Petra

There are some distinct advantages to working with a group of archeologists whose survey site lies within the boundaries of Petra. First, we can get into the park for free - and it's usually around $50 US dollars. The second is, that when they want to hike back to our site, we get to drive them through the park. Yup, drive!

Petra is the ancient Nabataean city from the early spice trade. Made famous by such movies as the third Indian Jones (where the Holy Grail was) or Transformers 2 (where they blew it up), it's magnificent buildings carved out of the sandstone walls. Lost to the Western world for hundreds of years, it is now one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, and a tourist hot spot for the country of Jordan. It's actually why most people visit.

The amazing thing about the site which you never see in the photos is all of the different colors of sandstone that appear with each new area. The Treasury is brown, but some of the Royal Tombs are red, yellow, blue and black, all swirling into different patterns - looping around doorways and windows. Inside, the shadows and light dance around the stone, giving one the sense of what it has always looked like.

It takes days to see any portion of the park, but most come on tour buses from Amman for only the hottest part of the day. Lisa the photographer and I napped under a tree. I took out my mini-keychain thermometer and noted it was 95 degrees on my right leg in the shade, 105 on my left leg in partial shade, and 115 on the rock next to my head. We are acclimated though, and we noted how cool the day was.


Driving has its own amazing perks. There isn't the 40 minute walk down to the Roman Collinade and "downtown", and you get to see the areas hidden in back where the Bedouin still live in tents next to ancient tombs. Children ride donkeys. Camels run along the dirt path, blocking our progress. We try to herd them out of the way, but it takes miles. The cliffs, with hidden caves and old tombs loom on either side, and eventually we make it to a ridge line were we can see the whole valley, down to Wadi Araba and our home in Risha. We leave the hikers there, laden with water and plan to see them back home eight or nine hours later.

They had adventures of their own, with cliffs crumbling under them, falling and coming up bruised but intact. Two got lost for a time, but they all arrived home in good spirits with amazing blisters. The Bedouins were amazed. They are usually the only people who wander these lands, though they do it in flip flops and without water.

So Isaiah and I drive back, past Roman columns and tourists who look at us in wonder. "You mean you can drive?" looks on their red, tired faces. No, you can't, unless you're special. Like us.

A Visit to Bir Madhku

I'm alone in our compound all day, and I'm to lock myself inside so to keep out the stray Bedouin looking for work. The hallways echo in their emptiness as I make soup, lot's and lots of soup in vats I can barely pick up. I de-boned ten chickens in one day. How I wish for options.

But it's not all cooking. I went out to the site and actually got to see what an archeologist does. Out the door before 5am, we arrived as the sun was coming up behind the Roman fort. It's still decently cool, but that is relative.

Big Bill was kind enough to give me a tour and pointed to this rubble heap and defined fort towers, the back door, the baths and domestic area. A more recent Bedouin cemetery falls just off the front gate. An ancient well in the back where water can still be found.

Then they get to work, with their paint brushes, trowels and pick axes. They sweep off walls, remove rocks that have tumbled in from old walls, and pile their dirt into guffas - buckets made from recycled tires- then into wheel barrows. From there, the dirt is sifted and pottery shards removed, labeled and bagged. They fill out endless paperwork, measure their elevations down to millimeters and take photos with all of the footprints wiped away. I'm pretty good at sweeping away footprints since I continuously walked places I wasn't supposed to go. Ah, my ignorance.

Little Bill lifts a rock and discovers what appears to be a whole pot, intact. It takes him the next three days to unearth it. Others find old coins, looking more like lumps of corroded copper. We take breaks in what little shade can be found, and its not even 10 am, but they work until one. I've gone through three liters of water already. Must be time to escape back to the coolness of my inefficient A/C. A 100 degree galley is suddenly cool.

My visit has motivated me to cook even better. I see the heat they work through, the earliness of their wake-ups and the endless pursuit that they have embarked on. It's excitement at a snails pace. Suddenly, banana bread seems like caviar. Fresh bread instead of stale pita a religious experience. And the excitement on their faces when they walk into the compound and see cold drinks, massive salads, burritos, or anything, anything but more pita. Hmmmm, what to make next?

The first week in Jordan

I'm cooking for a group of archeologists in the deserts of Jordan, about 10 km (as the crow flies) from Petra, though to drive it it takes an hour over a somewhat sketchy road or several hours to walk as the team last year discovered.

The site is an old Roman fort with a domestic area and several caravan stations a ways off. On their first day of digging one of the volunteers unearthed a grinding stone, almost in tact. The crew all came back elated, and they cleaned it off and set it in the hallway, ceremoniously next to the truck's old tires. I watch as they clean their pottery shards in the afternoon, handling two-thousand year old relics I have only seen behind glass cases with little care. The pottery expert told me to handle whatever I want. You can even break a piece, they're already broken.

I'm cooking for 26, who eat like 35, in huge vats. I shop at the fruit and vegetable market in Aqaba, an hour away, which one could argue is easier than provisioning for Hawaii or Panama, if only there was more variety. The "Safeway" in Aqaba is a depressing box with only frozen whole chicken or small tubes of frozen ground beef or ground lamb. There are no other options unless you want to buy a goat at the market. I really don't. The only bread you can find is pita. There is jars of tomato puree (but no pasta sauce) and lots of spices, but everything needs to be prepared. No quick meals, here. But the fruit here is so juicy, and the tomatoes and cucumbers are cheap, so I will find a way to make it all excellent. So far so good, anyway, as meal times are quickly a favorite of the day. The kitchen is a decent size with a view of the Bedouin village of Reshia and across the valley to Israel. The only down side is the AC is lacking power so it's hot. Very, very hot.

In addition to shopping in Aqaba, the last two weekends have been sent here. It's the coastal city on the Red Sea and from my hotel window I can look out on both Israel and Egypt. I could probably swim to both if it was allowed. A few minutes drive south and you are at the border of Saudi Arabia. They really tried to share the port access with everyone, and it seems to work.

Aqaba is the exception to Jordan. alcohol is allowed and bars, discos, karaoke and liquor stores line the streets. Pop music blares late into the night and car honk their horns in procession, perhaps for a wedding. There is the Mosque in town and the five time daily call to prayer, but here it does not dominate like in the capital or our small town.

But, I did have to take one of the volunteers to the hospital on our first day. Ah, it's Aqaba, I can wear a T-shirt, I thought, and I thought wrong. The whole place was packed with hundreds of waiting locals, all completely covered. All of the women wore burkas, many with the face coverings. I never felt so naked. But in typical Jordanian hospitality, we were helped though all of the paperwork and whisked past the endless lines and out of there, prescription in hand, in less than two hours. The convict, escorted though in handcuffs didn't have to wait either, so I suppose it's all fair.