I know it’s a cliché for visitors to the Middle East, but the call to prayer has totally seduced me during my two weeks in Jerusalem. At different spots across the city, I’ve been amazed at how the wailing notes can vary depending on the muezzin. At the mosque near my hotel, the muezzin strikes a somber tone, voice cracking on the high notes, while others I’ve heard in the West Bank sound more like trilling songbirds, drawing out “Allahhhh” for all it’s worth.

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Never mind that members of the Los Angeles-based Latin-funk-rock band Ozomatli oppose just about everything the Bush administration stands for. At the behest of the U.S. State Department, they’re touring the Middle East and beyond, from Jordan and Egypt to India and Nepal, as cultural ambassadors. “Our world standing has deteriorated,” saxophonist Ulises Bella told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m totally willing and wanting to give a different image of America than America has given over the last five years.”

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After 18 months of voting, the New7Wonders organization announced its seven new wonders of the world this weekend. They are: Chichén Itzá, Mexico; Christ Redeemer, Brazil; the Great Wall, China; Machu Picchu, Peru; Petra, Jordan; the Colosseum, Italy; and the Taj Mahal, India. Last week, we named the seven wonders of the shrinking planet.

Related on World Hum:
* The Seven Wonders of Canada, or More Proof the Country Isn’t Boring
* 21 Attractions Short Listed for New Seven Wonders of the World*
* Seven New Wonders of the World Fever: Catch It
* USA Today’s Seven New Wonders of the World
* Egypt: We Don’t Need Your Vote to be Among the New Seven Wonders

Photo by markbarkaway via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

As we noted last week, the New 7 Wonders of the World will be announced July 7. Sure, the final list may not mean a whole lot more than bragging rights, but voting for the pageant sponsored by the NewOpenWorld Foundation ends in 11 days and competition among the finalists is heating up. How much? “In Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recently used his weekly radio address to urge people to vote for the Christ the Redeemer statue,” notes the San Francisco Chronicle. “Jordan’s royal family has publicly lobbied for Petra, and the government of Peru set up free computer terminals so its citizens could vote for Machu Picchu.”

Related on World Hum:
* The Seven Wonders of Canada, or More Proof the Country Isn’t Boring
* 21 Attractions Short Listed for New Seven Wonders of the World*
* Seven New Wonders of the World Fever: Catch It
* USA Today’s Seven New Wonders of the World
* Egypt: We Don’t Need Your Vote to be Among the New Seven Wonders

Photo by markbarkaway via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

Until last century, Petra was virtually off limits to non-Arab travelers. And in recent years, troubles in the Middle East have kept travelers away. But now that Petra has been shortlisted for the New Seven Wonders of the World list, the Jordanian government is making a push to show off the “rose red city half as old as time.” The BBC’s Jon Leyne reports that Petra “has probably not seen such a buzz of activity since civilised life ended there in the 8th century AD.”

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Yesterday, we noted USA Today’s list of Seven New Wonders of the World, and we briefly mentioned another list of Seven Wonders in the works. Today, CNN.com published a story about that other list, and according to the report, it’s generating loads of interest. More than 20 million people so far have cast votes for their favorite wonders in a global competition started in 1999 by Swiss adventurer Bernard Weber. A panel of architectural experts, including former UNESCO chief Federico Mayor, helped narrow down the nominations to 21 sites, from Machu Picchu, the Great Wall of China (pictured) and Turkey’s Hagia Sofia to Petra, the Statue of Liberty and the Eifel Tower. The public can vote until July 6, 2007. The winners will be named the next day.

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Most contemporary travel writing focuses on the here and now, with only brief glimpses back. But recently, Oxford University Press published a collection of travel stories about visits to ruins entitled From Stonehenge to Samarkand: An Anthropology of Archaeological Travel Writing. The book features old and relatively new stories by such writers as Tom Bissell (a World Hum contributor), Paul Theroux, Robert Byron and Mark Twain. The New York Times called it a “smart” collection, and the Washington Times declared it “an admirably well-produced survey of the personalities and accomplishments of those pioneering people eager to recapture past relics of human history.”

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I think the proposed Grand Canyon Skywalk is unnecessary. Jonathan Glancey thinks it’s a travesty. And his criticism extends to other questionable developments in well-traveled spots around the world. In Saturday’s paper, the Guardian’s architecture correspondent listed his picks for worst additions to natural landscapes around the world. He pulls no punches.

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A panel led by Former Director-General of UNESCO Federico Mayor Zaragoza recently announced its nominees to be considered for the New 7 Wonders. Travelers around the world will have the opportunity to vote throughout 2006, and the winners will be announced on January 1, 2007.

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Michael Shapiro answers the question in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, offering an interesting list of threatened attractions around the world—places that, if you’re so inclined, should be seen sooner rather than later. “From the historically and biologically irreplaceable to the poignantly frivolous, we’re living at a time when the planet’s heritage is under ever greater threat from war, neglect, climate change, overpopulation and unmanaged tourism,” he writes. Among the places making Shapiro’s list: the islands of Tuvalu, threatened by rising waters, and eroding Quetzalcoatl Temple in Mexico City. Shapiro also points readers to the World Monuments Fund’s new 2004 list of 100 threatened sites. 

For hundreds of years, Petra was virtually off limits to non-Arab travelers. Then, after Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994, the fabled red sandstone ruins became a mandatory stop for backpackers and tour-bus travelers from all corners of the globe. Now, because of events in the Middle East and elsewhere, Petra is a ghost town. In a recent piece for The New York Times, Neil MacFarquhar traces the history of tourism at Jordan’s best-known attraction and takes a look at the repercussions of area strife. “In the years right after the peace treaty, 500 Israelis a day on average entered Petra,” he writes. “There have been just 15 in the last five months, according to Suleiman Farajat, the director of the recently created Petra Archaeological Park. The men working amid the ruins prefer it that way.”