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| Quintessential Jordan picture: Petra's Treasury |
I didn't see all of the popular spots in Jordan, like Aqaba or the Baptism site, and I didn't walk through Jaresh (I drove by it), but I do feel like my trip was perfect for me.
I hired a Jordanian company called Dry Ver Jo to drive me around the country while I was there. It was one of the best decisions I made because I never worried about how I was getting anywhere, and my driver(s) showed me around the country's back roads and took care of me when I got my typical trip's food poisoning. My main driver was Abdullah; he was fantastic and made me feel like I had a best friend in Jordan driving me around and even brought me out for dinner on my last night.
Days 1-2: Dead Sea
I started my trip near the Dead Sea, for the conference. It's a hot and humid place, which isn't surprising as it's one of the lowest points on Earth you can visit without getting into the ocean AND has heaps of salt on the surface of both soil and water.
The first thing I did after arriving was to make my way to the Dead Sea, a 7-minute walk from the hotel I was staying. I could see clearly the lake's recession as the hotel's path to the water was riddled with derelict beach areas when the water was once much closer to the building; I found this very sad. The sea is receding about a meter annually because its tributary (the Jordan River) has been diverted too much by countries further upstream (which has also led to a lot of sinkholes in the dregs of the dying sea).
The sea is definitely saline, and when I finally made it to the waters, I floated like a rubber ducky and made the mistake of putting some of the water far too close to my lips (it tasted like nasty salt).
For the rest of my stay in the area, I was mostly in a conference room listening to academics talk about the history of water reuse. It was a fine conference, albeit small and a bit "aged". I was very jetlagged during the conference, but I forged through it and met some interesting water historians.
Days 3-4: Wadi Mujib & Petra
Part of the conference included a day trip to Petra to look at ancient water systems. We piled into a tour bus and drove three hours south to visit the famous site.
I have to explain something: I have never liked being part of tour groups. I find them too restrictive when exploring. This day trip reminded me how much I don't enjoy being part of groups - much of the conference attendees were slow to move and were interested in capturing pictures while a guide patiently tried to usher us from the Petra Museum (with a lovely exhibit describing the culture of the people who built Petra - the Nabateans) and through the Siq. About two hours into the tour, I grew impatient and asked to break away at a faster speed so I wouldn't miss out on seeing the rest of the site (at their speed, we'd only get to the Treasury and would have no time to see the rest of the place).
Petra is beautiful and fascinating; there's a reason why people flock to see this archeological location. The buildings were expertly carved out of the canyon's soft sandstone for different purposes - an amphitheater, tombs, monasteries, homes, etc. It was hot when we were visiting and Petra doesn't have a lot of shade, but I pushed forward and was awed when I got to the Treasury. It's the most famous (and photogenic) aspect of Petra, and with good reason; the carvings are still very much defined, and it's a brilliant view when you reach it from the Siq.
I also walked down the main thoroughfare and saw the panoramic sights of the city of Petra, with the smaller carved-out houses in the rock (and donkeys inside to seek shade), the tombs and church further up flights of precarious steps, and through the sandy old road. I was due to meet the tour group shortly after I broke away, so I didn't have time to climb up to see some of the tombs or monastery up close, but I didn't mind (I liked looking from afar just as much).
One of the incredible things about Petra and the Nabateans is their sophisticated water management systems from such an early time. Jordan has always had water quantity challenges, but they had perfect water piping systems and cisterns that stored and reused water within their habitats. Some of those systems could probably be adopted in parts of the world still. So neat!
A bummer of Petra (for me) was seeing the sad animals being overworked. The donkeys drag carriages up and down the rocky hills of the Siq. These donkeys are prodded to go fast and trip across cobblestones until they are heaving and clearly distressed. It was really sad to see them zoom back and forth in the site and even sadder how many people were willing to pay for their use. A suggestion: don't use the donkeys in Petra.
The tour group drove back to the Dead Sea for the night. The next day I made my way back.
