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The Second Wonder of the World
The New Seven Wonders contest was a worldwide vote for the Seven Wonders that are still standing. With the exception of the Brazilian dashboard Jesus beating out Angkor, the list looks pretty solid to me. Ironic I hit my last one the day it was named:
1) The Great Wall, China
2) Petra, Jordan
3) Christ Redeemer, Brazil
4) Machu Picchu, Peru
5) Chichén Itzá, Mexico
6) The Roman Colosseum, Italy
7) The Taj Mahal, India
Petra is a vast necropolis the Nabateans built to serve as both a burial/religious center and a trading capitol. The movie "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" plays about every night at every guesthouse in town. The town was still partying when I left with all night festivals and fireworks, and that is saying something for a small Bedouin town in the Middle East... Next, the desert calls once again...
Yusef of Arabia
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The Desert of the Real
Spent a few days in the Wadi Rum desert (of "Lawrence of Arabia" fame) with a beduin family and am still trying to get the red sand out of my shoes... At sunset it feels like Mars, absolute silence and everything glowing red. Like the serenity of Sinai, the Thar, and Rano Kau in Rapa Nui...but RED and so quiet I could hear myself think. Never had chicken cooked by the heat of the sun in a hole the ground. Sure was good, but in the desert any food taste like a religious experience... After a short detour to Amman to see some Roman ruins at Jerash, I am back in Jerusalem ready to head to Morocco in the morning. Check in later.
Yusef of Arabia
No man can live this life and emerge unchanged. He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert, the bind which marks the nomad; and he will have within him the yearning to return, weak or insistent according to his nature. For this cruel land can cast a spell no temperate climb can match.
T.E. Lawrence 1926
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