I stopped blogging for two-ish weeks since my parents were visiting, and my mother is a far better blogger (for information about what we did while they were here, as well as their incredible trip through Southern Spain before meeting me, go here!). While they were visiting (and while I was working), my mom and sister had taken a two-day trip to Jordan, which they loved (and kept referencing to my dad and me, letting us know that we couldn’t complain about the heat since we hadn’t even been to Petra to experience the real heat). So, I knew that I definitely wanted to go!
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Maddy and I -- almost everyone
(including her classmates)
has assumed we are sisters! |
The Thursday night (equivalent to Friday in the US) before the tour began my roommate Mady and I went out with some of her friends from her Arabic class, as well as their professor! It was a very fun group, and super helpful to have their teacher along -- as a native he knew all the smaller/less tourist-y bars and was a welcomed substitute for Google Maps, plus it was fun to watch everyone else work through the weirdness of drinking with their professor.
We ended up getting back around 2 am...with my tour leaving at 3:45. So, I had some pita and nutella with Mady, showered, packed quickly (and, I would find out later, not very well), and walked right back out! Almost all of the buses in Jerusalem stop running around midnight, which meant I had to walk basically the same place we had just been, about an hour-long walk. So, by the time I got on the bus to head to Eilat (along the Red Sea, where one of the few border crossings into Jordan is located), I fell asleep almost immediately. At some point along the drive, our bus driver decided to hook his phone up to the audio of the bus, so that everyone was able to hear the phone calls he was making -- I have no idea what he was saying, as it was all in (I think) Arabic, but they seemed more like personal calls than something related to our trip/logistics. Very strange, but luckily I am able to sleep through almost anything!
We stopped in a gas station along the way for breakfast, and then reached the border a little after 8 am. It was easy to get through, but once inside we spent over an hour just sitting and waiting for further instructions. It was clear that this tour company organizes lots of different tours on the same day, with everyone coming into Jordan at the same time -- and, since my tour was two days, we were lower priority than all the people who had to be rushed through to get to everything in just a day.
Once we did get our group together, I met a wonderful group of students -- Dalya, Marcelina, and Zach -- all around my age, from Yale, and living/doing research near Tel Aviv this summer. We boarded the bus to Aquaba for lunch, and I really enjoyed talking with them over delicious food! Although the plan had been to go straight to Petra, the delay at the border meant that they had decided to change the schedule around to instead go straight to the Bedouin camp where we would stay for the night. In my head I was picturing a dusty campground with tents, and maybe some fire pits -- turned out to be a beautiful, well-landscaped site with a huge pool, large tents with actual beds, a full bar and lovely dining area. I’m still not sure how “authentic” this is to any actual Bedouin experience, but it was quite wonderful!
We still had some time before our activity for the day -- a Jeep ride through Wadi Rum, the huge Jordanian desert -- so I went with my new Yale friends to the pool. I hadn’t actually brought a swimsuit (or flip-flops...good lesson not to pack at 2am the night before!), so was planning just to read while everyone else swam, but it looked too fun to miss out on so I put together a mis-match combination of whatever exercise clothes I had brought and joined! While swimming, we started talking to this large group of around eight girls on our tour, all from MIT, and also doing research in Tel Aviv. I love Brown, but I’m super impressed by the programs that these two groups were on and the funding/support they got through their schools. They were also all wonderful -- very glad to have met them all, and to have had such friendly and interesting company for the rest of the tour!
Our next stop was Wadi Rum. The Jeep ride was amazing -- the desert is beautiful and expansive, and we went at a great time, with the sunlight perfect on the red sand but not quite as hot as it had been a few hours earlier. After climbing up on a hillside to get a better view of the area, we went to this huge sand dune that rested against a rocky incline. This meant that you could easily walk up the rocks, and then run down the sand (versus the challenge of walking straight up the sand). Although it didn’t look too bad from the bottom, it was clear from the top that the sand really did drop down quite dramatically. It took me awhile to actually run down, but it was a ton of fun as you could go ridiculously fast with pretty little concern about injury. I was done after one time through, so hung out with Marcelina as everyone else went again.
