Part Four: Aqaba, Petra, and Feynan Jordan

Aqaba and Wadi Rum
March 7, 2018

Aqaba beach and Red Sea at sunset

Wednesday was a travel day. We flew out of the small airport north of Tel Aviv to Eilat at the southern tip of Israel. Airport security gave us a hard time about having binoculars—a supervisor had to be called.Weeks ago, John had arranged for a driver to meet us in Eilat and take us across the border all the way to Aqaba, smoothing our way through customs. However when we got to Eilat the driver claimed he was only supposed to take us from the airport to the Israeli side of the border crossing, which for us meant navigating both Israeli and Jordanian customs on foot, walking quite far with our bags, and getting a taxi in the middle of nowhere to Aqaba. Not what we were expecting, but we managed. They held us up for quite a while at the entry point to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan because of the damn binoculars—a supervisor had to be called. There apparently is something very suspicious about binoculars. I should have carried a bird book, though I’m not sure it would have helped. 

Mosque at dusk

After a hot and dusty cab ride past date palm orchards, herds of camels, and new suburban developments, we made it to downtown Aqaba. The afternoon call to prayer resonated from the minaret across from our hotel balcony. It was different than others I’ve heard, almost lyrical. Aqaba is pretty.

Gulf of Aqaba

We walked along the waterfront of the Red Sea at sunset where people were swimming and boating. We came to a huge pillar commemorating the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

Huge pillar

The uprising was exactly one hundred years ago (parts of our travels in Jordan would take us to scenes of the exploits of Lawrence of Arabia in 1918). Before returning to our hotel, we stocked up on wine—we would be in remote areas over the next few days and this city might be the last place we could buy it.

Thursday morning John picked up our rental car. He had to negotiate for a half hour to get the high-clearance SUV we had reserved and needed for driving on rough roads in the desert. We headed east on a freeway through high, jagged, barren mountains with dramatic stripes of black and green mineral intrusions.

Lawrence's victim

Along the way there were herds of goats and camels, Bedouin tents, huge fields of tomatoes, and the old Turkish railroad. At the turn off to Wadi Rum (featured in the movie Lawrence of Arabia) was a replica of the dynamited train. It flew a Turkish flag.

 

Wadi Rum: David Lean's ideal epic stage

Wadi Rum is now a protected desert wilderness in southern Jordan. We checked out the visitors centre, then parked in the tiny village on the edge of the preserve where the pavement dissolves into sand. There is an expectation (and a lot of pressure) for visitors to join a tour that drives you into the desert by Jeep or mounts you on a camel. John and I resisted the pitches and just walked about two kilometres across the sand to Lawrence’s spring.

Photos of the vast expanse of cliffs and dunes and do not capture the scale and awesome beauty. Ancient civilizations have occupied this place for tens of thousands of years. The Seven Pillars, named fairly recently for Lawrence’s book, form a stunning rock face on the other side of the wadi. A wadi is a valley, ravine or arroyo that is usually dry, but experiences flash floods during heavy rains. Distances here are deceiving—things are much farther away than they seem. Looking through our cursed binoculars, we realized the tiny specks we could see with bare eyes across the wadi, which we assumed were small plants, were really several Bedouin goat herds and their flock. Desert flowers bloomed in our path.

The climb to the spring  

At Lawrence’s spring—a rare source of water—a few dozen tourists sat under canopies, eating lunch and waiting for camel rides. The spring was quite a ways up a steep cliff littered with huge boulders, marked by an ancient fig tree. We saw several people struggling up the boulders and considered making the climb, but it was too hot, too steep. A sand storm kicked up as we walked back to our vehicle and continued north to Petra. It was dusty all afternoon.

Desert flower in Wadi Rum

Petra
The road to Petra took us up a high winding, breezy mountain studded with wind turbines and small plots of planted grass just starting to sprout. About the size of a large backyard garden, these grass plots dotted the mountainsides, presumably planted for roaming herds of goats. There were spectacular views down several deep wadis. We drove past major archaeological digs, then switch-backed down through the modern town of Petra.

Petra is vertiginous, wending its way from mountain top to the ancient ruins below. Our hotel, Petra Guest House, was mere steps away from the park entrance, saving us for the long walks ahead. The pub at the hotel was in a cave in the hillside, a hint of the sandstone tombs we would visit tomorrow. We had lunch on the terrace within earshot of some Americans extolling their president, which severely curbed our appetites.

