9 April -- Petra Excursion
It is obvious I am a little behind on my blogging (I do have a day job! And aside from Arianna Huffington and those post-partpartum housewives I'm not sure "professional blogging" is anything more than a euphemism for "unemployed"). I am writing two weeks later in my apartment watching a torrential rainstorm hit the streets of Abdoun. First the rain was a mere tease to the sun weary until a few minutes ago the sky unleashed hail...buckets of it. Yes, we are in the Middle East and I should have believed the experienced when they said Amman was not your typical dry desert outpost. I think it's nearly 10 degrees (C) colder than sunny London but luckily I've noticed when moves outside of the usually grey UK, an obsession, or rather, competition with weather does assuage. So take that Londoners I don't care anyway! ;)
You're hailed!
Let me bring you back to a sunny Saturday two weeks ago, when three girls set out to Petra without a plan or a car.
After haggling with 10 or so rental companies we finally settled on one that gave us a battered Nissan Sentra (this was my car as a teenager -- perhaps it was sentimentalism) and full insurance. Off we were...well, add 40 minutes for us to figure out how to exit Amman...another 10 for us to follow a man with a finger brush, who offered to show us the right way...and off we were down the Desert Highway! The Highway is really the red-headed step-child of the Jordanian Highway family compared to the magnificent King's Highway, but it's a far more expeditious route so beauty be damned.
Camel-Crossing Along the Desert Highway
Two 1/2 hours later, there we were. Petra. Land of the Nabataeans (wait, let me get my Lonely Planet) who first settled in these rose-red surroundings around 6BC. Much of its grandeur remains hidden and indeed only curious and appreciative tourists can discover more of Petra's beauty beyond the iconic Treasury and Siq.
We met a fellow expat there who was friends with my roommate and whom is dating a local Bedouin. This is surprisingly common. Much of the folklore coming from the Ammani expat scene revolves around European hotties dating dashing desert wanderers. After much questioning, I have concluded the appeal lies in their exotic dark looks and teasing sense of humor. Is this enough to lure a woman from her Western comforts to a modest house in the desert...from mani/pedis and champagne brunches to flatulent camels and mansaf? I'm not so convinced but it does happen and happen often!
So a Canuck, two Floridians and a Swede trot into Petra...
We rode on horseback (perks of befriending a girlfriend of a Bedouin) to the Siq then hopped off and wandered on foot through the narrow passageway leading to the Treasury. From there it all unfolds in ways I have seen many times in pictures. The narrow passage opens up to reveal the glorious Treasury (actually a tomb built for the Nabataean King Aretas III) with its emulative Greek columned-facade. Impressive as this may be, this was not a trip defined by the limits of a tour and postcard iconography.
The Petra-esque Treasury
Our real Petra adventure started when we climbed up to the High Place of Sacrifice. There we met a Bedouin named Neal (ok, his name was probably made-up). He very kindly showed us the back way down from the High Place and I was even offered a ride on his donkey Shakira ("See how she moves," clever, until you meet other asses named Shakira). We stumbled upon recently excavated banqueting halls and tombs, posed for pictures and then went on our way.
On Top of the World or a Place of Sacrifice
We were headed for the monastery until Neal saw his friends chilling in an ancient cave and we were invited for tea. After climbing up to the rectangular box (think Lego fortress in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids) we noticed a woman -- a very wrinkly, over-sexed French woman -- on her own with young bedouins beside her. "She has been with us for 10 days," they told us. Ok, well define "been with". There is a rumor that circulates around this vast Wadi that a certain group of Western women, lone venturers, go out to the desert for sex-holidays with suntanned Bedouin men. I can't confirm this was her purpose for traveling but I will nevertheless read her jealousy at the sudden appearance of us -- three women in their 20s with taut neck skin -- into her love cave, as confirmation of her deviance. Next, Neal applied kohl to my friends' eyes mainly by using his spit to adjust his ill-executed eye lines. Luckily, I had eye-liner on or I fear I'd be writing this and battling pink-eye.
Tea with the strange French lady
Neal's friends offered to scam (I mean take!) us through the Roman section and back to the Siq on their donkeys. We complied. The Bedouin guides with us would hop on intermittently, and I uncomfortably tried to scoot my straddled legs away from my guide and hold on to the back of the saddle rather than wrap my arms around a stranger's arms (quite possibly the same arms that held a French tourist the night before). We were foolish to think this was for free and we made the suggested payment of 15JD each as they happily trotted off leaving us with a cheated feeling at the Treasury (irony?).
Back that ass up
It was late by this point and it takes a good 35 minutes to walk up to the parking lot past the Movenpick Hotel. By the time we left Petra it was 7.30pm and a Jordanian Saturday is actually the last night of the weekend so the 300 km journey back (add the extra stress of my friend needing to catch a 6AM flight back to the States the next day) was met with some exhausted sighs. There were four of us at this point as we were taking our expat friend back. Through the one-camel town Ash-Shoback, nearly 30 minutes out of Petra, on a cliff-top road, our car started shaking and hopping. Oh no. Is this a flat tire? We stopped. Without missing a beat we all jumped out of the car and looked for the car jack and the spare. "Does anyone know how to actually change a tire?" a wise voice chirped up through our adrenaline-fueled industriousness. A resounding "No" followed. Yet, we went to work.
We tried, and tried, and we almost got somewhere until a car passed, stopped and backed up just in front of ours. One tall man in a black garment and two young men hopped out and muttered something in Arabic that could probably best be translated as "Move out of the way bitches, we got this." With Nascar garage efficiency they changed our tire and convinced us to go back to their place, whatever this place was, to fix the spare. We got back in the car and it started hopping and shaking again. Oh no. The spare was also bad. We pulled over and one of them offered to drive us to their...wait is this a garage? Are you all mechanics? It was one of those moments in life where a problem was met with the optimal solution. Like a toddler putting a wooden triangle neatly into the triangle shaped hole, there we were with three mechanics on a platter. They reopened their shop and we sat in the office next door. Mohammed turned on a heater and TV (to a channel playing a William H Macy film as ancient as Petra itself) whilst they worked magic on our beleaguered tires. When they finished they wouldn't even accept a tip. After that triumph of humanity and chance, we set back to Amman (at a slow, safe speed). "Text us when you get home," Mohammed, the eldest man said to us.
Tire magic happened here
No comments:
Post a Comment