In the footsteps of Indiana Jones

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There is only a very early morning bus and a mid-afternoon one going to Amman from Damascus and I missed the early morning one so I had to negotiate a taxi. I found a indian-british guy who was heading the same way so we teamed up and after an hour of waiting managed to get enough people to fill the cab. We made it quite quickly to the border where the driver greased our way through with a little bakhsheesh so we didn't have to wait for the hordes of turks that were ahead of us.

Arriving in Amman I managed to get a cab right away to the bus station I wanted to take. As mentioned in my previous blog I didn't want to linger too long in Jordan, not because the country didn't interest at all. I just wantet to be in Dahab for christmas. Somewhere not too cold. I was overcharged by the taxi driver to go to the bus station (when I asked later how much it should've cost) even though he used the meter. I guess he used his night meter or something.

When I arrived at the bus station, one minibus was almost full and was about to leave. But the conductor wouldn't take me for the local price, which I knew from other travellers. I bargained all I could until he decided to leave without me, at which point I had to cave in because he knew he was the last minibus to leave for Wadi Musa. When I ended up running in the bus as it was leaving, everybody laughed at me and the conductors and his friends talked loudly in arabic while rolling on the floor laughing. Dishonest and no common decency. When you rip off someone you shouldn't humiliate him at the same time. Anywhere in the world, when you know the local price you can always get it, even in India. But here in Jordan they don't care. They'll look at you straight in the face while telling you a false price, and then take half the amount from locals. They know you know, but they don't care, they've got monopoly.

I arrived in Wadi Musa, the tourist town close to Petra, and checked in the cheapest hostel in town: Valentine Inn. It sound sleazy but it's not, it's a backpacker's place. I was told by the reception guy that there was another quebecer in the hostel somewhere and I quickly met him, Philip a fellow montrealer. He was travelling with Ross, a friendly well-travelled american guy. After going out for shwarma together, we went back in the hostel where Philip and I discussed canadian constitution. No better subject of conversation, any canadian will agree. There was also a cool guy working at the reception who was french of algerian descent who had come all the way overland from Algeria, working his way through.

Next day was Petra day. We went in at 7AM with the hostel shuttle and were among the first to get in. I don't think I need to introduce Petra here. Everyone has seen it in Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail movie. It is that amazing rock-cut temple you see at the end of a long and narrow tunnel. Well actually it is more than that, this building is just one among many other almost as impressive buildings. It was the capital of the Nabataeans, a people that lived around greek/roman times and controlled the caravan trade in the area. In 106 it was incorportated in the roman empire and then the trade route shifted to Palmyra in Syria, leading to the decline of Petra.

We paid the exhorbitant entrance fee and walked to site. The canyon leading to the "Treasury" (the building seen in Indiana Jones) is almost 2 km long and at places you can still see the old roman road in it. The first sight of the Treasury from the canyon is amazing. I knew it was gonna happen but it still caught me off guard. So beautiful. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I'd find it hard to believe that such a beautiful place exist. It seems to be right out of a fairy tale when you go through the canyon and finally see that building.

But it is only a small part of Petra. We wandered around lots of other rock cut buildings, amphitheater and temples. The rock itself is also really amazing with really bright red color in places. We headed to the monastery which was a few hundred steps above the rest. I was expecting something small and humble but it was just as massive as the Treasury but less red. Wow. The place wasn't a monastery initially but became one as christianity rose in proeminence. Near the monastery there's a viewpoint where you can look at the mountains around Petra and see the Negev desert of Israel on the horizon. We stopped there for lunch, with a bedouin who had a little teashop.

All this time we were mostly alone, there were a few bedouin women selling junk and a few teashops but the tourists were behind us, we had managed to avoid the crowds by coming early. The bedouins do get a bit annoying after a while but it's nothing like India in term of hassle. While going down the monastery and back in the main Petra area we encountered the package tourists. But not for long as we climbed upward again, on another mountain where we see more rock-cut building and then get a great view of Petra from above. We stopped there for a while to enjoy the views.

In the evening we watched Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail (what else) to top off a very nice day. I had toyed with the idea of staying more than one day in Petra but I really saw all I wanted to see in a day. Here's a tip: get up early!

So the next day I was leaving for Aqaba where I'd take the fast ferry to Egypt. Ross was heading to Israel so I said goodbye but Philip was just taking one more day to chill out in Petra before following me.

We had called the night before to ask when the bus to Aqaba was leaving and we were told 6:20. I got to the bus station 10 minutes early but of course the minibus left 1 hour late. Once again the driver ripped us off and there was nothing we could do. He threatened to kick me out and he knew he was the only transport to Aqaba anyway. I ended up paying him while telling him he was an asshole but he didn't care, he already knew it.

