Day 11-12: The Lows and the Highs
I'll be quick with day 11, it was a write-off, mostly due to a slightly harrowing and largely time-wasting border crossing from Israel into Jordan. Being the moment when I add a new country to my list was probably the only fun moment of the day until the end - the New Year's gala dinner that the DoubleTree by Hilton in Aqaba, Jordan.
The other nice moment was seeing Aqaba, a nice port city with side sidewalks and multiple lanes and cleanliness - basically the opposite of the six hours in Jordan prceding it that were mostly a run of small towns, manic driving, no lights on ostensibly 'highways', and the rest. It was a culture shock coming from Israel, with its' US-esque highyways and road system. This was not that. All is not lost however.
The next day showed why all was not lost. We did not come to Jordan to be repeatedly surprised frokm a sense of modernity. No, we came to Jordan because of a few fantastic sites. First of which a day in the open expanse of the Wade Rum desert, then a day or two meandering around Petra, one of hte great historical sights of our world, and then getting to float in the Dead Sea. The first of these was Wade Rum desert, which was incredible.
Today was also January 1st, the second straight January 1st where my family and I were on a trip that required a fairly early start and therefore a fairly early night on New Year's. This time, I was basically in bed by 12:02, in bed to hear taxis stop where they were driving on the roads of Aqaba and start honking riotously.
A year ago to the day, my family and I visited Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, Chile. That was an incredibly experience, a series of mountsins and rock formations, standing above varied flora. Today was basically the same, but with red, perfect sand instead of water and lush greenery, and more incredible views in all direction than should be possible.
The Wadi Rum desert is an expanse in the Northwest corner of the Arabian desert, that is now home to a roving troupe of Bedioun villagers, formerly nomads who have now settled down here. The Bediouns basically live to show off this incredible piece of Jordanian gold they inhabit, and show us all theri simple, earth-bound ways, in a way that will easily make you fall in love with this little place.
IT is hard to really describe Wadi Rum, but I'll give it a try. It is basically combining the large, flat, upright, mini-mountains with rolling sandswept terrain in between. It really is like traversing a mountain range with sweet red sand instead of river snad trees. The views were stunning at all angles at all times, from the moment you leave the small Bedouin village in a open-back jeep, and see the first couple rock formations jutting out of the earth. If anything, this is what I imagine Mars looks like.
The tour was a jeep-led expedition pretty far deep into the Wadi Rum, and endless parade of giant rocks and hills and red, red sand. THere were five of us in our jeep, with a lovely Italian couple joining us. Much like in Israel before this, there were roughly 50 different jeeps running simultaneously and after a while we kept seeing the same people with the same smiles plastered on their faces and cameras plastered to their hands.
The tour included a series of stops at various mountains and rock formations, all providing an opportunity to test your amateur mountain climbing chops, and work the trigger finger on your cameraphone. The first stop was probably the toughest, about a 120-foot climb at a nice 30-40 degree angle, upwards towards the rock-face of a 250-foot mountain, where a fig tree and the opening of a stream sits. This was the toughest climb of the day, but being the first the adrenaline worked wonders.
The next was maybe the most fun, a shorter, easier, rocky climb to the top of a little hill, that had a sand dune built into its back-half. On the dune, were various people attempting to snowboard down the dune, which seemed incredibly fun, but also something I had no real ability to manage. I;m not a snow-boarder on snow, let alone sand.
Following this was another rock hill, but this one had a natural-made arch at the top, which lent itself nicely to even better photo opportunities than the incredible beauty of the surrounding area already justly warranted. All these sites really had that advantage. Climbing up gives you a chance to take in the magnitude of the beauty on all sides surrounding you. These rock formations are so unique, so staggering, so intimidating, that it truly creates and out of the world atmosphrere.
For lunch, we had an out of time experience. We pulled up in the shadow of one of the million rock formations, the driver/guide pulled out a ratan mat, spread it over the sand, and then starteed live preparing our meal, the centerpiece of which was a simple, but tasty, vegetable stew of tomato, onion, pepper and beans. The rest was simple stuff - pita, goat cheese, tuna, crackers - and it all came together in a perfect setting. This simple meal, built from mother earth itself - the fire was quickly scraped together using all available brush in ten minutes - was such a special experience.
Following the meal we had two more main sites - one other cliff-face and one other, larger, more regal arch - before ending with a 15-minute drive back through the Wadi Rum desert, and then finlaly shutting off to watch the sunset. I've been lucky enough to see many amazing sunsents at various locations. This was the most peaceful, and by far the most serene. I climbed up the cliff about twenty feat - the easiest climb of the day - sat up against the cliff face with a large rock as a perfectly placed footstool, and then sat back and took it all in.
