Day 4-6: Petra, Wadi Rum, Aqaba, Ar-Ramtha -- 04/01-03

Originally Posted On Facebook On Sunday, April 3, 2011 at 4:43pm

PETRA

04/01 -- We slept somewhat early Thursday night (early for us is before fajr) because we were told to be at the travel agency in Amman by 5:30am. It is an hour drive to Amman normally, so we were up and ready to go by 4:30. Taxis, buses, and cars don't run that early in the morning in Ar-Ramtha, so Shadi arranged for a cousin to take us into the city. Ali drove a lovely brand new Mazda3 and was a good driver, so it was a switch from the taxi rides I was accustomed to in this country. Until rather recently, car representation in Jordan was limited to German and Scandinavian companies such as Peugeot, BMW, Volvo, and Benz. Most of the cars you see here are still those, however Asian car companies have now broken into the market and there are a fair few Hyundai, Toyota, Mazda and DaeWoo. We snacked on leftover shawerma on the drive and discussed the itinerary for the trip. Organized by a Jordanian tour company called Orbit, we were to ride a bus the 5 hours to Petra in the city of Edom to begin the day. From there we would lunch at a hotel en route to Wadi Rum (roughly translates to Valley of Sand, a more original name for desert cannot be found with the possible exception of "Sahara" which literally means desert). We were to spend the night in the Wadi, then late morning head the 1 hour to Aqaba where we were told we would have free reign to choose how to spend the day. Amman was deserted when we arrived 40 minutes before sunrise. No movement except for the arrival of tourists eager to board the buses to their adventure. We purchased snacks to tide us over (I entertained Shadi with my reaction to a strange flavor of Doritos represented only here) and chose our seats on the bus. Our tour guide for most of the trip was a man named Ahmed who's self-titled nickname of El Orrence would have tickled me if he hadn't been such a poor representation (El Orrence is the name given to T.E. Lawrence by the Arabic tribes he aided as they were unable to pronounce his name properly).



The drive was long and monotonous but I was unable to catch up on sleep due to a number of things. First of all it must be declared that all service drivers (taxis and buses are called "service" in Jordan) are terribly rude drivers. They speed like its the Indy 500, use the horn indiscriminately and often it seemed for no reason at all, and tailgate like they're trying to kiss the other car. The horn honking was the worst however because many horns in Jordan are musical tones often akin to old school phone ringers. In addition, this driver was a major fan of Mohammad Abdou (a very famous singer in the Middle East) and played a CD containing his songs on repeat. Sleep was not an option. I entertained myself instead by experimenting with Shadi's cousins' camera and taking pictures of commonplace things that were nevertheless interesting to me. The first time the bus stopped was at a gas station and restaurant/convenience store run by Bengalis called Petra somethingorother. There we discovered a room set aside for prayer and as I was in wudu I made up fajr there before we boarded the bus again. Our second stop once we reached Edom & Moab was a gift shop outside of the Petra grounds where "Orrence" said it would be cheaper to buy supplies. Shadi purchased water and an Arab lady who'd been eyeballing me on the bus (all of them did) inquired as to my name, purpose and etc in mixed Arabic and English. Mary, the only other American on the trip we'd met while at the gas station, joined in and we discussed Petra plans as Shadi returned. A small natural spring outside caught our attention before we left to the archaeological site. The city of Edom was built into the mountains and was made for tourism, kind of like San Antonio. The exception being there was no separation between economic classes here, just as the rest of Jordan. Dirt poor next to extravagant homes on the same lots; dilapidated buildings and businesses next to bustling hotels. I'd mentioned before the condition of Jordan's architecture but I feel I must elaborate after seeing Edom. In America, towns that collect mass amounts of tourist money from things such as state parks and historic sites see the results of it. Businesses grow, neighborhoods expand and amenities are nicer. Not so in this country. The money goes straight to the federal government, Shadi tells me, and none of it is spent on the locals. I felt somewhat dirty by paying 50 JD to enter Petra while the town surrounding it had so many who could use that same money more. It seemed more like we were paying to witness the present rather than the past.



