Sunday, October 11, 2009

Part 4: PETRA (enough said)

Oh Petra...how do I describe thee?

Well to start, we got up at 5 am, as planned, and Rami drove us to the bus station. Oh shoot. I just realized I've been spelling his name with an "i" instead of a "y" this whole time. But I've written his name so many times that I can't possibly be bothered to go back and change it now. Just let it be known that it should be spelled "Ramy," not "Rami."

There. All better.

So we hopped on a bus to Wadi Musa, a town right outside of Petra that, we had been warned by lonely planet, was full of grifters and thieves. Oh Lonely Planet! I think you did Wadi Musa a disservice. Granted, the hostel was a little more expensive than one not so close to one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, but they didn't try to rip us off, the room was neat and clean, the bathroom was washed down several times during our stay, and everyone was very friendly and helpful. More than adequate for a single night's stay. So we set our stuff down and took advantage of the free transportation to Petra.

We were dropped off at a strip of stores that, we were assured, was right outside the entrance, and told to be back at 6 pm to be picked up and returned to the hostel. This was fine with us. It was only noon, and we stopped to have some delicious food before we went in - hommas and taboula, some eggplant and tahini dish whose name I can't remember, foul and lentil soup - so good! - and then we were ready for the adventure.



And then we walked right past the entrance and got lost on the winding desert roads beyond. But only for a little while. And we got some good pictures out of it, such as the one located on your right (see? Pretty.)

Luckily a tour guide was on his way to meet up with his group, and offered to give us a ride to where we were actually supposed to be. We thanked him heartily, bought our tickets, and started walking in the proper direction.


I have so many pictures of Petra that it's best to look at my facebook; there's no way I'm going to put them all on here. But I'll include a couple good ones.







To begin with, you enter Petra by walking through a ravine, carved between impossibly tall cliffs in stripes of red and orange and mustard. They seem to narrow the further up you stare, so that the sky is just a tiny slit of blue high up above:











After thirty minutes or so of twisting and turning through these smooth walls, you finally see the exit ahead - and peeping through the narrow slit is the Treasury, the most famous and best preserved of all the carved buildings in Petra.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Once you enter the city it's a panorama of carved building faces, many of them so eroded that it looks like they're slowly melting off the cliffside - like they were carved from sugar or glass. I guess it makes you realize how old they are, that the rock would have time to be shaped and subsequently effaced like that.



We wandered around Petra for a few hours - befriended a small boy and played catch with rocks (kids, don't try this at home) - took a quick power nap on top of a high cliff - and, oh yeah, climbed a HUGE frickin mountain to see an ancient monastery at the top! It took probably 45 minutes, and I don't even remember if I took a picture, after all that work. But we were there, and probably never will be again, so how could we not?

And besides, my favorite thing happened there, on top of that mountain, by that monastery.

It started to rain.

It was the first rain I had seen in months.

And it was beautiful.

Part 3: Couch Surfing in Amman

Salty and satisfied, Autumn, Cory and I hopped on a microbus back to Amman. It was the last day of Ramadan, which meant we had to head back earlier than we would have liked - Iftar would be an especially big deal tonight, and if we didn't make the bus by 5 we would be stranded on the shores. Luckily we made it ok, and we each snuck a Snickers ice cream bar before we left, taking clandestine bites from the depths of a white plastic bag that we kept crumpled around them.

We had been so careful to avoid obvious eating and drinking in public all through that long, hot, weary month. We couldn't bear the thought of taunting them poor Muslim population so soon before the end!

But Snickers ice cream bars are soooo goooood.

We had left our things at the Sheraton in Amman, not wanting to drag our bags to the beach with us. So we returned, reclaimed them, and tried to use their public phone to call Rami, who would be hosting us tonight.