When one tours Petra’s ruins, we heard, it was best to start early. Very true. The crowds get massive in the afternoon. A wide road leads into the park along a hillside for a kilometre, then drops into a narrow, undulating, high-walled canyon—called Al Siq—for another 1K. So it is well over a mile walk before you get to the main ruins. You encounter occasional small tombs and niches and a few elaborate carvings in the rose-pink sandstone walls.

Al Siq

Thigh-high canals about a foot wide were carved by the pre-christian Nabataenans into both sides of Al Siq’s walls to carry water through the narrow canyon. Periodic flash floods swept through, so a couple of dams were built in small side channels. The floor of Al Siq  is now a stone-paved roadway that snakes toward the centre of ancient Petra. 

One last narrow, curvy channel and you glimpse the first massive pink façade—the Treasury.

Emerging into the ruins from the Siq

Breath-taking. It was not 'constructed,' but was carved from the stone cliff. Nabataean architectural style was Greek-ish (columns and such) but with its own north African flair, incorporating geometric and flora designs. As we neared the opening into the main square, we kept hearing a strange sort of roaring noise, it was like walking through a cave toward a fire-breathing dragon. It turned out to be two hot air balloons being inflated by gas-flame jets in the plaza in front of the Treasury. It was interesting to watch, but also kind of intrusive (and because of our long walk in the deep wadi, we never saw the balloons launch). We would be back here tomorrow to get an unobstructed look at the Treasury. Dozens of local merchants arrive each morning from the end opposite the park entrance. Some leading camels and equines to rent to tourists, others setting up trail-side displays of crafts and tchotchkes.

The Monastery

We decided to walk the furthest distance possible in one direction: the main trail, then up a zillion stairs to the Monastery, about 10K or seven miles round trip. The Siq opens up into the wide bottom of the wadi. You walk past all these huge stone-carved building fronts, some partially buried. The ‘Street of Facades’ includes the Treasury, the Theatre, and Royal Tombs. Truly awesome. The Great Temple, a free-standing (as opposed to carved), 2200-year-old structure is now a roofless ruin.

The Theatre

I loved the Theatre—20+ rows of stadium seats smoothed from solid rock, room for 4,000 people, with a big stage and 'green rooms' from which actors and speakers made their entrances.

The climb to the Monastery (another stone-front building later used by Christians, hence the name), was challenging. Some people hired donkeys to ride, but this was discouraged by official park literature because the animals are sometimes abused. Up and up, pant, pant, pant, but what a view at the top.

Reluctant to climb stone steps

You could see across to the Negev Desert into Israel. At the summit a herder drove 20 goats through a narrow gap in the rock along the edge of a cliff. The goats had to tiptoe down a nearly vertical 2x4 board used as a bridge, to the sheer cliffs below us. We stared in awe as the sure-footed goats scaled the steep rock face. I believe it was goats who first invented extreme sports.

Goats at summit, Negev in distance

 

Trail-side merchants cajoled us on the way up with “Where you from…ahh Canada, nice people…everything one dinar…be my first customer.” On our descent they got more familiar, “I remember you. You promise you stop on the way back and buy t-shirt.” John eventually relented and bought a rainbow keffiyeh.

John's keffiyeh

In the late afternoon some of the older people and families with small children were tuckered out and they hired horse-drawn buggies to take them the 2K back to the park entrance. It’s a scream to watch them holding on for dear life, jiggling and bouncing up the uneven stone highway, careening through the tour groups in matching hats and shirts.

The Treasury

The Siq is cleaned and hosed down each night. Considering the number of people and animals that come here every day, Petra’s 2,500-year-old ruins seemed well cared for and in good condition.

Day two, and a thousand more stairs. We were the first visitors to enter the gate at 6 am, walking through Al Siq by ourselves, past the Theatre, and climbing to the ‘High Place of Sacrifice’ as the sun rose. At the top we went off trail and hiked along the crest of the mountains—a broad, rounded plateau—to near a Bedouin camp, then back. At the high altar an early-rising merchant was setting up his wares. He called to us to come look at the views and various features we may have missed. He didn’t try to pressure us to buy anything, just wanted us to see it all.

High Place of Sacrifice

Studying our map, we realized we would not be able hike the other major trail. Two days in Petra is probably not enough. But what you experience is amazing—the ancient ruins, the incredible landscape, the local tourist culture. We got back to our hotel in time for breakfast, showered, and packed up for the next leg of our journey.

