Wadi Rum

Day 35

Still a week or so behind on these posts, so this adventure is a weekend or so old...

I linked up with my neighbor here at Yarmouk U (an American Rotary scholar) for a trip down to Amman on Thursday night. After parting ways (I enjoyed some homemade pizza and wine with Fulbrighters and ex-pat development workers / journalists on a quaint rooftop in Jebel Weibed--I see a pattern emerging here...) I met up with Tony and 5 other ex-pats (hmm, a couple patterns actually) Friday morn. Following a quick purchase of picnic provisions from Safeway, we caravaned in a truck and jeep 3 hours south to the desert expanses of Wadi Rum.

Which is, well, amazing. It's a designated nature preserve and big tourist draw in the south, for its awe-inspiring red-sand desert landscape punctuated by vast rock outcrop mountains and dunes, and Bedouin-led off-road tours, not to mention a multitude of canyon treks. The latter was our particular interest on Friday, and we set out along a hike/climb up and around Jebel Ishrein described in an outdoorsing tourist book. Fortunately we needed neither an off-road vehicle nor the know-how of a local guide, as both were supplied by the French UNDP worker in the group.

For the next 3-4 hours or so we climbed, hiked, and climbed some more, on a circuitous but pretty intermediate route through the mountain pass. The path is hard to distinguish, but was well-described in our book and marked at confusing junctures by stacked-rock 'guide posts,' if one can call them that. Actually part of the fun was ascending narrow passes only to find out that they were impassable past the next ridge. We breaked for lunch atop a high ledge overlooking the valley below, and made our exit out the other side of the canyon where a red sand dune rose impressively from the desert floor. Along the way, we entertained ourselves with breaking soft sand-stone rocks to test our red/blue/purple estimations of the internal rock, watching beetles mate/fight/mate (how cross-species enlightening!), and investigating weird looking plants and lizards. Elementary science classes were obviously a high point of my childhood.

After some shenanigans on the dune, and chatting with an Israeli rock climber, 3 of us embarked on a short 4 mile run on dirt tracks around the base of Jebel Ishrein to fetch the jeep for the rest of the party. Rumbling into the small Bedouin town of Rum, we were graciously accepted into the home of a friend of our French 'leader' for some much-appreciated traditional Bedu coffee, tea, and mansef.

We rumbled on down to the southern tip of the country that night (only half an hour or so away) and dined/drank the night away at a pub in Aqaba. A short night of rest later, two of the group accompanied me for half of a 9 mile AM run around the quiet morning streets of the resort city. After hotel brunch, we shoved off again (there's too much to do in Jordan for any proper rest) for the Red Sea coast near the Saudi border, where a couple folks in our group knew a little surf shop nestled on the beach.

The young Jordanian owner (an ex special forces type) seemed straight out of SoCal, from his sport oakleys down to his designer board shorts. The shop isn't much more than a beach shack, but offers small catamarans, kite surfing, and windsurfing, mostly to Westerners and Israeli tourists from the shore across the horizon. I splurged on some windsurfing lessons (why not?), along with two others, for an hour and a half of instruction and time on the water.

(sorry pictures are understandably difficult while windsurfing)

Windsurfing is tricky, I will give John Kerry his due credit here. After learning stability and stance atop the board, we pulled the sails out of the water and turned them ever-so-slightly into the wind. There was a good clip running down the coast, so it didn't take much. Many falls later, I finally got some rhythm going and headed about a quarter mile out. Unfortunately, further away from the coast and amidst the occasional wake from passing speed boats (I bet they had a good laugh at me), the water gets a bit choppy for the beginner. Plus we didn't really learn to bring the board around--a complicated maneuver involving stepping around the front of the sail to the other side, mid-turn--so I just hopped off and pushed the board in the other direction from the water.

I spent the rest of our day on the beach sunning and watching the very-entertaining and light-hearted owner's impressive kite surfing skills. Kite surfing is what it sounds like: guy on a snow board looking thing holding a giant partially-inflated kite and cutting sharp turns and some amazing 180 jumps.

We managed to catch the evening iftar back in town before splitting up so the two Irbid-ians could try to make it back north in one night (a ~5 hour trip on a good night). I hadn't done any driving down so I offered to pilot the return trip as far as Amman. The erratic trucks and seemingly-random speed humps (yes, on highways) made it interesting going. What's more, gas stations are few and far between on the Jordanian road network and I waged a tense battle with the truck to get us into a filling station on hope and fumes. All's well that ends well, however, and we made it back into the capital without any serious trouble, albeit too late to catch a night bus back to Irbid.

So we played the crash at a friend's place game, and stumbled out of bed at 5:30 to battle with long lines of commuting Yarmouk students at the north station. Morning class on Sunday was an interesting sleep-deprived experience, and none too exciting after one of the best weekend's I've ever had.