Wadi Rum was fantastic, perfectly isolated and not nearly as commercialized as it could be. We are left mainly to our own devices when climbing and photographing our way across the landscape. There was a certain, well, bedouin nomad way the whole thing was arranged, and compared to how this place would be treated if it were in teh US, I'm for the low-stress nature ofe the operation.
After Wadi Rum, we had to drive again through darkness the 90 minutes or so to Petra. The worst part of the drive is we left the "Desert Highway", full of one lane sections and sporadic lights, to a side road that leads to Petra, which winded up and down god knows what, because the lakc of any lights made it impossible to see what was there. To be fair, this was all expected. We know it was bad to drive at night at Jordan, that driving even during the day was a fool's errand. But we were fools.
We finally reached Petra, checked into the nicely picturesque Marriott Petra, situated right on a cliff, but still a bit away from Petra itself. We were still early enough for a full dinner and Wad Musa experience - Wadi Musa being the city that houses Petra. We went to their main walk for dinner, again after tempting fate with a 10-min drive through the night.
Wadi Musa is a nice little town. The main restaurants are all easily Googleable, and we got to experience the nice side-biy-side rivalry between the Al Wadi restaurant (more glitzy, slightly more pricey), and the Beit al Karah restuarant (simpler, cheaper). They have 90% the same menu. The owner of Beit was a bit more pushy - not surprising since it isn't as reputed and enticing for westerners, but multiple travel sites argue it is better. We ended up there more beacuse Al Wadi had a wait.
In the end, we had a really nice meal to end our day, one with a bit more meat tthan the fire-side chat of a lunch. This was a really nice meal, with two lamb dishes. First, a lamb mushraf, rice with lamb and yougurt, which was excellent featuring ridiculiusly soft-off-the-bone lamb. The second wass a set of lamb chops, each grilled really well with minimal spices but still so much flavor. I often find lamb chops a bit overrated, be it too little meat or dryness, but we've ordered it three times in Israel and Jordan and its been amazing each time.
This was a lojng day, with a truly memorable experience. I knew little of Wadi Rum coming in other than it being a giant desert. I left realizing it was so much more. I'll never walk on Mars, but I know now what that would be like.
I'll be quick with day 11, it was a write-off, mostly due to a slightly harrowing and largely time-wasting border crossing from Israel into Jordan. Being the moment when I add a new country to my list was probably the only fun moment of the day until the end - the New Year's gala dinner that the DoubleTree by Hilton in Aqaba, Jordan.
The other nice moment was seeing Aqaba, a nice port city with side sidewalks and multiple lanes and cleanliness - basically the opposite of the six hours in Jordan prceding it that were mostly a run of small towns, manic driving, no lights on ostensibly 'highways', and the rest. It was a culture shock coming from Israel, with its' US-esque highyways and road system. This was not that. All is not lost however.
The next day showed why all was not lost. We did not come to Jordan to be repeatedly surprised frokm a sense of modernity. No, we came to Jordan because of a few fantastic sites. First of which a day in the open expanse of the Wade Rum desert, then a day or two meandering around Petra, one of hte great historical sights of our world, and then getting to float in the Dead Sea. The first of these was Wade Rum desert, which was incredible.
Today was also January 1st, the second straight January 1st where my family and I were on a trip that required a fairly early start and therefore a fairly early night on New Year's. This time, I was basically in bed by 12:02, in bed to hear taxis stop where they were driving on the roads of Aqaba and start honking riotously.
A year ago to the day, my family and I visited Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, Chile. That was an incredibly experience, a series of mountsins and rock formations, standing above varied flora. Today was basically the same, but with red, perfect sand instead of water and lush greenery, and more incredible views in all direction than should be possible.
The Wadi Rum desert is an expanse in the Northwest corner of the Arabian desert, that is now home to a roving troupe of Bedioun villagers, formerly nomads who have now settled down here. The Bediouns basically live to show off this incredible piece of Jordanian gold they inhabit, and show us all theri simple, earth-bound ways, in a way that will easily make you fall in love with this little place.
IT is hard to really describe Wadi Rum, but I'll give it a try. It is basically combining the large, flat, upright, mini-mountains with rolling sandswept terrain in between. It really is like traversing a mountain range with sweet red sand instead of river snad trees. The views were stunning at all angles at all times, from the moment you leave the small Bedouin village in a open-back jeep, and see the first couple rock formations jutting out of the earth. If anything, this is what I imagine Mars looks like.
