Krak de Chaveliers- Another(yawn) Castle

Back to Syria, between Homs and Tartus: TE Lawrence called it the "finest castle in the world", or something like that. Who cares? I don't. Its really nice though. It is the best preserved(or close to it), however, and would be any geeky Dungeon Master's wet dream to run a D&D campaign in it. Check your hitpoints at the door 'cause, "Valkyrie is about to die."
Its had an assorted history, like most of the things in these parts. Its got a great position and is fortified like a muthahf_ckah. And its got a restaraunt too- that's new in the last few decades, not orginal.
Enough about the facts though, here's some more pictures.

Lot of stone went into this thing. Fun little towers and doors all over the place.

Gandalf, the orcs are too many! What are men supposed to do against so much evil? Take a break at the restaurant and fuel up on good chicken, that's what. Better bring your gold pieces cause its pricey.

All in all it was a good place. Never taken by storm, and has kept up against the elements quite well.

The Dead Sea

On the last day of my visit in Petra I went to the Dead Sea- the body of water between Israel and Jordan. It is a beautiful place even with all of the trash on the beach. Its so salty that its hard to swim because you float like a cork. This makes it easy to do all sorts of things that you can't do in other waters, such as, putting your feet and hands above the surface! When I was in 5 feet of water I couldn't touch the bottom as a result of this super buoancy.
The salt is like battery acid in the eyes, however, and I found this out. Good thing I had bottled water on hand to rinse out the pain.




The Dead Sea. Notice the white crust on the rocks from the salt accumulation from the water. Notice the Arab style haircut, too. Can you say, "cropped"?




Here's the proof. All limbs(and head, mind you) above the surface. Jesus may have walked on it- but I'm just a little lazier, I guess. The water leaves this nasty oil on your skin. Very bizarre.







The mud is supposed to have medicinal qualities. All it really seemed to do for me is to make me appear more CaveManish.

Petra- Take 2

Just part of the mammoth city.

So, made it back to Jordan to see Petra again and this time the weather was perfect. So I spent two days hiking around there. Let me say this: Petra more than lives up to its reputation. Petra is HUGE. People have spent half ther life here assisting in the restoration of known sites- and more tombs and structures lie under the ground awaiting discovery. There is so many different places to explore that it makes the legs quiver just thinking about it. Its beautiful hiking too and not too hot when I was there- as it will be in less than a month.

Quick facts(kind of facts, anyway) about Petra:
-It is an ancient city of stone. Buildings are actually carved into the sandstone of the mountains!
-It was mostly built from 100BC to 100AD but the Romans did quite a bit in the 3rd-4th Centuries(please don't quote me on that)
-Moses and his sister were known to hang here. In fact, her tomb is supposedly there somewhere.
-Although the facades of the buildings are spectacular, the actual space in them are small and disappointing
-Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade featured Petra in some of its footage

At any rate, its an incredible place. In my opinion, it should be among the Seven Man-Made Wonders of the World. Hopefully my pictures can capture its beauty and immensity.

From far away it almost seems like a two-dimensional carving....

....but as you get closer you can see the many layers.

...and layers and layers. There are caves everywhere around here that served as dwellings for most of the people. Sometimes they are still used by the desert-dwelling Bedouin.

It all starts by following a road through a gorge that gets pretty narrow- especially with the walls that sometimes go up 300 feet.

Then it opens up to the Treasury- the most well known of the buildings. Recognize it from the movie?

But the shining jewel must be the monastery of El Deir. Damn.