Jordan, the sequel: back with a vengeance!

DAY THREE
If I had the ability to add in sound clips right now I would (stupid 56k!), since Michael’s narration on our camera’s video clips is pretty priceless (and so are his imitations of the songs that our tape deck/radio combo in the van picked up). After the fact I heard his comments, including, “…interesting…cultural…” and singing “Hezbollah…we’re finding Jesus’ house, it’s going to be a good time!”

Day three (Sunday, 20.9.09) found us waking up fairly early once again and packing to stay overnight in Petra (we ended up hostelling it…more on that later). I ran downstairs to Hezbollah to grab my belt so my shorts wouldn’t fall down all day and nearly got trampled by a very grouchy German man and his wife storming out of the elevator; apparently someone isn’t a morning person and needed his Wheaties! Michael gave himself a little whiplash by walking straight into the sliding glass doors at the hotel that were crystal-clear with slow reaction-opening speeds – ouch! We drove straight to Petra, but it’s still about a three hour drive. My bladder continued raging against me and I texted my team leader for her antibiotic/pharmacy advice (her husband’s a doctor – thanks, MS!); we managed to do a three-for-one special as we arrived just outside the city: I found a pharmacist that sold me antibiotics out the wazoo (thanks, Hadi!), the gang bumped into N and B (the other American teachers – one of whom attended ASK for a year of high school and now is back to teach!), and the other couples did hostel recon as I contended with the pharmacy. We ended up staying at the Valentine Inn for 8JD per couple (another good Lonely Planet recommendation!); three to a room, girls and boys. As we arrived in the early afternoon, the hostel stayed peacefully quiet and we relaxed on the patio, eating the sandwich made that morning from the Amman hotel’s breakfast buffet. The stunning view and kind staff welcomed us with sweet tea and candied almonds, in part as a celebration of Eid. The temperature had dropped noticeably and we all took a few moments to mellow out while waiting for N and B to join us for the quick drive over to the entrance for Petra.

Petra is stunning, hands down (or as B would say: Petra rocks!). In some small way, though, I think Michael and I were a little underwhelmed simply because the landscape looks undeniably like Arizona, minus the amazing stone buildings sculpted from the richly-colored rock (there were many, many times on this trip when we compared the landscape to various areas of Arizona, and in this case, especially Sedona/Flagstaff). There’s also the fact that this felt like the most touristy of places and we definitely ran into tourists and tour groups left and right. Since we arrived mid-afternoon, we had a group battle-out to determine if we would be buying a one or two-day pass; we ended up all buying two-day passes, and while Michael and I didn’t do as much hiking and exploring the second day because his Keen-encased cracked feet were killing him, skipping the masses of tourists by arriving at 6:30 the next morning proved very pleasant.

The Nabataeans created Petra roughly 2200 years ago, but the area then became annexed to the Romans around 100 AD, and abandoned as the west knew it after the 14th century. True to the form of saying Columbus “discovered” America, a Swiss man gets the credit for Petra’s rediscovery in 1812. For anyone who’s seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (and who hasn’t?), the Treasury (or Al-Khazneh) is the impressive outside displayed in the latter part of the movie; I thought we had downloaded the entire trilogy before we left, but we only have the not-so-great latest installment. We’ll be doing some additional downloading when our real internet is up and running in another week and a half.

To reach Petra proper (which I personally consider to be when you get the awe-striking, vertical-slice view of the Treasury), you walk down two long pathways. One takes you to the outside of the Siq, and from there you walk through the Siq, a roughly 1200 meter-long gorge of rock that twists and turns. When we walked through it the first day, we slowly ambled, taking pictures and carefully avoiding the donkey, horse, and camel dung. (We also plastered ourselves against the rock walls more than once as horse carts carrying people raced through; no one looked very happy in those things as they bumped and grinded along the path.) Michael and I managed to have quite a bit of energy that first day and bounced around for over three hours exploring the various structures that comprise Petra. My favorite, and the one at which we spent the most time, was the Urn Tomb, which allowed an impressive view of much of Petra from one vantage point. We intended to check out the other noted Petra structure, the Ad-Deir (or Monastery), at the end of the first or the beginning of the second day. However, we got ourselves a little lost on the first day (in a fun way); we wandered down a stone wash and listened to a man beautifully playing a flute who beckoned us toward him when he heard our voices – we (being paranoid Americans) decided to head back in the opposite direction since we were definitely off the beaten path, but not before I used the bathroom in the bushes. I had asked a group of men (including a police officer!) where I could use a bathroom after finding three closed ones – even at two of the restaurants – and was told to “use a cave, nature’s way.” Sure, why not, I’ve been camping in the desert enough, I was only trying to be respectful…or not! The Monastery, though, is the furthest Petra structure; on the second day (when Michael’s feet were killing him and his New Balance were sitting in the hotel room in Amman), we skipped it and sat perched high above the valley by the Urn Tomb, watching the activity in the valley below and munching on our hostel-prepared breakfast/lunch of pita, cucumber, cookies, and other tasty treats.

