Jordan

"Dad."
"What?"
"Dad!"
"What?!"
"DAD!"
"WHAT?!""
"Head for the fireplace!"


Jordan, Israel, and Egypt all share the top of the Gulf of Aqaba, the eastern gulf of the Red Sea that is created by the Sinai Peninsula. Having decided to travel first to Jordan and go to Israel afterwards, I had to go first to the Egyptian town of Taba by bus located at the top on the Sinai, cross through the Israeli town of Eilat, and then hitch to the Jordanian town of Aqaba. I made it to Taba easily enough and had a surprisingly straight-forward time getting into Israel. There are countless backpacking stories about the difficulties of the getting to Israel, but outside of the 5 minutes or so of the border agent (they all seem to be 19 year-old girls, literally) badgering me about my lack of solid travel plans, I got through in quick time. This time.

I found Eilat to be a good area and decided to camp out for the night instead of crossing immediately into Jordan. I set up my tent and sleeping bag and was making dinner when a helicopter came from the north and headed out over the Gulf. It banked a ways in and turned straight for me, flying in at a low altitude. It landed a short distance from where I was. I [Edit] wasn't initially concerned, as I assumed it was only military maneuvers in what was the only Israeli outlet to the Red Sea. But when a second, third, and then forth did the same thing within minutes, I started to grow curious. The helicopters were landing, I found out later, only two gorges over from me. While there was a small navy yard on the ocean, I wasn't aware of a army base inland at all. So I hiked to a nearby road to find out, and was shocked when I was told that there had actually been a major bus accident only a short distance away.

A tour bus of Russians had driven off the road and flipped numerous times down the mountain slope. In the worst traffic accident in Israel's history, the bus had been trying to pass another bus when it rolled down the embankment, killing 24 and injuring another 30. Helicopters came and went all night long carrying out severely injured and the dead. As I was hiking back to town that day I saw the bus - it's something I don't care to describe for a number of reasons, but it's something that made me wonder how 30 managed to come out alive.

That was it for me and I had no more stomach to stay in Eilat any longer, so I left as soon as I could for Jordan. I arrived around late-morning and made it through the checkpoint, easily crossing into the Republic of Jordan. My first stop, and as it turned out my only real stop, was in the ancient city of Petra.

Petra, for you Indiana Jones fans out there, includes the famous "Treasury" building, or the building where Indiana finds the Holy Grail in the Last Crusade. I wasn't sure what to expect from the city and had done little research on it because of my haste to exit Egypt, but my exploration of the town made me almost melt.

The ancient city was inhabited by many peoples and tribes for perhaps as much as the last three thousand years, but it was the Nabataeans some two thousand years ago who built the city into what it is today. Taking a water supply from the mountains around it, the Nabateans were able to create something of an artificial oasis in what is otherwise a desert area. They cut hundreds, maybe thousands, or homes into the sandstone mountains and made tremendous shrines and monuments that stand as high as 150 feet from those same cliffs.

To enter the city one must walk a kilometer or so through a gorge created from a split sandstone mountain (the very one, if you might remember, that Indiana and his group went through in the movie). The very first major temple that one sees is nicknamed the "Treasury," the Indiana Jones building, which was actually a tomb for a Nabataean leader. While not the largest, this is the best preserved and most famous of Petra. It is, without a doubt, something that can inspire only awe when first seeing. Walking through the gorge, turn after turn, you don't know what to expect, but when you finally come into full view of the monument, it's such a shock to see this nearly perfectly-preserved 2000 year old, 100 foot building built right into the mountain, that you just stand for a moment in the entry way to collect yourself. Though the inside is unimpressive - it's only a tomb, after all - the outside is a sight to behold.

From here I was free to explore the spread-out city by myself, and I had an incredible time doing so. The city is perfect for my tourism preferences - a map is provided for visitors and a brief plaque is put up on the major monuments and sites, but other than that it's a matter of setting out by yourself. You can go with everyone else, or can see some of the smaller but less traveled areas. Either way you're walking and climbing yourself. My first day I took the main trek and explored some of the larger temples and monuments. I was impressed by the shear number of people of all ages who made the admittedly difficult trek to the far end of Petra and climbed 800 steps up the mountain to visit the "Monastery," the largest of the Petra tombs and close to 150 feet tall. Though less known than it's smaller counterpart the Treasury, the Monastery holds the same mystique of its sibling and I spent hours sitting outside of it enjoying its presence over the two days I spent in Petra.

The second day I bypassed much of what I had earlier seen and took a hike on the outskirts of Petra, exploring the tunnel built by the Nabateans to control flooding and the aqueduct built later by the Romans, as well as the more isolated caves and gorges that are all over Petra but typically are seen only by the nomadic Bedouins who still graze in the area. As the day began to wane I eventually made my way back to the Monastery to watch the shadows overtake it.

I found that as the sun sets people tend to leave Petra quickly, so I made it a point both to hang around so I could have the monuments pretty much to myself. The ensuing darkness made the trek back to the entrance a bit more perilous with the 2000 year old steps and crumbly rocks, but seeing the light fade from this fantastic city is an experience unto its own. Indeed, Petra as a whole is easily my favorite stop so far in my trip and I'm extremely happy I ended up going there. The place is a testament to humanity, a reminder that we can make indescribably impressive cities without even our modern-day technology, and that we can live anywhere and do anything.

I wanted to make Israel by Christmas and planned on spending a couple days in Amman and the Dead Sea, so I set off for the Jordanian capital soon after. Unfortunately, I found Amman to be amazingly unimpressive. The huge city is built from the desert mountains and the buildings are all the same depressing shade of light brown that the ground around them is. Trees and greenery are rare, and the smog is nearly choking. While the food was relatively cheap, this was the only benefit of the city and I decided after less than a day to leave for Israel and get to the Dead Sea from that side.

Because I won't be posting again until after Christmas, I want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas! To you Jews, I hope you're having an equally great Hanukkah. I've been keeping on on the snow fall in Minnesota, so I know that you'll have a white one, but I hope that everyone enjoys the holiday and gets everything they want along with the coal that I know more than a few of you will receive.

Personally, I'll be making the trip to Bethlehem to see Christmas there and I'm very pumped for it. I'll be thinking of everyone back home.

Keep well, all.