The Trouble Continues in Jordan

Moses has lots of cousins.  “Dozens of them” he says.  “Fantastic Moses, does one of them happen to be a cab driver?”  A few hours later, we’re driving up from Aqaba on the King’s Highway to Amman Airport for the bargain basement price of 80 JD (not a bargain…).  Amazingly, the drive is downright pleasant.  All the windows are down, hot wind is blowing my hair every which way, and Jordanian music (rap/hip hop/lots of women yelling) is blaring.  Mountains that look like the beginnings of a very large dirt bike track, all rocks and dirt, are on both sides of the highway.  There is no color here except the tan of the desert and the dusty blue of the sky. 

As we continue up King’s Highway, I notice that you can always smell the camels before you can see them.  Fields of camels (did you know that there are brown, white, and black camels?) graze next to sheep and the shepherds that herd them.  Donkeys are walking down the side of the interstate almost panting in the heat.  Our driver keeps time to the beat of the music on the center of his steering wheel. Tents dot the horizon and men in white and red Jordanian scarves sell fruit and vegetables next to the road in shacks made of wood scraps and oil barrels.

Our driver breaks the monotony as he quickly pulls off on the side of the road. “His eyes, his head, his feet (pronounced Fet), you see?!”  There, on the side of the road, is an enormous stone that happens to look exactly like a crocodile.  “In Petra, we have elephant.  There are many animal shaped rocks in Jordan.”  Just after the crocodile rocks, there are street signs that point right to Iraq and left to Saudi Arabia.  Again, I feel grateful that we are heading to the airport.  Just as I begin to feel guilty for not feeling 100% grateful for where I am, “Hero” by Enrique Iglesias is blaring from the car stereo.  “This is my shuffle.  I no idea what comes on next.”  Even in the middle of nowhere Jordan, this driver can recognize how much Enrique sucks.  It’s sort of comforting in a way…until he turns up the volume and “I can be your heroooooo babbbayyyy” is screaming from the car windows out onto the desert wind.  I can practically see the camels cringe as we pass.  As the Nissan speakers struggle with the sound of Enrique’s “babbbbbbayy,” I burst out laughing at the hilarity of the last week in Jordan.

Why We Left The Desert

We woke up around 4:30 am to catch our bus (maybe it’s running, maybe it’s not – no one seems to know) from Petra to Wadi Rum.  We have found out quickly that the transportation infrastructure in Jordan is non-existent.  For example, our inquiries on how to get from Petra to Wadi Rum and then back from the desert to Amman have gone like this.  “There is a bus, yes, but there’s no way to know if it will run.  If it does run, it will only allow you to ride if locals don’t fill it up.  If they do, you won’t be allowed to board.”  “Okay, so are there any other options?”  “No, just the bus or a car…Do you have a car?”  “No.”  “Okay, good luck with the bus!”  Deep breaths.

Apparently our luck was in order at the beginning of this day, because the bus showed up at 6:15 right in front of our hotel.  In no time, we’re off to Wadi Rum Desert near the southern tip of Jordan.  Alex and I were both nervous, as this day was the day we’d be meeting Mehedi, our boss at Bedouin Directions for the next three weeks. 

When we arrived, we were invited into Mehedi’s “house” on the outskirts of the desert.  We waited for a while to hear some details…what we would be doing for him, expectations, what we can do on our weekends off, breakfast…this sort of thing.  About an hour passed – and nothing.  Alex handed him the gift we brought from Turkey – Turkish Baklava – and Mehedi took it without a thank you. 

Around this point I teared up behind my sunglasses, because I knew almost immediately that this wasn’t going to work out.  Mehedi seemed a bit drugged.  Maybe not drugged, but certainly a bit off.  I was panicking inside because we were seriously in the middle of the damn desert with this person, completely at his mercy.  