The way we found Rami was through a magical creation called Couch Surfing. Couch Surfing is an international website phenomenon meant to help out travelers around the world. If you're going somewhere but don't want to pay for a hostel or hotel, you can check out people registered on Couch Surfers and see if they're willing to host you. The website is very good about guarding against creepers, too - if you stay with someone and have a good experience, you write them a reference so that other travelers can know that they're good people. Which is nice, and makes your mother feel better about the whole thing.

[Note: I did not tell my mother about any of these things. I figured it would be nicer for her to hear them when I returned home, safe and sound and fully satisfied with all my adventures and experiences. Love you, Mom!]

We had contacted several people in Amman about the three of us crashing on their floors / couches, and ended up getting in touch with a great guy named Rami. He said we could absolutely stay, and told us to contact him when we were ready to come over.

However, we couldn't get a hold of him for a while, and after calling three times or so we decided to find something to do in the interim. So we bid farewell to the Sheraton lobby and headed back out, into the later Jordanian afternoon.

After looking through several tourist maps, and again consulting Google, we decided to check out Amman's Citadel (seems like everyone's got one!). It was reputed to have an amazing view of the city, as well as, obviously, interesting ruins and architecture. Lonely planet had told us that the Citadel was beautiful at sunset, and it was almost sunset, so we thought, why not!

Turns out the Citadel is closed at sunset.

Really, Lonely Planet?

We were just about to take our taxi all the way back down the various twisty and turny hills that we had taken to get there (Amman is somewhat redolent of San Francisco), when the men at the gate had pity on us and said we could go in after all. "Just ten minutes!" they made us promise, and we ran.

And it was beautiful at sunset! We forgave Lonely PLanet their mistake (besides, we figured, maybe it was an Iftar thing - it being sunset and all) and took pictures to our hearts' content. Like this one:


And this one, of the columns:

And this one, of the view of the city

By this point we got in touch with Rami and made plans to come to his apartment, drop off our stuff, and go out for a tour of the city from one of its native residents.

Rami was absolutely wonderful - bursting at the seams with energy, fun facts about Jordan, and turkey sandwiches to feed our hungry traveling selves. We hung around his apartment and refueled for an hour or so, then set off on a tour of the town.

Amman was not so different from other Middle Eastern cities I've seen - crowded, lots of little tables on the sidewalk and shops set into the buildings behind. However, I must say, it was much cleaner, and smelled much nicer, than Cairo. It was also a good deal greener, we had noticed. Being starved for trees we appreciated this fact.

Rami took us all over the downtown area.
We bought scarves from a little booth (the man taught Autumn how to tie them on her head like a traditional Jordanian: see right), had sheesha and drinks at the coolest cafe (it was all dark wood and smoke, with a man playing 'oud inside), and tried an...interesting...desert that Rami swears Jordan is famous for: fried cheese covered in, I think, caramelized honey. At this point we were stuffed from all the chickpeas and foul and pita we had eaten at the cafe - and also not so tempted by the desert offered - but Rami was adamant! So we tried it, and to be honest, it wasn't so bad! Not something I would want to eat every day (I respect my arteries), but all in all it was pretty good.

By this point we were more than ready for bed. So we headed back to Rami's place, decided to get up at 5 am the next day and head to Petra, and with that, crashed thankfully on to the floor.

Part 2: Watermelon Juice and a Salty, Salty Sea

I honestly think my favorite thing about the Amman Sheraton was the breakfast buffet. Omelets made to order, dozens of flaky pastries, yogurt, cereal, jam and honey and - fresh watermelon juice! Did you even know that existed? We had to taste to believe.

After a huge breakfast we packed our bags, did a last comb-over of the room, and suddenly remembered that we had made no plans whatsoever for when we actually arrived in Jordan.

Hmm, we thought, sitting back down on to our outrageously comfortable beds and letting our bags fall to the floor. Well that is a pickle.

But it wasn't! Because that is part of the JOY of traveling! Itineraries are overrated. We decided to take advantage of what few hours of free internet use remained (we would be cut off at noon) and pick the brains of the hotel staff for ideas.