Feynan

Down the winding road from Little Petra to the Jordan Valley Highway

We drove a back road to Little Petra—a town where many of the locals live who rented donkeys, horses, camels, and sold trinkets—and stopped to buy water before driving deeper into the desert. The road was narrow, switch-backed, often washed out on the edges. There was an archaeological site dated at 7300 years old with interpretive signs describing the dawn of agricultural practices. We dropped down out of the mountains to the desert floor. This is the long, straight stretch of Jordan’s border with Israel. The road is the Jordan Valley Highway. We stopped to take pictures of a lovely solitary tree and a camel, which stuck its fly-infested nose into our car window.

After about 20 miles we turned off to Feynan, a tiny village on the edge of the Dana Biosphere Reserve. This village is where visitors have to park if they have low-clearance vehicles and need to be driven to Feynan EcoLodge, another eight kilometres into the Dana Mountains on a rocky track through deep wadis. Since we had a SUV, we were able to drive all the way to the lodge.

Feynan EcoLodge interior courtyard

The 26-room EcoLodge is run by a Jordanian NGO that is devoted to protecting the desert/mountain environment. It is located between two wadis—Ghwayr and Dana. The rooms have no electricity and are lit by candles at night. Water is piped in from streams running higher in the mountains. The kitchen operates on solar power. All the meals are vegetarian. One corner of the lobby has wifi during the day, and we found some of the other guests huddled there around their phones and computers. The lodge is staffed by local Bedouins who live in several encampments in the hills nearby. They are travel agents, maintenance workers, cooks, plus they lead hikes and conduct different cultural demonstrations every day. At night there is incredible star-gazing from the roof.

Water jug in our room

Before dinner we went on a sunset hike. Our guide was Suleiman. He was about 30, handsome, slim, spoke English, and had a wry sense of humour. I noticed he took short steps, but walked much faster than any of us. The hike took us past his extended family’s winter tent camp where they kept their young goats and sheep in pens to protect them from the occasional wolves and hyenas that roamed in the mountains. Suleiman explained that this whole area had been a huge copper mine and smelting operation during the Roman occupation some 2000+ years ago. The Romans cut down nearly all the trees to fuel the smelters and forever changed the environment. You can still see piles of black slag strewn across the landscape.

Tea on the hike

Also along the road was the local school (where ten teachers instructed about sixty Bedouin kids of all ages), and a small mosque. The loud speaker in the mosque was not working very well so the call to prayer was jerky and full of static. Our hiking group included a couple from England, staying at the lodge with their son, who worked for an oil company, daughter-in-law and infant grandson from Amman. 

Suleiman stopped and rested on a rock. He encouraged us all to hike to the top of the next hill where there was a small ruin. I discovered several abandoned shells of what our guide explained were desert snails—it seems far too dry here for such creatures. When we returned Suleiman served us sweet mint tea. I asked him about a bird we had seen from our balcony—it was shiny electric blue, a little bigger than a hummingbird but not as frenetic. He said it was a Palestine sunbird.

Palestine Sunbird

We also talked about a certain abundant, low, broad-leafed plant. Suleiman explained that it is poisonous to goats until it is dried, and because they won't eat it, it is the main surviving green colour in the desert this time of year.

Back at the lodge dinner that night was quite nice— a very tasty pea soup, roasted eggplant, tomato salad, hummus, as well as homemade flat bread, well-spiced potato and rice dishes, and pickled vegetables. 
  
Our bed had a mosquito net canopy, so I lowered it. But we made the mistake of leaving the balcony door open and in the morning our room was full of flies. Fortunately they were sluggish and shoo-able, so I was able to get all of them out fairly easily. 

Sunday we drove as far as we dared up the deeply grooved track in Wadi Ghwayr. Some English-speaking people were camped there in a very nice tent. Later we met them at the lodge—they were archaeologists and researchers studying contemporary Bedouin lifestyles and their Neolithic use of birds.

Huge boulder in Wadi Ghwayr

About a mile up the wadi channel there was surface water, which turned into a decent sized stream. A small dam had lots of 3-inch pipes poking out. They ran along one side of the wadi and carried water to the lodge, various camps, and farms down near the highway. The narrow canyon was green with plant life in contrast the barren desert outside the wadi. Lots of goats grazed the hillsides. We continued upstream a couple of miles. It changed to a very narrow canyon with high walls which was more shaded, cooler, and had palm trees.

