dispatches from here

As many of you readers know, I spent the 10 weeks starting Feb 12 in the Middle East, through Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. The core of that time was spent in Syria, living in an Iraqi refugee camp and putting together a documentary film (more on that later).

To keep things interesting and to log my travels, each day I took a photo telling the story of that day somehow. Most of them were done with a tripod and wireless remote, with an occasional bystander snapping the photo. I tried to switch things up, and the fact that I didn’t spend much time in the same place helped out.

Check out the complete slideshow below, 10 weeks of daily photos while bopping around the Middle East.

Hit the play button to get started.

I spent two days exploring Petra, and it is definitely amazing. The key was getting up well before sunrise and hiking through the Siq all alone and being the first person to arrive at the Treasury façade to watch the sun rise onto it. I had the entire imposing monument in silence all to myself for a few hours until everyone else began to trickle in. Its an entire city carved into the red sandstone hills and you need at least a week to fully explore it (>45km of main trails to monuments). The most enduring feeling is just the sheer size of the carved facades. On the second day, I logged 19.5 km of hiking (thanks GPS!) and the shawerma at the end of the day definitely hit the spot.

I hate taking pictures of major monuments…everyone has seen them (in person or in photos) and because they are so huge, there are only so many unique ways of portraying them. Although I did take all of the basic site photos, I wont bother posting them (you’re all big enough to do a flickr search). But I will post a few photos…

For scale, thats me at the front entrance. The only way to get a solo shot is to be there at 6 am...

Hanging out at the giant amphitheater

One condition of this trip was that I promised my mom I would ride a donkey…so here’s the proof. I named my donkey Khosro (Khosro the khmara) and he helped me make it to one of the peaks overlooking Wadi Arabi. Side note: its way more difficult to ride a donkey and take pictures at the same time than I could have imagined.

Don't let his intensely fierce expression fool you, he's actually pretty nice.

Except when he tries to eat my camera.

Outpost overlooking Wadi Araba

Five or six of me to give the picture scale. Just a little twist on the standard "Look at me in front of some major monument" photo.

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