We started out by taking a 6am bus to the southern Israeli city of Eilat. We had heard that we could avoid an cab ride fom Eilat to the border by getting off the bus 5 minutes early and walking 1 kilometer to the border. So we did!
Sure enough, we arrived at border control, and 5 minutes later we had crossed the border into Jordan! It was possibly the most relaxed international border crossing I've ever experience (quite the opposite of the crossing back into Israel at the end of the trip, not to give anything away ;) We hopped in a cab to get to our hostel in Aqaba, and the first thing our driver asked us was if we were married (Since we were a group of two women and two men), we were quick to inform him that we were just friends. It was also hard to immediately stop speaking Hebrew altogether, there were a couple times that "Toda" may or may not have slipped out. We arrived at our hostel, which looked like a mix between a Beduin Village, and Mexico:
We had booked a room with 2 king beds, assuming we could cut down on cost, but when we arrived the manager wouldn't have it. So he put us in gender separate rooms, because he correctly assumed we weren't 2 married couples. They charged us the same amount as they would have for the one room, which was nice! We spent the afternoon on the beach, and happened to meet a German who had grown up in Michigan! As dinner time approached, we decided to get in a cab and go to the downtown area of Aqaba.
We found a small festival called "suq by the sea", which is a festival that happens on Friday nights with live music and an artisan market. We immediately spotted someone wearing a Michigan State University sweatshirt, so naturally we went right up to him to ask if he went there. Well, he didn't. But we started talking to him and his 2 friends, and they turned out to be extremely interesting. One was from Southern Lebanon, one was Pakistani, and the other was Palestinian but grew up in Bahrain. They were all students in the Aqaba Pilot school. We talked to them for a while, and got their number so we could meet them for coffee the next day! We went to a local seafood restaurant for dinner, which turned out to be the best meal of the entire trip! It was also inappropriately inexpensive. I had fried calamari, with a side order of shrimp! We also had a large assortment of various side salads.
The next morning, we slept in, and then headed to the beach. It was definitely the most relaxing day of the trip. Late that afternoon, we called the guys we had met the night before, and decided on a place to meet up. They brought us to a 5 star hotel, and we sat at the beach-side lounge for hours. They were great to talk to, and were very eager to hear about what Jerusalem is like. We didn't tell them that some of us were Jewish, and at the very end of the conversation we mentioned the name of our school "Hebrew University". Here are some photos of the lounge they took us to, it was only slightly nicer that our hostel.
The next morning, we got up very early to go to Wadi Rum. It just so happened that my tennis shoes were stolen in Aqaba, and as I was leaving our hostel, my flip flops broke, therefore leaving me shoe-less. Well luckily in Jordan, shoes are not their main concern, especially in the desert. So I used the day to harden my feet, as well as spend time hiking and climbing rocks and sand dunes.
The view from outside our tent that we spent the night in. It reminds me of Mars.
That night we slept in Beduin tents. I had never been in a real desert before, and was shocked at how cold it became as soon as the sun went down. There were about 15 people at the camp that night, and we all sat around a camp fire talking and eating, before lying beneath the stars up on a large rock. After that, we all headed back to our tents and fell asleep.
In the morning we ate a nice breakfast of hummus, pita, halva, cheese, and jam, and chatted with some slovakian brothers we'd met the night before.
Around 9am, we got on a bus to Petra! It was a 3 hour drive, and we got dropped off right by our hostel.
Driving through the Jordanian country side.
After grabbing a bite of shwarma, and a pair of cheap tennis shoes, we headed to the ancient city! Petra was by far the most expensive part of the trip, but when you're close to one of the 7 wonders of the world, you gotta go! Right after the entrance, you walk through the Siq, which is a thin 2 kilometer road leading to the treasury. On either side of the ancient road, there were open tunnels which used to carry the water into the city.
The tunnels that carried water to the city
The Siq
First view of the Treasury
As we walked down the Siq into the ancient Nabataean City, we were constantly moving from either side of the road to avoid the steady stream of donkeys, carriages, and camels attempting to pick up tourists. At the end of the Siq, we reached the most famous image of Petra, the Treasury.
After seeing the treasury, we wanted to get a picture of all four of us in front of it, so we found someone to take a picture of us. We left the search up to Cory, who looked for the best looking person with the best camera. We found Santiago, the 25-year old argentinean flight attendant living in Dubai working for Emirates, who proceeded to walk around with us for both days in Petra! I had no idea how much walking/climbing we were going to be doing, but I managed to burn off all the large meals from Aqaba and justify the upcoming ones in Amman! Here are some photos from the 2 days we spent exploring the ancient city!
mmmm
After dinner, we went to a bar to meet up with some of Cory's friends that lived in Amman. There was a soccer match being projected onto the wall, it was quite the lively scene. After the game ended, the bar showed a Jordanian tourism video, starring the Jordanian King, King Abdullah II. We sat enjoying "lemon nana" (lemon and mint juice) for the rest of the evening.
In the morning we got up rather late, unlike previous mornings on the trip. We headed to Hashem Hummus. It was possibly the best hummus I've ever eaten.
