Petra by Night, the unguided tour

The air is cool and the town quiet as we make our way down the deserted streets to the ruins of Petra below. The ancient city of Petra was inhabitated by the Nabataeans, a Semitic Tribe that were the forerunners of modern arabic and the designers of vast tomb structures hewn from the sandstone cliffs. The height of their "empire" (more a region of influence) came at the 1st century AD when they controlled trade routes through Arabia. Their main source of revenue came from spices such as frankincence and myrrh and with their wealth they built lavish tombs where their kings and influential citizens could be laid to rest. Xabi and I spent two days exploring the colours, details, and design of the tombs as the sunlight life to the now abandoned city. It was on the second day of our visit that we slipped off the well worn tourist path and discovered the hidden beauty of area surrounding Petra.

At seven am Xabi and I sat sipping our nescafes from the cool damp of the cave that doubled as a cafe. As we looked out over the theatre we began chatting with Khalid and Ahmed, two bedouins running the friendly coffee cave. Khalid, whom we've dubbed "Johnny Depp" for his uncanny resemblance to the actor's portrayal of Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, is quiet and hospitable. Ahmed, his cousin is more assertive and has that ability to work the tourist scene. Both are incredibly friendly and open as we talk of the bedouins of Petra.

The situation of the Petra Bedouins is a tale that resonantes with many of the indigenous cultures the world over. In the past there were many thousands of bedouins who would stay within Petra, but now there are only forty families that remain. Ini the 1980s the government relocated them to a village outside of the tourist attraction. The bedouins never wanted to move but were forced to do so under central planning. The conditions in the village are less than acceptable and as the bedouin way of life is threatened so are ageless traditions such as hospitality. As we talked with the bedouins we began to understand some of the prejudices they face.

The bedouins have a tainted reputation in Wadi Musa (the town up the road that is filled with dozens of hotels and cheap tourist trinkets.) The group of backpackers I was traveling with were warned repeatedly by hotel staff of the danger of associating with the bedouins: "they are not trustworthy...they will rob you...they are lazy...they only want money..." These complaints sounded typical of a racial / class majority operating within the constraints of fear.

The bedouins we spoke to throughout Petra had a different perspective on life. On route to the monastery we stopped to talk with a bedouin family. The conversation soon turned to the contrasting of our cultures: "In your country you work and work and for what?" the father related as we watched his three year old daughter teasing the donkeys a short distance from us. "Here we relate to people; we work and relax at the same time." Another bedouin spoke of understanding each other. "Many tourists come and go, but few speak with us really wanting to learn." From my brief time observing the bedouins it seemed to me that they are a minority relegated to selling trinkets and giving rich tourist kids camel rides.

The coffee cups were emptied as the sun filled the canyon with light. Khalid and Ahmed invited us to spend time with them and learn more about their lives. We eagerly took up the invitation to spend a night with them in their caves up in the mountains of Petra. We retrieved our bags from our hotel and stashed them inside the cave. We promised our new friends that we would be back by 5pm after exploring some new corners of Petra. Xabi, Claire, her Irish friend and I headed up to the high place of sacrifice for lunch. After a stiff twenty minute climb you are welcomed with a scene that stirs the imagination. Two obelisks framed a raised altar with drainage canals perched over a cliff with stunning views over the royal tombs and the ancient city tucked in the valley below. How many sheep and goats walked the steep hand carved stone step way to their final moments as curious children and royalty gazed up from the city below. The wind blew with a sudden chill as we sought shelter a rock outcropping.

After lunch Xabi and I headed for wadi (river valley) that looked very inviting. We passed by olive groves and farmers coaxing their donkeys weighed down with succulent fruit of the valley, which they shared with a smile. We continued on ascending the steep valley walls up the sandstone pathway until we reached a vantage point where the view drew us in and refused to release us from its enticement. A strip of green ran the length of the valley floor as sandstone rose from the Earth's bowels in a flux of colours: dusty brown, salmon red and soft purples swirled their way up the cliffside. At the end of the valley the rock changed to a deep, dark shale, the colour of coal - ominous and strangely inviting. We could not resist the pull of this scene that resembled the dark flanks of Tolkien's Mordor. We traveled based on the assumption that we could easily veer back over to Petra and beyond to the cave cafe to meet our friends. Well, you know what they say about assumptions. We definitely proved the rule on this one.