The tour was a jeep-led expedition pretty far deep into the Wadi Rum, and endless parade of giant rocks and hills and red, red sand. THere were five of us in our jeep, with a lovely Italian couple joining us. Much like in Israel before this, there were roughly 50 different jeeps running simultaneously and after a while we kept seeing the same people with the same smiles plastered on their faces and cameras plastered to their hands.
The tour included a series of stops at various mountains and rock formations, all providing an opportunity to test your amateur mountain climbing chops, and work the trigger finger on your cameraphone. The first stop was probably the toughest, about a 120-foot climb at a nice 30-40 degree angle, upwards towards the rock-face of a 250-foot mountain, where a fig tree and the opening of a stream sits. This was the toughest climb of the day, but being the first the adrenaline worked wonders.
The next was maybe the most fun, a shorter, easier, rocky climb to the top of a little hill, that had a sand dune built into its back-half. On the dune, were various people attempting to snowboard down the dune, which seemed incredibly fun, but also something I had no real ability to manage. I;m not a snow-boarder on snow, let alone sand.
Following this was another rock hill, but this one had a natural-made arch at the top, which lent itself nicely to even better photo opportunities than the incredible beauty of the surrounding area already justly warranted. All these sites really had that advantage. Climbing up gives you a chance to take in the magnitude of the beauty on all sides surrounding you. These rock formations are so unique, so staggering, so intimidating, that it truly creates and out of the world atmosphrere.
For lunch, we had an out of time experience. We pulled up in the shadow of one of the million rock formations, the driver/guide pulled out a ratan mat, spread it over the sand, and then starteed live preparing our meal, the centerpiece of which was a simple, but tasty, vegetable stew of tomato, onion, pepper and beans. The rest was simple stuff - pita, goat cheese, tuna, crackers - and it all came together in a perfect setting. This simple meal, built from mother earth itself - the fire was quickly scraped together using all available brush in ten minutes - was such a special experience.
Following the meal we had two more main sites - one other cliff-face and one other, larger, more regal arch - before ending with a 15-minute drive back through the Wadi Rum desert, and then finlaly shutting off to watch the sunset. I've been lucky enough to see many amazing sunsents at various locations. This was the most peaceful, and by far the most serene. I climbed up the cliff about twenty feat - the easiest climb of the day - sat up against the cliff face with a large rock as a perfectly placed footstool, and then sat back and took it all in.
Wadi Rum was fantastic, perfectly isolated and not nearly as commercialized as it could be. We are left mainly to our own devices when climbing and photographing our way across the landscape. There was a certain, well, bedouin nomad way the whole thing was arranged, and compared to how this place would be treated if it were in teh US, I'm for the low-stress nature ofe the operation.
After Wadi Rum, we had to drive again through darkness the 90 minutes or so to Petra. The worst part of the drive is we left the "Desert Highway", full of one lane sections and sporadic lights, to a side road that leads to Petra, which winded up and down god knows what, because the lakc of any lights made it impossible to see what was there. To be fair, this was all expected. We know it was bad to drive at night at Jordan, that driving even during the day was a fool's errand. But we were fools.
We finally reached Petra, checked into the nicely picturesque Marriott Petra, situated right on a cliff, but still a bit away from Petra itself. We were still early enough for a full dinner and Wad Musa experience - Wadi Musa being the city that houses Petra. We went to their main walk for dinner, again after tempting fate with a 10-min drive through the night.
Wadi Musa is a nice little town. The main restaurants are all easily Googleable, and we got to experience the nice side-biy-side rivalry between the Al Wadi restaurant (more glitzy, slightly more pricey), and the Beit al Karah restuarant (simpler, cheaper). They have 90% the same menu. The owner of Beit was a bit more pushy - not surprising since it isn't as reputed and enticing for westerners, but multiple travel sites argue it is better. We ended up there more beacuse Al Wadi had a wait.
In the end, we had a really nice meal to end our day, one with a bit more meat tthan the fire-side chat of a lunch. This was a really nice meal, with two lamb dishes. First, a lamb mushraf, rice with lamb and yougurt, which was excellent featuring ridiculiusly soft-off-the-bone lamb. The second wass a set of lamb chops, each grilled really well with minimal spices but still so much flavor. I often find lamb chops a bit overrated, be it too little meat or dryness, but we've ordered it three times in Israel and Jordan and its been amazing each time.
This was a lojng day, with a truly memorable experience. I knew little of Wadi Rum coming in other than it being a giant desert. I left realizing it was so much more. I'll never walk on Mars, but I know now what that would be like.