Along the way, we stopped at Wadi Mujib. Before I showed up, I didn't know much about Wadi Mujib other than it was supposed to be a beautiful place in a canyon and a fun side adventure while in Jordan...so I got there and asked the admission's fee. The entrance guy looked at me in my linen pants and politely asked me if I was ready to swim, climb, and crawl through the canyon. Clearly not sure what I was getting myself into, I changed into some more "athletic" gear and headed into the canyon with a tour guide.
Wadi Mujib's adventure is a great and safe experience, but it's also hard. I found myself in a canyon with a stream-cum-rapid that I was wading through to get to the big waterfall at the end of the 2-hour hike. The further along you are, the deeper and faster the water gets. My guide made the trecking a lot easier; we'd watch people in front of us struggle and he'd respond by showing me a much simpler method to get past a rapid that saved me time and energy (thank god I paid extra to have him join me!). It was still a tough course to get through, though, and there were moments where I slammed into rocks or had to drag myself up a pile of rocks with a rope and felt myself pull one of many muscles along the way. I also accidentally got a lot of water in my nose and mouth at different parts of the journey, which I suspect gave me the sickness I had a day later. Sadly, my fear of heights kicked in strongly about 2/3 into the trek, and I made my guide turn around after forcefully shouting at him "NO!" in Arabic (rather, "La!" / "!لا").
I'm glad I did it, but I felt the pain from that adventure for a few days after.
En route to my next stop, Abdullah brought me to a tea shop on a cliff in the mountains near the Dead Sea. I got some sugary tea and enjoyed a gorgeous backdrop of rolling hills and distant views of Palestine. An old man was sitting at the tea spot and started talking to my driver about me. The old man informed us that he was a fan of Trump (much to my dismay and Abdullah's confusion) and was a proud veteran of the Jordanian Army. He pulled out of his wallet a medallion from his service and asked me to wear it for one of my pictures. I was touched and honored that he shared such an important thing with me for a few minutes.
After that adventure, we drove on to Wadi Musa, where I had arranged to stay at a Bedouin camp for a few nights. The camp I stayed at was in the middle of an empty desert area near Little Petra, so it was beautifully quiet. At night, they lit a campfire to warm up tea and one of the nearby rock formations lit up with twinkling bags of light they had placed in its crags.
Day 5: Little Petra
The next day I woke up feeling like I was in an otherworldly place - the camp felt like it was some outpost on the moon!
I had decided to spend most of the day reading quietly and relaxing - it was my vacation, after all. Before sundown, though, I wanted to walk 30 minutes over to Little Petra for a while. Way back in the day, Little Petra was likely the suburb of the popular Petra, and important people I think would "park" their camels and caravans at this place.
Honestly, I liked Little Petra a little bit more than the other one. It was quieter (most tourists don't bother visiting), it was shaded, it had some preserved ceiling art, and I could more realistically envision people coming into this area and living there.
One of my favorite parts of visiting ancient sites is visualizing people back in the day living there normally - it makes the place feel more real to me.
A younger shopowner at Little Petra showed me around the area, and I happily followed him knowing I'd pay him afterward. With my Wadi Mujib injuries, he helped me safely climb up and down steps in the area and showed me places I wouldn't have bothered looking into if he weren't with me. He was concerned about my limp and showed me a local tree that apparently people use to help soothe muscles. He then invited me to apply it on my leg in his cave a few minutes' away.
For the record, this man lived in a cave. The cave had carved out pillars and was clearly old (with some new carpets and mattresses lining the floor). Essentially, he appeared to live in a Nabatean-built cave and modernized the place a little bit. I was floored! Apparently, much of the Nabatean caves that were part of the Petra civilization are not completely what the tourists see, and some people are still using these caves to live (and others probably have still yet to be fully discovered).
I put on my homemade ointment (that may have helped a little bit) and hobbled my way back to my camp for the night.
Early the next day I got picked up to drive even further south to the UNESCO-protected desert in Jordan - Wadi Rum. This was the place they filmed The Martian and Lawrence of Arabia. I got to the desert village a little after midday and my bedouin camp in the desert picked me up for my five-hour Jeep tour through the protected area.