As we passed over the ridge we ran headlong down into the valley over loose scree as the sun began its heavy descent to its habitual horizon of resting. Xabi and I contemplated our route in the fading light. We had gone too far to go back the way we came and so we pressed on. But which way: up or down? When in doubt go up. We did just that and it proved to be quite an adventurous route. As the sun went down the moon came up to light our way up the steep slopes. Soon the clouds danced with the moonlight as we came to a dead end. A cliff blocked our way and once again, and in our near infinite wisdom, we decided to go up once again. Climbing cliffs at night is not recommended by Jordan's ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. On the back of the ticket it reads: "ATTENTION: for safety reasons visitors to Petra are kindly requested to leave the site premises before sunset." Unknowingly, we may have wandered off the site premises by then.

For some reason it was in those moments that I felt alive.The moonlight threw our shadows down into the valley as the handholds presented themselves to our greedy fingers. The cold breeze blew the sweat from our foreheads that were creased with concentration. Alone with our thoughts nature gave us her undelible gift of life.

Several more uphll pushes and we reached a crest. To our disbelief we found tire marks in the sand and we became ecstatic. We stopped to snap pictures. We were home free or so we thought. After 45 minutes of following tire tracks in the sand we reacheda bedouin cave where men were lounging and cooking up some chicken. They invited us to join them but we felt an obligation to get back to our friends at Petra since we were far outside Petra's boundary.

After saying our "masalaamas" we followed a dirt path to the tarmac road. We felt that we had to sneak back into Petra to meet our friends and collect our bags if nothing else. Our walk down the road was filled with finding dead ends and barking dogs that in our imaginations were vicious savage beasts. Unsuccessfully we walked down the road and finally at 9:30pm a passing police vehicle stopped to pick us up. At the police station we were met by ten anxious tourist police, their commander, Claire and her friend. After twenty minutes filled with questioning, chai and furtive glances we parted ways and walked up the hill back to the town filled with hotels and tourists. We wrapped up the evening apologizing to our very upset bedouin friends who were sending text messages from their cave.

Random signs and posters in Jordan

There were three signs / posters that stood out for me as I hitchhiked and caught buses around Southern Jordan: 

1. One signboard at the side of the road (about 20km from Saudi Border): "Hajj congregating place."

2. Another signboard with an arrow pointing to an alternative highway: "trucks and tanks mandatory"

3. In a minibus the driver had a poster of a young Saddam Hussein on the back of the sun visor. Political messages are all the rage. 

Photos of Jordan

The Monastery, Petra

Zen on the sand dunes, Wadi Rum
The night sky, Wadi Rum
Running Man
The overshot sunset photo
Tomb 371 at Petra
"We came from there somewhere"

The view coming out of Rakhabat Canyon, Wadi Rum
The classic sand dune shot
Wadi Rum
"There are strange things done in the midnight sun..."More light painting at Wadi Rum

More photos of Jordan

The uphill road 

The kids of Petra

Bedouin children of Petra
Child
Wadi Rum
The Lions of Petra
Jordan's Old Glory
The treasury at 6:30am. Indy? 
I have finally found what I am looking for
Xabi: Spanish rock skipping champion showing his skills at the Dead Sea

The donkey that thought he could, but really couldn't 
Moses' mountain view of the promised land (I prefer trees and lakes with life, but milk and honey isn't bad)

Chillin'
Nnnnnyes?

Sunset

Here is a poem from the Chinese poet, Tu Fu (713-770):

Sunset
Sunset glitters on the beads
Of the curtains. Spring flowers
Bloom in the valley. The gardens
Along the river are filled
With perfume. Smoke of cooking
Fires drifts over the slow barges.
Sparrows hop and tumble in
The branches. Whirling insects
Swarm in the air. Who discovered
That one cup of thick wine
Will dispel a thousand cares?