My ticket to Petra was exorbitantly expensive due to the fact that I was neither a Jordanian resident nor Shadi's wife; special treatment in this case was not mine. It was upon purchase of our tickets I realized how much sun there was going to be and how sensitive my face was too it. With only a light scarf tossed casually over my head, I was not in a position to protect myself from the sun's rays nor the 90 degree dry heat. When we found a tent that sold sunscreen (there were dozens of gift shops along the walkway before entering the actual park) a boy of perhaps only 9 attempted to sell the 12oz bottle to us for 14JD which amounts to about 17 dollars. Shadi was having none of it, and from what I could make out from his rapidfire Arabic negotiations he was not about to pay "arbatash" (14). When it seemed like he was getting nowhere, I broke in with "I'm sure we could find it cheaper elsewhere" in a skeptical tone, knowing this young swindler was only pretending not to speak English. I was right, and after I spoke he immediately offered it to us for 10 dinar instead. Protection purchased we started down the gravel road and were approached by 2 men leading horses. I bent to pet the first horse and bid Shadi take a photo, but he was insistent that I ride it instead! For 3 dinar a person it was hard to argue, and when I learned that Shadi had never been on horseback, I agreed to ride only if he did. Riding bareback in a skirt was a "horse of a different color" for sure as I would later inform Shadi as to why I had this particular look on my face. :D It doesn't seem like it by viewing his pictures, but Shadi Hassan Mahmoud Alkhazaleh is ABSURDLY tall and dwarfs me whether he's sitting or standing. That being said, he absolutely dwarfed the horse (hssn), too. He took pictures of me as I rode mine like a champ; I am not unfamiliar with horseback riding. The young arab leading the horse chose this opportunity to attempt to flirt and I was having none of it. I informed the young man in no uncertain terms that I was taken and that inshallah he will find himself a wife one day. I would not inform Shadi of this exchange although he had his suspicions being the Arab he was until lunch time when I knew him to be in good enough spirits :D We reached the top of the chasm and from there it is a 3 mile trek from end to end. The canyon walls were just as beautiful as I imagined them to be and for all who have seen the movie that introduced the west to Petra (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) it is the same now as it was then. Pristine. Interesting fact about the filming of that movie: when Spielberg and his crew requested permission to film there, King Hussein turned out to be quite a fan and the crew made friends with the royals and were often guests of the former while filming. The car you see the Nazis driving belonged to the King.



After a 25 minute trek through the canyon (would have been shorter but both Shadi and I are avid photographers and this particular point and shooter was Faboo) we reached the first major building on the tour and perhaps the most famous, The Bank of Petra. I was determined to get a Spielberg-esque type shot but no dice: once I spotted camels (jammal) it was over. Two girls who approached them first were subsequently spit on which would have made great video, but my approach kept me from experiencing that. My camels liked me. We moved on to see more 'businesses" that had been carved into the walls of the great chasm, as well as tents pitched by enterprising businessmen. This term I use loosely, as most of those entrepreneurs that approached us were no older than 10. More pictures and it was 40 minutes until we had to return to the buses. I stopped by the coolest bathroom you ever saw (built into the wall of course) and took one last shot of the theatre before heading back. By now I was physically exhausted and the dry heat was straining my vocal chords. We had to stop frequently so that I might breathe. By the time we reached the top of the chasm I nearly crawled, causing a rakish-looking old hijabi to grin at me. A man leading another horse approached us, and Shadi insisted on placing me on it. We chatted idly with the guide and it was he who informed us that Edom had the best learned English speakers in all of Jordan. In addition to english, all of those tiny con artists (the photo peddling children) all spoke a plethora of other languages, as did all salespeople in the park, the guide included. He proved this by telling us "the horse is calm, the ride is cheap" in 4 languages including Japanese. We'd made it to the bus just in time and we hit the road to a Marriott that sat right on the cliffside that began the 80 miles of Wadi ahead. I'd never seen such a view from a hotel window, and eating lunch there was a fabulous treat. I nearly cried with frustration that our camera's battery had died just after Petra. As we wandered the cliffside by the pool after lunch, I mourned the loss of a photo until I spotted a young man with a similar brand. One epiphany later and our memory card was in his camera snapping 3 pictures to remember the view. We were given a hotel room for 20 minutes to pray Dhuhr and Asr together, then hopped on the bus with still a dead camera on our minds as we continued to Wadi Rum.



