you big. you small.

petra was truly awe-inspiring. it was unlike anything we've seen this trip and believe me we have seen our fair share of old rocks. it's also the land of the small world connections. on our bus here we met a girl from chicago, barry, who just finished up a birthright trip in israel. we met another guy, david in our hostel who also just finished birthright (if you're jewish and under 26 you get a free trip to israel) who used to live in the northwest and was sporting a nehalem river tshirt. a couple other guys, josh and adam, have been living in dc and are moving to boston in the fall for law school. and in the smallest of small world moves we're catching a ride today to amman with a guy named steve who is great friends with the new head pastor at mountainview church in gresham, oregon (down the street from my high school and where a bunch of my friends still go). its been cool to meet other americans, as we've mostly seen australians, spanish and british gap year students.

jordan, however, is ridiculously expensive (1.50 JD to 1 USD) so we're getting through the country a little faster than originally thought. we did the two main hikes in petra (a couple hours each) to the high place of sacrifice from which you can see aaron's tomb and old roman cisterns, then up the 800 steps to the monastery (on that one i almost died. we're at really high altitude after being on the beach). the sunsets here are also incredible, this is the view from our hostel:

the walks in petra are great, but very long. it's cooler here because of the altitude, so that's been a treat. the beginning of the walk is in a deep wadi that leads to the main parts of petra. this was originally formed by the nabateans and later paed by the romans in early c.e.

after the long wadi the treasury peaks out from the gaps in the stone...

and there it is!!!

camel!

there are tons of kids running around selling postcards and jewelry. unlike egypt, however, there's not that much hassle. one little boy, about 6, came up to us and pointed at joey and announced: you big. and then turned to me: you small. then joey pointed out that he would grow, and then he looks at me and says: but you still small. thanks kid.

some of the old facades in the rocks past the treasury.

gorgeous iron and mineral deposits.

overlooking petra from the high place...

oh my gosh did we hike...

indiana jones and the last crusade was filmed here...so of course we decided to do a series of running from nazis....first i hid in an old aquaduct.

then joey ran down the wadi....(deep gorge cut by old ice/floods)

and if worse comes to worse, jump.

alright, off to amman, our last stop in jordan then on to israel in two days!