Images from our Trip

Euphrates River

Today we traveled on the Euphrates River. The boat wasn't that big, but we didn't care. The river is 1,725 miles long. Our tour guide sad that at Hit, the river is 750 feet wide. Below Hit, the width of the river narrows out to 500 feet.

Were Back

Wow this has been a great trip. We are really glad that we posted our experiences in the middle east because we probably will never get to go there ever again which is sad. In our next post is a slideshow I made with some of the pictures we took during our trip.

Have a great day and I hope you get the chance to visit to the Middle East some day.

Claire

Oil in The Middle East

Wow as we have traveled we are amazing at the amount of oil reserves that are are here. They produce over 50% of the world oil just in one section of the world. Oil helps the Middle East's economy a ton because they can't plant much because of their climate so having a needed natural resource is very good for their economy. The leading exporter of oil is Saudi Arabia with 10.72 million barrels of oil a day. When we saw that number we were amazed. Sadly our trip is almost over so we will post more pics that we took when we get home.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum
Keep checking our blog,
Claire

Syrian Desert

Wow Today we are exploring another desert, The Syrian Desert. The Syrian Desert isn't completely sand, so it is very rocky and arid here. Today we are getting a tour of the desert from a nomad that is nice enough to help us find our way through the desert with out getting hurt or dehydrated we hope. We also get to ride on some of the camels he herds. The Syrian Desert covers parts of many countries but we are in the part in Northern Saudi Arabia. During our "tour" we have passed many oil pipe lines and oases. We also learned that the full desert is 200,000 sq. miles which we thought was a random fact that we should add so you knew the size.

http://away.com/tripideas/syria-nature-301014.html

Have a great day,

Claire

Lack of Water

Today again we are just chilling in our hotel drinking some bottled water. We were just talking about how funny it is how the Middle East surrounded by many bodies of water but water is scarce there. Well we are really glad that we have plenty of water in the U.S. because if we didn't we would probably have many wars like they do here.Well we research it and the reason is that water is so scarce her is because of all the deserts and the water isn't fresh water. We though back on it and thought we were so stupid not know that. We also learned that they have about 12 million people but only get the amount of rain fall Phoenix, Arizona gets a year. They have to irrigate water to keep their plants alive and they usually get water from underground to drink if they don't live near the Tigris or Euphrates rivers. We hope the United State never have to do that completly but I bet some places like Arizona might have to.

Have a great Day and continue to check out our blog

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2000/07/0714_water.html

Claire

The Persian Gulf

Today we are going fishing in The Persian Gulf. We really wanted to see The Persian Gulf. We thought taking a ferry ride would be a fun and a not that challenging thing to do because our arms are still in pain from rowing the canoe down the Tigris River and climbing the Zagros Mountains. When we got their this morning we went to the dock and loaded the ferry. It was cool because we saw so many weird looking tubes and we found out that those are oil reserves. We learned a lot from a man sitting next to us on the ferry. He told us that The Persian Gulf was the worlds largest off shore oilfield. We also learned that there is both salt water and fresh water in The Persian Gulf which we thought was cool. When we got off the boat we went fishing. We put all of the fish back that we caught because we were not sure if we were allowed to fish there.
We are looking forward to getting back to our hotel because today wasn't as fun as the rest of the days we just really wanted to see The Persian Gulf.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf
Keep on reading our blog and feel free to comment.

Claire

Climate in The Middle East

Today we are just hanging out outside. We decided to just to enjoy the climate here. It is very hot and dry here. It isn't that bad if you wear shorts and a tank top but bring a jacket if you are hanging out out side in the evening because it does get cool at night. You think the wind would be nice in a hot climate, but it isn't because of the all the sand deserts and so their are many sand storms. Climate change is becoming a major problem in the Middle east because it is affecting what they can grow. They can't grow that many crops with their climate so that is not a good thing if climate change is going to affect what they grow. Their climate here is already causing as water shortage they don't need a food shortage also. The two of us hope that the climate change doesn't effect the Middle East to badly

http://www.scidev.net/en/agriculture-and-environment/water/news/un-climate-danger-for-middle-east-north-africa.html

Keep Reading our adventures

Claire

The Tigris River

Wow another adventure. This trip has been tons fun of so far. Well today we are sailing on the Tigris River and we learned from our brochure that It starts in in Turkey and then unites with the Euphrates River and that is called The Shatt al-Arab and then the Shatt al-Arab goes in to the Persian gulf. We learned that the Tigris River is 1,150 miles long. It is a lot of hard work to paddle a boat. We almost tipped over our canoe at least 3 times so far but luckily we haven't because we have our laptop on board and also our cell phones. It seems like every day we just have more and more fun on this trip. We are so lucky that we have only had one injury so far on this trip which wasn't that serious. It is sort of hard to travel long distances on The Tigris because of all the dams but we are going to go as far as we can until we get told to stop. Also later on we are going to try to fish so we can get some food because we are running out of food. Even though fish isn't that good we would rather have it then nothing. We got to go for now. I hope you continue reading our blog posts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigris

Claire

The Zagros Mountains

Hello again. Today we are hiking in the Zagros Mountains. The mountains are very hard to climb but with a tour guide we are surviving and finding our way to the top. The tour guides name is Aban which means waters and he is helping us climb by being in charge of our ropes. We are climbing up the easiest peak because we had no time for training. Also looking at Zard Kuh and Mt. Dena we don't get how someone could climb that. Even though part of the mountains are in Iraq the peak we are on is in Iran. Aban told us a little history about the mountains and he told us that they were formed by the Eurasian and Arabian plate tectonics colliding which we though was cool. Unfortunately earlier today I fell and twisted my ankle but luckily my ankle got better with a little bit of ibuprofen.We stopped at a flat area of the mountain to eat our packed lunch because their are no restaurants up in the mountains and once we finish this blog post we will get back to hiking. We are not sure if we will have to pitch a tent and sleep somewhere on the mountain or if we will be able to get back down by sundown. The two of us really hope that we are able to get back by sundown and Aban said that we can if we try so we are going to put all our effort in to it and hope that we make it. We got to continue to climb.

Keep checking our blog out to see all of our adventures in the Middle East.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagros

Claire

The Rub al-Khali Desert

Today we are traveling in the Rub al-Khali Desert. It is currently 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Even though it is very hot and dry here the sites are very beautiful. Walking through this desert by foot is a lot of hard work but it is worth every minute of it. We are glad that we didn't come during the summer, because if we did, it could have been up to 131-140 degrees Fahrenheit. Yesterday when we were exploring the desert also we were lucky that we brought extra water because we saw a dehydrated girl that passed out in the sand dunes. We stayed with her for a while and we walked with her to an oasis where she could recover and start again when she felt better. We are planning to explore till sun down and then we will set up our tent and get straight to bed so we could explore more tomorrow.Got to explore some more.

Keep reading and we will keep posting.

Claire

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Rub

Welcome to Our Blog

Hey this is Claire and Sara. We are currently traveling around the Middle East. We will give you updates of the places we went and cool things we saw.
Keep Checking our blog for updates.

Claire