I havent had much of a chance to
blog lately because of homework and internship stuff and social stuff and life
but here I am about to take a good thirty minutes out of my day to get some
stuff out on paper (or computer screen, which ever you prefer).
First I just want to relive for
a moment my adventures last weekend. It
was basically out of a Disney movie and as you could see by the videos I posted
I enjoyed it quite a bit despite the heat and tension that occurs when any
group of people are together for too long.
Our first day took us to Wadi
Rum. We were supposed to meet at the
University of Jordan with all our stuff so we could depart at 8:00 am. In true Jordanian fashion it wasn’t until
almost an hour later that we were on the road.
After many fiascos with our multiple buses we were all on the jeeps
flying across the Wadi Rum. From the jeep ride we hopped on the back of a camel
and started our journey toward the sunset spot.
My camel's name was Aber (ابر).
He was a bit of a stubborn
camel. The camel behind me kept
trying to nudge him forward but Aber remained resiliently lazy. There were
about seven camels tied together in a row with a guide leading us. A few points along the trip he gave me the lead
road and had me guide the animal. Of course no one behind me was happy with the
job I did….
Once we were back on solid
ground we made our way to our preferred sunset viewing location. It was a very pretty sunset on the mountains
of the desert. Many shades of gold. After the sun was almost gone we walked a
short distance to our luxury Bedouin camp where we had tents and dinner waiting
on us. Like most other dinners it was served in buffet style. Lots of chicken, veggies and various forms of
bread. Traditional Jordanian dancing
topped off the dinner. That night I
tried the tiniest bit of sheesha. It is
a very cultural thing to do after a long day and a meal. (when in Rome…) The stars that night were
absolutely beautiful and if my eyesight wasn’t horrible after I removed my
contacts I would have drug my cot out and slept under the stars.
The next day started with Alexia
(my roommate) shaking me awake to see if I wanted to go watch the sunrise. Since I was already awake I joined her. While it was pretty it didn’t have quite the
same appearance as the golden colors of the sunset. I didn’t stay long and went back to bed. That morning, once again we were supposed to
be gone by eight and once again didn’t make it out of camp until almost nine.
Aqaba was our next stop on the
trip. We arrived at port and saw (what
James described as) the tallest freestanding flag pole in the world. It was quite the magical moment….. Luckily
all of our group of friends made it onto the same boat and we cruised out into
the Red Sea with Arabic pop music blaring.
From where we finally dropped anchor we could see Jordan, Israel, Egypt
and Saudi Arabia. Snorkeling was
supposed to be our main activity of the day but due to my strange fear of eels
my friend Jesus and I decided that swimming around and jumping off the boat
sounded far more fun.
Lunch was cooked on a grill on
the boat. It was the standard chicken
and lamb kabobs and it was delicious. I
guess that our boat captain figured that since we were all Americans we wanted
to hear American music, so that’s what he played. The best part was that the music he happened
to choose was in fact 80's love songs, hence some of the more stupid photos
from that day.
After returning to
port we once again climbed into our respective buses and made our way toward
our next over night stay. This time it
was in a hotel near Petra. On our way
there we were stopped by a wedding party.
Weddings here seem to be much more festive than at home. We were warned to not be alarmed if we hear
gun shots because that is part of the ceremony.
It was very interesting to watch.
We stopped by in Little Petra
before making our way to the hotel. This
was an area that was used by travelers (Petra was the holy city and you could
only enter if you had special permission).
Little Petra, on the other hand, had hotels and restaurants for the
people passing through on the silk road or in the spice routes.
Our hotel was very nice. Two people to a room and most importantly, a
shower!!! Dinner was at the hotel as well.
I somehow, but honestly not too surprising, ended up at a table with all
boys. The food was mensaf, the Jordanian
plate of choice. Mensaf includes
chicken, lamb, rice and a special kind of yogurt that is poured on top. It is traditionally served on one large plate
for the table to share and is eaten with your hands. The boys at my table finished off every inch
of that plate. After dinner, I don’t know who did this but, someone organized a
GIANT street party for us to enjoy some sheesha, some music, more Jordanian
dancing and some desert food.
Up and at it early the next
morning. We all marched our way down the hill to the gates of Petra. Petra is mostly two parts, the siq and the "town".
I cant even describe it because it was too amazing and you have to go there to
see it. Seriously words and images
cannot describe.
A little bit of history
however. The most famous image of Petra
is known as The Treasury. In Indiana
Jones it is apparently where the Holy Grail is located. This called the treasury simply because it is
believed that either pharos or pirates or whomever hid their treasure within
this building. No evidence has been
found that the Treasury in fact held treasure.
Most of the other structures are called houses but are actually houses
for the afterlife so essentially tombs.
There are a few churches and what not on the grounds and at the end of
the exhausting hike to (as the sign says) "the end of the world" you
can see a monastery which was apparently in a Transformers movie….
It was an amazing weekend. I met so many new people on the trip and
cultivated many exisiting friendships.
Side note: this took
me way more than thirty minutes to do because I experienced my first encounter
with power outages here. According to my
host mother it went on and off about four times while me and my host sister
went to pick up her little brother.
