Today is Not Ash Wednesday and Why I Now Love the Desert

Today is February 13, 2013. In the Roman Catholic calendar, today is Ash Wednesday. But not in Jordan. I discovered this the other day when I asked my host dad what times mass was at for Ash Wednesday and he looked at me like I was crazy. It turns out that all Christians follow the Orthodox schedule over here. Easter (even for the Latin Christians) is May 5, not March 31. And Orthodox Christians don’t celebrate Ash Wednesday so today is just another normal day.

Now to backtrack and tell you about my weekend to Wadi Rum and Petra. We had quite the exhausting 36 hours. We left at 8am Friday morning and first headed to Um Al-Rassas, which is an archeological site about an hour outside of Amman. Below is a picture of the mosaic floor of an ancient church. The rest of this post is going to be pretty picture heavy but it's necessary so you can see how fantastic and amazing Jordan is.

Next, we arrived at Wadi Rum. “Wadi” in Arabic means valley. Wadi Rum is the desert. We rode on the back of trucks through the desert, climbed up sand dunes, raced down them, saw ancient markings of camels on rocks and rock climbed. I got yelled at to come down because I was too high up on one of the rocks. I considered it a successful climb. Then we were dropped off at a small Bedouin camp to begin our camel ride. I have to say, nothing is quite like riding a camel through the desert while wearing traditional Jordanian clothing. The camels are tied to each other in groups of 3-5. My camel was last but clearly didn’t want to be. We rode to Sunset Point where we (you guessed it!) watched the sunset. Then we walked down to the Bedouin camp where we stayed for the night.

 

My camel and Me

                                                                Climbing up sand dunes

                                                   Ancient camel markings on the rocks

                                                                    Riding a camel!

The Bedouins were great. The food was awesome and after dinner they sang songs and everyone danced. As the night grew longer, a bunch of people were smoking hookah, but I decided to go out into the desert with my friend, Lucie, instead. The stars were incredible. I can’t remember the last time I saw stars that bright. And then just for fun, Lucie and I woke up early the next morning to watch the sunrise. We just wandered towards a rock and climbed up to watch the sunrise. When we got back to the camp everyone was eating breakfast.

The Sunrise

We departed Wadi Rum around 8 and drove to Petra. Petra was incredible. First, it was incredibly hot. The weather forecast we were given had said the high would be around 46. I, dressed for 46 degrees, sweltered under the 70-75 degree temperature. Despite that, the sites were amazing. We had about a three-hour tour of the main sites (in Arabic of course) and then they let us run free after lunch. We were recommended to go up to the monastery but it was a hike up a mountain. So, eight of us took a donkey ride up the majority of the mountain. It was cool. I think I like riding donkeys more than camels but I think it’s because there are no stirrups when you ride a camel. You have more control with a donkey.

It looked like a fish!                                            Petra

The monastery was amazing. Better than the main Petra site, in my opinion, because you can actually climb up onto the site. And the view climbing up or down the mountain was spectacular. You can see from the rocks that this entire area was clearly underwater at one point. Over 6000 years ago. But it was definitely underwater. The way the rocks are carved out just look like they belong underwater. And I have never been so convinced of plate tectonics until I visited Petra.

To the right is a picture of the monastery.

Below is the view from the mountain.

It was a wonderful experience and we were all exhausted by the end. All 100 students or so from the three different programs run by CIEE went on this trip but our group of 15 was separate from the others since all our tours were in Arabic. If you ever have free time and happen to be in Jordan, I highly recommend going. I wish I could’ve spent at least another day at both Wadi Rum and Petra.

More observations about Jordanians:

- They love mayonnaise like I love milk.

- They do not drink milk.

- They are miraculously not messy. I was at a coffee shop yesterday and ordered a chocolate milkshake, which I then proceeded to spill on my pants/chair/floor (in my defense, it was filled all the way to the rim). I asked one of the baristas if they had napkins. His answer: No. Thus, I concluded Jordanians must not spill anything. Finding napkins is a problem in general but I had thought that at least a coffee shop would have some. Nope.