I went horseback riding the day I left...for about 7 minutes before the daily rain/thunderstorm began and the horse had to go inside in case it caught cold from the mud. Bah.
I made it to Jordan without incident, albeit quite tired after several plane and car rides. I headed straight to Madaba, somewhat south of the capital and a very important Christian center in the country. In Madaba, there's a beautiful Greek Orthodox church with a Very Old Mosaic Map of important holy sites in the Middle East. Faris showed me some of the Very Old Icons in the basement as well. I returned the next day to attend the service, little of which I could understand. All the same, it was nice to be in a church (there are only 9 total in Yemen, so perhaps you can understand how surprised I was to see so many all of a sudden):
Mt. Nebo is not far from Madaba. Mt. Nebo is a holy place - it's the mountain from which Moses saw the Promised Land, and purportedly the mountain in which he was buried. The view was fairly spectacular - if not because of the landscape than because of the importance of the landscape. This is the staff/serpent combo at the top:
And this is the Dead Sea, the Promised Land, and...if you can see beyond the haze, Jerusalem is in the distance.
This is my head, with the Promised Land in the background. A couple nice men gave me a lift back to town in their pickup, along with some fresh figs which I ate handily. I love this Middle Eastern friendliness...
From Madaba, I journeyed down Jordan's scenic King's Highway (note: they do love the king here - pictures of him smiling down upon you everywhere. And don't worry, I bought a coloring book with his face on it today too so I can share the love with all of you at home as well). Along the highway, I saw a few stunning wadis and canyons that come close to Grand Canyon awesomeness. I also visited the Karak castle, a Crusader castle from the 11th and 12th centuries that Salah Al-Din eventually took over. Pretty awesome:
My destination: Petra. You know, like Indiana Jones Petra. I think it's one of the Seven Wonders of the World (someone correct me on this - no time for fact checking. But while you're correcting me, remind me what the other 6 are, because I was trying to list them last week and doing a miserable job of it). We could subtitle the Petra excursion "adventures with Jordanian men", but I will leave those anecdotes for another time. Suffice it to say that hiking with different volunteer guides, from super-sweet-mullet Ibrahim to bedouin Ahmed, was tremendous and afforded me some singularly spectacular views that I wouldn't have found on my own (along with some very interesting conversation, as you might imagine).
After Petra, I headed south to Wadi Rum, not far from the Saudi border. Wadi (which means 'valley') Rum is one of the top 4 most beautiful places I have ever ever ever ever seen. It's the desert of Lawrence of Arabia, and it is big and red and quiet and immense. I rode in a 4WD Toyota for a day with fellow visitor Moroccan-French Najim and bedouin guide Mehdi. This is the view from Lawrence Spring:
and this is the canyon the three of us hiked and climbed in for a bit. Ancient paintings in the wall, that sort of thing.
This is a red sand dune, and my head again.
And this is me on top of a giant rock arch. Ana melika!
Wendy, Mehdi, and Najim all took naps in the dirt in the shadow of a giant rock midday. We woke up happy.
Around sunset, we headed to camp beneath the stars. Zidan, the owner of the camp, joined us and led us to a beautiful point to watch the sunset.
The next day, I headed on to Amman. Amman is not really a city of antiquity like many other Middle East capitals, but I like it nevertheless (and am astounded at the number of Western conveniences here, as well as the presence of many many many an American chain restaurant. Applebees or Carls Jr, anyone?). A view of Amman from the citadel:
I also went to the Dead Sea, which was super. I went with one taxi driver at 06:00, and my Jordanian friend was unable to come, so it wasn't *quite as awesome as floating with friends - but I had a great time ne'ertheless. Said great time involved slathering my entire body in black mud from the sea, then floating for about an hour. In this sea, you really feel like you're flying.
And just for fun, I'm going to post some pictures of a city near Amman. Someone I know visited there the last couple days.
I'm off to Damascus tomorrow, insha'allah. With a better internet connection in store (I pray), the updates should be much better and much more frequent. warmth and love to you all...
1 comment:
Wow! that's all.
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