Jordan! Part II: Even more exciting than Part I.

A while later after some more off roading with Sunny, we make it to Madaba where we are staying the night. We had some yummy food at a local restaurant, went back to the hotel for some local wine, took showers, and went to bed. In the morning, we went to some REALLLLLLY old churches that are famous for their mosaics, and also the place where John the Baptist was beheaded. Then we did some local shopping, got some neat stuff, and went on our way to Petra.

Really old mosaic in the floor.... like....REALLY OLD

Shrine of John the Baptist

Opening doors that I shouldn't, and going places I shouldn't go

We climbed to the top of the bell tower. This is Madaba.

John is looking a little pale after all these years....

Some interesting/memorable things happened on the way to Petra, such as the following….

Me: Why is that 7 year old boy standing in the middle of a round-a-bout?

Rachel: What is he looking at?

Me: Maybe he has a Gameboy color

Rachel: I think he has a gun, oh it must be a toy gun.... it has to be!

Me: He has a clip in the other hand.

 
*Uncontrollable laughter*

 
....But really a 7 year old boy was standing in the middle of a round-a-bout with a gun.

 

Aaaaaaand moving on.... I feel like some other interesting things happened, but that was good. We also stopped at some really old castles. One we didn’t quite make it to. The treacherous, curvy, one-lane roads were a little too much for the driver. I also don’t know if Sunny would have made it. So we took some beautiful pictures from afar of the first one. The second castle was really old and I climbed up (in sandals) to this really old window. It was amazing, walking around through the underground tunnels where they probably kept servants, prostitutes, and robbers. Right?????????? Okay, but seriously, this castle was awesome.

The open road

Castle in the background

The castle we actually went to... HUGE!

Semi-underground tunnels

Servant/prostitute/robbers quarters underground

 

And we continue on our trek to Petra… oh wait, GPS would like to steer us in a wrong direction (SHOCKING), and then up and down some treacherous hills, back in a circle, to the castle we were just at, and finally towards Petra! Yippee.

We finally make it to Petra. Hooray. Luckily, Heather and I were able to share a horse.

 

Welcome to Petra

 

Special bonding time

We go through the entrance…

The Entrance

 Then to “The Treasury,” the place of Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade or something like this… Indiana Jones was also our theme song music, pretty much everywhere we went thanks to our trusty GPS.

The Treasury. Rachel's life is now complete.

 We saw some old caves carved into stone where people lived. I also walked into a tomb. Creepy. There were big homes for rich people, medium sized homes for middle class, and tiny ones for poor people. We also were able to see and climb about in the last free standing structure at Petra. Pretty cool

A total crap picture of tombs... but they are tombs!!

Tired camel. This is probably as cute as a camel could ever look.

 
Then we saw a Post Office/Waffle House……………that actually turned out to be where people put cremains of their loved ones. Most accurate tour guide ever;-)

Post Office/Waffle House/Crematory

Amphitheater... or something like that 

 

THEN WE SAW SOME REALLY ADORABLE PUPPIES!!!

 

 

Cutest puppies ever! EVER.

 

 

We jump in the back of this fancy truck for a ride back to Sunny and then drive to find a Bedouin camp to stay at for the night. There were a few Rachel and Heather had looked up previously to stay at. Yay for Bedouin camp adventures!! So, the Indiana Jones theme song got played a lot (with our very own voices) for this part of the trip—it was a straight up adventure.

Riding in the back of the truck

 
We drive down some curvy roads, into the dark Jordan night where there are no street lamps and no cars. Sound like a horror story yet? Jeepers creepers? Yes, yes, then what you are thinking right now is COMPLETELY ACCURATE. So, we pull into the first Bedouin camp and make Almo sacrifice himself for the good of the group. He says it seems nice so the rest of us girls get out of the car and take a look around. It was really pretty with the lights throughout the surrounding stones, it had nice beds, and nice tents. However, there was absolutely NO ONE there. We were the only guests in the giant Bedouin camp. Also, Almo was talking down the price, they said we “missed” dinner, and would have to go into town to buy food to cook. Well, that just got sketchy. So, back into the car we hopped and down the road we went to the next Bedouin camp down the road. We turn to the 7 Wonders Bedouin Camp. There is a truck barely ahead of us and we follow it down a crazy gravel road. This is DAMN sketchy. We continue following the truck down this road and we begin to come upon the camp. Surrounding the camp is a chain link fence with barbed wire around the top and Rachel then yells “OH DEAR!! OH DEAR!!” The truck comes to a clearing and stops, a man gets out, and Heather turns/donuts Sunny around *insert Indiana Jones music here* and off we go back where we came from. S-K-E-T-C-H-Y.

So we drive back into the tiny town of Petra, find some downright fancy (haha just kidding) accommodations, and get some rooms. We go out to a place to have dinner which may or may not have doubled as someone’s apartment?? I mean, they were really trying to convince us to stay at this place… We were basically eating dinner in lazy boy chairs watching a big screen TV. We pay for a meal and walk down the road in search of a bar. We walk, walk, walk, walk, walk….. all the way back to the entrance of Petra where we find a cute little cave bar….. a cave bar that used to be a TOMB!! I drank in tomb. Kind of cool. We all snuggle in a cab together and go back to our accommodations.