Finally, an unfriendly man (who is apparently part of the Bedouin Directions team) loaded us up into a Jeep and we began driving out into the beautiful desert of Wadi Rum.  My spirits started to lift as I looked around – the sky a steely blue, the sand pink and red, and the enormous rocks were sitting giants everywhere you look.  I’ve never seen a desert landscape like this, and I imagine the long desert nights here under a million stars.  After a twenty five minute bounce through the desert, we arrived at Bedouin Directions.  Hurriedly, the driver literally threw us out of his car (with no explanation at all) and drove back into the desert.  “Um, is there a bathroom?  Where should we put our things?”  He pointed to a large green tent and then to a cinder block structure a dozen meters away.  Well allllright…that clears everything up…

The tent is the tent you built as a child.  It’s a living room fort made out of red patterned blankets…but hopefully your living room fort wasn’t covered from top to bottom in very long white hair – maybe cat hair, camel hair, goat hair?  It was unclear.  There was so much hair in this tent that Alex and I were instantly covered.  I went outside to free myself of this hair jumpsuit and to take a walk.  It was probably about 10 am at this point, and we hadn’t eaten or drank anything all day.  We wondered if someone might eventually come to the camp to give us the deets, but no one showed.  We decided to take a walk about to see what was around us out here.  It’s quiet, empty, and enormous.  Like a scene in a movie, I heard the bird above my head flap his wings.  The sound is clear, loud, and sort of shocking.  I’ve never been in a place so quiet that I can literally hear the flapping of wings overhead.  Did you know that said flapping is actually really really loud?  Weird.

The hours ticked by (we still haven’t eaten)...but still, no one showed.  Around 4, Alex and I were laying on a very large piece of sandstone talking.  “Maybe we’ll just give this a week?”  “Yea, a week sounds good.  Hey – maybe this will get better?”  “Yea, definitely.  Can’t wait for tonight…lots of stars!”  Both of us continued to try to find the silver lining.  Around 6:30, we heard a few cars driving up.  Out pops some very pressed Bedouin gentlemen donning large lutes.  Right behind came six tourists who’ve just come from desert day trips.  Finally, there is something for us to do. 

Alex and I helped peel vegetables for dinner.  Around 8 pm, Mehedi showed up and asks “How was your day?”  Are you fucking serious right now?  I try very hard to keep my intense anger in check as I walk away from him.  Alex responds with “it was quiet” and retreated to the community tent with the other tourists.  An hour later, he pulled Mehedi aside and lets him know that this whole set up isn’t going to work.  Mehedi agreed and responds with “But you like my camp, yes?” 

Alex and I have been turning this whole thing over in our minds.  Maybe we were just hungry and thirsty which caused us to overreact?  Maybe we weren’t fully clear on what the Bedouin lifestyle was like?  Maybe he wasn’t blitzed out of his mind and just had a few screws loose?  Maybe I could’ve gotten used to never being spoken to directly or being acknowledged as a human being (ladies in the western world…we are SO SO lucky)…

Early the next morning, Alex and I loaded up into the old Jeep and headed back to Wadi Rum.  We shared a taxi with two Brits and headed to Aqaba to regroup.  As we were driving away, I was upset that our plans had changed so drastically.  I had envisioned long days on camelback while channeling my inner Lawrence of Arabia.  I had hoped for 4x4 rides over the sand dunes and stars that would light up the nighttime sky.

I guess that’s the thing about traveling…plans change.  You never know what you’ll find when you get to a new place, nor do you know if it will look like the pictures you’ve seen on Pinterest (it never does).   As we pull into Aqaba, we smell the salt of the ocean.  It feels to us like discovering an oasis we didn’t really know was there. We find a small backpacker hostel on the outskirts of town and check in for 23 Dinar a night.  An hour later, we are in our swimsuits at the beach watching snorkelers in the water in front of us.  “Do you think we did the right thing by leaving?”  “Yes, absolutely.  Now maybe put your SPF shirt on because everyone is staring at you.”  Even if I can’t rock out the bikini like I would on a western beach, I’m happy to be out of the desert.  Even still, the feeling of nervousness remains as we look on the horizon and see three cities, all in clear view.  Eliat, Israel, a city in Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to our left.  As the day comes to a close, we hear the shelling happening next door in Israel.  The thing we’ve been reading about for so long in the paper is there…right there, right in front of us. 

Strangely, I’m not scared.  Just uneasy.  Curious even.  We know that we can’t stay in Aqaba for the three weeks we have left, so we decide to call our airline.  “Ma’am, we cannot change or refund your ticket.  Your only option is to fly out April 2 as planned.” 

Exhausted, we both fell asleep and let Jordan beat us on that particular day.