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Thursday, April 19, 2007

Jordan

Since the weekend of March 16th, I have not had a single weekend at home, which, when I'm in this part of the world, is very exciting.
At 12:10am on March 16th Sarah, my roommate David, and I hopped on a bus to Eilat, the southernmost city in Israel and the border crossing to both Jordan and Egypt. After 4 1/2 hours of faint sleeping we slugged off of the bus and walked through deserted Eilat. We had about 3 hours to wait for the border to open, and to our great fortune, found a coffee shop open all night. This is where we nestled in for the restless hours to come while sipping on strong coffees, reading travel books about Petra, and eating small cookie delights.

The hour finally came when we could pick up our rucksacks and head to the border. We arrived at the border about an hour early, and enjoyed the time watching the sun rise up over the Jordanian mountains to the east and enjoying the fact that we wouldn't have to wait for the packs of tourists that were starting to arrive.
At about 8:30, the gates opened, and we passed across no man's land into the Kingdom of Jordan, picked up a taxi, and began making our way to Petra. But this was no ordinary cab ride. The man, rather than turning north, turned to go towards the city of Aqaba. No words were said, because we figured this man may know a little more about Jordan than us. He flipped a U-turn and pulled up behind another car, sort of in the middle of nowhere and told us to get in. Well, as innocent tourists, we still found it to be a little strange to get into a random car in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately for this man, we had no other choice. It turns out that his story that they just wanted to switch the car so we could have a nicer ride was true! Fancy that!
After arriving in the city next to Petra and pulling up to our hotel, we paid the man (he was very nice to us in the car) and wished him farewell, moving on to the hotel. Now one thing you should know about Israel, Jordan, Turkey, and I would assume the bulk of the middle east, is that everyone is everyone else's brother, every shop is "my brothers shop," and somehow every middle eastern person is in the same family. Throughout the course of our 2 days in this hotel about 6 people told us they were brothers that owned the hotel. Well, true or not, they were very helpful, and very nice, young, and down to earth. I definitely recomment the "al Anbat Hotel 1" if you are ever traveling to Petra.

Petra! Photos
It is a little bit challenging to describe such a place, I must say, and I don't want to sound like a wikipedia article either, so here's a link to it, in case you want to learn more :D.
What made Petra so great for me was our guide. In most tourist sites you expect that you'll be on a tour with a group of maybe 10 people or so. Well, at Petra you pay for your own guide, which is not expensive at all. Up walks this Jordanian man wearing a keffiyyeh (Jordanian headscarf) and he just starts talking to us. Now, usually I would never notice things like this, but this man had a sparkle in his eye which was really cool! And he laughed like Santa, so that made everything about 50000x better. Anyways, he was an excellent and knowledgeable guide as well as being very fun, and told strange stories that we never quite understood the point of. He took us on a grand tour, through the valley, and up over the city on the ridge of sacrifices. From there we could see the whole of Petra and as far as little Petra (where the Nabuteans actually lived). The experience of Petra is very interesting as it combines history with current Jordanian culture, and tourism, so to speak. There are bedouins that still live in the area and they make tea around the trails, and there are women and children begging, boys riding camels, donkeys, horses, and carriages, and little coves where the bedouins still spend their time. As you walk the streets you can see so much evidence of the past that you almost feel caught up in it. I liked it so much that I got up at 5am the next morning to sneak in a 2 hour hike around Petra before we left to Wadi Rum!

Wadi Rum Photos Wikipedia :)
I never knew how beautiful the desert was until I came here. It is the filming location for "Lawrence of Arabia" if any of you are interested :). This place is absolutely magnificent in size, beauty, formation, color, and culture. There are a few bedouin tribes that still roam the area and make camp in this reserve. A nice muslim man took us on a Jeep tour through this wonderful place.
Photo courtesy of David Scaduto and Roommate Productions

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