Amman and Getting There

We  have been stationed in Amman  since the 21st and Michel has spent most of the last 3 days in bed.  He seems to be getting over the cold but has an ear ache so we have put him on antibiotics just in case.  Our main goal is to get him better before Turkey - 3 more days.

Amman is oh, so different than Petra or Wadi Rum.  Amman is a thriving metropolis of 2.5 million people.  Tourists stick out way more here!  We are definitely stared at much more and everyone thinks that Michel is either from South Africa or Saudi Arabia.

I have been killing time by wandering the streets and absorbing the sights and sounds.  Today I think I will break down and go to the Citadel.  I think Michel may join me - we'll see when he wakes up.

The trip up to Amman was relaxing as we decided to hire a taxi and to stop at some of the sites along the way.

First Stop: Shobak Castle was built in the 1100s by a crusader named Baldwin I.  There is a “secret” passage way (I am sure it was secret in the time of Baldwin I but not now) that takes you from the castle (at the top of a hill) to a spring at the base of the hill. It consists of 375 stairs and we were offered a guided tour down (we were the only ones at the castle) but I didn’t think that Michel should try with the way he was feeling and the passage gave me the creeps.  The guide didn't speak great English but we had lots of fun with him.

My warrior!

Pretty ruins

Scary passage to spring. That point of light in the middle

is the latern that the guide held up so Michel could see his

way down about 30-40 steps and then turn around and take

a picture looking back up at us!!

Just call me Xena!!!

Second Stop: Dana Nature Reserve.  We actually just stopped by a road side turnout and took some pictures of the reserve.  I had asked to go to the Visitors’ Centre but Michel thinks the taxi driver just didn’t understand.  I had an ulterior motive – the Visitors’ Centre has an organic café in it and I wanted to get Michel some fresh fruit/vegetable juice to help his cold.  The whole drive from Petra to Amman was lovely with lots of very panoramic views - lots of beige sand though!


That's Dana Reserve behind us.  More interesting though,
the bits of green to the right are crops grown to feed
the sheep.

This is not Dana but in the middle of all the beigeness, this
massive black rock appears - any geologist out there care
to explain?

Third Stop: Tafila wasn’t actually a stop but a drive through as we didn’t really want to stop.  However, the main street was a buzz with activity as it was Friday so everyone was off work, school, etc and they were all out.  It was my first encounter with a butcher shop and I thought it was neat.

I believe we need to be more connected with where our food
comes from but someone tell me - is someone going to eat
that cow's head????

Fourth Stop: Karak Castle is another crusader castle that is much bigger and better preserved.  It is right inside the town of Karak which is interesting because it (the town not the castle) is mentioned several times in the Bible as Kir, Kir Moab and Kir Heres.

Random photo of landscape - Look how green it is!
If you saw nothing else, I don't think you would believe you were
in the middle of a desert!

Karak Castle at the top of the hill

My warrior standing beside a stone relief of
a Nabatean warrior - apparently when the Christians built
the castle, they reused stones from other structures hence
why a Nabatean warrior shows up in a crusader castle.

Fifth and Favorite Stop:  The Dead Sea was very nice.  It is very costly to get into though.  The public beach cost us $46 Cdn for Michel and I just to get in.  This did give us access to change rooms, showers (very important), pools (not salty), restaurants and the Dead Sea itself.  It is usually very hard to get Michel into water but on this day there was no problem.  We played in the water for about ½ hour, took some photos and then showered.  If you don’t shower after, as you dry, you become salt encrusted – not very comfortable!  We were much relaxed and it was 4:30 in the afternoon so we skipped Mt. Nebo (where Moses is said to have seen the Promised Land) and Madaba (a small town south of Amman with great mosaics).

Floaty Girl

Floaty Boy!

We are now staying at the Farah Hotel where is costs us all of $28Cdn a night to have a room with a double bed and shared bathroom (picture to come) but it is still better than the hostel in London that had mold growing on the wall.  Yesterday, I went out and bought cleaning supplies and cleaned the bathroom before showering - it was not really gross or anything but it made me feel better about showering.

I have become used to the call to prayer from the mosques and actually find them quite beautiful to listen to.  However, the ones at 5am are a tiny bit harder to appreciate.  Amman seems to have figured out something that they hadn't in Petra.  In Petra, all the mosques would broadcast the call to prayers at the same time and there would be this cacophany of call to prayers - a little hard on the ears.  However, in Amman, it seems like there is only one mosque broadcasting in each major area as I hear no overlap - makes it much more lovely to listen to.

