Jordan Trip: Part 2, Aqaba

Day 3: Tuesday, October 21 

We drove down to Aqaba. The mountains are so beautiful!

I love all of the camel crossing signs. 

When we got to Aqaba we drove a little ways down the coast, got lunch, and checked into our hotel. We went down the coast to one of the public beaches. It's not the greatest playing on beach like Monterey. Lots of rocks and sea urchins. But the snorkeling was amazing! We bought a disposable underwater camera, but have to find a place that will develop it. So here are some pictures I found online of some of the things that we saw. 

So many fish! Most of them were no bigger than about 5 inches but some were quite large. 

Josh, Joshua, Joseph, and I were all able to see a lion fish. 

Joshua's favorite was the clown fish in their anenamy.  

A lot of puffer fish of different colors and sizes.  

 There was even a sunken ship. It was pretty creepy. Very dark and deep. This picture might not be the actual ship we saw (there are several and also a tank that we didn't see). Josh and Katie swam all the way from the front of the ship to the back and said it was huge! 

 The kids had fun playing in the sand. Josh and I took turn going snorkeling. He usually took Katie and I took The smaller kids. We had some tubes, and a small blow up boat. We tide Them together and I swam them around the reef.. It one point I had Joseph, Joshua, Michael, and Hannah out with me. Hannah and Michael weren't fitting any goggle, so they just looked over the edge of the boat. Katie, Joseph and Joshua loved snorkeling!  

Hyrum was pretty content to sit at the edge of the water throwing rocks in.  

 Joshua was very proud of his sand castle. 

Thankfully it wasn't deep and Hannah was able to swim around in her tube exploring.  

  

 On our way back to the car, the kids saw a park and begged to play. The parks here are pretty scary. Broken slides, stairs, and old fashion metal sea saws.  I knew better than to let the kids play on the sea saw, but they were having so much fun. Until Michael bite his tongue. It went all the way through. Very bloody with lots of crying. A nice Jordanian family came and helped us. Poor kid. I told him about my brother Michael who also bite his tongue really bad when he was little. Michael asked if we could call him, I'm sure my brother wouldn't appreciate a call that early in the morning!  After telling the kids that I knew better than to let them play on the see saw Micheal said, "That's okay Mom, I forgive you." ! I love this kid!

Our hotel room in Aqaba. It had a living room and 2 bedrooms.  The kids watch some Arabic cartoon. Good thing Tom and Jerry have very little talking!  While walking on the side walk one evening we had to walk around a man on a camel. On our drive to the beach (on a big main road, we had to drive around a random lone horse in the road. 

The kids went swimming twice at this hotel. Again the pool was on the roof. My kids love the water!

Day 4: Wednesday, October 22  

 Our second day was so fun! We love Aqaba. The kids had fun running around playing.

 Josh and Katie snorkeling. 

 Josh caught a scorpion fish, right by the beach.  

After looking it up online later we found out they have poisons spines. Good thing no one got poked.  We made a new rule of no touching!  

 Hyrum cried anytime someone tried to take the bucket with the fish away. He was pretty distrot when we let it go. 

Day 5: Thursday, October 23

The beach was crowded and had people trying to see rides on camels and horses. It wasn't quite a good as the other 2 days. 
 I got a kick out of all the women in their berkas and yellow tubes.  

Jordan Trip: Part 1, Petra

Day One- Sunday, October 19th

We drove the long way down to Petra (by the Dead Sea). It was a beautiful drive through the mountains. 

 We stopped and had lunch in the hills by the Dead Sea. It was quite steep.

 Hannah banana dumping rocks out of her shoes. On the other side of the road is the Sea. 

 Hyrum

Hyrum following the other kids under the road to go see the sea. 

Kids playing. 

 Our drive up from the Dead Sea was very steep. We stopped to take a picture of this beautiful view and all these dogs came out and started barking at the car. The kids loved it! They really wanted to go back after we drove on. 

 After the steep climb it leveled out for a while and we had to slow down and wait for these camels (Jamel) to cross the road. 

 I had only ever seen light brown camels and thought they were all that color. Now I've seen all shades from white to black!

The kids were very excited that our hotel room in Petra had 4 beds. We were grateful that they let us all stay in one room (much cheaper that way). 

Yea for balconies! 

It only cost us 2 JD to get our whole family into Petra! The kids got a short horse ride to the beginning of the canyon. 

This is in the narrow canyon that lead to the Treasury. 

The walls were so tall!