The Jeep tour was incredible - it was as if we were driving through Mars for much of the trip. The Bedouin man who was driving me around showed me some breathtaking sights and took me all over. We started in an area that had prehistoric petroglyphs carved into the stone walls, climbed a number of red rock formations so I could hover over a natural arch, then he drove me far away from any other living beings, in absolute silence and desolation. He showed me how the desert has two regions: red and white. The red region is where the camps are and is better traveled by tourists; the white region is furthest from any road and is not allowed to have any camps built in it. There were camels hanging out all across the desert; some had tourists on their back, some were just hanging out as if life was mellow and they were just along for the ride. My guide drove around the desert as if there were well-marked streets through the barrenness of the desert that I just couldn't see for some reason. I'm still baffled.
The camp where I was staying for the night was the last camp in the desert and the closest to the white desert and without any internet or connectivity. I also happened to be the only person there for the night. They asked me if I wanted to change my camp to be with other people, but I was excited about having a very quiet and alone evening in the middle of nowhere. I had the whole night to myself (and three guys running the camp) with the dunes and starlit sky. One of the camp staff brought out an oud and played some traditional music just for me. We sat and talked quietly over a small campfire, and I watched shooting stars.
I was very much alone in a lot of ways that night, and I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed being the only person using the bathrooms and the silence echoing in the stillness of the desert. What I did not enjoy was a night in and out of the bathroom with some medium-level food poisoning (most useful in Arabic during my stay - "Ana murad"/"انا مريض"/"I'm sick"). The camp staff guys were concerned about me and, with limited ability to speak with each other, helped me decide that the next day I'd go see a doctor in Amman while I started taking some Cipro I had carried with me "just in case".
Day 7 - 8: Amman (and North)
The next day my driver friend picked me up early at a nearby tourist rest stop and drove me (slowly, at my request) from Wadi Rum to Amman. One of the local women at the conference had helped me find a GI doctor and I had booked an appointment for early in the afternoon to make sure I hadn't picked up those irritating parasites (that I'm prone to getting while overseas).
The GI doctor was very helpful and well-informed. He checked out my gut, got me to leave behind a sample for testing, and instructed me to get a second opinion about some of the treatments I am taking for other more chronic GI issues. With his visit and the lab tests he ran, the tab ended up being $100...without any insurance. In the US, that bill would have been the same WITH insurance. And the healthcare in Jordan felt more personal and less like a factory. If you ever get sick in Jordan, rest assure there is really great, affordable care out there.
My hotel in Amman was fine. The hotel manager had very limited English but tried to talk to me anyway about things that strangers shouldn't ask guests in their hotel. I kept to myself and avoided him as much as I could.
The next day I went for a tourist jaunt across the city. It was a jarring experience - not just because I had just spent the last 3 or 4 days in very quiet, secluded areas of the country and I was accosted by the noises of urbanity suddenly, but also because the people I encountered were less kind and less helpful. It was a helpful reminder that people in cities are not good reflections of the rest of the country I'm in. I mean, I knew this already - I'm a New Yorker, after all.
I started the day at the Amman Citadel. It resembles a Roman ruin but dates back much further than that. I slowly walked around the fort and admired some of the ancient water storage sites they had built so long ago.
After I was finished, I made a mistake. I agreed to let the first taxi driver I met to drive me around the city for two hours. The guy was a creep and talked to me all about his taste in women and asking me all about my weight management (ugh). He ended up stealing about $20 from me on top of what I had originally agreed to pay him, and he pissed me off a lot. It was my fault, I know, but it was another reminder that city people are not always the best people in the world. That's what I'll say about him.
I visited the Amphitheater and its two museum exhibits about traditional cultures in Jordan. They were interesting to see and I do recommend people to visit at least for a little bit. The remains are quite well preserved and are neat to walk through, as well.
The creep taxi man also made me go to the King Abdullah Mosque in the city. It's not a particularly old mosque - it's not quite 40 years old yet, and I was honestly unimpressed by it. Don't get me wrong, it was nice; it was just like going to any other modern building in use with stained glass windows, which I was not interested in. There was also a tourist shop under the mosque that I was pushed to visit and I decided to at least make the stop useful to finish up my Xmas shopping, so I spent too much on some nice souvenirs. Much of it was soap (spoiler alert?).
