On Checking In

A few months before she died, my friend Lisa walked in the door at a friends house and I’m sure I did not do a good job of hiding my shock at how thin she had become.  She had always been skinny, but this was something else — the kind of skeletal nothingness you see …

Allons-y!

Final Thoughts

..and so, that was the adventure of the Third Wheel Camel Family in the Middle East. My travel philosophy can be generally summed up in a quote by the late Christa McAuliffe: “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat. Just get on.” I’m generally not one to be moved …

Going for the Holy Grail

Morning came harsh and early, but we had to persevere for just one more day of tourism before heading home.  We had something particularly awesome to look forward to in Petra, so that made the sleepiness bearable.  The nice folks at our hotel had made us some boxed breakfasts since we were too early for …

Now We Are Camel Family

We awoke to a beautiful desert morning and had some hummus and bread and tea before heading out for a day of adventure, guided by Fa’ez, to various sites of note in Wadi Rum. The sun was out when we left the campsite and I didn’t bother to bring a jacket or anything because… well, …

Whomping the Wadi

The next morning we awoke to say goodbye to the sea and head a bit east into the desert, specifically Wadi Rum.  B and Zach set off on an adventure to get our rental car, a shitty, shitty Citreon.  We also stocked up on schwarma from a place that was a knockoff of a famous …

Sleeping with the fishes

We awoke to our second day in Aqaba with big plans to go snorkeling.  Kate left earlier than us to make another attempt at scuba.. she had been having some ear problems that screwed up her dive the day before, but thankfully the second attempt was a success!  While she was off in the briny …

By tha beach, boi.

After chatting with our fellow racers for a bit, chugging water, recovering from a near certain death (on B and Kate’s part, thanks to the crazy wind), and packing up our stuff, Hassan drove us from the finish line in to the city and our hotel so that we could check in and get cleaned …

Dead2Red

When we left off it was 3 in the morning and we were standing outside our hotel waiting for our van, driver, and bikes to arrive.  I was tired and anxious and not entirely sure how I would manage to get through the experience on just an hour and a half of sleep and some …

Float on

We woke the next morning and I was feeling mostly back to normal, praise Allah.  We packed our things and Zach got in touch with a nice cab driver named Waleed who he had met the day before and who offered us a good price to take us to our hotel on the Dead Sea, …