A couple of weekends ago, Mike and I travelled about three and a half hours south of Amman to Aqaba, Jordan’s port on the Red Sea. It was our second trip there, we’d taken the girls when I first arrived in Jordan. One of our friends was celebrating her birthday and we had a great opportunity to go back with her and her wife and two other friends to enjoy a weekend out of the city. After a fun night at the Kempinski Hotel we drove the next morning to the amazingly breathtaking desert of Wadi Rum. This special edition blog post is dedicated solely to that adventure.
Sunset over the Red Sea in Aqaba looking towards the bottom of Israel and Egypt.Woke up early to head back north.The Desert Highway has stunning landscapes.
Wadi Rum is a protected area of Jordan that is inhabited by tribes of Bedouins who are the nomadic desert people of this region of the world. We arrived early to the visitors center, checked out the map and decided what we wanted to see. An eight hour tour, to include a sunset, was what we chose and we were matched with a guide who settled us into the back of his Toyota and off into the desert we went!
Bedouin tents throughout the Wadi Rum protected area offered visitors a place to rest in the shade and have some tea.One can travel by Toyota or camel. This photo was taken at the bottom of Lawrence Spring named for T.E. Lawrence – “Lawrence of Arabia” – who made the area his military base and home.How gorgeous is this animal? I felt sorry that she was tethered here but sure she was out in the desert shortly after this photo was taken.
Our first big climb was up an enormous sand dune to reach the rocks that we climbed up to this view. At first I thought that it would be impossible to fill eight hours but, let me tell ya, it takes time to climb up rocks and once you are up there you just want to sit and rest for a bit before you turn around and figure out how to climb back down!
The first of many interesting rock bridges we saw.At the entrance to Khazali Canyon. The rock formation above the tree looks like the crown and profile of a king. The most gorgeous natural colors; red sand, pink and purple rocks.Our guide standing in the canyon where you can see some of the Nabatean petroglyphs, which are found throughout Wadi Rum.More petroglyphs.So cool.
After three stops we drove to a shady spot to have lunch, well – our guide brought some lunch to share with us but we packed our own not knowing that we’d have lunch provided :)! Thankfully, there were a couple of people in our party that were happy to take him up on his offer. We sat for a bit, ate, talked and then got antsy and back into the Toyota we went!
Our lovely Bedouin guide.Photo courtesy of Kelly (KH) of Elly (ES) looking at the Burdah Rock Bridge – just slightly left of center of this photo if you zoom in. To get to the bridge is a a legit rock climb that would have taken us half the day!Photo of Mike and I, courtesy of KH!Photo by KH of another view of the Barrah Canyon, our guide and his Toyota.
After our stop in the middle of the canyon our Toyota sped through the sand and came upon a herd of camel, thankfully our guide had some bread left from our lunch and offered a slice to this snacker who then checked us all out. Some of the animals that live in Wadi Rum are camels, foxes, snakes, hedgehogs, sand cats, wild dogs and ibex.
Our next stop was one of the big attractions, the Um Fruth Rock Bridge. Most of our party did not climb up; one of us went half way (not me) and another went all the way to the top (not me).
On our way in.Beautiful view from the other side!Resting in the tent with the bedouin and this little wild kitten.zzzzzHeading out I turned around and saw this great view of some adventurers!All lined up and ready to race people around!
One of my favorite parts of the day was getting back into the truck, situating ourselves and just driving in the desert. It was a little like sitting in a speed boat that is racing through the water – fast, bumpy, windy and lots to look at.
A REAL quick video!
I particularly liked my view once Mike turned his hat around and I could see the logo to my best friends’ brewery in Fredericksburg; Red Dragon Brewery!
Photo courtesy of ES.
The last stop before our sunset climb was to a formation that reminded me of Skull Island from King Kong. What was the most interesting was all of the stacked rock ‘installations’ up on the flat surfaces and tucked in the nooks! We added a rock or two to the Jenga like ‘artworks’.
If you zoom in, you can see how many rock structures there are, they were everywhere!Me taking a photo of the rocks and of Elly who was taking the next photo!Photo courtesy of ES. You can see the many desert roads that the guides use. The King Kong spot.
At this point we’d been riding around for about seven hours and needed to get to the location where we could sit and watch the sunset. The climb was an easy one and we got there early enough to claim a primo spot. We watched trucks driving back and forth leaving trails of dust in their wake, we saw caravans of visitors on sunset camel rides and we talked about our day.
A sunset I will never forget.
Time lapse of the sunset.I loved seeing our guide sitting with his friends waiting for their workday to end.
So, what do you after an eight hour tour of Wadi Rum? Some people camp in the park, either on their own or with a camp company. We stayed at camp outside of the park called Sun City
The moon rise on the way to our camp.
We got to the camp just before it got dark, dropped our things in our tents and headed to the dinner – meat cooked in the ground which is pretty cool if you like that sort of thing. LOL thankfully there was plenty for this vegetarian to eat; eggplant, hummus, even pasta! After dinner Mike and I took bean bag chairs over to our friend’s deck of the Martian Bubble tents we were staying in and gazed up at the full moon, tracked where the planes we could see were flying to (there’s an app for that), figured out what stars and constellations were in the sky (there’s an app for that), listened to music and chit chatted.
