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Published: October 24th 2007
Romping
This was the truck that I nearly died in while going far to fast through the desertI hope that everyone enjoyed the last two entries, or at least managed to get half-way through the first one which is a feat within itself. This section should shock and amazing you with the camels and snorkeling and Bedouin! Here it goes...
Aqaba
After we spent Tuesday night in Damascus Roger and I caught a bus back to Amman where we had a frustratingly easy time getting back into Jordan. We only spend 2 hours in Amman before leaving, just enough time to go home take a shower, send some emails, repack, and cook lunch (which I carried out with me in a plastic bag which attracted many stares). After that we boarded a beaten down bus for the 4 hour trip from Amman to Aqaba which is far down south on the Gulf of Aqaba to be exact. On the bus we were tortured again by a movie that was even worse than the one that I saw on the way to Aleppo, when it finally finished both Roger and I simultaneously said "Al-hamdulellah" which is praise God in Arabic. When we finally arrived in Aqaba we headed over and booked a spot on the roof of
Landscape
You gotta love it. I couldn't stop taking pictures. the hotel for about 2 Jordanian Dinars (3 bucks), walked around enough to find out that the city was terribly over geared towards tourists, ate my first Chinese food in a long time and went to bed to be ready for the next day.
In the morning we called our Bedouin guide and arranged a taxi over to Wadi Rum (buses go very irregularly) and waited. When the taxi finally showed up the driver turned out to be one of the nicest men that I have ever met. I might be naive but when we got out of the car to shake our hands and apologizing profusely for being late, I instantly trusted him and really liked him. It turned out to be a really amazing hour long ride out to Wadi Rum both because of the mountains raising straight out of the flat ground as if they were poked up from underneath and because of my conversation with Musa, the taxi driver. It was all in Arabic and ranged a variety of issues at one point even leading him to teach me a Sura from the Qur'an that he made me recite in addition to the opening Sura
Daring Explorer
As he looks to the future... of the Qur'an (that I memorized earlier) in front of 4 soldiers at a traffic stop who applauded. They then asked me if I was Muslim and I said that I wasn't but was interested in Islam which everyone seems to like and they said that they hoped I converted to which I responded "Inshallah" or God willing which has a nicely ambiguous meaning.
Wadi Rum
When we finally reached the the entrance to Wadi Rum we met our guide and the proceeded to his office/house in the middle of the Bedouin village about 2 miles past the main gate. When we got there we met our traveling companions, a French couple who were half way through a 6 month trip around the Mediterranean in a little van. They were really nice and I am glad that we were able to go on the trip with them although I wish that I could finish their journey as well. We eventually decided to take a "Jeep" around the desert for the first half of the day so that we could see more of the desert, spend the night out in the tent camp and then come back in the
Entertainment for the Night
You got used to the music after a while. morning on camels. So began the trip following in the steps of Lawrence of Arabia. As it turns out the real T.E. Lawrence traveled through Wadi Rum and there are many sections in his book (The Seven Pillars of Wisdom) that refer to it and are quoted as advertisement for the site. I believe that part of the movie itself was also filmed in the area but there are numerous springs, structures and mountains that are named after various Lawrence related things. In tribute to the man and especially the movie I took many pictures of the sprawling landscape which I hope you can appreciate.
We started by visiting a set of Nabatian (not sure how that is spelled) ruins that were in fair shape for their age and there were writing etched into the surrounding rock that were oddly similar to Arabic. Also as an interesting tid bit, the Nabatians took part in Goddess worship and the building that we visited was a temple dedicated to the Goddess they worshiped. After that we visited a spring that was not too remarkable other than the fact that Lawrence was reported to have stopped there for water so I permitted
myself the fantasy of watching him water his camel and rest in the shade of the trees after bombing the Hijaz Railway. The desert there is truly a beautiful site to behold. This is not the stereotypical desert comprised of an endless dune ocean but rather large expanses of flat ground that is inhabited by short shrub bush that could probably live for a year off the water of a typical shower. This extreme flatness is contrasted by the huge rock cliffs that shoot straight out of the earth with sheer rock walls as imposing as a castle rising into the sky. To add to the simple beauty of the rock, the elements have warn down the walls in such a way that is looks like the rock is melting, reminiscent of Dali's famous painting "The Persistence of Memory". This whole atmosphere was completed when I saw unbridled camels grazing on the shrubs in the middle of the flats.
From there the real trip out into the desert began and we began to realize that our driver was either crazy or an adrenaline junky and I am leaning on the first. We were alerted to this fact when we were going out to visit the first major sand dune and he started going at a ridiculously fast speed on a road that was just two ruts of sand with little or no traction. By the time we actually arrived at the dune my heart was beating furiously and my knuckles white from my death grip on the door handle.
Throughout out trip we visited various arches and dunes and were able to watch the sand change from the red deserts of Jordan to the golden brown of Saudi Arabia. Our driver only added to the mystery of the whole area with his lack of English vocabulary. This was comically illustrated when we pulled up to what was obviously a sand dune and he points at it and says simple "sand dune" and nothing more. We waited for a second to see if he would elaborate but it was in vain so we got out of the car and explored it ourselves. At about an hour to sunset we stopped at the site of a cliff and our driver gathered brush, made a small fire, and set a kettle of tea on to boil. We were not sure what to expect when he asked if we wanted sugar in our tea but when we said yes he dumped three full cups in the kettle to the amazement of everyone. I was less shocked than the rest because Kassadra (my girlfriend) is from the south where that amount of sugar quite normal. The tea was great but not sugary enough for the guide who filled his cup 1/5 of the way with sugar and then added the already sweet tea. This stop all allowed us to the other half of our guide's four word English vocabulary. We had some Baba Ganoush and he must call it by some other name because when I read the English on the can to him he happily repeated the name about 20-30 times responding to every one of our questions and gestures for the next 15 min with the words "Baba Ganoush" (it is not even English so I am not sure if it counts).