For the remainder of the afternoon, we decided to do the few touristy activities in Amman. We first went to the ancient Roman amphitheater, built around 150 CE. Cory and I walked to the top, and started talking to a man who soon told us he was from Syria. This obviously caught our attention, and we started to ask him questions and we learned he had fled the country only 2 weeks prior, and that his family's home had been destroyed in Homs. His family had successfully escaped to Damascus, and he was in Jordan trying to get a work visa for Saudi Arabia. I was in shock the entire time, I read about Syria almost everyday on the news, and all of a sudden it was in front of me. It became even more real when he showed us his bullet wounds he got while fleeing, that covered his entire back and some of his leg. He spoke literally not a word of english, but since I'm not familiar with the Syrian dialect, he spoke slowly using formal Arabic and I was mostly able to understand. He called his friend over after a few minutes, and he told us he'd fled the country only 4 days prior, and that he was also trying to get a work visa for Saudi Arabia. Here are some photos from the Amphitheater:
Pillars in front of the ancient theater.
View from the top
Me, Cory, and Maizar and Chaled from Homs, Syria
After the amphitheater, we headed to a cafe to relax a bit before heading to the ancient citadel. We waited until just before the sundown, because the citadel is prettiest at dusk. Here are some photos :)
After the citadel, we took a cab back to our hotel where we grabbed our belongings and walked to a local shawarma destination.
We passed the Iraqi Embassy on the way there.
Mmmm
After dinner, we met one of Cory's friends at a trendy bar/lounge right off of one of the main streets called "Rainbow Street". It was called "Books@cafe", and the first floor was a book store, and the second floor was a bar/lounge area. Some might refer to said establishment as a possible gay bar, but it was of course not advertised as such.
View of the inside from the balcony
View from our outdoor table at Books@Cafe
After a little while at the cafe, we made our way to Brad's (cory's friend) apartment. He graciously housed us for the night, and saved us from paying for yet another night in a hostel. Here is the view from his balcony:
For our last day in Jordan, we decided to explore downtown Amman by foot. We first headed to the market where we did a bit of shopping. I was expecting there to be constant nagging, like there is in the Old City of Jerusalem, from men wanting to sell overpriced touristy items to people like us. I was also not expecting to see very many women, and I thought I would get attention for being a woman in the public. I was pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere. We saw plenty of women, never alone, and mostly covered up, but there were several women. The shop owners did not pester us to buy from them, instead they simply smiled and said "welcome to Jordan!" It was a very warm and welcoming atmosphere, and I'm glad we took the time to simply walk around and get lost in the marketplace of the city center. After shopping for a bit, we went back to Hashem Hummus for another amazing lunch that filled our stomachs for a total of 2 JD's per person (under 3$!) For the afternoon, we first went to a local barbershop so Chris and Cory should get a shave. The shop was owned by Iraqis, who were very hard to understand and didn't speak much English. It was a very funny experience altogether, especially when they began to thread Cory's and Chris's eyebrows. One of the men also showed us a video of an American soldier on his phone doing some sort of strange victory dance with in his uniform and large gun. We weren't sure if he'd taken the video himself, or not, but it was strange either way. Here are some photos:
Aww
Group pic!
After the barbershop, we went next door to a large DVD store. Each DVD cost 1 JD ($1.40 American dollars), so naturally they were all illegal copies. We left with a total of 36 DVDs between the 4 of us!
After walking around the narrow streets for a while, we decided to head to a cafe on Rainbow street for the remainder of the afternoon. We drank fresh juice, and may or may not have had some quality Jordanian hookah. For dinner, we went to a really nice kabob restaurant with 3 of Cory's friends. We sat for 3 hours eating a wide array of salads, cheeses, olives, and several kinds of meat. We were by far the loudest table in the outdoor seating area, and by the end of our meal, no one was left outside. Whoops!
It was an amazing meal, and I thought I couldn't eat for days. After dinner, we headed to Cory's friend Luke's apartment. He is living in Amman teaching English on a fullbright, and his apartment was one of the biggest apartments I've ever seen. We all slept on couches, and woke up the next morning at 6:45 to get to the border right when it opens.
We all went through customs just fine, except for Chris who has an Egyptian visa and a Lebanese last name. They told him to wait, and they took his passport. A few minutes later, as we were all sitting and waiting for Chris to get questioned, the entire security staff began to shout for everyone to leave the building, as there was a bomb threat. We all started running, along with everyone else. After running into multiple people in the chaos, and having a heart rate way to high to be healthy, we reached the other side of the building only to remember that they still had Chris's passport. Luckily, no bomb went off and everything calmed down fairly quickly and resumed like nothing happened. Chris was eventually able to get his passport back, and we gladly left the building.
On the other side, we boarded a Sherut to Jerusalem, and quickly switched over to Hebrew. After I returned to my apartment, I showered, and left immediately for Tel Aviv to go to a Seder with my friend at her cousin's mansion. It was a 4 hour-long religious Seder, with amazing food and 30 fairly jewish people. After a week in Jordan, I was in culture shock. In a good way :)
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