There were 2 japanese in the minibus so we shared a taxi to the harbour in Aqaba. Now that ferry crossing was a very interesting cultural experience. I thought I had seen chaotic border crossing and inefficiency before, but the Aqaba ferry is on a class of its own. Buying the ticket is easy enough once you figured out where you have to buy it. At 45$US per ticket it is vastly overpriced for the 1 hour it should take but hey, I was ripped off everywhere I went in Jordan so might as well get ripped off all the way. But then I decided to change my money to egyptian pounds as there's a better rate on the jordanian side. The problem was that there was a departure tax to pay, but no one had told us that until we tried to cross immigration. So we went downstairs to pay the tax, only to be told that it was only payable in jordanian dinars. So I had to go back upstairs to change the egyptian money back into jordanian dinar. I almost got into a verbal fight with the guy who wouldn't change my 50 piastre note (that's 0.5 pounds, or 10 cents) which I thought was a 50 pounds note (10$). In the end I gave him a real 50 pounds note and got my money, went back downstairs and got my passport stamped. Then we had 1 hour to wait before the boat left but of course the boat wasn't even in the harbour yet.

I went outside to ask when it would leave and I got the answer I'd get the whole day: "It will leave in about 30 minutes, no problem". It ended up leaving 6 hours late. While waiting I started hanging out with a bunch of americans who were studying arabic in Amman. I also had a nice encounter with a british bloke to whom I said: "This ferry service would make even the most hardened communist become a free market capitalist" to which he replied "well, I disagree... I'm a communist". He wasn't too interested in debating however which cut all my fun (you can understand why he doesn't want to, with a position like this).

Anyway, the ferry ended up leaving in the end. We had to leave our luggage at the bottom of the boat with the cars among the massive amounts of luggage that all the locals were carrying, where anybody could just pick them up and steal them. We had to talk our way into the seat section with our daybags because they refused at first. There was no way I was gonna let my camera and notebook alone.

In the boat we lost our passport to the immigration guy who told us to pick them up in Egypt. The crossing took 3 hours, compared to the 1 hour it should've lasted. When we arrived in Egypt, we grabbed our bags that were intacts. Others were not as lucky as some car run over a few backpacks. After getting off the boat, we were dropped in the middle of nowhere, with no passport or visa. There was absolutely no sign of where we could pick them up and everything seemed to indicate that the guy on the boat was already on his way to Cairo to sell my canadian passport on the black market. We went to where they were checking luggage and an immigration officier told us to get out without even checking our passport. We could've entered Egypt without a passport!

We went back in the harbour area and finally found the immigration office, realized that you had to go at the bank to buy visa (makes sense! why didn't we think of it before) and ended up alright, except we were about 8 hours late. Then we got through the luggage check and offered ourselves to the sharks outside waiting to pounce on stupid backpackers. Me, the 2 japanese and two other canadians managed to get a decent deal for a van to Dahab. When we arrived, about an hour later, I was happy to see that it was all I hoped it would be, chilled out and warmer than Jordan/Syria. But mostly it was nice to be able to think I wouldn't have to move for at least a week, something I haven't been able to tell myself in a LONG time and I was looking forward to some sedentarity now. I checked in for a cheap room at the Auski camp and fell asleep immediately.

Jordan didn't leave a good impression on me. I know I was here only for 48 hours but the number of time I was ripped off (that include the legal ripoff that is Petra and the ferry) in the small amount of time, and most importantly the attitude of the people, especially while they were ripping me off, left me with a bad taste on my mouth. The Lonely Planet said that most Jordanian wouldn't dream of ripping off a foreigner and that has to be the most Politically Correct Bullshit comment I've ever read coming from the LP. Maybe some jordanians are very nice but my experiences are by no means the exception, everyone I met in Jordan or who went there didn't like jordanians except for Philip. That include Jim I met in Syria who lived there for a year. Anyway, I'd like not to base my judgement on 48 hours but all my memories of interactions with jordanians have been negative so I think that's how I'll see them until I go back. And that might be in a very long time.

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Photos

Classic shot
The "treasury" from the tunnel

Petra's rock
Wow. Amazing colors

Wow
Simply mindblowing

Around Petra
The plains you see after the mountains is the Negev desert of Israel.

Petra
The place is full of these rock-carved building.

Petra's rock 2
Love the color

Petra's rock 3
Alright, you're starting to get the point. I love those rocks.

The monastery
I was expecting something quite humble. Not this massive rock-cut monastery.