Greetings from Petra, Jordan.

So, scuba diving the Red Sea was sweet but the 12 hour ferry across the Gulf of Aqaba was not so much fun (the guide book said it was 3 hours) I got into Petra at 2 am last night (this morning-whatever). found a hotel and spent the day today trekking around the ruins at Petra. It is out of this world!! I bought a two day ticket and will see more of it tomorrow, the place is huge! You all have seen the 'treasury' structure in the Indiana Jones movie. That is just the tip of the iceberg. I took over 100 photos today, you will all be very bored looking at them. I suggest you come and see it for yourself!

As I was leaving the gates of the ruins and heading into town for a cold beer, I was stopped in my tracks when I heard a bomb blast no more than a hundred meters away. This was followed by much crackling of gunfire. Police ran past me and storeowners emerged from their business'. I did not know what to do so I just stood there (nice reaction!) Within moments things seemed to calm, which I thought was strange. I asked what was going on (you know, besides the obvious) but none of the men answered, most people here do not speak much english, if any. So I changed my direction and went the other way to get my beer.

I went back to the area about 45 minutes later, as that is where I had to meet my driver to get back up to the hotel. There was a police station in the area and I waited with a few of Jordans finest, all sporting automatic weapons and flak jackets. I asked what the blast was earlier. They told me it was for training purposes. Apparently they run 'mock' bomb attacks so they are ready for when it really does happen. So you know you are in the Middle East when it is hotter than the sun outside and bombs are set off by the police at happy hour!

It sounds scary but cities here are actually safer than most in America. (outside of Bagdad of course). What you see on TV is a very small group of crazies, most muslims are very peaceful and have been very welcoming to me as an American. So don't worry Mom, I will stay away from the real bombs and bullets and I'm looking forward to seeing all of you in a few weeks.

On the lighter side, the food is great! salaam, jeff.

Ahlan w-sahlan, from Egypt! Thanks for being patient with the (lack of) updates. I have been busy! Since the last I checked in I have climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro (with some very cool new friends-Boggle experts posing as doctors!), went on safari in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, traveled with an Aussie friend through Rwanda, Congo and Uganda (if anyone knows a good pumkin pie recipe, send it to me!) spent time with mountain gorillas, walked on a lava flow in Goma(during the first election in 40 years there! and a civil war!) and white water rafted the Nile River at it's source near Lake Victoria. I have to say that East Africa is an amazing place!!

I have been exploring the ancient city of Cairo for the past few days. With twenty million people (all speaking Arabic) it has been an exciting experience to say the least! I rode a camel around the pyramids at Giza until the sun dropped from the sky, spent many hours in the Egyptian Antiquities Museum checking out King Tut's treasures among many other artifacts from thousands of years ago. Still much to do here including scuba diving the Red Sea and climbing Mount Sinai.

Those that have been lucky enough to sample my homemade chocolate chip cookies know how delicious they are :) So I'm sure it's no suprise that they are now world famous! I am considering setting up cookie franchises in some far off places like Australia. So here is the recipe for Toll House cookies (they don't have this in the land down under!)

2 and 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
-set these aside in a bowl-
1 cup butter or shortening (soft)
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
mix away and drop onto cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes
this should make about 40-50 cookies depending on how much dough you eat before baking.

So yeah, stay tuned and enjoy some cookies while you're waiting. In Africa you wait first and then when that waiting is over, you wait some more. Hakuna Matata, Jeff.

I spent my 38th birthday on Zanzibar Island off the coast of Tanzania, life is good! It's a neat island. The mix of Africa and Arabia makes for an exotic atmosphere. In being one of the 'Spice Islands' and the one time slave trade capital, Zanzibar has an interesting history. I spent some time walking through the winding alleyways of StoneTown, swam the beaches of Nungwe and did two scuba dives in the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. My first dive was to a wreck. It was not a historic ship but I enjoyed swimming into the hull and having staring contests with the fish. The coral reefs on the second dive were spectacular! The highlight though was hangin' out with a sea turtle for a time, they are beautiful, peaceful and graceful. Very fun!

I am in Moshi, Tanzania right now. Tomorrow I begin a six day climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak. If I make it to the summit, it will be the highest mountain I have ever climbed at 5,895 meters (19,340 ft.) So wish me luck! I will try to write again soon!
Peace, Jeff. p.s. Happy Birthday to Phil who just turned 16!!

Jambo from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I have about 2 minutes before I have to catch a boat to Zanzibar Island. Malawi was amazing!! The lake and it's remote beaches are sweeeeet. I will spend a few days on Zanzibar doing some scuba diving and chillin' on the white sands. :) Peace. Jeff.

