A visit to the Oracle of Amun in the Egyptian desert, with a lush oasis and prophetic donkeys.
Browsing Posts in Travel
The Oracle at Siwa
March 29, 2010
Damascus Encounters
March 17, 2010
Damascus’s Old City is very tourist friendly and it’s a pleasant place to wander. It’s mostly pedestrian-only and while the souks are fairly busy, the streets are mostly wide and it doesn’t feel too crowded. People say “welcome!” a lot. Mercifully, the many souvenir shop owners are only slightly pushy. There are two large contingents […]
The Chouf Mountains
March 13, 2010
I arranged a car and driver for a trip from Beirut up into the Chouf mountains. The road from the coast quickly entered low, but steep, mountains, heavily wooded and very green. Higher up, the hills became more mixed, sometime still green and wooded, sometimes rocky and barren. At the Chouf Cedar Reserve at Maaser […]
Baalbek: Roman Grandeur
March 10, 2010
I took a shared taxi over the border from Homs to Baalbek. There was some minor confusion at Syrian passport control: I hadn’t been issued an Entry Card when I entered Syria from Turkey and the Syrian immigration officer was duly aggrieved. But I mumbled some confused apologies, my taxi driver protested on my behalf […]
Antioch
March 4, 2010
Ah, Antioch, Queen of the East! The famed Western terminus of the Silk Road! The greatest city of Roman Syria! I’ve wanted to visit it for many years. Alas, the modern city of Antakya (aka Hatay) is a pleasant provincial Turkish city, but with only glimmers of its great past. I kept a wary eye […]
STS-129 Atlantis Launch
November 7, 2009
I had bought my “Launch Transportation Ticket” for the STS-129 Space Shuttle launch within seconds of them becoming available (at 8:59:40 EST on October 20th). This ticket gets you out to the NASA Causeway, which at six miles away is as close as the general public is allowed to a shuttle launch. I got up […]
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