Aqaba

Since I can post a few pics now, even though the connection is slow here at this internet cafe, here are a few recent ones. On the top is Bruce hanging out on the cliff edge above The Treasury at the edge of the Siq in Petra, so named because people thought there was gold in the building at one time. We climbed up above to check it out. You can appreciate the scale by the small people on the ground near Bruce's sleeve. The next two are random shots from our venture into Wadi Rum where we 4x4ed, hiked, and camped. The first is of the red sand in one part of the wadi (different sediment colors abound in this area). The second is a basalt rock field in the sand. And the final picture is from the top of the highest "peak" in Jordan (looking toward Saudi Arabia) in Wadi Rum that we climbed yesterday morning. It wasn't very high, but the way was steep and very rocky with no shade. Fortunately, it was the morning, and there were a fair amount of clouds. I'll post more pics when I get back.

Today we took a boat trip from Aqaba to an old crusader fort on an island off the Egyptian coast (we needed to give them our passports to get in and out) of the Red Sea and then swam in the lagoon near the island. The fish were extraordinary, and the reefs were beautiful although damaged from boat traffic. We also were stung multiple times by some sort of jellyfish-like critters that hit us with really mild mosquito bite type stings that caused us no harm other than the annoyance. Apparently these things are common here, and you just need to get used to them in the water.