Urfa

My mind is calm. After having spent the journey contemplating the journey thus far I decided to explore the park where families have gathered to spend their day off. Fathers walk with toddlers in their arms as they share smiles wide with life. Young women, who don colourful head dresses and ankle length designer trench coats, walk arm in arm giggling as they share secrets - perhaps of the boys they have their eye on. Grandfathers with Kurdish head wraps and thick mustaches gently ply their prayer beads as they talk of former glories. Tim and again it is the children who capture my attention. They point excitedly at the pools and canals yelling with delight: "Balak!!" (fish).

The carp, numbering in the thousands, thrive in their unique situation as the recipients of Urfa's great legend. I pieced the story of the legend together from several accounts, some in broken Turkish and German. Long, long ago a prophet was born in a cave. His name was Abraham. Unfortunately for Abraham the cave in which he was born was at the foot of a mountain belonging to Nimrod, the great hunter. Abraham was hidden in the cave, but not for long. Nimrod caught wind of the news of his birth and tracked him down as only a legendary hunter could do. He took the baby up to the top of the mountain and flung him down from the pillars of the acropolis. His goal was to send Abraham hurtling down to the furnaces in the valley below. As Abraham flew threw the air God then entered the scene. He saw what was happening and realized his plan for humanity was in jeopardy. So, he turned the furnaces into pools of carp that gently caught Abraham and ferried him to shore. After having been miraculously saved Abraham vowed that anyone who eats one of the fish will go blind. For thousands of years the fish have multiplied without hindrance.

The antiquity of the story is quite fascinating. This may be the oldest surviving legend that we know of. According to William Dalrymple in his book "From the Holy Mountain," the legend predates Muslim and Christian traditions. The roots are found in the one of the most ancient cults of the Middle East, that of the Syrian fertility goddess, Attargatis. It is not surprising that the cult centered its worship around water; the fish being the beneficiary of worshipers who performed bizarre erotic ceremonies at Attargatis' altar in the middle of the pools.

The main pond now sits with a mosque and a row of mesmerizing arches painted with the hues of honey in the fading sunlight. The pond is a calm blue, but as pellets are dropped from the gentle hands of children, the fish surge in an apocalyptic thrashing of fin, wide eyes and gaping mouths. Several of the carp have wounds now whitened with festering infection, yet they are relentless as they compete for survival. Some of the fish are inadvertently hoisted onto the backs of the others as the individual fish become a surge of bodies - a pulsating mass of greys and greens, competition and survival.

Urfa (formely Edessa) has succumbed to one vanquishing invader after another from the Hittites to the Crusaders, yet one constant remains: the gaping mouths of the protected carp and the wide eyes of the children feeding them.

The pinky

Why is it that in nearly all countries I have visited outside of
Europe and North America do men always have an extremely long pinky
fingernail? I suppose the answer is obvious...

A proverb

" It's the space between the bars that holds the tiger; and the silence between the notes that makes the music." Proverb

A digression of regression

We were lost on the streets of Hama looking for a restaurant that boasted stunning views of the magnificent water wheels, which dated back to the 13th century AD. All we were finding were shops selling items of vague interest: hookah pipes, stationary, and cheap sunglasses. All of these I needed, but not as much as a cup of tea while gazing out over the wooden water wheels that moaned sorrowfully at their ceaseless labouring.

A middle aged man with full beard and jalaba stopped us to offer a helping hand. His english was flawless; he was a syrian emigrant from Santa Barbara, California. After several attempts of directing us to our beloved cups of tea he asked us where we were from. When I told him Canada he seemed pleased: "My wife is from Canada." His wife, who was dressed in a full niqab with only a slit from which to study the world, hesitantly stepped out from behind her husband. She greeted us, which surprised both Bernard and myself. In Syria that just doesn't happen.

What shocked us even more was that her accent was fully Canadian. She was a native Canadian from Vancouver. She grew up an hour down the road from me. When I asked further questions she reverted to her husband. The conversation quickly finished and Bernard and I were left to make sense of our thoughts as we continued to look for the tea with the stunning views.

