One of the things I love about exploring sites in non-Western countries is the utter freedom you have to explore. Sure there might be a fence around some portion of the place, but just as often a guardian will lead you through a hole encouraging you to explore (just as happened with us at the "closed" Lot's Cave). Karak Castle, south of Amman in Jordan was another one of those places. We were free to follow all the small dark stone staircases we found, occasionally arriving into a lower cavern often lit with only a few small holes of sunlight. No where was off limits. Sure, there was an area with some barbed wire around it, but then another path just led right around that (makes one think that they weren't so serious about the barbed wire). We scrambled up onto the keep, climbing until we were on the very top - literally looking down over a hundred feet to the city below - and could enjoy the distant view of the Dead Sea (or the Died Sea as a few signs proclaimed). Having such freedom to explore really makes you feel like you are discovering a site. That even though it has been excavated and cleaned up there is still enough of a sense of adventure to allow you to make some sort of claim of the spot. After all, as the pristine snow we tramped through revealed, no one else had been there, at least not that day. I can definitely say that I saw (or experienced?) Karak Castle, and all the side rooms, dungeons and tunnels it contained.
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