The internet cafe is cheap here in Amman and I had a free evening, so here I am again! Overall I had way too much fun with Bedoins the last few days! First of all, we rode camels. A herd of 27 camels took us for a walk around in the desert for an hour. They are the strangest animals and not all that comfortable, but if ever I needed to traverse great expanses of desert I'd be happy to have one! They seemed more reliable than the trucks/jeeps that we rode into the desert later that day. Those vehicles are ancient! We made it out to the springs, canyons and sand dunes though.
This morning a buch of us had the pleasure to experience some of the greatest rock climbing ever! It was all free climbing these massive sandstone/granite mountains that seem to just pop out of the vast plain of sand. We reached the top of one mountain to see a second peak just a bit higher that we had to climb. Then of course there was a third that was even higher yet! Luckily the fourth peak was quite a bit lower and couldn't taunt us to keep going! It was an exceptional morning!
Tomorrow we leave Jordan. That's the easy part. It means that we enter Israel, but we're actually going to the West Bank so it gets complicated. I really have no idea what to expect with all the checkpoints and border stations. All I know is that it might be a bit difficult, but everyone has made it through from the past groups! I'm excited to start our 3 week home stays with Palestinians! It'll be great!
By the way, I think I am getting in plenty of pictures. There have been many thousands of pictures taken, perhaps 10,000 and I know I'm in at least 16 of them. Just kidding. No, but really I counted.
Time to go.
4 comments:
i can imagine that riding a camel would not be terribly comfortable. i can also very easily imagine you climbing on rocks. :)
and i'll believe in these alleged pictures when i see them . . .
Daniel! Glad to hear that you had fun with the Bedions and I'm sure that you're filled with amazing memories with your "family"! Rock climbing sounds amazing. I hope that you and the whole group made it to Israel safely! I can't wait to see the 10,000 pictures:):)
Unexpected pleasure of blogs only 2 days apart! Israel might even have more internet access, but your main mission is to enjoy your "family" and explore Israel. Just write everything down somewhere so you'll be able to tell us as we all gather around you for some (marathon!) sessions in the days around Rachel's graduation.
Is the group still breaking out in song in unusual places to the delight of both onlookers and singers? Does the intrepid student song-leading team help instigate some "spontaneous" outbreaks or do they just lead during devotional times?
well, thanks to bess putting some pictures on facebook, i actually believe you are in the middle east now. or at least, i believe you were in cairo. there's one with you in it, drinking some sort of fruity drink with greta and some others. and it's close up enough that i can tell it's you, whereas in the other pictures of you you're so small that you could be darrel. (i was talking to linda gnagey, my boss (and darrel's) at the asc, yesterday, and she said she at first thought it was darrel in those pictures. so ha.)
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