 Next morning we get up, walk down the street for some breakfast. At this point in time Almo was offered 100 cows for me. This was a tough decision to make, but I was able to stay on the trip and not get sold into marriage to a Petra local. Whew! Crisis averted. Down the road we go on our way back to Amman. We had some more sweet road tripping adventures on our way back. We found our NICE hotel. Then we went out in search of some dinner.

This was not a good dinner establishment. We are thinking “Goodfellas Pizza.” It also looked like it had a bar in the top part, which was totally FALSE advertising. The bar was not even real. Yet, we did get to go upstairs in a tiny 2 person, very slow moving elevator that may or may not have been from a creepy old 18^th century house. Anyway, moving on. We drank really gross hot chocolate, then ate really gross pizza, and then we left…. Left down the 2 person, very slow moving elevator.

We find this cute little pastry shop (where we also found out that we could have eaten dinner), and had cute yummy pastries and warm coffee drinks. Yum, yum, yum. It was also very atune to the holiday spirit so we took an adorable picture with the Christmas tree J Happy Holidays!!

Holiday pic:)

 

We then bought some spirits in a tiny shop, where we also had them open the wine bottles (we lacked a corkscrew), and carried them very carefully into our hotel. We then consumed the spirits, had a lovely evening in, and went to bed. We made it to our flight, despite the lack of anything/anyone being helpful in the Amman airport. Jetsetted back to Dubai where I arrived, happy to be home J

 

Jordan trip complete!!

Jetting off to Jordan

This weekend was UAE National Day AND Dubai won the 2020 World Expo bid. So, all in all, it was a 5 day weekend. 3.5 of those days, I was in Jordan.

Is it too emotional to say that the trip to Jordan brought me extreme joy? I have only been back in Dubai for a few hours, but now that I can reflect, it was a wonderful trip. Post trip high??

Trip participants: myself, Heather (the champion off road driver), Rachel (I-Spy champ), Almo (hired photographer/Rachel's husband who speaks Arabic)

Day 1: Flew out of Dubai early in the morning.... as in waking up and being at the airport before 6 am!  Had a nice three hour flight to Amman, Jordan. Once we arrived in Amman, we were privileged enough to hang out at the air port for 3 hours. That was fun times. Once we got our visas we went on down to get some Starbuck's coffee (with a very opinionated barista), and went to get our rental car.

Look at me, look at me!..... in the Amman airport

Direct quote from the rental car guy: If you can drive a stick, I'll get you a very nice car." We're walking out FINALLY. The thoughts going through my head as we're walking by cars *wow this one looks pretty nice*..... *this one is basically brand new*.... *realllllllly hope it isn't that one*..... Continue walking towards that one *oh shit the trunk is open, it is probably that one, hopefully we walk past it to the next one* Rachel quote of the trip: "Oh dear" So basically we end up with a 5 year old Nissan "Sunny"/Altima stick shift. Luckily we had a GPS, who was quickly nicknamed "Bitch" for the trip, because this crazy GPS lady took us on the most treacherous roads. There was a little off-roading in Sunny, also a little rebar scratch thanks to the Bitch and a local farmer.

Anywho, we get on the road. Rachel and I are in the back seat, Heather is driving like a champ, and Almo has the job of reading signs. Rachel and I decide to play I-Spy. The countryside of Jordan does not offer a lot of I-Spy choices which we learned rather quickly. After only two turns, we figured that if you spy something "brown," the answer will always be "desert." If something of any other color was spotted, the answer will always be "trash bag." There are an incredible amount of plastic trash bags across Jordan, a really truly incredible amount. Rachel had the solution of getting the world's largest rake to solve this problem. Conclusion to the problem is still a work in progress. This was just the beginning of our road games.

As you can see, I-Spy choices were quite limited. This photo is a little deceiving as there is a tree and clouds.

 

*Hum in your head* Driving down the road, driving down the road, driving down the road *keep humming* Do this for 2 hours with no radio, a Bitch-y GPS, 60 degree inclines, and invisible speed bumps. Thankfully, there was a lot of immature banter going on in the car. Also, Heather rapping.... and dueting with Rachel on Jesus songs from childhood. Actually, quite a delightful time.

YAY WE MADE IT TO THE DEAD SEA!! LET US FLOAT WITHOUT A DUCKIE FLOATY AND WATER WINGS:-) :-) :-)

Me and the Dead Sea

It was B-E-A-You-tiful

We get changed into our suits, find some coveted Dead Sea mud, cover ourselves (Heather was lucky enough to get assistance with the mud coverage from a local), and walked in.

Very helpful sign

 I slowwwwwwwly leaned back because the ole' brain was telling me *you don't float in water without your duckie floaty and water wings.* Well, what do you know?

Me floating, Heather frolicking

The rumors are true, you DO float in the Dead Sea with absolutely no effort.

 

 

Dead Sea adventure complete.