I’d hoped to get photos of the stars and maybe the Milky Way but this gorgeous full moon made the sky too bright.The view we woke up to as the sun rose in the east.Fresh morning air with a peek of sunshine.
While I stayed in bed, our friends went on a sunrise camel ride to kick off Missy’s actual birth-day.
Photo courtesy of KH. MarsThe Smiths are big fans of the movie ‘The Martian’ which was filmed in Wadi Rum. Lots of other movies were filmed here, too! This is what our Bubble “tents” looked like. They were just like hotel rooms!Me and my guy – living this great adventure. Photo taken by Kelly.
Needless to say, we enjoyed the heck out of ourselves. After having breakfast at the camp we packed up and headed home to Amman where we picked up Finn from the petsitter and returned to our waiting kitty, Iris. It felt so good to have spent so much time outside, walking and climbing, getting dusty, knotty hair, breathing fresh air and being with great people. We should all make the time to do that. Thanks for reading, bye for now.
I am not going to make any lame excuses about why I haven’t written, I’m just going to dive in – promise you lots of photos and hopefully some meaningful commentary about what has been keeping me busy for the last few months!
What I’ve been up to: Once Jillian left in July, I started my new job at USAID (United States Agency for International Development) in the Education and Youth Office as a Project Management Assistant. What does that entail? Well, I am definitely getting to put my Knowledge Management skills to work and I am loving it – not a Microsoft shop so I am figuring out the G-Suite of productivity tools and it hasn’t been too bad. I do miss my SharePoint but I’ve tinkered around and found a pretty slick way of organizing my new teams’ knowledge into a useful knowledge base, at least the start of one. I have gotten to travel around Jordan with my co-workers to a USAID school where I met some pre-1st graders who had not attended kindergarten and were getting a crash course so that they could transition into 1st grade smoothly. They were so cute, as soon as we entered the classroom they jumped up to show us the artwork they had done, the letters they had learned to write and a cute little ‘fishing’ activity that I am sure was building up that hand-eye coordination. Their enthusiasm and smiles were heart-melting! Next trip, a youth center that was about 2 hours away from Amman in Tafilah for a visit to a YouthPower Facilitator event, where groups of youth (aged 15-30 in Jordan, I think “youth” is 15-24 in the US) met to learn how to be agents of change in their communities from YouthPower trained facilitators. We were able to talk to a few of the participants and see them working in groups to solve problems and present their proposed solutions. I attended an International Youth Day event, and participated in the Jordan Economic Forum – by participated I mean I was a member of the audience LOL. I really love the work that I am doing to help Jordan.
We attended a cultural event – the Jerash Festival with a group of friends. You might remember Jerash from my post in January, it is to the north of Amman and has well preserved Roman ruins of the ancient city that included a large amphitheater – we sat in that theater with a whole lotta other people to watch the Circassian dance! I didn’t know much about the Circassian’s until I came home afterward and did some research, their costumes were so interesting and I learned so much going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassians.
Before the show we walked down the streets and bought a sugary rolled up bread from this lovely woman.Told ya there were a lot of people! I kept thinking “this cannot be safe” LOL
So, I worked at my new job for two weeks and then went on vacation! After 10 months for Mike and 7 months for me, we returned to the US in August to see our girls, our friends and our families, so I’m including a few favorite shots from the visit(s).
Greek Isles as we flew home.Our haven for our week in Duck, NC!One of my favorite places on earth – where Patchogue River meets the Great South Bay in my hometown of Patchogue, NYGreat South Bay with Fire Island in the distance.
Shortly after returning from our trip home, we turned around and drove (actually our friend drove!) to Jerusalem with three of our friends. We got picked up at 7am and drove about 40 minutes or so to the border crossing where we got out and stood at a couple of windows to have passports looked at and then on to the next border crossing where we waited around, were whisked through security, waited to buy car insurance (yes, you have to buy days worth of car insurance) and then back in the car and onward to our destination. The crossing was a little north of the Dead Sea so it was hot but as we ascended towards Jerusalem the air cooled a little and we arrived just in time for lunch. We went to the famous market – Mahane Yehuda and enjoyed taking in all of the sights and sounds. We settled on Hatch for lunch and it was absolutely perfect; beer, slushie alcohol drinks, omnivore and vegan fare and lots and lots of people watching (and chatting). Our AirBnB was ready for an early check in so we all hiked over and chilled a bit in the AC before we headed back out to the Old City. We spent two FULL days walking and exploring – day one on our own and day two with our friends’ AirBnb host. I’d never really had a desire to go to Jerusalem, could be because I am not a religious person but I have to say – it was an experience of a lifetime and I would love to go back. We had some wonderful meals, some great laughs and walked about 20 miles (with a killer set of stairs up to where we rested in my last photo) all in all, a fabulous trip with stellar travel buddies!
