Video of Robinson's Visit

Video of Middle East Trip from Alexander Hawkes on Vimeo.

Petra on Andrew's Birthday

January 15th is our Andrew's birthday. Today he turned seven years old. In the last year, he has really grown in stature and ability. He has grown out of almost all his clothes; he likes Scooby-D00, Star Wars, Leapster games, and reading. He even gets along better with his brother - although wrestling his brother is another past time. For Andrew's birthday (and Nana and Papa's last day in Jordan), we took a trip to Petra (a 2.5 hour drive from our home).

The trip involved a lot of walking. Perhaps because all the rocks and sand to play with along the way, and the magnificent views, the kids walked the entire day - Colin only had to be carried the last 100 yards.

The approach to Petra is through a long, narrow canyon (known in Arabic as a "Wadi"). The walls of the canyon have amazing colors and tower probably 100 feet high. The Nabateans built an elaborate water channel system (seen on the left-hand side) over 2,000 years ago to provide the surprisingly large city with water.
The best known structure, the Treasury, is amazingly well preserved. Although erosion and bullet holes have taken away many of the details, the outlines of the statues are visible. As you can see from the picture, I got a big, slimy lick from the camel.

Andrew asked for a camel ride for his birthday. So, what better place to find a camel than at Petra. Riding a camel is a unique experience - the rider is probably 10 feet off the ground and rocks back and forth.

Gaby had been saving up her money to buy a bottle with her name written in it with sand. We found a little stand in Petra where an artisan filled her request while the kids looked on attentively. The sand stone in and around Petra has the array of bright colors he used to make the artwork.

Cairo, Egypt - January 2010

Shelley and I took a three-day trip to Cairo, Egypt with Shelley's parents. I was initially reluctant to go, but Shelley lobbied hard and convinced me that now was the right time to go. Cairo is only a 1.5 hours airplane ride away from Amman and we had some friends who offered to tend our kids.

Cairo is probably the most amazing city I've ever visited. As we were approaching Cairo, we saw from the airplane the Giza Pyramdis that are on the outskirts of the city. I though we would soon arrive to the airport which is also within the city, but the plane kept flying for the longest time as we passed over thousands of brick, unfinished, multi-story buildings. The seemingly endless buildings and the maze of crowded roads were covered by a thick layer of smog. We later found out that the reason the buildings are almost all unfinished is that the owners are required to start paying property tax once the buildings are complete - so, as you'd suspect, most people live in unfinished buildings.

Once we arrived to Cairo, we hired a friendly Egyptian driver and a small seven-seater van. We probably would have hired a vehicle with more leg space if we knew we would be spending 3-4 hours a day stuck in Cairo's traffic. All of Cairo's 20 million residences seemed to be on roads all the time. As we headed out into the roads of Cairo, we all grasped the side of our seats. The streets of cairo are chaotic and packed with thousands of small, mostly Asian vehicles that weave in and out of old trucks billowing exhaust, piled up twice their height with produce or supplies.

With the van also came an English-speaking tour guide. Because of his thick accent, I could only understand about half of what he said. Phil, with his limited hearing, could hear much less. The parts I did understand, however, were very interesting. Egyptian's concept of time is much different from ours since their recorded history goes back over 5,000 years.

The first night in Cairo we took a dinner cruise on the Nile River. The cruise had several musicians and dancers to entertained us. I'll let you decide from the pictures below which of the entertainers Phil liked better.

As we walked along the top of the boat to take pictures of the city skyline, we came across our captain. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a picture of him at the helm and his assistants. I'm not sure which is his first mate - neither seemed up to the task.

The second day in Egypt we went outside the city to the ruins at Sakkara. Sakkara is about an hour drive outside of Cairo. Most of the ride was along irrigation channels that originated from the Nile River. The river basin valley was surprisingly green and was filled with agriculture. About half of the vehicles on the roads were pulled by animals. Donkeys, cows, horses, and water buffalo (all rare in the Middle East) were everywhere.

The ruins at Sakkara include one of the oldest pyramids dating to 2,700 B.C. They reminded me a lot of the Pyramid of the Sun and the Moon in Teotihuacan, Mexico. It had a similar design, road leading up to the pyramid, and tunnels inside.

We went inside one of the pyramids. Access to the burial chamber were through a steep, long, narrow passage that opened up into several rooms probably 30 meters below ground. Unfortunately, these tombs had been lotted long ago and nothing remained of the treasures that would have been left behind by the pharaohs for their next life. The walls did have amazing hieroglyphics and an empty sarcophagus.

We stopped at a carpet factory/school along the Nile River. There were several children tying knots to make very beautiful, elaborate carpets (seen below). Apparently Egypt does not have or enforce child labor laws. We learned a lot about the different types and qualities of carpets.

The carpets ranged from a couple hundred dollars for wool or cotton carpets to several thousand dollars for elaborate, silk carpets. All of them were well out of our price range.

We had lunch at a restaurant along the Nile River. Below you'll see the picture Shelley took with two local women who were making pita bread on a wood-fueled oven. Both of the women were surprised that Shelley could speak Arabic to them.

Memphis (not to be confused with the home of Elvis: Memphis, Tennessee) was our other stop of the day. This was the old capital of Egypt. Perhaps the most impressive statue I've ever seen was there. It was a huge, very detailed statue of Ramses II. Some people think Moses was adopted by this pharaoh.

We started out our last day in Egypt by visiting the National Archeological Museum in downtown Cairo. The museum is huge with thousands of artifacts. I could have spent several days seeing all the exhibits housed inside. The most impressive was the King Tut exhibit. This was one of the few burial chambers that had remained untouched by looters. The amount of well-preserved, gold-leafed furniture and artifacts was impressive. It seemed as they would have been made and placed in the tomb recently. Unfortunately, they do not allow cameras inside the museum.

Tish and Grant Robinson, Phil's parents, visited Egypt in the 1960s. We wanted to recreate the picture they took back then (see below), but unfortunately camels are not allowed in that area now. It seems, however, that the Egyptian guides have defied time and remain unchanged. We did not feel too guilty leaving our kids for a few nights knowing that Shelley's grandparents left their four kids for four months while they went around the world!

Overlooking the Sphinx and the great pyramid.

No trip to Egypt can be complete without a camel ride.

Our last two stops before we headed off to the airport were to a Ali's Mosque and a bazar (market). The citadel and mosque were built by Suleiman during the period of the Cruisades.

We arrived back in Amman at 5 p.m. It was an amazing trip, but we were glad to be back home. After being in Cairo, Amman seems so clean and organized. The kids had a good time being with friends while we were gone, but they were happy to be back home.