DAY 1: AL-KARAK CASTLE AND DANA NATURE RESERVE
the SIT tribe drove about an hour and a half south to the impressive castle in al-karak. my wife natalie and i managed to get a free tour with our charm and good looks, and saw many hidden gems. this included a deep water well, and our tour guide lit a piece of paper on fire (without a heads up) and threw it down the well shaft to show us just how far it went. we unfortunately didn't go to the carnival that was raging nearby, and instead continued southeast to the dana nature reserve.
dana is a gorgeous reserve perched atop a huge wadi (valley), whose greenery made me feel like i was in the garden of eden (compared, at least, to the arid sparseness of the rest of the country). el hob called it the shire, i think, which goes to show how deprived of green we are in this country. we traversed the valley for a few km along the old town's waterways. the water flowed from a natural spring down a system of gutters to the town. we stopped and drank fresh from the source. i remarked that it was the most fresh water i've seen in the whole country combined. we stopped and ate bitter almonds from the tree, and sat and enjoyed a gorgeous view and the wind at our faces. i pondered the meaning of life (with much haneen, or nostalgia in arabic) and debated whether i want to live in a desert or by the ocean when i'm older.
at night we stayed at a youth hostel, where i stayed in a large tangerine-colored room with 7 other of the binat. we were absolutely giddy, and parkoured off the walls and sang "hard knock life" from annie. i had a major ah-i-miss-college-in-america when we had a co-ed bathroom for all of us to share, then we ran outside and played frisbee and kurat al-qadm (soccer). we watched the stars by the warmth of a fire. i got the worst night's sleep of my life, but i couldn't have cared less.
DAY 2: PETRA
we arrived in petra around 11 am, threw our bags down at the hotel, and immediately went into the city of petra where we had the whole day to explore. 6 hours was not enough. the city was gigantic, and i read later in my guidebook that they recommend at least 5 days for a visit.
you enter the park and are met almost immediately with rock-cut facades, mostly tombs, lining the road. there were so many tourists, so natalie and i ran ahead to try and beat them. after a while the road becomes narrower and you cut through an artery in the rocks. the shade is a sweet relief from the heat of the valley, and trees spring up here and there as you continue on. suddenly, so suddently that i exclaimed out loud, there is the treasury. i'm sure you've seen the picture before, but it's more amazing than that even. i couldn't really talk i was so excited and nervous. last semester i started having a recurring dream of the treasury, and i was nervous about whether or not it would live up to the dream. if i could have removed all the other tourists from the equation, it would have surpassed it.
sarah and natalie and i managed to get away from the crowd for a while when we climbed up a million (approx.) steps to the sacrificial site, a huge panoramic view of a large portion of the city where the nabataens used to sacrifice animals to their gods. we were all alone for a while, and had a half-hour meditation session. i thought the wind would blow me away it was so strong and constant.
after some aimless wandering, snapping countless pictures of facades that popped up out of nowhere, and serveral offers of donkey rides, we made our way back to the main road toward the monastery, which lay at the end of the city. after a climb of 800 steps (not approx., almost exactly), we came upon it. it resembles the treasury, but is larger. truly impressive. natalie beat sarah and me up there, and while she turned around pretty quickly, sarah and i continued on to the "view at the end of the world." but not before i accidentally started a dog fight by offering a few parched pups some of my water. dog #1 got jealous of dog #2, and i almost got my hand bitten off. classic.
the "view at the end of the world" was after another small climb and looked into the valley boyond petra, all the way west to israel. from this view we could see mount aaron/jebel haroun, where aaron, brother of moses and miriam, is buried. if we had stayed longer we could have maybe made it out there, but alas, we only had one day. we talked to a guy who lived up at the end of the world in his tent, and he pointed out a number of sites to us and offered his binoculars. while up there, i decided the world is split into two categories. the first, when considering the length of human history and all the accomplishments achieved, realizes his/her insignificance in the grand scheme of things and finds comfort in this fact. the second, when faced with the same prospect, is terrified. i don't know which category i'm in quite yet.
afterwards, sarah and i booked it back to the entrance (we had already been there an hour longer than we were supposed to), and decided to take a man up on his offer for a donkey ride. we managed to haggle the price down by about 50%. not too shabby.
unfortunately, i only have pictures from the end of the world because the rest were taken with my film camera. here they are:
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