Trip to Jordan Before the Arab World Fell Into Balagan*

As I mentioned in the last blog post (which I realize was almost three months ago), I went to Petra, Jordan in December. My friend Tim and I contacted each other because it occurred to us that we were in the same area of the world, and since we had both really wanted to visit Petra, we decided we would go to Petra under the pretense of seeing each other. Ok, we were also really excited to see each other after almost (gasp) a year.

Through no-man's-land and onto Jordan!

Now for me this meant traveling to Jordan alone. I hadn't really thought of this as a dangerous or adventurous thing to do until I began telling people about my plans. The responses I received were mostly along the lines of: "You're going alone?" "I don't know if that's a good idea..." "Please call me as soon as you get there so I know you're ok," etc, etc. I planned out my trip and convinced myself that everything was going to go well.

(Spoiler: Everything went well).

Tuesday night I went to my classes as planned - the only difference this time was that I brought my backpack, which was packed with snacks and a change of clothes for two days. I went straight from my classes to Beer Sheva with my friend Ksenia, where I debated whether or not to stay in Beer Sheva for the night or to proceed immediately to Eilat where I would cross the border to Jordan (the latter had been my original plan). After consulting with Tim (this is funny because he's a consultant), I decided to power through and take the 1 am bus to Eilat.

Waiting at the Beer Sheva central bus station at 1am was quite a treat. There were approximately 5 people including myself waiting for the bus at the bus station. One of the five people there was an obviously drunk man wandering around aimlessly from person to person - which gave me something to do, namely ignore and avoid this individual. As obviously as I could tell he was drunk, though, I could tell he was not a threat to anybody. I was relieved when the bus came, I hopped on and arrived in Eilat at around 4:30am (it was still dark). I found the 24-hr Aroma Cafe, grabbed a coffee, and read my book The Presidential Transcripts - the complete transcripts of the Nixon tapes. Not very poetic, I know. But it passed the time.

I finally took a cab to the border at 7am, paid the border fee, changed my money into Jordanian dinari, which was very depressing because the dinari is unnaturally strong. I proceeded to cross the no-man's-land that is the road between the Israeli side of the border to the Jordanian side of the border.

Reunited and it feels so good =)

I thought there would be buses to Petra, but I was wrong. Every bus that was parked by the border was for a tour group. So I proceeded to ask the cab drivers how much to go to Petra and haggled my way from 60 dinari to 50. The cab drivers then began arguing in Arabic about whose turn it was to take the next passenger (which was me). It was hilarious. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but I knew exactly what they were arguing about. I said the only Arabic word I know at this point: "yalla," which means "let's go." But I couldn't help but laugh. The chosen cab driver told me that he could pick me up the next day to bring me back to the border if I gave him 15 dinari up front, and then 20 later (which would make the total amount for the return trip 35 dinari). So I placed a bet on humanity and gave him the 15 dinari. "What a mistake." I thought as I stepped out of the cab. And that's when the joint adventure with Tim began! We ate, caught up, and headed straight to Petra. Like most beautiful things that are worth writing about in this world, I think it is best left to pictures. 

The views were spectacular. The care and precision that was taken to build some of these structures in the rock just blows my mind. The magnitude of these buildings that are literally carved into the mountains is difficult to describe in a way that does the site justice. After spending one day there it was clear to both Tim and I that we needed to spend the following day at the site as well. There was just so much to see, a lot of ground to cover, a lot of stairs to climb, and a lot of views to capture on "film" - don't know what the equivalent expression is for digital cameras... Anyway, we went back for seconds the following morning.

I'm glad that I'm writing this blog entry about Petra now that almost a month of classes have already gone by in this new semester. Remembering it is like a breath of fresh air that has regenerated my strength to go on with my three full days of classes. That might not seem a lot to many of you. Three days of classes, pfft, easy breezy, right? But really what that translates to is eleven classes, one internship, and many, many hours on campus - even on days when all I want to do is read on the beach. But I do admit that I don't have much to complain about. After all, many of you might be saying "Beach days?! It's barely March. I am freezing my tuchus off here in [insert just about any other place]!" I know. It's pretty nice here in the holy land. I hope to add many more posts during the summer when I will only be taking two classes. It just gets better and better and sunnier and sunnier, it's true.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. My bet on humanity paid off. The cab driver who said he would return at 3pm to pick me up came by and took me back to the border. Granted, he came at 3:05pm.. But that's as good as you can expect here in the Middle East. In fact, in many cases that would be considered early. =)

Heart.

*Balagan: (n.) chaos, craziness, fiasco. Example: On Friday afternoons Shuk HaCarmel is complete and utter balagan.