More Patagonia

In, well, Above Patagonia

I was going through Santiago pictures, looking for more architecture, when I found the pictures I took on the flight to Punta Arenas.

I'm always disappointed with pictures from planes, but when the scenery is as spectacular as this was I end up taking them anyway.

But they came out much better than usual. I've wanted to see Patagonia ever since reading the Bruce Chatwin book many years ago; I hope someday to see those mountains from the ground.

More gods

I'm guessing that these (still in the Siq) were made later, because the inscriptions underneath are in Greek. The Nabataeans spoke Aramaic, and left very few inscriptions behind.

Caves

There are caves -- some natural, most man-made -- in the rock walls throughout Petra. Many of them are tombs, but some were probably dwellings.

Because so many of the remaining structures in Petra are tombs, it's easy to think of it as a necropolis, but it was a thriving city where people lived and worked.

That niche by the cave entrance is also something that you see a lot along the Siq. The primary god worshipped by the Nabataeans was Dushara, Lord of the Mountain. And it was almost literally the mountains themselves that they reverenced. The statues of Dushara are cubes of stone, sometimes with crude circles for eyes, but usually featureless. Sometimes they actually carved away the entire top of a hill or mountain, leaving a cube-shaped “god block” behind.

Later, under Greek influence, they anthropomorphized the gods and started to add human features. But Petra makes so much more sense when you understand how the Nabataeans felt about these mountains, and why they would create their city by carving rather than building.

One more chorus and fade

Really the last one. I just found this one this morning and the colors are too gorgeous not to share.

One more chorus

More rock music

Rock music

The Nabataeans owed much of their success to their genius at managing water -- harvesting it, diverting it, hiding it.

There are remnants of culverts along the walls of the Siq, but the real water magic here is what happens when it meets rock.  After the canyon walls were split by some tectonic temper tantrum thousands of years ago, water carved out the dips and swoops and curves in these walls.

Where was I?

Right, Jordan. Petra. The Siq.

I've been sick with the Cold That Will Not Die, and haven't had the energy to post. And I hadn't looked at any of the Petra pictures since the day I took them so I had a lot of sorting and processing to  do. But maybe I can at least manage to get myself out of the Siq.

The Nabataeans were an Arab people, originally nomads, who established trading routes through the Middle East. (They were the source for frankincense and myrrh, so if the Magi really brought those gifts to Bethlehem, they probably bought them from the Nabataeans.) Petra, which they called Raqmu, was their capital.

It flourished for only a few hundred years before the Romans took over in AD 106, and was mostly abandoned by 700. When you pass through the Siq, you're walking on cobblestones that were laid 2200 years ago.

The Siq

The Siq (“the Shaft” in Arabic) is a mile-long natural gorge, only a few meters wide in places, with rock walls towering hundreds of feet overhead on both sides.

The red stone is streaked with yellow and black, and centuries of wind and water have shaped it into dazzling curves and facets.

It was one of the rare experiences that turned out to be much better than I had imagined it, and I've wanted to see Petra for many years. Every turn in the path brought another amazing vista. It made me giddy. It made me gush. “I can't believe I'm here! I'm actually walking in the Siq!”

Wadi Musa

Wadi Musa is Arabic for “the Valley of Moses.” (Wadi Rum means “the Roman Valley.”) Moses led the Israelites through here after crossing the Red Sea; the spring he is supposed to have created by striking a rock was later used to channel water to Petra.

Which is just outside of town, in those mountains. It was about a three-hour drive from Amman to Wadi Musa so it was still morning when I got here. I checked into the hotel, dropped my bags, and spent the rest of the day in Petra. 

Indian morning

This is the early morning fog on the road to Agra. I'm throwing it in here because it's one of my favorite pictures from India and because it perfectly captures my mood on this otherwise gorgeous morning in New York.

Brave

Several people have told me how “brave” I am for having gone on this trip. I'm never sure how to respond to that, mostly because it's is not a word I ever use to describe myself. I'm naturally very timid, a serious introvert, and still battle shyness on a daily basis. And I don't feel as though I've done anything particularly brave.

Much of travel is the same routine wherever you go: airplanes and taxis and hotels, changing money, finding a place to eat, figuring out how to get to the sights you want to see. I don't go to dangerous places or do particularly daring things, and I'm able to go to Jordan by myself because I've already gone to many other places and I've learned how to do it. (Plus we have the internet. Traveling is much, much easier when you can plan it all online.) Things that used to scare me a lot aren't as intimidating anymore because I know how to handle them, and I always say that learning how to travel by myself is one of the smartest things I've ever done because the lessons apply to much more than just taking my next vacation.

