Jordan: Wadi Rum and Petra 3/13-3/16

The weekend of March 13, Ariana, Sara, Heather, and I set out on a mini adventure to, well none other then Jordan.
First, just a quick recap with names and faces, Ariana is my dearest friend here, she is a fellow badger, in my pictures she is the beautiful girl with the long red curly hair (she is amazing, I think I might be her biggest fan ha!), Sara is the girl with long blonde hair, I’m talking L-O-N-G. She is from Cambridge, MA, but she goes to GWU. She is a lot of fun, she loves to try new things, she is also a dear friend to me here and over the course of the semester I have really valued our friendship more and more. Heather is someone I first met on this trip but also an amazing girl, how blessed I am to have such wonderful friends. She has blonde curly hair but this weekend it was straight. She also goes to Wisconsin and was Ari’s freshman roommate. Heather doesn’t go to TAU with us; she’s studying in Jerusalem at Hebrew U.
Ari, Sara, and I decided to meet Heather in Jerusalem so we could spend a day in the holy city. She woke up early and went to the bus station, mind you this was just two days following a shooting at a Yeshiva in Jerusalem, which was not scary or anything just giving you some facts. The bus ride is about an hour, not a big deal. Jerusalem’s bus station puts Tel Aviv’s to shame. It is like Aventura Mall, they have everything there, shoes, clothes, food, and the works. But I mean come on at the end of the day it is a bus station so it is not like we spent too much time there.
We headed over to the Jerusalem Shuk, which is about 2 times of the size of TA’s. For those of you who don’t know a shuk is an outdoor market. It sells everything, fruits, vegetables, spices, hot foods, desserts, clothes, shoes, kitchen goods, appliances, trinkets etc. after walking through the shuk we headed over to Ben Yehuda Street which is a pretty popular place in Jerusalem it’s a small outdoor area with tons of shops and cafes. We walked around, shopped a little, and then walked down to the old city where we spent most of our time.
In the old city we walked through the Arab quarter, where we also shopped, through the Cardo, and then found a cute outdoor café where we all got the Israeli breakfast (eggs, Israeli salad which is just tomato and cucumber, cheeses, and bread yummmyyyyyyyyy). Sara, Ari, and I ate lunch at leisure sipping on Americano coffees, fresh squeezed OJ, and people watched. After we went into Hadaya (which is a store that sells jewelry, basically you choose a saying you like and they carve it onto the jewelry you choose), we all got something. Afterward we left for the bus station to meet Heather.
We got on the 5:30 bus to Eilat, it is about a 4 and a half hour drive. We arrived in Eilat at around 10 where we checked into our hostel. Now this hostel was only 60 NIS a night, which is about 17 USD per person per night. CHEAP! Hahaha and yes, it looked like a nice prison cell, but we liked it! Nothing too exciting happened that night we had to be up at 7 am the next day.
The next day is where the fun starts, we got picked up from the hostel in an open door white jeep, and by the tour company we hired to show us Wadi Rum and Petra. They drove us to the Israeli/Jordan border where we waited an hour in line for the border to open. Once it opened we were on our way, discharged from Israel and together the four of us walked across the border to Jordan. It’s about a 2-minute walk, literally!
In Jordan, AQABA, Jordan to be exact, they stamped our passports and eagerly we waited. Then Mustafa (the guy in Jordan making sure we got through immigration) escorted us to a taxi, not telling us anything just telling us to get in. at this point I started getting a little weary but figured ok Giuliana this is a legitimate travel agency its fine.
This taxi driver drove about 100 miles a hour, after 5 minutes of following a straight road in Aqaba, which is absolutely filthy, poor, and run down, we were dropped off on the side of the road. Standing outside of an old school Toyota pick-up was an Arab man, turban and all waiting for us WESTERN JEWISH GIRLS! Oooooooookkkkkkkk now I look at Ariana, Sara, and Heather and we are all thinking “WHAT IS GOING ON!?!?!?!?!?!”
He introduced himself to us as Ali, our tour guide for the next two days, and then drove us for an hour to the desert of Wadi Rum. Wadi Rum is actually a desert valley and it is the area that Lawrence of Arabia traveled through during the Arab revolt in 1917 in which Jordan was trying to gain independence from the Ottoman Empire. During the drive we slept, all except Sara, who we made sit in the front, who was scared out of her mind, and who started asking this man questions about the mountains in Jordan to make sure his answer corresponded with those that our Environment teacher gave us in order to ensure his reliability. After an hour drive we were woken up, told to get out of the truck and put into this outdoor Toyota pick up driven by a Bedouin man who did not speak English for the life of him. He was to be our guide for the next hour and drive us around this specific area of the valley. Initially we were petrified, it was a real Syriana moment, but with time we chilled out and started taking it all in.