WADI RUM

04/01-02 -- The drive from Moab to the Wadi Rum was around 2 hours give or take. The road quickly began to change from flat scrub to boulders and thence to high-rise peaks. I remembered Utah fondly as we drove, recalling being surrounded like a fishbowl in the mountains. The person who named Moab and Mt. Nebo MUST have been to Jordan. The sun was 1 hour from setting when we arrived at our desert camp. We discovered that a "room" here was a mud-brick establishment with a tent-like roof. We were given two beds and a tiled bathroom. Excited at the prospect of a shower later we set our stuff down and went in search of electricity as "Orrence" had told us repeatedly there would be power for our chargers there. No dice and I was livid. Sick of hearing "stenna" (wait) from everyone regarding my inquiries, I sought out Orrence myself. If you had seen this man yourself, you would have reacted the same way I did. I'm sure he watched Jersey Shore because he looked like he'd just walked out of it. An arab, but orange, with slicked back black hair, croc shoes, and a keffiyeh tied horseman style around his head. The very image of a sleazy italian guy trying to pull off a desert expert look. After inquiring to his English speaking skills, I raked him over the coals rather soundly over assuring us there would be a way to solve our camera and phone problems. He offered his phone camera to me but I considered this an insufficient solution as we climbed into the jeeps that would take us around the Wadi till sunset. The driver of this jeep must have driven a taxi before. No scarf could have kept my hair from smacking me repeatedly as we leapt over and drifted sand dunes. "Orrence" hung out the window completely unfazed and informed us that they drove this way for the foreign tourists who seemed to enjoy it. For awhile I did. We stopped at a giant red sand hill and attempted to climb it only to slide back down. We then drove to another dune where a dozen other jeeps full of tourists were parked and we all watched the sunset together; we solved our camera problem again with the same technique as before this time supplied by a nice pair of sisters. We climbed back into the Jeep and the ride back was less fun than the previous.



As the sun had set, the darkness swallowed us whole. No dark besides the dark of a cave compares to the blackness of the desert night. A lovely hookah stand caught my eye, and with surprisingly little pleading Shadi arranged for this "haram" treat for me. I tell you now nothing compares to smoking argeelah in the desert of an evening. He merely watched as I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Dinner under the big tent was an assortment of arabic treats as well as my heart's delight: lamb. We shared a table with a German tourist who'd been all over the Middle East and we shared stories of our adventures. After dinner a chaotic dance party ensued to a variety of arabic tunes and I bopped while Shadi glared at all the "haram" movements :D We decided a break in the tent was better, and here it where we learned the showers provided only cold water. Our one salvation was that, with the generators humming, we were able to charge both camera and mobile. Once the night had calmed, around 11 we followed another tour guide named Saleh into the dark dunes to lay in the cold sand and stare at the stars. He took turns asking us what was going through our heads and the group laughed at my response "I saw more stars in Utah". It was true. The ambient light from the camp still impeded our view of a true desert evening sky. He told stores in Arabic that Shadi translated to me and we returned to our mud huts exhaustipated. We passed out immediately, woke only for a quick fajr, then passed out again until 10am the next morning. We would eat breakfast, then set out on the bus with Saleh bidding a farewell to "Orrence" and the Wadi as we headed to Aqaba.