After all of our exploring the first day, I took a shower at the hostel that ranks as one of my best showers in the last year – I had so much dust encasing my body! Michael and I shared another Amstel Light (apparently a popular beer to serve in Jordan), and admired the tiny sliver of crescent moon still visible in the velvet, darkening sky. We also shared a huge buffet at the hostel with our group; I heaped food on my plate and for once (due in part to the communal style of the buffet and eating at the hostel) vowed and nearly did finish everything on my plate…one garlic-infused side was a little too much for even me. With the pace we had been keeping, every day felt like two, but when we finished eating, we decided to make one last stop-off at Cave Bar (supposedly the oldest bar ever?!) before returning our add-on group members to their hotel.

Cave Bar, while expensive and price-gouging in the way you expect a bar near Petra to be, provided a nice respite. We drank, smoked shisha, relaxed, and had the staff turn down the ear-splitting music (and then decided it was time to leave as the bar filled up and the music turned up once again). We literally sat in a small cave on little stools, with low light offered by a few candles and had some good conversation as we slowed the pace down. We discovered that N also plays guitar (and his father has quite the collection), so he and Michael geeked out (in a good way!) with some music chat. Following our Cave Bar jaunt, we dropped off the boys and then used our gigantic metal hostel key (room 207!) that could double as a weapon to open the door and crash into bed. Without Michael nearby, I didn’t sleep as well, and a combination of roosters, an absurdly loud call to prayer, and the alarm woke me up at 5:30.

DAY FOUR
After three days of a pretty hectic pace, this proved the day (Monday, 21.9.09) I started to lose steam, but also one of our most varied days. We started the morning in Petra once again, and ignored the million different offers for an animal ride in to see the monuments. Michael and I moved much more slowly and enjoyed a lazy pace and the quiet of the morning. We arrived at the parking area around 6:30 and were at the Treasury by 7:00. This time we were actually able to take pictures of Petra without others’ heads bobbing in and out of our photos. We tasted the yogurt included in our hostel-prepped lunch bag, and decided its sour and sugar-less taste too much for us; an orange tabby and her three kittens enjoyed it much more than we would have. (There were animals all over Petra in different levels of health; the cat and kittens from that morning actually appeared quite healthy. The day before, though, we had seen a sad little kitten, and an exhausted dog that obviously had a number of puppies feeding on her judging from her chest. Michael gave both water with the help of our faux-Camel Bak and a couple metal ash trays.)

After realizing that tromping around at the same pace as the day before wouldn’t happen, we made our way to the Urn Tomb as I previously mentioned and watched the light spread, the animals feed, and those who make a living at Petra ride into work on donkeys to sell the tourist-trap wears. The gentleman sitting across from us tied his donkey several hundred feet away and we crossed a small (questionably sound) foot bridge to sit near the donkey. As we arrived, about a dozen goats came down the mountain to pester the donkey and steal his food. About 10 minutes later, a man (maybe the goats’ herder?) appeared from above and scared away the goats by making a snake-like guttural hissing sound. It worked; I’ll remember that when it’s Abby vs. the goat.

As we approached being among the ruins for over two hours, Michael texted the rest of our gang and we started back for the van since we had decided previously to make the trek down to Aqaba at the southern part of Jordan and on the Gulf of Aqaba (leading into the Red Sea) for some water fun. That stretch of the trip was estimated at around an hour, but with back roads, animal crossings (the signs on the side of the road weren’t lying – we saw camels, goats, and sheep in the road, just never in the road in front of us), and general misdirection, it took a couple hours. We left to Aqaba as a group of eight, with N and B hitching a ride down to Aqaba and back to Amman with us.

Arriving in Aqaba, we decided to shoot for snorkeling as a group rather than splitting up, and followed the highway through the very congested city center down the coast (and we picked up a “real” radio station – I heard Depeche Mode!). The views proved stunning as we bypassed the crowded city and looked out to the bright azure water, dotted near the city with cruise and large cargo ships. We passed the huge container ports, and about 5km north of Saudi Arabia (eek!), we made a u-turn and pulled into a more easily accessible beach.

Out of sheer luck, SC spotted a diving company van and Michael and I ran up to a very kind gentleman, Abdullah, who agreed to have us follow him just up the road to his dive center, the Red Sea Dive Club. We all got outfitted quickly, were able to change clothes in their very nice bathrooms, and chatted with Abdullah (we’ve decided we quite like the Jordanians; very friendly and open people). Turns out the dive club has been around 20 years and only recently relocated from the city center to the current location. We met Abdullah, his father, his brother, and heard some great stories involving the U.S. Navy diving with their group. We had all our gear and were in the water by 3:00. My exhaustion caught up to me quickly, especially as my mask leaked and I treaded water for quite a while getting it situated; however, Aqaba is known for its snorkeling and diving for very good reason.

