[2012] Petra, Jordan

After the longest Ferry ride known to man (11 hrs) from Egypt, we took a taxi from the port to Petra. (I should mention, it took a long while negotiating with the taxi the price of the ride, since he was trying to take advantage of us, but we managed to get a fair fare.) We arrived at 1 am and luckily the hotel owner had called to check that we were still staying there and had waited up to let us in. We woke up at the crack of dawn and went to Petra as soon as it opened, maybe 6am (I can't recall anymore). It was a great call though, we were able to see it without any crowds. By 9am we had decided we'd seen enough and started moving to our next destination: Jerusalem (with a stop at the Dead Sea of corse). I know some people would advise to visit Petra for a full day, but the length we wandered was perfect for us. It may have had to do with the fact that we were running on just a few hours of sleep and my allergies were horrible.

I look really unhappy for some reason riding this donkey! Maybe it was my allergies? Ah---Choo!

[2012] The Dead Sea, Jordan

We made a stop at the Dead Sea on our way from Petra to Israel for about 2 hours. It was so worth it. It is the most bizarre thing in the world. It is so oversaturated with salt that it is so viscous and it smells almost like fuel. We were warned by our friend Sarah Lilo that's it's better if you take goggles and so we did. It was really great to have them, because we could be more comfortable in the water. There's really no worry that your head will go under the water, but if you accidentally touch your eyes your poor eyes will suffer some burnage. I paid a few dollars to do a mud body masque which was pretty cool too. This is one of the coolest natural phenomena I have ever seen.