Whoever said long pants are cooler than shorts...

...didn't know what the h*ll they were talking about. In Jordan, where the majority of women are in burkas, I've been donning pants in an effort not to offend the locals. Today, we walked around Petra for hours, and I can tell you pants are NOT cooler. 'Nuff said. 

Yesterday, we drove the Kings Highway from Amman to Petra. Seeing Wadi Mujib, a breathtakingly beautiful canyon along the way. 

Then, we traveled south, onto Petra and Wadi Musa, with many impressive views along the way.  Tom, pondering the meaning of life whilst he gazes calmly over the desert mountains. 

We finally made it to Petra and watched the moon rise over Wadi Musa.

As luck would have it, Petra by Night happens on Mondays and it was a full moon, and we partook!  Petra opens at 8:30pm and you follow the Siq path to the famous Treasury building (think Indiana Jones), to a Bedouin man chanting and many candles. Truly cool.  And dark. So dark that our nighttime camera setting wasn't all that, but here's the best of what we got.

Petra, by day is a sight to see.  We saw much of the city and sweated our asses off. But we also climbed to the peak to look out over Jordan and had yummy black mint tea with two Bedouin women in their tent early in the morning (a tradition here). This is the monastery building, beautiful and up 800 steps!

And now, after driving further south, we find ourselves in a resort on the Red Sea, about 4 miles from the Saudi Arabia border. It's a beautiful place, surrounded by desert, hot as the surface of the sun, and luckily has many pools. Tomorrow, we snorkel on the many reefs around the hotel.  Ahhhh, vacation. 

Night arrivals are always fun.

Fly to Amman - check. Get our visa - check. Rent a car - check. Find the hotel that is just outside the airport - check, well eventually. After some looping around the airport and nearby highway, deep breathing some local diesel fumes, we finally established that we'd driven past our hotel...twice. 

But we made it. Tired and ready for a proper sleep. We are headed down the Kings Highway tomorrow to Petra!

Not too many good pictures today other than Tom's intriguing yogurt choice at the Paris airport and the "we swear it's not pork" note in his dinner to Amman. 

Also, Tel Aviv at night from the air - quite pretty. 

Permethrin.

We will see if it lives up to its claim of spray once on clothing and you have insect repellant for 6-10 washes!  This will be tested in malaria-ridden Kenya. Tom sprayed A BUNCH of clothing items, let's hope it helps with the tsetse flies and mosquitos.

And in true Tom fashion, instead of using the spray bottle it came in, he hooked a spray gun up to the beefy air compressor. (This picture was taken without the written consent of my husband, through the crack in the door to the garage.)

Raw fish.

Sushi. Arguably, Tom's favorite food and it was his birthday yesterday so he got to pick!  Luckily we have a great restaurant about a mile from our house - Kobe An (www.kobean.com). Yum yum yum. And they had my Momokawa raspberry sake as well (3 more Yums).

T-12 days and counting...

And the countdown to vacation begins.  We leave in 12 days! 

We have a Travel Photography class this Thursday with our new camera, which should be fun - I've never actually been instructed in the ways of photography.  Maybe those Kenyan rhinos can look even bigger than they are in real life, as if they need that.  My friend Kristen has also volunteered to go hiking next week to do some sample photography!  Could this be the trip that we actually get over the hump of mostly mediocre photographs?  I mean, even our new camera is still "point and shoot", and neither of us have the patience for GOOD photographs, but we can certainly score a few with some instruction, right!?

As for the countries we will visit - ebola hasn't made it to Kenya and I sincerely hope it does not.  Jordan is staying calm despite the upheaval in bordering countries and I sincerely hope it continues to do so.  I haven't heard Cairo on the news either - bonus!

My more modest clothes are laid out, in preparation for the conservative culture of Jordan and Egypt.  Lots of cover-ups, scarfs, etc.  Despite it being over 100 in some areas, I will do my best to honor their culture and will not dine out in a tank top and shorts.  Speaking of dining out, I can't wait to sample Middle Eastern fare - I heart chickpeas. :)

Concerned excitement (what's that?)

With our upcoming vacation approaching, I find myself alternatively excited and apprehensive. We are headed to Jordan, Egypt and finally Kenya. All of these countries have unrest either now, or have had a short time in the past. Jordan, while the safest of the Middle East countries has travel advisories near its borders with Iraq and Syria, as well as some towns further from the border. Egypt may be the safest country we are visiting, with Cairo having been relatively quiet recently. In Kenya, travel is not advised in much of the eastern and southern regions, as well as the northern borders with Ethiopia and Somalia (not near our destinations). And with the recent WHO announcement about Kenya being at high risk for the spread of Ebola, Korean Airlines is already suspending flights, even though no cases have been reported there.  Seriously, Korean Airlines?!

So, why are we going, you ask?  Good question.  I want to see these places.  Who knows if the situation in any of these countries may deteriorate even further and take decades to recover. This may be the safest time to go in my lifetime. I guess it's worth the risk, even though I do have concerns.

We are monitoring the situation and we will just have to make that call as things unfold. We could always bag a portion of our trip, or maybe hop over to Turkey or another destination instead. 

For now, we are hoping Ebola containment can hold and the situation in Gaza & Iraq doesn't spur violence just across the border in Jordan (not likely). 

Time will tell. Hopefully a good story. 

You look so big.

Our new camera makes even the smallest hummingbird look HUGE!

We will have to practice with the it before stalking lions in Africa in a few weeks. We bought a Canon Powershot SX700...way better than either of our iPhones. 

Mikes Camera, where we purchased it, offers a free 30 min camera tutorial, free two hour travel photography classes, price matching with large online retailers, and fabulous customer service. It really makes a difference. 

Here's our camera:  

http://mikescamera.com/spec_sheet.html?catalog[name]=Canon-PowerShot-SX700-HS-Digital-Camera-Sx700&catalog[product_guids][0]=44e3d8e0-76ee-0131-87f3-20cf30bab63e