AQABA

04/02 -- Less than an hour of speeding down the road through the Wadi (my favorite part of the drive) and we reached the gates of Aqaba. The previous day we'd reached a similar gate to the Wadi where Jordanian army agents boarded the bus to check our passports. Mine was still in my bag, but I was spared. As we entered Aqaba it was the same and it was here Shadi told me that being an American I was given preferential treatment. No ID check, no bugging me either. Great to be an American ANYWHERE, indeed. :D The city of Aqaba seemed like a burgeoning recreation of Los Angeles on the inside. As we skirted the outer roads the Red Sea rose before me. I had never seen a "Sea" before, and hadn't seen the ocean since I was a toddler. Across the sea we could see the Israeli port city of Eilat. When we took the boat tour I would effectively be in 2 places at once, reminding me of Four Corners in Utah. We passed public beaches, hotels, and the industrial ports that kept one ginormous oil tanker and several cruise ships. We were informed that a boat tour was in order but when I discovered it to not be of the glass-bottom variety I was sorely "disappoint". After sitting what seemed like an hour on the boat, and seeing only one blue fish at the sea floor, we sped off and around the Jordanian side of the Sea. It was here I noted the trash problem in Jordan extended to its waters, too. Litter and trash is a BIG problem in Jordan. All along roadsides and embankments for miles in every direction. I will never complain about roadside litter in the States, again. When I saw more blue pepsi cans than fish, I was apoplectic. I was tipped over the edge when I actually saw a young arab man on the boat toss his can casually over the side and into the water. Shadi had to restrain me. He agreed that the people of his country for all their boasting that they are natural environmentalists because they are Muslim are very poor at actually caring for their natural wonders.



Our last guide told us we would be taken to lunch then a mall tour, and as I had come to Aqaba for the water, I opted out of this particular event. We were unable to get to the South beaches, the Western frequented ones where actual fish and WWII wrecks could be seen while snorkeling. We sought instead a nearby "family" beach and changed into our swim clothes in a bathroom facility surrounded by camping "gypsies" (poor and nomadic muslims from Turkmenistan and Tajikistan who apparently camped the outer edges of the city frequently) This beach was rather rocky and the water on this end unclear but we ventured forth anyway. The wake from the glass-bottomed boats nearby created waves akin to the Wave Pool at 6 Flags. The water was the saltiest I'd ever had the displeasure to taste, but creating somewhat of a scandal on the beach by canoodling in the water made up for it. A nearby chinese oil tanker blasted its horn once or twice and I was rather disconcerted being so close to such a colossal aquatic vehicle. A good 45 mins in the water was enough, and we trekked back to the bathrooms to change and rinse the salt-wash from our bodies. We sought snacks at a nearby shop and hailed a taxi to where the tour bus awaited our return. The taxis in Aqaba are bright green Toyota Corolla's :D The bus took us to another mall and we indulged in fine shawerma meal and encountered a Jordanian cat that finally allowed me to pet and play with it. A mall employee begged me to take it LOL. Cats in Jordan are like birds in America. Numerous, and often seen as pests but fed daily by residents. Feral, they normally avoid human contact. This "bis" however allowed me to give it some loving. I have never seen a cat with such green eyes. After the mall excursion we hit the road back to Amman, driving through the Wadi and Moab in the dark. We stopped once more at the Petra somethingorother for more snacks and to charge Shadi's phone then back to the drive.



Shadi's grandfather, his mother's father, had passed away during the morning. We had had no cell battery until 8pm that evening. A taxi ride home to Ar-Ramtha and we arrived to a grim and grieving household. Momma Aicha was lifeless as I had never seen her. Babba Hassan informed me that her father had been very sick for awhile and that they had expected his passing any day. I felt an immense guilt upon learning that Shadi had not seen his grandfather in 2 months. The day we were to visit him he and I got into an argument over something silly and elected not go; I was unaware he was dying. Shadi and Babba Hassan insisted I feel no guilt as I was ignorant to the information. Babba then said something he said was in the Qur'an and the familiarity of the translation was comforting. He said "Allah gives and Allah takes" -- "The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away.."



04/03 -- Today was spent recuperating. As a semi-member of the family, I accompanied Momma Aicha to her brother Ibrahim's house for a muslim "wake", which is segregated by gender. I had never been in a room with so many women before, especially ones who did not speak a word of my language. I made friends instead with creatures who speak my own verbage: children :D Cousin Yasmeen's son and a plethora of little girls kept me from going completely gaga over lack of communication and frequent stares. Shadi came to rescue me and this moment we finish this note. I will return home in 3 days' time to continue my adventure in StL. Salaam alaikoom.