Where There's A Waterfall, There's A Way

So the other day in the field we found a small round basin rock structure thinger and we called it the bathtub.... and then we created this story that a man with leprosy was cast out of the city and the area outside of the gate that we're excavating now is his house with his bathtub. Only one of several hundred ways you can keep entertained while moving ridiculous amounts of dirt! Hahaha... Archaeology is very cool though, I must admit.

Well, only 8 more days of digging and getting up at 4:30am! Yaaayy... although I will be a bit sad as Jordan has been awesome.. everything is too expensive here though... its all like the same prices as in Canada... blaaaahhh.. Egypt was dirt cheap.

Hah.... funny story...
So I have these bright red baggy flowy pants and I was wearing them the other day walking down the street. Weirdly I was getting about 10 x's more catcalls than is normal for 2pm and was frankly a bit creeped out when about 4 Jordanian teenage boys started following me and yelling out most likely creepy stuff in Arabic....... so I thought to myself, "this can't be just because of the red pants can it be?" and then I remembered that not once have I seen a red shirt or red pants in ANY of the stores here in Jordan! No red shirts at alllll..... The only thing I've seen that is red here in the store windows is not very respectable red lingerie....

.... so I think they thought I was, well...... a not very respectable lady in red....

The moral is: Just in case you ever doubted it, red pants are a bad idea. You might be mistaken as a lady of the..... ick.... night.

Hahaha

Love
Krysten

Oh wow. I can't even begin to explain the awesomeness of this weekend.

First of all, I got a beautiful hotel room for $20 CAD a night. I managed to grab one of the only single rooms with *gasps* a continuous hot shower! No more army showers (water on, water off, shampoo in, rinse, water off, conditioner in, rinse, water off .... all in 3 mins) for a whole weekend! And as if that wasn't enough to make my whole hotel stay worth every penny.....

We all got into Petra for free! Usually $40 CAD per day, but waived as we were registered with the Jordanian antiquities office and considered as "doing a service to the antiquity of Jordan." Ah yes, that's us... superstars in the Jordanian antiquity circle. I'll bet you're all jealous...

The photos from Petra are definately the best photos of my trip so far, I think.... We started in the Siq, then to the Treasury and the Monastary and the look outs. I dont want to say anything else because I just can not bring myself to ruin the photos before I actually post them or show people. The Monastary was a 45 minute climb up the side of a mountain on 2000 year old steps that were created by the Nabatean people...

You really must go see pictures at http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/petra/
since I can't get my camera working on these darn computers in Jordan.....

Next was the High Place of Sacrifice which was a steep hour climb up 1256 steps on sketchy, demented stairs. The climb was so worth it despite a decent sun burn and nothing short of a heart attack affecting the three of us who climbed. The minute we reached the top, an ancient ceremonial altar was visible (which we laid in of course for oh so good photos... which was placed splat in the centre of the highest mountain in the area with a backdrop of rolling mountains and steep deadly valleys.

Of course the scenery was amazing and the incredible stonework, astounding.... but it was really the Jordanian people that made our day. We ended up (my friend Casey and I) having tea three times with different bedouin women throughout Petra who would simply not have no for an answer... and good thing, they were HILARIOUS. In broken English and Arabic, our conversations were enough to crack up even the tourists standing nearby who of course were pretending not to listen.

And when we finally climbed the 898 winding, ridiculous 2 foot high and 4 foot long steps to the Monastary we rested in a Bedouin tent and were surrounded by Bedouin music and a meal of "we still don't know what".... although it was the best food I've had in Jordan yet!

Oh, and of course with my broken Arabic I charmed some Bedouin men into giving me a free camel ride... and after joking around with them for far too long Casey, Cara and I were taken on a crazy, free camel and donkey ride with some hilarious Bedouin dudes.

Oh and then a camel bit me...... But it was more of a surprise then anything else to see a camel coming straight for my arm. Surprisingly it didn't hurt at all... It was merely like a clamp with no teeth... ewwww... and I don't even want to talk about the slimy white and nasty yellow gunk which was left behind on the entire sleeve of my shirt. Puke.

Of course, after arriving in Petra at 6:30am and ascending and descending over 4000 treacherous steps and walking over 8 kms over the course of 12 hours, we were ready to leave at 6:30 pm...

