Petra and (indoor) winter camping

Rosy City
Happy New Year!

After Christmas, which was joyful if strange because we had nothing familiar but each other, we hunkered down for a few days of the fever. Actually, only Sarah and Jason have had that sickness. I came down with Jason's bronchial bark yesterday. It's my fifth cold in six months (though one of them lasted all November), which I attribute to my delicate constitution.

On the 28th, we took a bus to the south of Israel, near the point where Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia almost connect. Crossing into Jordan the next morning, Jason had a chance to practice his Arabic, arguing, and yelling all in the same mini-bus experience. His arguing and yelling are already pretty good. The country feels very Middle Eastern as we watch Al-Jazerra report on Saddam Hussein's death and the hajj with no stampedes this year.

We spent two days in Wadi Musa, the town closest to Petra. Setting for both Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Lawrence of Arabia, Petra is a 2,000 year-old city carved into rose-red rocks. The facades are beautiful, but we had most fun hiking up carved stairs worn by sheep high and above the tombs. The rocks come in every shade of red, orange, ochre, white, blue, and black.

As for winter camping, our hostel advertised central heating and hot water, but failed to mention "on for two hours each day." They'd just had the first snow since 2003, so we gamely or with some complaining hunkered down, put seven layers between ourselves and the indoor air, and passed the desert nights.

Now in Amman, the capital city, we are staying with Dave Vila and family, a favorite JBU professor here as a Fulbright scholar. Tomorrow night we are on kid patrol with the three boys and have planned dinner at Pizza Hut, a pirated version of Pirates of the Carribean II, and lots of wrestling.

The treasury
Sarah's camel-riding dream comes true
S & J and those crazy rocks
Modesty First (that's our motto)at King Hussein's Mosque in Amman