

But.

I went. Because that's where our tour group was. And because, well, I like hiking and didn't know anything about it not reeeeeeeally being Mt. Sinai at the time.

My group left our little hotel about three hours prior to Sunset. We drove back to the parking lot at the base of St. Katherine's monastery and hiked past it to a Camel parking lot. This was my first chance on the tour to ride a Camel and I was stoked! I planned from day 1 to ride a Camel here. No one else seemed too keen on the idea in earlier days, but by the time we got to the mountain, there were about six of us who went for the Camel ride. Five hiked up the "Easy" path - the same path the Camels went up.

Three people on our tour were hard-core hikers. You know the type. The ones who see a challenge in everything. They go to Military-style boot camps just for giggles. They thrive on adrenaline.

While the junkies started up the most difficult path,  the 3750 Steps of Repentance, (Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? I know.) I found myself promptly on the back of a very stubborn Camel. Exciting! And high-flying. Those suckers are tall.
And though it may not have been exactly desirable, I was a bit disappointed that I wasn't spat-at by one of the "Ships of the Desert."

My Camel was slooooooooooooooooooow. Really, I should have asked my Camel leader for a fast camel, but it didn't occur to me while we were "boarding." My guide's name was Musef (Moses). My guess is that he was pushing 17. And boy-o-boy was he chomping at the bit to get married.

"Bedouins are looking for wives! You will marry me, I will give you 20 camels."
My riding companions had a laugh and told him he'd have to do better as I'd already had a much better offer from a Sheik. Musef frowned, but kept flirting.

He said to my friend Ken, the fifty-something Aussie man married to Pat:
"For five Camels, I will get you a new wife, a strong wife, not like this one (motions to Pat), she is old and tired"

Well.

The Camels only take you about 2/3 of the way up the mountain. So we met up with our tour-arranged mountain guide (who was a freaking rock-star of a mountain goat man) and the rest of the normal hikers from the tour and picked our way up the last third of the mountain. When we reached the top, we found our Adrenaline junkies calmly waiting for us (and they had been for about 45 minutes), wrapped in camel-hair blankets and sipping on hot chocolate (There are local Bedouins that live on the top of the mountain for a week at a time to sell food and trinkets to the tourists!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Sheesh.

I was a bit shocked to see a very old church on the top of the mountain. Apparently it is a Greek Orthodox church, built in 1934, on top of an older, ruined church. It supposedly houses the site from which the Tablets for the Ten Commandments were carved by God. The Church is closed permanently to the public.

Molto Interessante! And suspect.

I expected more. Not more buildings. More holiness. More spirituality. More of a feeling. Ya know? It was just sort of... "Meh..."

Don't get me wrong - there is always an astonishing feeling when standing at the top of a mountain and taking in the grandeur of all that lies below. But for the love of Pete, we were standing at the top of Mt. Sinai. The place where Moses talked to God! The place should feel reverent.

Perhaps I expected too much?

In any case, I watched a gorgeous sunset over the Sinai Desert, after I'd wrapped myself in one of those thick, camel-hair blankets (they're warm and lovely and utterly stinky) and had changed into a heavier jacket, gloves and a hat. It was COLD at the top of the mountain.

We hiked down in the dark. If ever you trek up Mt. Sinai for sunset be sure to bring a headlamp! It is much, much too dark and rocky and treacherous a path to try to walk in the dark. I am completely in love with my headlamp after our bonding experience on the hike down Mt. Sinai. Or Not-Mt-Sinai.

Whatever.

Headlamps = Good.

Hiking = Good.

Camels = Good.

"Mt Sinai" = fun hike. Holy place mentioned in the bible? Doubtful.