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| Me, staying very far away from any sort of cliff! |
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| On the Jeep ride |
We got back to the camp right in time for the sunset, which we watched from on top of a hillside that bordered the camp -- absolutely breathtaking! They put out a great buffet for dinner, including this lamb that they cook in a traditional style in underground ovens. I almost considered trying it -- I’ve been thinking recently that I should break my vegetarianism for foods that seem like once-in-a-life foods I’m not likely to run into again -- but couldn’t bring myself to actually do it. Afterwards, we went out onto their dance floor and had a wonderful time dancing with a bunch of locals that came out to the camps for dinners/celebrations. Very fun to dance with one older Muslim woman in a full hijab who was shimmying around the dance floor.
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| Sunset from the hillside near the village |
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| Zach, Marcelina, and I during sunrise |
We all made a plan to meet around 5:15am the next morning to watch the sunrise. Unsurprisingly, not everyone showed up, but a good group of us hiked up that same hillside to watch the sunrise from the opposite side. Just as breathtaking as the sunset had been the night before, but with the added bonus that we were totally along on the ridge and everything around as was quiet and/or asleep. We had a delicious breakfast buffet, before boarding the bus to head out for Petra.
After a brief stop along the way to view a canyon and pop into a souvenir shop (where we all got fitted with traditional Jordanian headwear, and I got a beautiful mug), we arrived in Petra. We walked along the canyon, which is full of all these cool, small remnants of ancient carvings and dwellings, before arriving at the main destination: the Treasury (actually, a tomb for one of the rulers). It was incredible to see it in person -- it is this huge, magnificent structure, carved entirely out of the sandstone cliff and really well-preserved. We had a little bit of free time to explore, so we climbed through some caves before walking to the amphitheater nearby -- also carved directly out of the cliff, and also incredible!
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| At the souvenir shop |
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| The Treasury |
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| In someone's home (at some point!) |
We were treated to our third buffet in the past day (again, delicious) before boarding the bus to head back to the border crossing. It was really clear at this point how little communication happens between the Jordanians and the Israelis -- our guide seemed to have no clue who would be picking us up, where we’d be going next, what time we’d be back, etc., and seemed a little confused that we would assume he did.
We made it back to the Israeli side around 7pm -- about 4 hours after the itinerary had said we would (which I was perfectly happy with!). This meant they had to shift things around so that we could head back to our locations with the other tourists, who were arriving around 8:30. This gave us an hour in Eilat to grab dinner, and an opportunity for me to touch the water there -- I don’t think I’ll be back to Eilat as it’s very hot and has a little bit of a Las Vegas-feel, but I can now say I’ve touched the Red Sea! We said goodbye to the MIT girls at the border, as they were going to a hostel in a different part of Eilat, and went into the downtown area. Since it was still Shabbat, the only thing that was opened was a McDonalds. I technically had to break my/my family’s rule on not eating food on trips that we could get at home, but got these strange corn nuggets (essentially chicken nuggets but with corn and batter instead of meat), which might actually be something I couldn’t get at home! They were quite disgusting, but we got to eat with a beautiful view looking out over the Red Sea and Aquaba, Jordan, in the distance.
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| The Red Sea! |
Unfortunately for my Tel Aviv friends, the tour company decided to send us back first through Jerusalem, then next to Tel Aviv. By the time we got on the road, it was already close to 9pm, so we got back to Jerusalem around 12:30am -- on my birthday! Not at all how I would have expected to begin this next decade of my life, but happy to be with new friends and to be coming from such a wonderful and memorable weekend.
Our next stop was Wadi Rum. The Jeep ride was amazing -- the desert is beautiful and expansive, and we went at a great time, with the sunlight perfect on the red sand but not quite as hot as it had been a few hours earlier. After climbing up on a hillside to get a better view of the area, we went to this huge sand dune that rested against a rocky incline. This meant that you could easily walk up the rocks, and then run down the sand (versus the challenge of walking straight up the sand). Although it didn’t look too bad from the bottom, it was clear from the top that the sand really did drop down quite dramatically. It took me awhile to actually run down, but it was a ton of fun as you could go ridiculously fast with pretty little concern about injury. I was done after one time through, so hung out with Marcelina as everyone else went again.
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