I spotted a rare frog species. Our progress was stopped by a huge boulder we had heard about. It formed a deep pool in the stream on the other side. We would have gone swimming, but it was too hard to climb up the sheer face. Up until now we tried to keep our boots dry, but going back it was hot, so we splashed through the stream.

We passed some fellow lodgers coming upstream—coincidentally a young couple from Vancouver (we were surprised at how many Canadian tourists we encountered on this trip). They asked us to tell the staff at the lodge that they would be late getting back and to set aside their lunch. We saw them at breakfast on Monday and learned they were on their way to Petra. I got out the map and showed them the routes we found most interesting. John also talked to one of the researchers who was eating breakfast that morning at the lodge. She was studying the gut flora of the local Bedouin community, getting permission to take bio-samples. It would have been interesting for us to do a pre- and post- gut sampling for this trip to analyze any change based on diet and local water.

'Milkweed' plant: new and old flowers

Wadi Dana is on the other side of the lodge from Wadi Ghwayr. It traverses the entire Dana Reserve. There is a well-used trail that follows it from the northeast to the southwest. We walked a few kilometres up the wadi from the lodge. The largest of the Bedouin camps was here. Typical tents were 15-18 feet wide and 25-30 feet long, covered with a variety of blankets, tarps, or old signs draped on a simple frame. The covering on one end is rolled up during the day. From what we could see there were maybe a dozen or more tents. Lots of goats and a few chickens. 

Wadi Dana looking northeast

Wadi Dana, like Ghwayr, has water, but mostly below the surface, so the sand was damp, but there was no flowing stream as far up as we hiked. There was a big dam at one point in a draw. We couldn’t get a good look at it because it was densely overgrown with bamboo, but it had a dozen water pipes coming out. 

This wadi was wider than Ghwayr and overall greener and more wooded, with lots of wild flowers. A rough road cuts into the hillside, crossing the wadi back and forth depending on how steep and rocky the hillsides are. John went ahead and climbed a huge rock promontory, its surface artistically carved by wind and weather. I found a niche in the shade to rest, but then decided explore a bit and suddenly came up upon a woman who was tending some goats. I startled her. She quickly covered her face and hid behind a rock until I left.

Old tree in Wadi Dana

Back at the lodge after lunch we decided to sign up for one of the cultural activities—making “arbood,” a shepherd’s bread (I kicked myself for not taking the cooking class the first day we arrived, because the vegetarian soups they make here are delicious). John and I were the only ones to sign up. We drove Suleiman to one of the encampments just past the school. A young woman greeted us without speaking and we were invited to sit inside her family’s tent. The bare ground was covered with a huge woven rug and we lay on pillows around the edge. Suleiman told us that in Bedouin culture guests must be made to feel welcome any time, day or night, and should be lavished with food. The only times they eat meat are when visitors arrive (and certain holidays or special occasions), but guests customarily insist that nothing special be served. If a host shows disrespect, he or she is obligated to accompany the departing guests on their journey a distance commensurate to the severity of the disrespect.

Four or five young boys all under age six jostled and teased each other as the bread demonstration began, but they quickly settled down to watch. The bread had only three ingredients, flour, salt, and water. The woman squatted on the carpet and mixed the dough with one hand in a nine inch cake pan, adding enough water to make a pliable ball. A large swarm of flies had gathered and was threatening to get kneaded into the dough.

Shepherd's bread baked on the ground

She patted the elastic dough into a flat circle about an inch thick and took us outside the tent to a spot on the ground where she had built a fire of goat dung, now just smoldering coals. She set half the coals to one side, placed the dough directly on the remaining coals on the ground, then covered it with the other half of the coals. Suleiman explained that it was important for the dough to have a light dusting of dry flour so none of the ash would stick. He said this bread is made by goat herders in the mountains nearly every day and eaten as a snack or as part of midday meal. After about 10 minutes the arbood was uncovered, flipped over, covered by the coals again, and cooked for another 10 minutes. When it was done, the woman picked up the hot loaf in a cloth and vigorously slapped it to remove any ash. It sounded crusty, beautifully browned. We went back into the tent and sat on the pillows as Suleiman tore off hunks of the bread and served it with mint tea. It was really good. The little boys all gathered around. The smallest one began to cry when he wasn’t immediately offered a taste. Suleiman tore off a piece for each of them and they ran away in delight, each clutching their treat.