So I came back to the hotel with some others and went for a swim in the POOL and am now ready to CRASH

Mucho love,
Krysten

Salaam!

I hope everyone is well and everything is nice and summery in Canada or wherever the heck you're from.

Just an update:

1. We've started digging our site. I am working on a part of the wall enclosure outside of the city. It's a comprehensive retaining system of specially placed rock intended to keep the city walls up and visitors out. We've also found HEAPS of pottery and animal bones that suggest the site was possibly used as a dumping ground at one point. After all, out of site out of mind, right? HAHAHA PUN INTENDED. I am so funny, eh? :s

2. I have NEVER been so FREAKIN dirty in my life. It is often VERY windy on the tell so sometimes digging can be a nightmare and sunglasses to keep the dust out of the eyes is the equivalent of a 11pm chocolate binge. I could just feel the desert sand literally blowing INTO my EARS the other day. SICK. Our favourite weapon at the end of the day on the bus ride home are baby wipes to take off the disgusting layer of sand and mud that layers the face like a pre-teen wearing too much foundation.

3. You won't see any photos from the tell until I get home. Legally we're bound to archaeological ethics that tell us that no organization besides the actual sponsored website or books of the excavation is allowed to publish any material about our finds, blah blah blah. Even online. Frankly, I understand. If every person that went on the dig published blogs about what they did that day and what they found there would be most likely many errors, like "I found an iron age pot!" when actually it was Nabatean or something and then they publish pictures on a webpage? It's just false information being published about an actual archaeological scholarly site.

4. I am sick of pita and hummus.

5. I am sick of eating chicken and rice on monday, rice and stewy weird stuff on tuesday and some other strange concoction on wednesday.... and then having the menu repeat itself.

6. The first thing I eat when I get home will be a big steak, steamed broccoli, mashed potatoes and fruitopia.

7. I have to go to the bathroom so bad that I don't know if I can finish writing this blog.

8. Farmer tans are the shiznak.

9. I have some awesome middle eastern souvenirs but I can't tell you what they are because *gasps* one of them might be for ... YOU!

I have to go to the bathroom.
Byeeeee

Much Love,
Krysten

I apologize for the horrible title, but really there is no other way to explain the last two days for you.

Since everyone arrived in Jordan, members of the team have been dropping like flies. By dropping like flies I mean worshipping the porcelain goddess, not dying. Don't worry too much.

So Tuesday was our first real day of digging. After a painful and borish day of mapping out the square, taking elevations, taking photos of everything and stringing the squares we finally got down to business.

Monday on the tell (a large mound in archaeology which is not a naturally formed hill, but rather dirt and grass covering an archaeology site) the weather was nice and a calm 36 degrees.

Tuesday was better and only 32 degrees which helped us ease into a long summer of excavation. Let me tell you, my arms and legs will be rocks by the time I get back to Canada. Just climbing the tell in the morning leaves every single person gasping for breath upon completing the steep climb.

Wednesday was a bit rough as the temperature climbed up to a scalding 42 degrees by the time we left the site at 11:45 am. I can't imagine not starting at 5am and being finished by 11:45am

The rest of the day is busy, busy as we only have a couple hours of free time in the afternoon and then it's off to pottery and object washing and then our specialization. Mine somehow being object photography, even though I suck at photography.

So anyway, I'll stop boring you with mundane details and get to the really gorish and juicy (no pun intended) details of my two sick days.

I woke up at 2am in the morning on Thursday morning and felt horrible. I got out of bed feeling like several Egyptian speeding trucks carrying loads of watermelons had hit me and the contents had been left bouncing behind in their watermelony goodness only to yes, hit me while I'm down.

I made it to the bathroom in time and spent probably 18 days puking (although realistically probably only about a half hour) and climbed back into bed.

The trucks only increased in size after that until they became trains and then large cruise ships, this time drowning me in the depths of the Nile.

I know I'm a drama queen.

At about 4 in the morning I fainted and did a pretty good job on my knee.

At 10 in the morning it took me 30 minutes to make it up a flight of stairs to get a bottle of water from the fridge. A quick 10 minute pass out on the kitchen floor and a 5 minute break after walking 10 steps in a dizzying orb of fluorescent light and all was well. Somehow I made it back to bed.