I also went downtown to buy 1.5 kilos of spices (za'atar and sumac) and ditched the creepy cabbie to get some lunch. I stopped at the famous Al Quds for lunch and ordered some delicious mansaf, which is a rice dish with a tangy yogurt sauce, nuts, and chicken. I also sacrificed my glutenfree health to give knafeh a try (a popular local dessert with unsalted cheese and a honeyed pastry top)...and it was very much delicious and probably worth the pain I will deal with for the next few weeks.
By this time it was sunny and 95F/35C out, but I wasn't ready to quit my tourism quite yet. I walked uphill for about an hour to see Rainbow Street, which is apparently a popular and swanky tourist spot. Much of the uphill walk was a multi-story staircase that felt like it was going up forever; I trudged my way up and took my sweet time, panting and sweating bullets. By the time I got to Rainbow Street, I was far too hot to enjoy it and opted to double fist iced sodas for a few hours at a local shop before I made my way to my evening dinner.
I had booked my dinner plans as a cooking class at Beit Sitti (Grandmother's Kitchen). The place is a great cause - they hire older women who are refugees from local countries to teach tourists common Arabic dishes for a few hours. The class was lovely and in a small house with a beautiful balcony for us to enjoy our class's output. We cooked a one-pot rice dish called maglubah and some eggplant dish like baba ghanoush.
The next day was a searing 100F/38C, so I decided to change my trip plans with Abdullah. We were scheduled to visit Jerash (a well-preserved Roman city) in the north for the day; instead, we agreed to drive around it a few times in the airconditioned car and eat more knafeh at the gorgeous Ajloun Nature Reserve. I gazed down over a balcony at the reserve center at a sea of oak trees before we hopped back in the car and got dinner in Amman.
For my final dinner in the country, Abdullah brought me out to a local restaurant that specialized in more generally "Gulf country" food. I got fish, rice, and a bowl of delicious lentil soup that I plan on trying to cook for myself sometime. It was a wonderful send-off from a friend before I passed out in my airport hotel for an early morning flight back to NYC.
Last Thoughts
My trip was rejuvenating and fascinating. As usual, here are some overarching things I wanted to mention about the trip.
My trip was rejuvenating and fascinating. As usual, here are some overarching things I wanted to mention about the trip.
- Deserts are Surreal: Drying through the country meant mostly being in a desert. I found it unreal driving through it because the color palette of the region was monochromatic and meant that everywhere I went was very hot and super dry. This isn't particularly poignant, but it was a new experience for me and I felt it very differently compared to most other experiences I've had. I'm not sure if I liked it or not.
- Jordanian Hospitality is Awesome: Barring a few unpleasant encounters in Amman, everyone I met in Jordan was extremely nice and hospitable. People were eager to help me get oriented, travel, eat good food, and feel better after my bout of diarrhea. Sometimes I was shocked at how people didn't often seem interested in taking money for helping me, which made me feel even more awe for their compassion and kindness to a stranger. It humbled me.
- Solo Traveling is Safe: Most people I met (especially other tourists) were particularly concerned about me being alone and going through Jordan mostly solo. People kept asking me if I was safe or if it was "wise" to go to XYZ area alone...but I found being alone was a super way to really experience the area without having to manage others and their expectations in my travels. The one day I toured with others reminded me how my pace is so different from others, and Jordan people's kindness and interest in my well-being made it okay for me to be alone. Even being completely at the mercy of the camp staff in the desert with no communication with the outside world felt completely normal and secure. I don't feel this way at home, usually.
- Arabs Have Opinions about Arabs: Jordanians have a lot of opinions about other Arabs, which surprised me especially given their hospitality and generosity. Some Jordanians I met warned me about Syrians, others felt very poorly towards Saudis, and some went on about the corruption of all Egyptians. And so on. I was slightly sad to hear that Arabs apparently fiercely judge against each other, especially while the rest of the world judges them at least as harshly.
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