Jordan.

April 6, 2010
Istanbul, Turkey

Jordan

Sitting in a café in Istanbul nestled between the Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque—a Spring rain imminent, birds chirping, tulips in bloom. Our trip to Jordan seems like a dream…..

After an annoying overland crossing from Egypt back through Israel and into Jordan, our first stop in Jordan was, of course, a relatively quick tour of Petra……sublime colored sands dripping down pink marbled rocks….magnificent ruins of an ancient civilization carved into desert rocks, partially protected from the chaos of history, vulnerable to the chaos of nature….. a beautifully preserved testament to thousands of years of change…..a true wonder of the world….

….watched sun set over a canyon almost as vast as the grand canyon itself…..

From Petra, we left for an overnight camping trip in Wadi Rum (fk)…..packed into a SUV, we ploughed through the desert sands in two trucks, the surreal rock and sand lunar landscape illuminated by the stark light of a full moon…After three hours of driving (with occasional moments of panic as we got stuck in the soft sand and one flat tire), we settled on a small alcove camping area and started a fire–it was my first true camping experience (complete with roasted marshmallows). Morning greeted the day with a dying fire, a bedouin visitor with a herd of wandering goats, and sun baked mountains rooted in a vast, seemingly unending world of shifting sands, sprinkled with delicate purple flowers. It was breathtaking. Deserts are generally not my favorite landscape—they often invoke feelings of desolation emptiness—but not Wadi Rum….I left the park with an intense feeling of immense freedom from my life….

From Wadi Rum, we traveled to Amman. As the guest of one of Jake’s friends, who was born and raised in Jordan, we had the pleasure of seeing Amman from the windows of an air-conditioned luxury car, the glittering white mansions and glowing green gardens of the hills of West Amman rising above the surrounding desert landscape. With an iced coffee from a drive thru window in hand, we cruised around the rotaries in West Amman, slightly baffled by the Beverly Hills-like neighborhoods. In the distance, the crumbling apartment buildings of East Amman were stacked haphazardly up the hillsides surrounding old Amman and the concrete impenetrable refugee cities spread out into the suburbs. The difference between traditional East Amman and modern, wealthy West Amman was extraordinary and I felt like I was experiencing two different cities at the same time. With a car and a local host, we were able to move in and out of these two cities, observe and experience, enjoy traditional Jordanian cuisine in locally famous restaurants and enjoy huge cups of American coffee.

Our final day in Jordan was spent traveling to the roman ruins at Jarash, which were perched above the modern city of Jarash. Compared to sites in Egypt, Jarash was blissfully quiet with the exception of groups of young Palestinian boys playing games on the ancient theater stage. For sunset, we raced to the Dead Sea, sneaking into one of the many beautiful resorts that blanket the banks of the Sea on the Jordanian side. Across the sea, the West Bank twinkled and Israel was dark.

Our time in Jordan was brief but wonderful—not long enough for me to really get a feel for the country and landscape, but long enough to become aware of its extraordinary natural beauty, appreciate all the glorious pictures of the King around the country, and become intensely interested in the complexity of its contemporary history and its relationship to its bordering countries (especially in regards to refugee policy).