Now Iris has a suitcase issue!This way to Jerusalem!First stop was the Mahane Yehuda Market where we had lunch at Hatch. Lots of people stopped to chat, such as this gentleman talking to Abby and Elly.I loved our AirBnB, plants everywhere – indoors and out and I was so happy to care for them while we shared space.He looks sad because of the garbage.Sheesh, someone else loves plants in the building where we stayed!One of the many interesting faces of Jerusalem. This man told me he lets bees sting him everyday to stimulate his serotonin or dopamine levels – I can’t recall!Missy was in ‘Bama heaven in the Heart of the Old Town, Shalom Y’All!The women’s side of the Western Wall.Stopped into the Austrian Hospice, sat in the garden and had some delicious fresh beer! It really felt like Vienna, it was bizarre!Walking through the Souk in the Old City.Our neighborhood on Saturday morning. We walked all the way up here from all the way down there.
Back home to Amman; back to the pets, work and friends. One of whom had her 4th baby; a little girl after three sons – so a group of ladies showered her and her daughter with gifts. I just loved this dress my friend Kimberly made out of a traditional Bedouin kaffiyeh to present diapers to mama and baby. One of the ladies from work had her father visit and after they toured all of the sites she invited everyone back to Carakale Brewery to show her ol Irish dad a good time. A couple of our gal pals decided they wanted to throw an Oktoberfest party and with that, had them on the hunt for German food, decorations and best of all – German beer. Our hero Kelly scored us some fresh tasty German brews that we all enjoyed along with homemade pretzels, bakery pretzels, german potato salad and brats.
Red Sea-riousProst!
Since Mike and I hadn’t had much chance to get out and explore we decided to head to Jabal al – Weibdeh for breakfast one weekend morning. We wanted to go to a traditional place and stumbled upon Rakwet Arab Cafe just off of Paris Square. It was a stunningly ornate space with delicious Jordanian dishes.
We walked around a bit so I could try to retrace my steps from my evening with Margaret during our Foodie Walk and snapped this photo as we passed by the Petra National Trust. You can see the nighttime version from my post in May. Such a glorious color of stone, I can’t wait to see Petra where this building material was mined from!
As we strolled to Bunni Roasters Coffee to get some coffee for our French Press, we walked by this VW Bug that I’ve walked past before and regretted not taking a photo – so in honor of my very first car that I (kinda) bought on my own (with help from my Oma)… cheers and r.i.p. to my 1974 (dark blue) SuperBeetle. I love seeing all of the old cars around Amman.
Mike had an old buddy come into town with his lovely wife in tow so we had to go out to dinner and thanks to the recommendation of some of his co-workers went to this amazing place., Tal Pine. It felt like Jordanian Swiss Family Robinson – up in the pine treetops, dining on delicious food with great company. I had so much fun meeting someone that I’d been hearing stories about for years and he did not disappoint!
This next section of the blog is dedicated to the animals, my first story is about a light colored pup that showed up one day near the embassy. Mike saw the dog one morning, I saw it the next and then we didn’t see it again until our friend said he saw the dog farther away and darting in and out of traffic. The dog was so pretty we couldn’t imagine that it didn’t belong to someone and needed to be returned. Our friend tried to catch it, and got a couple of photos and we shared it on the Facebook page for the embassy. A bunch of people recognized it but no one knew who the dog belonged to.
As close as we could get to this pupper.
After seeing some kids throwing rocks and cornering the dog, our friend was able to catch it and get it to his place. Other friends provided dog accoutrement and SHE slept for hours in a big dog crate in an air conditioned room. She was filthy and scared but she gradually got used to being inside, and being loved by a guy who didn’t really think he had time for a dog but look at her now…
The gorgeous “local street dog” Miss Lainey!!She is learning how to be a good girl with her trainer!She is friends with Finn (and Big Gene and Basha!)
Speaking of friends, Finn and Iris are inseparable. She loves being a part of our family and he could not be more thrilled to have a playmate at the ready. They snuggle and snooze, they battle and bite – they are the ultimate entertainment.
Snuggle buddies.How I’m usually greeted when I come home for lunch.Finn on his seventh birthday. First time celebrating in Amman!Napping is their favorite!Pretty Girl!Finn living his best life… Puppy play date at Kenicke’s house for his birthday! You lean right in, buddy!
Next up – heading to Aqaba and Wadi Rum this weekend and I’m looking forward to taking photos and having some more things to share about Jordan with you next month, then a trip to Egypt in November! I was asked at work by a lovely lady, Luma if I wanted to do a Language Exchange with her and I’m excited to share more about that, too. Meeting with her three times a week and taking my Arabic language class two times a week – I’ll be fluent in no time haha. I love being able to help her, too. I joined the recently reinvigorated Green Initiative at the Embassy and started a Recycle and Waste Reduction Workgroup in the hopes that we can raise awareness about recycling and reducing our waste both in the embassy and at our residences – a group of 10 signed up and I think we already have plenty of ideas that are easily implementable!
Let me leave you with this happy group of guys, riding in the back of a pickup truck on a Thursday afternoon (the weekend is Friday and Saturday here in Jordan) sitting in traffic and seemingly enjoying themselves (well, maybe not all of them LOL). Look for the joy in life – in this day and age we really need the optimists. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, bye for now.
DiForYou 