Some girls stopped us. They were cute... at first. They liked Hannah, gave her a "gift" and then wanted money for it. Josh bought one small thing from one girl and then the other girls complained that they didn't get any money!  

The kids here are really good at milking money from people (especially us, we're suckers)!

Just some cool pictures of the canyon. The canyon was our favorite part!

Along the whole canyon they had waterways carved into the walls. The kids loved walking and crawling through the waterways.  (A little fun info: One of the desert's most precious commodities is water. In an area that averages six inches of rainfall per year the Nabataeans were able to harness the rainfall and the desert springs to the extent that Petra had a daily supply of fresh water that historians estimate was big enough for 100,000 people (even though the city population was only 20,000 people). They accomplished this engineering marvel through an intricate system of cisterns, pools and waterways that captured and then transported water to the city. Archaeologists estimate that the system carried about 12 million gallons of fresh springwater a day.)

Joseph is standing by what is left of a statue of a man and a camel. 

This canyon is about a mile long, 10-15 feet across, and is called the Siq (the "shaft").

Joshua was so excited, he found ancient urinals!

Katie with the towering mountains behind her. 

The end of the Siq. You can see the Treasury at the end of the Siq.

Our first day there was pretty windy and dusty. 

The Treasury! We went just a little past the Treasury the first day. 

Hyrum was hiding from the wind and dust behind Josh.

More ruins. 

Animals are frequently kept in the rooms, so they are very stinky. 

Hey look a donkey! 

Getting a break from the blowing sand. 

Day 2: Monday, October 20th

They had "guards" at the entrance to the Siq the second day. 

Kids walking on the old stone street.

Hannah is walking in the waterway. Way above her was another flat carved out area. 

Back by the Treasury. They were trying to talk us into riding their camels. It was so expensive! 

They followed us for about 1/2 a mile trying to get us to ride. They wouldn't go down in price and we rarly saw anyone willing to pay for a ride. They don't have very good business sense!

Hannah! Josh is in the back ground trying to ditch a guy with donkeys. 

These were cool ruins. Some of the few you could actually go in. 

Katie

Joshua

Josh trying to help Katie climb up to the room above. 

She wasn't quite tall enough. 

Little buddies!

Joseph posing!

Hey look a rock!

The Roman Theater here was carved right out of the stone. It had rained the night before so they weren't letting anyone in there. 

One of the shop tents had a cat. Hyrum LOVES cats! Run cat, run!

We had a picnic lunch here. The colors in the rock were amazing!

Hyrum finishing his lunch. 

A guy went way down on his price so we got a donkey ride to the temple. 

Hyrum squealed in delight to be on the mule with me! 

The kids loved it and were very ready to give their legs a break. 

The roman temple.

One of the kids found this hidden away narrow staircase.  It lead to...

The ledge above the window. I let the kids take a quick peek with their backs against the back wall and made them go back down. It was so high!

Taking a break to eat some oreos and apples.  We had lots of people stop to chat. We stick out here like a sore thumb. White, blond hair, and 6 kids.We draw a lot of attention. 

Micheal feeding Hyrum a cookie.

Joshua with cookies and ROCKS! 

My beautiful Katie girl!

Apple or oreos?

The sky was so beautiful with fast moving clouds. Loved it!!

Hannah loved the mud! 

A man pasted on a camel and asked if we were Mormon. They were from an LDS group on a tour of Jordan. He kindly took some family pictures for us at the Treasury. Notice all the rocks. I had told the kids that they could put thier rocks in the baby backpack. I didn't relize how many rocks I hauled out of their until I took Hyrum out at the car. It was so heavy! No wonder my sholder were getting sore! My kids and their rock obsession. It genetic, Grandma buttons, my Dad, and me!

The kids ended up walking almost 7 miles! Josh and I were very impressed.  

When we got back to the hotel the kids had their hearts set on swimming. It didn't matter to them that it was pretty cool and breezy on the roof top pool. All the kids got in. 

Even Hyrum had to jump in!

They only last about ten minutes before they were all freezing. 

The view from the hotel roof. 

We went to a shop and the owner put this on Katie. 

We loved these vases. They are made out of glass and the sand from Petra. The different minerals make the different colors. 

We went all American for dinner with pepperoni pizza!

This is the view of Petra from a mountain road. On the right side is the entrance and then the dirt road leads to the entrance to the Siq. The high mountains in the back are back by the roman temple.   

We came up here to watch the sunset but it was so cold!

We loved Petra!