I have not been eaten by lions! this update is very long overdue, I know! There are too many stories to tell, too many beautiful places to describe so I won't even try! Africa is an amazing place. I am now in the North of Malawi heading to the lake to chill out for a week or two. (traveling is sooo hard). In short, I have been to South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique(one of my favorites!), Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and now here in Malawi. I will be heading north into Tanzania in a couple of weeks to check out Zanzibar Island and Mt. Kilimonjaro before heading west to Rawanda/Uganda to visit with the mountain gorillas. North from there to Ethiopia and Egypt, possibly a little bit of the Middle East. Who knows. Travels have been challenging at points but very rewarding! Photos will not come for a while but I am planning on sending a CD full of them home to Phil so he can upload them. Hope you are all doing something fun! Cheers, Jeff.

I stepped off the plane in Cape Town, shuffled my way through immigrations and picked up my pack. As I walked out into the balmy air a smile pushed it's way across my face. I was standing on African soil. The scene was ordinary, an airport, it could have been anywhere. But the fact that I was on a far away continent that I had only dreamed about was very exciting.

I looked around to find Clive, a surfer that Phil and I met while we were in Costa Rica. Clive not only picked me up at the airport but his family opened up their home and made me feel welcome. His dad, John, took me on an insiders tour of the Cape. We visited Kayalitsha, one of the townships making news during the early 90's when the aparthied government was being replaced with democracy. Another trip was to the Cape Point where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meld together. Here we saw some wildlife including baboons, Bontebok, a Puf-Adder and a Cape Cobra-two of the deadliest snakes in the world. Other trips to Boulders Beach to see some penguins and Seal Island, where Great White sharks feed, were a good introduction to South Africa. My home for two weeks was in Sun Valley, a stones throw from Fish Hoek on the False Bay side of the cape peninsula and Nordhoek on the Atlantic side. The coast and the beaches are amazing, so much so that they are featured in many movies and music videos. The coast surrounding Cape Town is the stomping grounds for the rich and famous. In spending some time in this beautiful place, it is very clear why.

I was suprised to learn how modern the cape area is. At first glance it seems very much like America. However, there is a dark side. Tremendous poverty still exists in South Africa and with one in every four people infected with AIDS the country remains a third-world nation. The township wars of the early 90's were not long ago and they were terribly violent. Change of this magnitude does not happen overnight. Crime is not uncommon and it can be violent. Despite the diverse cultural mix of races and religions co-existing in South Africa, or perhaps because of it, there is a feeling of intensity in the energy here.

The Cape area is very interesting and I am enjoying my time here. However, I am looking forward to getting out and about in Africa. Seeing different cultures and landscapes as well as some wild animals! Stay tunned! Jeff.

So it has been forever since I posted a blog. I could make all kinds of excuses for being lazy but I won't. I will try to catch you up as quickly as I can.

I left off somewhere in Patagonia. I had many magical experiences there but will not go into detail descibing them all. I will say that hiking and camping in Patagonia was the highlight of my South American experience. All said and done I spent six months in South America and almost two months was in the Southern region of Patagonia. That time can be broken into four parts: El Calafate, Argentina and the Perito Moreno Glacier; Puerto Natales, Chile and the Torres del Paine National Park; El Chalten, Argentina and the Fitzroy Range; and finally Ushuaia, the sothernmost city in the world located on Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.

The area is pristine and breathtakingly beautiful. It is no wonder that Charles Darwin formalized his ideas about evolution after exploring this area. The earth down here is still in the process of being created. Fossils from the sea are found all over mountainsides, glaciers are still carving out the mountains and it's so clean that you can drink the water right from the rivers and lakes. It is a backpackers paradise!

I camped in my tent for about six weeks straight with only an occasional night in a hostel. The scenery was spectacular and camping is cheap! My favorite leg of the journey was an eight day backpacking trip into Torres del Paine park in Chile. The trek was about 130 kilometers long and involved every kind of terrain and weather you can imagine. Rain, wind, snow, heat, cold, blue sky and sunshine were the elements as I lugged my backpack through some of the most majestic mountain scenery in the world.

Other highlights were the Perito Moreno Glacier, advancing at six feet per day it is the fastest glacier in the world. Also Mount Torre and Fitzroy where world class climbers like Yvon Chounard (founder of the Patagonia company) test their skills with some of the most challenging mountaineering routes in the world. And Ushuaia, a crusty old sea town at the sothern tip of South America only 600 miles from Antarctica. All of these places created an incredible travel experience that I will not soon forget.

There is much more to see and do in South America but after six months and some great memories I was anxious to move on to Africa. I flew up to Buenos Aires, spent a few days and caught a plane to Cape Town, South Africa.

