Matt and I at the world-famous Treasury This post was written about April 10, 2014. I had wanted to visit Petra ever since I was a small child. I'd seen a documentary on it when I was about 7 or 8, and then, of course, I'd seen the Indiana Jones movie that was set there. Several friends of mine had visited and I'd seen their photos - this was at the very top of my must-see travel lists. Matt and I had planned to have two full days in Petra and we'd also planned our week's iti

Atop a natural bridge in beautiful Wadi Rum (Visit was April 8 and 9, 2014) Wadi Rum has epic scale to it. It's the kind of desert landscape that inspires awe at every turn. However, what makes Wadi Rum so special is the unique culture and sociology of the local Bedouin people, who've made Wadi Rum their home for thousands of years. The people make this a very magical and memorable place on earth. Wadi Rum in vibrant orange In preparation for our visit, Matt and I watched La

The beach in Aqaba The saddest part about missing our flight to Amman was that with only six days left to explore Jordan, we were going to miss out on our one opportunity to dive the Red Sea in Aqaba. Since driving out of Aqaba to Wadi Rum involves gaining several thousand feet of altitude, divers must stay in Aqaba at least 12 hours before driving out to avoid getting "The Bends". As it stood, our flight was early in the morning, but we had a 3-4 hour drive to get to Aqaba

The most delicious $45 breakfast I've ever had Monday, April 7th. This was going to be a relevantly uneventful day. All we had to do was bus back to Dubai, take the subway to the airport, board our flight to Amman, pick up our rental car, and drive 3-4 hours to the red sea port of Aqaba where we would be going on a dive the next morning. As it turned out the day had something completely different in store for us. It all started to go "tits up" (an expression that's very Eng