After a few minutes of google-ing and a couple moments of deliberation, we decided that our best bet was to try and visit the Dead Sea. We were to stay in Amman that night with a friend we had found through Couch Surfers, but he wasn't expecting us til later and we didn't want to show up on his doorstep at 11 am. So the Dead Sea it was! Now the question was, how to get there.

In Jordan, as in Egypt, there are two ways to get anywhere: the clearly-marked, air-conditioned tourist way; and the local way. As poor college students in good health, we tend to prefer the local way, and generally, if you ask and if you know a little but of Arabic, people are more than willing to help you find out how to use it. However, we forgot that we were staying in a 5-star hotel.

We learned all about how Sheraton would love to take us to the Dead Sea on a fancy pants shuttle that would cost us about $15 each. It would leave in two hours and we were more than welcome to sign up for it and wait patiently til then.

What?? Did they know us? We were world travelers - certainly not willing to sit idly in a hotel lobby, wasting precious swine flu vacation time. And $15 was far above our budget.

We politely thanked the Avis desk, walked over to the receptionist, and whispered that we wanted the real way to get to the Dead Sea; there had to be a microbus of some kind.

A microbus? he asked. Are you sure?

Yes! We're from Cairo and Syria! We know our microbuses!

After finally convincing him that we were fully capable of taking a microbus, he was more than willing to help us locate an appropriate one. "Just one moment," he assured us, so we stood and smiled as he made several phone calls to several people about where the illusive microbus station would be located this particular week (they change all the time, because the "station" can be any unmarked stretche of road that the microbuses feel like grouping around). I swear, he was wonderful! At one point he mentioned that a question we had would better be addressed to the Concierge, whose desk was about twenty feet behind us. We expected that he would just have us walk over there, but instead, he picked up the phone. Confused, we stopped and waited; looked across the room - looked back - and suddenly heard "ring ring! ring ring!" right behind us.

"We can just walk over there..." Autumn assured him. "I mean...it's right there..."

But the man just smiled at us and said, "Oh no, really; I do not want to inconvenience."

Finally, after all the hard work of what seemed like all the downstairs employees (they like to get lots of people involved in everything), we were given an address, an expected price of less than a dinar, and were sent cheerfully out the door.

And we were on our way! We took a taxi to the proper spot, immediately saw a tiny bus with the words "Dead Sea" scrawled on the side, and hopped on board. In just a few minutes we were jostling along to one of the most famous sites in the world.

The Dead Sea! to be honest, is rather unimpressive to look at. The sand is more like compressed clay; the sun is piercing; the wind is high. Here's a picture:


See? Kinda bleak.

But you don't go to the Dead Sea for the view! You go for the outrageously salty water!

And let me tell you, it was outrageously salty. You can't even swim on your stomach; the water is so dense it lifts your legs (which are lighter than your torso) up so high that your head pitches forward and you find yourself paddling wildly to try and keep your body level. The best bet is to swim calmly on your back, no funny business. Most of us heeded this advice. Cory, on the other hand, tried to dive under - failed - and got a face full of burning water as punishment.

Turns out the sign says "No Diving" for a reason.

After a few minutes of swimming my poor tender skin had had enough, and I got off and ran frantically to one of the many outdoor showers. Autumn and Cory, with their nice healthy thick skins, stayed in, and by the time I got back they had big handfuls of Dead Sea clay and were painting themselves like mud monsters.

Like this:


So scary.

So that was the Dead Sea! Also worth mentioning is, most of the people there were foreigners come for a tourist visit (although there weren't that many people in general). However, isn't it just my luck: I left to jump under the shower, with Autumn and Cory still in the water - and when I came back to sit by our stuff, who happened to have sat down directly next to it but a sweet little, fully-covered, very traditional Islamic family.

"Hello," says the bikini-clad girl, to the mother in her naqab, the father in his galabaya, and their wide-eyed child who will never look at the world with such innocence again. "Sorry to corrupt you with my sinful Western ways.

"Would it help if I covered myself in mud?"

Followers