Apparently there's some Jordanian virus going around and has even the locals as close to the floor as humanly possible. I was relieved to hear it wasn't just our pitiful Canadian stomachs reacting to the food.

So about half of the 50 member team is sick as of now...
I'm pretty much fully recovered now and am told by Dr. Bernie that by tomorrow morning I will be peachy....

Great.

Much love,
Krysten

Alright...
So the computers in Jordan are crap and not Windows XP which means they won't recognize my camera when I plug it in or allow me to upload photos on to my site. This really sucks because my next entry was my second day in Egypt and GIZA

GIZA=PYRAMIDS

EYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

So basically you just get 1000 words in place of a picture, assuming that a picture is worth a thousand words.

My second day in Egypt was great, although a wee bit tainted by some ridiculous Amarikens. Stupid Americans. I met Blair (girl) and her boyfriend (the bf we'll call him... I forget his name) my first day and they were from Alaska. We decided to get a taxi together for the next day and go out to Giza to see the pyramids and to visit Saqqara and Memphis. It was cheaper to share a taxi between the three of us and it ended up being 7$ CAD each to hire the taxi for the day.

Once we got out to the vicinity of the pyramids which are actually only a couple km's from the immediate city of Cairo our taxi driver took us to a stable where you could rent horses and camels for the day to explore the area around the pyramids and the sphinx.

What you must understand is that when you're in Egypt and bartering you must never take anything seriously. Sometimes you'll get ripped off and sometimes you won't. The Americans simply did not realize this and absolutely sucked at bartering finally settling for 90 pounds egyptian for the camel ride and entrance to the pyramids (not INTO the pyramids). The bf was a huge joke and was getting very upset because apparently the Egyptian man was not up to par with "how the world does business." Dude, it's Egypt. Get a life. The Egyptian man jokingly told the bf that his hair was too long and he needed a haircut so I told the Egyptian man that he was going bald and he needed a hair transplant. The Egyptian man laughed and said "I love Canada more than I love my life." The bf got very angry and started insulting the way the Egyptian was running business. It was a horrible experience to sit there and watch someone so stupid blatently insult another man's culture when he did not even remotely understand it himself.

Finally the Americans left and I refused to pay that much, finally getting it down to 60 pounds Egyptian ($11 CAD) for a camel, entrance to the pyramids, entrance INTO one of the pyramids, a guide and entrance into the sphinx.

Later on, I met up with the Americans again and they pretty much hated me and vowed to get their money back for their tour. You don't get your money back in Egypt. It's like they thought they were in the States! ARGHHHH.

Anyway, enough about them for now.
The minute we (myself and the little 12 yr old guide sitting on the front of my camel) entered the grounds to the Pyramids it was like being transported back thousands of years. I definately expected the place to be brimming with tourists but surprisingly there were only about 50 or so within the entire pyramid complex covering a couple kilometres.

Three gigantic monuments stuck out of the desert surroundings like they had been placed there, preformed, by God himself. Once we were fairly close to the pyramids I had to get off and walk myself since the camels were not allowed to walk any further.

But of course, as predictably Egyptian, a man came up beside me with 2 horses and asked if I would like a ride up to the pyramids. Of course I said no way, I can walk. He was insistent and I was also insistent I would walk.... until he said it was free. I said "Enta Magnoun" (You're crazy) and made sure he would not make me pay through some trap and he led me to the pyramids. Though I didn't have to pay, I think I payed with brain cell erosion as the 10 minute horse walk to the pyramids was a conversation based solely on "No, I will not marry you" "Why not" "I'm married" "Are you happy?" "I have 8 husbands, of course I'm happy." "Want 9?" "No" "Come to my home in the desert and I will make you a very happy woman" "Um NO"

I got to the Pyramids which were *gasps* surprisingly not as large as I had expected them to be! I think all the hype made me think they'd be equivalent to mountains, silly me. Going inside the 2nd largest Pyramid was actually the coolest part and a very narrow and claustrophopic descent (1 metre by 1 1/2 metre) into the burial chamber and then a steep climb in the same tunnel on the way out.

Time is running out on here!
Much love!
Krysten