Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade

Buckle up for a whirlwind tour of our 4 day trip to Jordan, Indian Jones style.  Long bus rides and insane border passport control resulted in a bus full of angry students.  Okay, so maybe I was the only one miffed.  Things were immediately reprimanded by several things-

1-I learned to covertly tune out my long winded tour guide with some Alt-J
2-Amman was a trendy indie mecca with a very fun mall which allowed a short escape from some of the people I see all day, every day.
3- A mad dash for the best gelato in Jordan is never a bad idea, even if it makes you a tad bit late.
4- KFC is always an interesting experience, especially in a foreign country.
5- Bucket List: Petra.  Status: Completed.




The Treasury at Petra. Wow.

Our four day trip to Jordan was a bit of hodgepodge of awesome.  The country itself was very similar to the Palestinian Quarter in the Old City which is something I didn’t expect.  My main gripe is that our tour guide blathered 90% of the time, which included bus rides.  See point number one above.  Thank you Alt-J.  Our first day was mostly bussing but was met by quite the show at our French Hotel.  Don’t ask me why, but all the hotels we stayed at were French.  I think it could have something to do with French occupation that I may have learned in one of my classes, but hey, I also got pretty good at playing hangman in above mentioned classes so who knows.  That evening we arrived to our first hotel to men in traditional garb who met us with singing and dancing and quite the dinner spread.  Love that saffron and cardamom rice.  Day two was the highlight of the whole trip.  We walked 5 minutes down the road into the enormous red stone gorge to begin the tantalizing descent to the city of Petra.  That walk was long, with each of us knowing what lay at the bottom.  Like a photo out of National Geographic, I looked up to see the corner of the enormous stone Treasury peeking out behind the red stone gorge.  A step out of the channel allowed that impressive façade to be seen. That’s something I’ll never forget. 




View from one of the "best" viewpoints

After antsy waiting for instruction, a group of us split to fully take advantage of our free afternoon in Petra. Tombs were explored, sand wormed its way into every crevasse, rocks were for sale (Literally-there were little stands selling bracelets, coke and rocks….Not like you can just pick on off the ground…)  And heavens, hundreds of stairs were climbed.  We made our way to the Monastery at the top of this huge mountain, and climbed every one of those 800 stone carved steps.  But it was worth it.  The Monastery is more impressive in my opinion than the treasury. I also appreciated the view from the “Best Viewpoint”, the “Very Best Viewpoint” and the “Better than Grand Canyon Viewpoint’.  Tired, but still resisting the pestering locals begging you to take a ride on their donkey or camel, we made our way to a delicious lunch (I love hummus.  Love it.  I’m going to need to find a pita provider in Provo, I can’t go cold turkey) and off to climb more stairs.  We made our way to a real sacrificial altar which you can imagine provoked lots of reenactments.  Tired and worn, we cut our timing real close on arriving in a timely manner.  I couldn’t resist though- I happily paid the Bedouin man cash to grab his horse and trot up the gorge, Indian Jones style.  It was sweet.  After a graceful dismount, the most delicious and expensive Dr. Pepper with Cherry soda (It seemed like an appropriate beverage after the horse ride) and a literal run to get Gelato ended our afternoon in Petra.  It was quite the day.

Jordan ended with an interesting day, but fun all the while.  I say interesting because lunch was delivery KFC to a meeting point, which happened to be on the many indoor bazaar/shopping mallish places that dot Jordan.  You walk inside and it’s an explosion of costumes, painted ostrich eggs, coffee tables, mosaics of Jordanian jewelry, camels in every size and Dead Sea Salt.  And Magnum Bars. The last two nights were spent meandering around Rainbow Street in Amman, and our last day was spent at the Jordan River.  That was quite the experience.  I learned to shut off my running commentary completely and take time to think about where I was.  It was a very contemplative experience to sit on the banks of the Jordan River and have some quiet scripture study to myself. 

Most bus rides and a fiasco at border control brought us home to Jerusalem, tired and stair sore.  But let’s not forget my triumphant gallop out of Petra. We’ll end on that note.