Wadi Rum is breathtaking, absolutely magnificent. There are huge mountains, rock pictures left by the Nabatean’s, camels roaming around freely, and tons of Bedouin tents. We must have stopped at everyone for some delicious Bedouin tea, I don’t know what they put in that stuff but it is so good! Everyone was so friendly and we all started to loosen up. In one Bedouin tent one of the Bedouin children got there cell phones out (in the middle of the desert mind you) and started playing Fergie my humps, it was unreal hahaha. After our hour drive around this area of Wadi Rum we were reunited with Ali who was to show us the rest of the area.
First he took us to a place in the shade away from the wind and cooked us lunch with salads, chicken, roasted vegetables, and fresh pita. The food the whole weekend was amazing! During lunch we all talked. Turns out Ali is a devout Muslim who is making his pilgrimage to Mecca this year. He is the father of 5 children and is madly in love with him wife. He served in the Jordanian army for 20 some odd years, and has masters in Chemistry. He was a very sweet man and really looked out for us girls. Following lunch we continued on our tour of Wadi Rum, through the sand dunes and the mountains, we saw more inscriptions in stone, some more camels; we climbed some mountains, and had an amazing afternoon. We took a camel ride also which was a ton of fun. The sand in Wadi Rum is amazing it changes in certain areas from yellow to orange than to red and even areas of black. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before.
After a full day of touring around this immense valley we drove an hour to the ancient city of Petra. We spent the night there in a cave in the mountains of the city.
The cave was awesome. The girls and I lined up our mattresses and made one huge king bed, it was cold at night and we all cuddled up together. For dinner Ali’s wife made us roasted chicken, rice with chickpeas, different kinds of salad, homemade babaganush, hummus, and pita. Mmmmmm mmmmmmm mmmmmmm. And for dessert you ask? None other than HOMEMADE barekas. During dinner, sitting under a blanket of millions of stars, and next to a homemade fire, the girls and I started talking to Ali about Muslim customs and Arab traditions. It was fascinating talking to him hearing what he had to say, listening to what he so steadfastly believed in. we did not mention Israel or asked him what he though about Zionism, while we felt comfortable we still needed to be very careful.
Turns out in Jordan, there is no arranged marriage per se. Rather a man will see a girl he wants as a bride (women marry after university at around 25 years old). He will then go home and tell his parents who will make a date with the girls parents for tea. Over tea the girl will come into the room and show herself to the man’s parents. The man’s parents will then make an offer of 1 Jordan Dinar, which is about 3 US dollars. This is the first payment. The girls parents will then go to her and tell her the proposal, if she agrees with the marriage proposal an engagement party is prepared. The second payment is made for the actual wedding at the engagement party. The last payment is the most expensive it can be hundreds of thousands of Jordan dinar, however, this payment is only to be made if the couple gets a divorce. After our late night chat we went to bed.
We woke up the next morning to a homemade breakfast made by none other than ALI. Again, pita, and cheeses, vegetables, Turkish coffee, and tea, there was homemade jelly, and hardboiled eggs. Following breakfast we loaded up the Toyota and headed out to the office where we would leave Ali and meet our guide for our tour through Petra.
Petra was unbelievable too. An ancient city, built in the first century BCE, with everything carved in stone created by the Nabatean’s. All throughout Petra, since it is so touristy, there are small outdoor stores, camel, horse, and donkey rides, and vendors selling all sorts of stuff. After walking for about 15 minutes you reach the center of the ancient city, which is a high hand carved building, its precision, size, and beauty left the four of us in awe. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. We continued to walk around until we reached the restaurant we were supposed to eat lunch at. We were not yet hungry so the girls and I decided to walk the 1000 steps up to the monastery. It was such a sense of accomplishment reaching the top. Definitely the most fun I will ever have climbing 1000 stairs. After we sat down for lunch, a buffet lunch with salads and fish, chicken, rice’s, the Jordanian food works. We then walked around a bit more and went back into the modern city of Petra to grab a taxi for our trip back to the border.
We were back in Eilat by Saturday night; the weekend was all in all incredible. It was such a once in a lifetime experience, and we all loved it equally. The next day was spent at leisure. We woke up, got a bit to eat, and laid on the beach in Eilat for about 5 hours just looking out at the Jordanian Mountains we had just ventured off in, looking at the crystal blue water, and soaking in the sun. Our bus left at 5 for TA, sun burnt but happy we made the 5-hour trek back home. Another weekend abroad: SUCCESS!!