The Last Bits of Petra

The day we went to Petra was notable for a couple of other reasons other than seeing Petra.

First, we got to experience a fairly major sand storm.  And thank goodness, it started just after we got back from Petra. 



The usual view from our hotel room.

The view during the sand storm.

Second, we splurged on dinner and tried Petra Kitchen.  This is a teaching restaurant where you pay to learn to cook Middle East/Jordanian specialities.  There were about 30-35 people in our group and we ended up working with Joanna, Mary, Chris and Joyelle from Colorado.  We had a great time learning how to make Lentil Soup, Baba Ganouj and Fattoush.  The rest of the group made the other dishes and we are looking forward to having a “Jordanian” night once we get home and having everyone over to check out our new cooking skills.

Joanna, Mary, Chris, Michel and Joyelle at our
cooking station.

The fruits of our efforts!

Petra

Poor Michel has got my cold something bad.  We have been in Wadi Musa (town that supports Petra) for 4 days and only been to Petra one day and one evening.  The rest of the time has been spent resting as there isn't much to do around here other than Petra.

Now, that being said, Petra was amazing!!!!  The evening viewing is done by candlelight (1500 of them) that guides you down the path to the Siq (the canyon that leads to the Treasury) and then lights up the courtyard in front of the Treasury.  The Treasury is the iconic monument of Petra and is what most people picture when the think of Petra.

The evening was wonderful.  Once we got to the Treasury, we were served Bedouin Tea (will make this for everyone when we get home) and got a performance by a lute player, then a gentleman playing something like a small guitar and a storyteller.  It was a great way to have our first glimpse of Petra.

When we went during the day, we decided to rent horses with guides and were taken up a "back" path to the Sacred High Place (saved us having to go up 800+ steps - a good idea when your cardio system is compromised by a cold).  We then walked down a back path with very few tourists and saw some sights many of the tourists don't bother with.  Then it was a walk back towards the Treasury and home.  I will let the pictures do the talking.

However, there are some things to keep in mind:

• The vast majority of the buildings are carved out of the rock face.  Only a very few are built as free standing buildings.
• Most of the spaces that are built into the walls are tombs - including the Treasury.



By going the "back" way, we got to see the
green houses that supply the Visitor's Centre
and Wadi Musa.

I forgot my cowboy hat at the hotel!!!!!

Standing almost directly over the top of the Treasury!

The view from over the Treasury.  These tourists are admiring
the Treasury from the other side of the courtyard. The big "crack"
in the middle of the picture is the Siq - the main way to enter Petra.

A part of the path leading down the Jebel (mountain)
from the High Sacred place - also carved out of the
Jebel.

These colors are naturally occurring!  It is amazing!

The Roman Soldiers Tomb from inside another tomb -
I can't remember the name!?



Opps, another tomb!!! From high up on the
High Sacred Place Jebel

One of the few free standing buildings in Petra.



Part of the Great Temple - nice pic Michel!

A little wild life

Royal Tombs

A different kind of wild life!!

More tombs - some are being buried by sand
being washed down by rains.

The Treasury from ground level

The Treasury from inside the Siq.
I am not sure how Michel managed to get
this picture without tourists in it - there are
thousands of them.

Missing Mascot

Please help us find Spidey!!!

Name: Spiderman (responds to Spidey)
Missing Since: late April 2012
Last Known Location: Michel's pocket in Southern France
Height: 3 inches
Weight: 2 ounces
Hair Color: Unknown
Eye Color: Unknown

Sometimes, things just don't work out

Well, I think the title of the post says it all.  We left the Wadi Rum yesterday (a week before schedule) and are now in Petra.

I am chalking it up to several things:

• I had been fighting a cold for almost 10 days and everytime I started to win the battle, I would get sick again and then, Michel started to feel under the weather (He is in bed right now and we are having a quiet day)
• The cultural differences on the business level were fatiguing.

I have very mixed feelings about the experience as a whole and I expect that this will not change.

I think that if Michel and I didn't have more than 20 years of hospitality experience behind us, the way that Zedane runs his business (and I have no reason to believe that any of the other Bedouins operate any differently than Z) probably would not have bothered us.