In Canada (or any other "Western" nation for that matter) you did not have to major in feminist thought of the the 20th century to have been exposed to such concepts as the equality and emancipation of women within society. We absorb culture through media, school, family, friends, Hollywood, and literature. It is umavoidable (unless living in an isolated religious or other colony) to not be fully exposed and influenced by the continual exposure to liberal ideology. I simply could not understand how a woman in her 20s lets go of a lifetime of progress to don a full covering. Yet it is more than the dress code. She is giving up what brave women of the 19th and 20th centuries fought so hard to realize, namely equality.

As I journey through the Middle East I will continue to seek to understand, particularly at this juncture when the questions outweigh the answers. Despite the unease I am content. For it is through this incongruity that I will come to a place of understanding. And true understanding can only come through friendship and dialogue. True friendship is based in love. I wonder, as I watch the turning of these faithful water wheels, what kind of world would this be if we all had
a little more love to give?

"I Smoke to Forget"

"Iraq? That sounds safe enough." These were my thoughts as I faced a delay in gettıng my visa to Syria at the consulate ın Gaziantep, Turkey. I quickly made up my mind that Kurdistan, the region in northern Iraq, would be a good place to be a tourist for a while. I was not dısappointed.

After an eleven hour bus ride that hugged the border of Turkey and Sryia my mind drifted to the armies that had conquered or been conquered on these plains of Mesopotamia. From the Hitittes to the Crusaders many have fallen by the sword of invading armies. In present day the scene was filled with bucolic images: three young shepherd boys were perched on different branches of one gnarled lonesome tree as their donkeys waited patiently for their masters. Yet these pleasant pasture scenes were filled with decisive moments in history. To the East there was one such battle; in 331 BC Alexander the Great defeated Darius III at the battle of Gaugamela. As I headed closer to that battle that set the stage for Alexander's future domination i thought of the country to whıch I was headed. The land renowned as the cradle of civilizatıon continue to be plagued by one of man's most ancient of failings - unjustified war.

The border crossing went smoothly. I don't know what made me feel more welcome to Iraq - the large sign that read- "Welcome to Kurdistan!" or the border guard who asked me "Why are you here?" Perhaps in the end it was the US military presence that had the greatest affect in welcoming me to "the other Iraq" (as Kurdistan is being called). As we stood at the border waiting for stamp number 4 in our passports I heard a stealth fly-by of apache choppers on border patrol. Later as we drove in a taxi towards a border town in Kurdistan we passed an armoured convoy. Having lived ın Liberia I saw many tanks and APCs during the election year, but i had never seen ones with such bravado. The driver put on his cabin lights as timidly drove past.

On the outset Kurdistan is a country (or technically part of a country) in the rebuilding phase. The electricity poles are a bırd's nest of wires criss crossıng every which way to a thousand illegal outlets. The military has a strong presence wıth pershmagon (security forces) seemingly at every corner and then some. What surprised me was the amount of wealth I found ın the larger towns i visited. Touch phones were all the rage. Hummer H3s passed me by kicking up dust and exhaust. Buildings were going up in every corner of town. Yet there was a hidden side of Kurdistan that I saw through a random encounter wıth a baker named Murad.

As I walked through the picturesque vıllage of Amadya in the mountains I stopped by one shop to ask about restaurants in the town. That one random question led to several interesting conversations and even a night's stay at the house of the sheik ın a neighboring vıllage. Murad and I discussed many aspects of Middle Eastern politics and interference in recent hıstory, but it was his story that intrigued me. Murad used to live in the city of Mosul. Every time i mentioned the name Mosul to a taxi drıver or store owner he would put his hand to his throat and make the ominous sign of death. I decided to take their advice and stay away. For Iraqis this isn't always an option. Murad related a story of working as a translator for the CIA and other US military forces in Mosul. Normally I would write that off as fanciful imagination, but i had to remember that this was Iraq. He worked for them for one year when tragedy struck. Hıs father, who worked as a contractor for the US mılıtary was gunned down near his house on his way home from work. He was considered "the enemy" and was eliminated. Murad moved to Kurdistan with his family in search of safety.