As we ate our arbood, Suleiman talked affably about Bedouin life. Most cooking is done with goat dung fires, because there is so little wood (we had seen women collecting brush and limbs in big sacks during our hike in the Wadi Dana). Both women and men take the goats into the mountains, but mostly men. They have a summer and a winter location for their tents to protect against heat and wind. It was quite cool sitting inside the tent in the hot afternoon. Suleiman encouraged us to ask any questions. We asked him if this was his family. He said it was the wife and children of one of his brothers. Was he married? Not yet. How large of a community is this? About 150 people. How did people meet others outside their immediate family or camp? They roam over a large area in the mountains, visit several other nearby communities, and attend gatherings.

Suleiman told us that he is interested in travelling to other countries, but can’t get an exit visa because he is unmarried and the government assumes if he left, he wouldn’t come back. This makes me so sad. He was a very intelligent young man and I could tell he has wanderlust. We had more arbood and tea, then Suleiman had us drop him off at the mosque on our way back to the lodge.

Feynan sunset

As the sun set on our last night in Feynan we sat on our balcony, sipped wine and watched Palestine sunbirds with our suspicious binoculars. After sundown I went up on the roof to star gaze. Cushioned mats strewn around the roof allow you to stare straight up and contemplate. Very little light pollution here. Later I went down to see if there was an evening eco-lecture. There wasn’t, but several guest were sitting around the fireplace chatting. I listened to comparative stories about taxes and costs of living around the world. A couple of Americans began to dominate the discussion so I excused myself and headed to bed. 

Dead Sea, Amman
We travel light, just carry-ons, no checked luggage. At this point we weren’t worried about packing. We just threw everything in the SUV. We would have plenty of time in Amman to get ready for the flight home. We decided to drive along the eastern shore of the Dead Sea, maybe stop and go swimming. I looked forward to experiencing the buoyancy of its salinity. Jordan’s border with Israel runs down the centre of the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of our planet. There was almost no access that we could see or any kind of beach along this side. The southern end had a huge potash plant. There were resorts at the northern end, but it was very difficult to find a road from the northbound lane of the main highway. We gave up and drove on toward Amman.

Looking across the Dead Sea to Israel

A steep back road, winding past Bedouin camps and flocks of goats and sheep on the outskirts of Amman took us to Mount Nebo. Judging by the traffic at the summit this is a major tourist site. We kept seeing signs for the prophet Musa (who?), so I looked him up. It was Moses, of course. Duh. Legend has it that Mount Nebo is where Moses got his first glimpse of the Promised Land. The view looking toward the Jordan Valley is pretty spectacular. On a clear day you can see Jericho and Jerusalem. According to some Christians, Mount Nebo is where Moses was buried. Also some believe Jeremiah hid the Ark of the Covenant in a cave up here. All of this is disputed by biblical scholars, but it doesn’t deter thousands of Christian tourists from making a pilgrimage in big buses too wide for the road.

We descended to the old town of Madaba and got a little lost in its narrow, colourful, bustling one-way streets. But eventually we found our way to the airport outside of Amman. Our plane didn’t board until 2 a.m. (yes, a.m.), so we checked into the airport hotel to have dinner and a nap. They displayed bottles of wine in the bar, but when we ordered one, the young staff couldn’t find a cork screw so we had to provide them with the one we had, which was good because we wouldn’t be able to take it with us on the plane. After our nap we returned the rental car, repacked our carry-ons, and got a shuttle from the hotel.

The Amman airport is new and impressive. One last time we were harassed about the goddamn binoculars—they held us at security for 20 minutes trying to find a supervisor with enough authority to okay them in our carry-on luggage. Sheesh. 

On the long flight back, in between watching two movies (Shape of Water and Coco), I pondered all the things we experienced over the last three weeks. Ancient, divided, contentious Jerusalem. Ramallah and the open air prison of occupied Palestine. The Judean hills that will figure in my novel. Micha living his gay life in Tel Aviv. Places Lawrence of Arabia made famous. The Mediterranean diet: ubiquitous tomato-cucumber salad and eggplant. All the seas: the Mediterranean, the Red, and the Dead. Ruins of civilizations centuries/millennia BCE. Bedouin tea and bread baked on the ground. Green wadis and desert splendor. 

Look out. They have binoculars.