We had a hard time getting out at first due to low tide and the situation of the coral reefs so close to shore. Once we found an opening, we were floating above beautiful coral and shockingly bright fish, anemones, urchins, and other sea creatures. The water temperature was a warm 75/80 degrees Fahrenheit, but as we moved from shallow to deeper water, there were pockets of quite cool water and I found it difficult to stay warm as goose bumps popped up all over my arms and legs. I marveled at the way the light played on the texture of the coral, listened to myself breathe in the quiet water, and tried to keep up with Michael’s quick pace! I stayed in the water about 45 minutes and then headed in, while Michael remained in the water over twice as long, snapping tons of gorgeous photos and really putting our underwater camera to use. Once on shore, I certainly felt the uncomfortable gaze of being a white Western woman in my bikini on a public beach and went up to the dive center’s gazebo-like area to grab my shirt and bottle of water; I then returned to the shore where N and B sat. N had cut himself a little on coral and we sat and chatted as everyone else slowly finished their snorkeling. Michael (of course!) was the last to leave the water and arrived on shore with some major gashes from the coral – thank goodness he heals quickly! We gathered our group and headed back to the dive club to rinse off and change clothes for the long journey back to Amman. We thanked Abdullah profusely, with comments to return to learn to dive (I’d LOVE to do that, especially with their club), and stopped off at Safeway (yes, there’s even a Safeway in Aqaba, Jordan) for road-trip snacks.

This section of van driving probably caused Michael the most consternation since it lasted roughly four hours, in the dark, on poorly lit and paved roads; he pushed Hezbollah to her limits at nearly 140km. Apparently people like to leave their high beams on regardless of those around them on both sides of the highway, and I stayed awake to keep Michael at least some company as the other six dozed in and out of sleep. Police also don’t seem to have the same job as those in the U.S. because they couldn’t have cared less about the quality of driving or speed around them, and yet all the local cars slammed on their brakes to below the speed limit (110km) every time we encountered a police SUV parked on the side. Arriving back in Amman we encountered some of the worst traffic yet (and that’s saying A LOT) due to the end-of-Eid evening; it almost became a “if you don’t laugh, you’d cry situation” as we got turned around and uttered the infamous National Lampoon’s European Vacation roundabout phrase of “Big Ben/Parliament” as we became caught in the roundabouts, unsure of our next direction. As we passed under an overpass, we even had a firecracker thrown dangerously close to the rental van; I’ll thank physics and/or Allah for the fact it didn’t actually hit us, although with Michael’s window down, it certainly freaked the hell out of us. True to what we’re used to seeing in Kuwait as well, there was a distinct absence of car seats or children using seat belts and we saw huge families crammed into cars (similar to Mexico).

We DID finally make it back to MP/AL’s hotel and also split from N and B who grabbed a taxi back to their hotel (they had plans to visit the Dead Sea the next day and were due back on Wednesday instead of Tuesday). Arriving back at our hotel, we made loose plans to have a later start for our last day, visit one of the larger mosques that has less stringent outside visitation policies, and grab lunch before our late afternoon departure.

DAY FIVE
Our last day (Tuesday, 22.9.09): a bittersweet morning to awake to, yet with all the activity of the past four days, Michael and I agreed we were losing momentum and couldn’t have maintained this pace for much longer (especially with all our various ailments). For all these reasons, it seemed appropriate to start the day slowly, visiting the Mosque of King Abdullah Ibn AL-Hussein.

I borrowed a scarf from MP since all women need to have their heads covered in order to visit. Perhaps due in part to the night following many Eid celebrations, the mosque seemed eerily quiet, yet peaceful. Bright blue tile work encased the outside domes, and a Christian church sat across the street, appropriately juxtaposing the two faiths. We wandered into the different worship halls, removing our shoes as we went, snapping pictures respectfully of the dramatic lanterns, crescent-topped domes, star-shaped metalwork, and bright blue sky. In some of those pictures, my blue eyes really popped out, especially with only my face showing. I also peeked into some of the large rooms designed for the men to wash their feet, which included individual faucets, concrete rectangular stools, and a trough into which the water could drain.

After wandering around for a bit, we drove back over a large modern suspension bridge (that we had crossed inadvertently several times before) near our hotel to a coffee shop with an outdoor patio. We regrouped, studied the map, and attempted to find a certain vegetarian restaurant for lunch; the restaurant locating turned out to be a bust, but we parked on a street filled with tourist agency shops and small local restaurants. We had one final kabob meal with plenty of pita bread (in wouldn’t be a meal in Jordan without pita bread!) in a back alley before departing for the airport.

In a nutshell (over 6000 words is a nutshell – ha!), that’s our Jordan jaunt. We had a few more activities on the way home (including the women only being able to be screened/felt up in the “ladies area” at the Queen Alia Airport, finishing off the last of our vodka at the airport lounge with some cranberry and OJ, and nearly getting run down at the airport in Kuwait by a very aggressive older main trying to clear the entry/visa area…he tripped on Michael’s suitcase, and I can’t say either of us felt bad), but wrapped up our return to Kuwait mostly uneventfully.

Here’s to the start of wonderful travel adventures for both of us – and I’ll try to post from Kuwait at least once a week from now on; that should be MUCH easier once we get our high-speed internet installed in less than two weeks. And we still have several days off; work doesn’t begin again until September 27th – woo hoo!

xoxo
Abby & Michael

Posted: September 24, 2009 / 10:00 (ish) p.m.