marhaba

marhaba = greetings! salaam alaykum. and all that. my arabic isn't coming along all that well, despite the best efforts of our bedouin friends from wadi rum. to be fair, it's tough enough trying to understand what some of the brits are saying!

i've just finished an incredible 2 weeks in wadi rum and barrah canyon. ticked off a number of excellent routes such as (look them up!) rumeurs de la pluie, black magic, flight of fancy, lionheart, goldfinger, etc. the guy who wrote the guidebook (damn you tony howard) is not very clear, but we managed to have lots of successful climbs nonetheless. for those of you who understand climbing grades, i have been leading 6A+ (french grades) on trad, which is about 10B, which is a good deal harder that anything i've been doing before, so i'm happy. and on sandstone, which is a fickle rock sometime (e.g. holds explode on a regular basis).

the desert is an amazing place. the pink sand, blue skies, starry nights, full of wildflowers from the recent (rare) rainstorms, really spectacular. and full of crazy fruit and mushrooms and lizards and scorpions too, much more alive than you'd expect!

we left this morning though, we're in aqaba now, killing a day before we take the ferry to nuweiba, egypt. it's a fun group of people, from england, south africa, france, switzerland, australia, the us, and of course, 2 canadians (including me), 12 of us in total. i wish i could send some pics, but it will have to wait until better internet...e.g. back in montreal.