Today is our last day here. This has been an awesome trip. We got up early this morning and headed for Petra, a city carved in solid rock by the Nabataeans, an ancient Arab people. The city jhas become one of the new wonders of the world. It is simply incredible, especially when you consider that it was created out of solid rock and created in the first century.
Unfortunately, it is WAAAAY overcommercialized. Jordan is not a wealthy country, especially as Arab countries go (despite the fact that one of their kings donated the money to cover the Dome of the Rock in solid gold...). They don't have any oil money, the whole country's population is about 6 million people, and over 2 million of them live in Amman. The rest are spread out over the country and seem to make their living off the land. There are other people besides Arab people here -- there's a Bedouin population, and they were the ones offering the horse, donkey, and camel transports at Petra. They also have store after store after store of tacky tourist stuff.
The internet crashed on me at Larsa, so I wasn't able to post this. I know I wrote more, but now don't remember it, so I'm going to submit this post....
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