Stay tuned for some interesting adventures on the African continent! Jeff.

I had heard that there was an active volcano in Chile that you could climb up, look down into the cone and see lava. There was not much info in the Lonely Planet guide, just a mention of an active volcano. The whole idea seemed pretty wild to me. So I started asking around. It was sort of like a ghost, people had heard of it but no one had too much information on it. I finally found some people who had climbed it. It was real. Volcan Villarica was the name of it. Pucon, Chile is where it was located. I was a bit south but only a few hours, nothing a bus ride couldn't take care of. I wasn't able to buy a ticket from Bariloche to Pucon, Chile. I had to get closer to the boarder to get a bus in. I took a bus to the small town of Junin de los Andes, a stones throw from the Chilean border. I arrived mid-day and hoped to get another bus in the afternoon into Chile. No such luck. It would be two days before another bus was going to Chile. No worries, it is summertime and there is a crystal clear river running through Junin. I have been beating myself up for being a sloth and spending a lot of money on steak and wine in Mendoza so I beelined right for the campground which happened to sit on the river. So for two nights I paid $6 dollars, U.S., to sleep on the ground. It's been a week since then and I have not slept in a bed since! I bought a used, one man tent from a guiding agency in Mendoza a couple of weeks ago. The bivy sac that I brought is a good emergency shelter but when the rain hits my pack is still out in the wet and when the bugs are out I have to be shut in my Gore-Tex cacoon which is hot and not very enjoyable. So I have a new found freedom to camp in relative comfort. It saves on cash and provides a private shelter that hostels do not offer. o I killed two days loafing around this little Argentine town, swimming, sitting in the park and eating ice cream (Argentines LOVE their 'healados' or ice cream, parlors everywhere!)

Mendoza, Argentina is a very 'tranquillo' city in the heart of wine country. Sidewalk cafe's fill the shady, tree lined streets. The city of almost one million people boasts many beautiful plazas, parks and good restuarants serving 'famous' Argentinian steak and delicious wines from the area wineries. I spent almost two weeks here, it's easy to get used to the summertime pace of sitting by the pool, drinking cocktails, walking to the park and eating two hour meals. I almost got stuck there! With the exception of my journey to Cerro Aconcagua, I didn't do much but relax here. After over four months of travel in developing countries, the very western style wine region of Argentina was a nice place to unwind and be spoiled. Mendoza produces about 70% of the country's wine. Over the last few years it has become popular around the world, with good reason. I embarked on a 'wine tour' before I headed south to Patagonia. I visited two of the area wineries and a liquor distillery before sitting down to an amazing spread of food at the conclusion of the tour. The first winery was Viña Amalia. A small, quaint place where I was able to see the process of how wine is made. Very interesting to walk through and see the barrels of wine fermenting and picking up their flavor. The 'flavor' of the wine is determined by the type of wood the barrels are made of. Sampling the wine was, of course the highlight of the tour! The wines produced here are very delicious, one of the local favorites is called 'Malbec'. If you are in the wine shop look for the Argentina section and find a Malbec from Viña Amalia Mendoza! You won't be disappointed! We moved on to the much larger Weinert Vinyards a bit further down the road. This property was really impressive! As we descended 25 feet underground into the high ceilinged, brick cellar I couldn't help but think of Edgar Allen Poe and his story The Cask of Amontiado. It was dark and spooky! Exactly what I had picured a wine cellar to be. Here they have a wooden keg that holds 44,000 liters of wine!! It's huge! Once it is empty, they clean the inside and shave a layer of wood from the inside walls so no flavor is mixed into the next batch of wine. I did enjoy the wine here but it was a bit more bold than the samples earlier in the day. Keep in mind that I am no expert on wine! The last stop was the Tapaus Distillery where they produce fine liquors and brandies. This structure was very cool. Made of stone taken from local riverbeds and recycled wood from old buildings fallen during earthquakes, the property is made almost entirely of recycled materials. In one very dark room they had stored hundreds of jugs of liquor! One lucky individual has the job of taste testing every one of the jugs produced! Quality control has happy new meaning! At the end of the tour we were lucky enough to do some sampling of our own. I tried each of the six different liquors that Tapaus produces. My favorite was a honey liquor that went down smooth and was very tasty. All the wine and six shots of liquor before lunch gave everyone in the group a good buzz. So the 'all you can eat and drink' feast at the end of the tour was welcomed by all! I met some more great people on this tour which made the day of learning and drinking very fun! All said, I would highly recomend visiting the Mendoza area to anyone who is planning on visiting Argentina! If you can't make it to Argentina, which would be a shame because it's a beautiful place, just visit your local wine shop and pick up a bottle of Mendoza's finest vino! Chow, Jeff.