That said, I do still get scared. I had two major anxiety attacks on this trip -- one in a restaurant in Jaipur where I was having lunch, and one here, on the drive to the desert barbecue in Abu Dhabi. After we left the city, and before we got to the dunes, we drove for fifteen minutes or so through an emptiness that made me uneasy at first, and then increasingly anxious. It was flat, sand and rock, with nothing anywhere except a few low fences and the occasional utility pole. The other tourists were chatting away in German, the driver was focused on the road, and I thought, “What is this place? What the hell am I doing here?”

Then we drove off the road and into the dunes and the beauty distracted me. And I was fine the rest of the evening and enjoyed myself very much. But I do remember that moment of panic, of feeling lost in a place that was completely alien and wanting to flee to someplace familiar. Back to the city. Back to my hotel. Home.

So I'm not all that brave. Fortunately, you don't have to be.

More views

For of all sad words of tongue or pen

The saddest are these: I have to go back to work tomorrow

(My apologies to John Greenleaf Whittier.) It is nice to be home, sleeping in my own bed, drinking coffee the way I like it out of my own coffee mug. And yes, ignoring the suitcase on the living room floor and the piles of dirty laundry until I've regained a little of the physical and mental energy to deal with them.

Here's a very small start on catching up on the backlog: a view over the sand dunes outside Abu Dhabi. (I added a border because the overcast sky blended into the white background of the blog page, and it looked dumb. I'm tired but still a nitpicker.)

Wadi Rum

I'm back in Amman, basically to sleep and repack before flying out tomorrow. After two nights in the freezing winter desert (one of them in a tent), I won't pretend that it's not very nice to be writing this in a Marriott, with indoor plumbing, hot showers and a thermostat.

But I am very sorry to be leaving Jordan. It's a beautiful country, and the Jordanian people I've met have all been warm and welcoming, and have treated me as an honored guest. Here's a quick look at the astonishing Wadi Rum -- if you think it looks a little like Mars, that's because movies -- including The Martian -- that are set on Mars are often filmed here.

Amman

Amman, like Rome, was originally built on seven hills, and this is the view from the tallest of them, Jebel al-Qala'a. There's a complex of Roman and Umayyed ruins known as the Citadel at the top of the hill, and caves that have been used since the Bronze age. It was also the site of one of those gruesome Old Testament slaughters when King David burned many of the inhabitants of what was then known as Rabbath alive.

It snowed here yesterday, but I got lucky with the weather today -- chilly enough to need my coat, but not the scarf and gloves I carried just in case, and mostly clear skies. When I asked at the front desk about getting a cab to the Citadel, they found me a driver who volunteered to take me around the old city downtown and back to the hotel for 20 dinars (about 28 dollars.) Since I only got a few hours sleep last night and only have today in Amman, that worked out perfectly. I saw what I really wanted to see, and I was back at the hotel drinking coffee by late afternoon.

Oh I just don't know where to begin

I have spent three very long days seeing a tiny portion of northern India, and I think it will take me weeks to untangle my thoughts about it (not to mention the hundreds of pictures.)

After a five-hour drive back from Agra last night, through a thunderstorm that reduced visibility on the already scary Indian roadways to near zero, I'm not up for anything complicated. Or energetic.

So here's something easy: my new friend Sampa. She's a rescue elephant, who after decades of carrying tourists up and down the hills from the Amber Fort, is now living in elephant luxury on a farm called, appropriately enough, Elefantastic, an hour or so outside Jaipur. I got to spend an afternoon feeding and watering and walking with her and several of her friends, and it was wonderful. She's gentle and funny and a little bossy -- I was feeding her bundles of bamboo wrapped in alfalfa and she kept nudging me out of the way with her head trying to sneak extra alfalfa.

And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black

Anyone who is inspired by Frost to tread all of these tempting crunchy leaves into black mulch will be in for an unpleasant surprise when they find themselves splashing around hip-deep in the Azalea Pond. The leaves were so thick on the surface of the water yesterday I honestly wouldn't have guessed there was a pond under there if I hadn't been taking pictures there for years.

Last look

Here's a last look at the curvy spires of Reykjavik.