As Murad and I traveled to the canyon ofGali Ali beg I noticed that he seemed distant, even distracted. During the course of the day he smoked cigarette after cigarette. Finally, near the end of the day I put the question out there for the sake of my curiosity. "How many packs do you smoke per day?" He looked up after stamping out his cigarette. "Three packs a day usually." He spotted my surprised expression and then with a half smile that couldn't quite break free, pointed out the underlying cause: "I smoke to forget."

The people of Kurdistan are grateful for the intervention of the US in Iraq. Saddam's legacy in their region is dark. His gassing of the Kurds will never be forgotten. Yet the cost to human lives, whether counted in the number of dead, injured, displaced or traumatized over the nearly twenty years of American intervention in Iraq tally to a number that cannot be discounted. The first Gulf War, the sanctions, the 2003 invasion, followed by the sectarian violence has left Iraq a crippled version of it's past.

One of the stated reasons for intervention in both wars ('91 and '03) was freedom for the Iraqi people. A basic assumption of freedom is justice, without it there can be no freedom. The question for Iraqis remain paramount: when will true justice be served?

It seems that the south has

Photos of the Yazidis

A collection of photos from my visit to Lallish. A write to follow at some point.

Birkeah, my guide for the day. He loved listening to Celine Dion and Aqua. When talking about different foods we both enjoyed he said he didn't love too many foods. I asked him: "then what do you love?" He replied: "My girlfriend. I love her very much!" His smile was brimming.

The temple to the god of the sun.

The temple of sheik Adi. A highly revered reformer in the Yazidi religion.

Some lovely Yazidi girls near the tomb of Sheik Adi.

I don't know if this man is a chief, but he sure looked like one.

More random photos

The cats of Meteora.

Ah Greece. Opa!

Greece again.

More Greece. Always ring the bell. It's customary (or so we assumed).

A Greek wedding - opa!

Random photos from the trip

An Iraqi man showing us truly why he is a woman's man or so he claims.

I stared at this mosaic in Antep, Turkey until i was released from this woman's stare. It took quite a while.

This god of the river is saying: "hey why don't we head to my favourite picnic spot." The woman female goddess is saying: "Phsh! Whateva!" and the snake / demon creature is saying: "Ha! Told you the beard just wasn't doing it anymore." That was my interpretation. (I have no idea what the upside down fish are meant to represent.)

Finally the sun came out in Cappadocia, Turkey

Frescoe of Jesus Christ.

Incredible paintings from the 10th century. Even though this photo looks incredibly saturated it isn't. The paintings have been touched up and they took my breath away. Good place to sing a hymn.

The mountains of Kurdistan, Northern Iraq.

The taxi driver on the right drove like a bat out of hell, but he did play some very entertaining Kurdish music. I think he just wanted a cup of tea with his cigarette.

Orientation

"Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the
world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the
infinite extent of our relations." Henry David Thoreau

I am on a ferry on the way to Crete after a slight change of plans.
The next two weeks are planned out and it looks to be incredible with
islands, monasteries, and mediterranean food. Yet as my mind travels
along into the future I cannot help but get a sense that I am moving
into the unknown. That was when thoreau's quote spoke to me from
walden's pond.

In our youth we can be forgiven for wanting to find ourselves. After
our early twenties it is expected that we know who we are and move
forward to become productive members of soceity. Well what happens if
life is a continual journey of being lost and every so often we "find"
aspects of ourselves that truly resonate with who we are intrinsically?

Perhaps truly being lost, the kind of lost that must preclude a deeper
sense of self discovery, requires a total disorientation. We must
connect to our values, our dreams, our joys, and our passions if we
want to make a difference in this world. By "making a difference" I
imply that we better the world in a way that connects with our true
self (as discovered through self awareness, not societal expectations.)

As we grow and develop we begin to understand the interconnectedness
of our relationships. A kind word or an appropriate encouragement can
impact a friend and change their way of thinking. They in turn will
respond to others through renewed perspective , and so the world
slowly changes from within. In that place of being centered we can
walk a constant push and pull of being lost and found.

Seb