It was not only the "fluctuating" prices for clients but his gruff manner in talking to some of the clients and forcing options on them that they didn't want. 

And then there was the state of the kitchen at camp.  It was not completely unsanitary and certainly no one got sick from the food but it takes so little to keep a small kitchen clean and yet, it takes little effort to create a pig sty.  When you see a serving platter on the floor and the cook scooping rice onto it from the pot on the floor and you know that it has been a good long time (at least 7 days) since the floor was washed, you start to question methods.

One night (about day 8) Michel lost his temper a bit with Zedane and showed him bags of rotting food on the counter and mouldy bread in the cupboard. Michel's point was that no one was "managing" the kitchen so food was being wasted and unsanitary conditions expanding.  Then Michel pointed out that Zedane didn't pay us enough to clean this kinda stuff especially when we hadn't had a day off since we had started.  There was much talking after this.

Here is where another cultural difference came up during Michel's talk with Zedane.  We asked him to outline his expecations for us as the HelpX posting said 2-4 hours a day but we had been putting in 6-11 hour days.  Zedane said that we should only work as hard as we wanted and that we should find time to explore the Wadi Rum.  This is hard for people like Michel and I as we like to have our jobs outlined so we can guage for ourselves if we are doing a good job.  However, the next day, I told Zedane that we wanted to take the following day off and possibly take a jeep tour to see some of the highlights of the Rum.  He asked if we wouldn't prefer to have separate days off............really?

But I feel I also need to tell you that Zedane was good to us in some ways as well.  He gave us some privacy in the communal tent, gave Michel a head scarf of his and some other nice things.  Zedane is also a mover and shaker from what I have seen.  I don't think his focus is on the camp business as I think he has bigger fish frying in the pan. 

In the end, I am going to say that there was poor communication, getting lost in the shuffle (Zedane's focus being somewhere else) and some cultural differences.  I think if someone could ask Zedane about our performance, he might have the same mixed feelings.  I am sure that we probably did some cultural no-nos and it might have been hard for him to work with us.  I know that I expressed my opinion (imagine that, me, expressing my opinion - that doesn't happen very often!) about the cleanliness of the camp (cigarette butts and packages in the Zarp pit).  If I was Zedane I would think "Who are these pushy Westerners coming in and thinking they know my business!".

On the plus side, the people (including Zedane) were very nice and incredibly friendly and we will miss them.

Hamid, who is still pining for a lost love 2 years after losing her but who, when he smiles, lights up the room.

Mohamed, the son/nephew of Zedane, who is a fun-loving 20ish year old who feels at ease sharing personal information with Westerners (drugs, sex, etc).

Eghab, who is trying to grow his own business along side Zedane's and has some progressive ideas.

Hala, Zaed, Faed and Kaled, Zedane's children who would come "hang" with me in the afternoons at the office when it was quiet.

Um Zaed (Zaed's Mother), who didn't speak much English but who offered me treats from time to time.

So, all that aside, Michel and I talked about our next trip coming back to the Middle East to explore Israel and to go back to the Wadi Rum and do a trek for 4 or 5 days.  It is so incredibly silent in the desert.  You hear nothing but the wind.  It is disconcerting and yet very relaxing.  As we were about to go to sleep last night, Michel said he missed the Wadi Rum already!!!  Wadi Musa (the town that services the tourism industry around Petra) is quite busy so it was anything but silent.

And now, a photo montage:

Eghab serving up Zarp on the buffet

Not nearly as cute as an alpaca!!!!!

Wild Life!!!!!

Communal Eating Tent at Camp

The Office - I worked at the very back.  Door to Zedane's home
is the blue one on the right.

I never managed to get in the spirit of the squat
toilet - always used toilet paper!!

That's me way up near the top of the arch.
Many people go right to the top but I lost my nerve.

Bigger wild life!!!!

Michel at "Lawrence's House" - a Nabatean house that
Lawrence of Arabia used to house weapons.

Petroglyphs on the caravan route to Petra in the Wadi Rum

Hamid catches some much needed Zs while we play
on a large sand dune.

Frith (a guest) and Zedane in his "castle".

Some people have the strangest travel mascots!
The mascot's name is Tim and he is Belgian.

Hamid and Mohamid

Where the Red Desert meets the White Desert.
Taken from camp

Our last sunset over camp