From here the most exciting part of the trip came when our guide realized that we were running out of time to reach the camp by sunset and decided that he needed to go faster than our already irrational speed to try and reach the camp in time. I felt like I was Baha Beach racing or doing a special Nascar Wadi Rum edition, there are few times where I was as scared for my life as I was then. When I looked into the backseat of the car I saw that everyone else was gripping on to the most staple option closest to us and every time we would approach a turn the French woman would squeak in fear of our truck flipping. It was worth all the money I payed but I sure wasn't thinking of that while the car was moving.
Camp and the Trip Back
We eventually reached the camp which was composed of three larger tents, a small kitchen shack, a circular dinner tent and a bathroom building. We set down our things and were directed to the dinner tent to wait for the food to be prepared. After setting ourselves down comfortably in the tent and recovering from the ride we were greeted by an elderly Bedouin man who was the father of our guide for the day. We spent the next hour while waiting for the food to come being entertained by this man who began to play an instrument that is similar to a violin but with one string and is rested on the knee. I wish that the sound resembled a violin as well, but alas it sounded like a violin being tortured like a constant string of the sounds made when a violinist plays a note terribly wrong. This was accompanied by his voice which was not in much better shape than the instrument and they made quite the dynamic duo. He would sing all sorts of songs which I could not understand for the life of me at one point even singing a love ballad dedicated to the French couple. After we ate dinner, which was amazing and coupled with extra sweet tea from one of the biggest tea pots I have ever seen, I got to talking to our host. His Arabic was extremely difficult to understand because of the thick Bedouin accent but after a while I found out that he was a living piece of history who had been kicked out of Israel in the 48' war and then settled in Jordan having a fairly interesting history afterwards. It was amazing to speak with a man who had gone through events that I had only studied in my history class and examined from a far off angle. Nothing puts an even in perspective like a person who has lived it.
That night Roger and I also hiked up a mountain in the dark where we looked out over the whole of the desert. It was an enchanting view to see the mountains seeming shrouded in clouds covered in the light of the moon. I sat there for about an hour instantly relaxed and bathing in the view. It was a place that allowed for deep thought and it made me realize how amazing it was that I was there at that moment. Truly precious. We ended the night by building a small fire in the sand and watching the shadows dance on the sand.
In the morning we woke up and ate dinner with a number of other Bedouin before going over to our camels which had arrived that morning. The camels seemed a little grumpy but luckily I did not get the one that spend the whole morning yelling about one thing or another. We mounted up in what were much more comfortable saddles than the ones in Morocco and headed off on a 2 and 1/2 hour trip back to the main village. Unlike Morocco, the guide decided not to tie all of our camels together and so he spend the entire two hours yells and smacking them to go this way or that, stop eating the shrubs, or stop trying to nibble our legs. At one point the French woman (who is a teacher) remarked that the camels were like bad students who only work when you are looking over their shoulder and the moment you leave the room it is chaos. There was one point where one camel just decided to take another bath and was about 50m away before the guide noticed and then he looked at it and made a gesture meaning "Whatever, I'm not going to waste my time with you but you had better come back". The camel eventually did and it was a great journey. We got back the the village, thanked out guides and piled in the French couple's van and headed back to Aqaba.
Aqaba Continued
We got them to drop us off about 12k south of the main city where we rented some snorkeling gear and met our friends on the beach. According to Roger the Red Sea is one of the top ten snorkeling spots in the world and the spot where we were was amazing because it was less visited in comparison to other spots and the reef was 30-40m off shore. It was definitely one of the most amazing things that I did in the entire Eid break. It was a great contrast to go from desert beauty to the reef but I loved it. It is amazing how much life can be found in such a small area and the entire time I felt like one of the national geographic shows that you always watch and say "I want to go there". The colors of the fish and the coral itself were brilliant and full of life. I was able to see and chase around all types of fish including the puffer ones. There was one point where Roger and I swam underneath an arch that was formed out of coral and, underestimating by body's flotation, I scraped my arm a bit on the coral which just feels great in sea water. I wish that I could have taken pictures of this one amazing aspect of my trip but if you can just imagine the most beautiful little reef teeming with life and filled with all the colors of the world then you are getting close. It was the perfect ending to my fantastic Eid break.
After that we hopped on a bus back to Aqaba which was unfortunately playing the movie I had seen on the way to Aqaba and deemed the worst I had ever watched. Oh well, all things come in a circle, and all things considered I could suffer through the movie one more time. I hope that you have all enjoyed my pictures and descriptions of my break. The ones for this chapter can be seen at http://picasaweb.google.com/luke.bolton514/AqabaAndWadiRum. I am trying to both describe my trip and educate you a little bit about an entirely different culture so if you have questions please email me and I would love to answer your questions. I will post again in a bit, but my fingers are tired of typing and I am sure your eyes are tired of reading so I hope you all have a great day and send me some love on the other side of the world. I appreciate all your support from here.
Ma Salama
Luqa
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Lizzy Swoboda
non-member comment
question.
Why is there a girl's face on the back window of that station wagon? It really bothers me.