Part 2 – Girls visit to Jordan

Wednesday, July 21 we were suppose to get up early and either go to Jerash- the Roman Ruins or Mt. Nebo – where Moses saw the Promised Land. I went to wake up Melissa who had no desire to get out of bed. I went to tell Cara that Melissa wasn’t getting up and she bolted out of bed and told Melissa to get up! Melissa said she had a headache and promised to get up early enough the next day to go to the sights. So, Wednesday was another lazy day.

Thursday we got up early and went to Jerash. The girls enjoyed seeing these Roman ruins, the column that is always moving, and the chariot races in the Hippodrome. It’s definitely worth seeing the races and gladiators put on a show. We had thought about going to Ajlun castle, but I realized I didn’t have much cash left and we needed cash to go to Wadi Rum and Aqaba the next day and I had to have cash for those places. So, we headed back to Amman and cashed some dollars. It was about 2 pm and Melissa and Cara were getting pretty hungry. I wanted to take them to “Wild Jordan” – a restaurant with a beautiful view. I have only been there a few times and by taxi only so I wasn’t sure exactly where it was. I headed downtown to Rainbow Street. I passed a street and said, “Oh, I think that was it!” It’s a one way road and the streets are very narrow and crowded. As we were driving down Rainbow Street you could see the world’s tallest flagpole and the citadel. So I told the girls, “That’s the view you would have gotten from Wild Jordan” and I kept on driving. I had to find my way out of this area. I had a pretty good idea how to do it and after a few “unique” turns, we ended up on 2nd Circle. The guide books will tell you that the “Best Shwarma in the Middle East” is on 2nd Circle. I had never been there before and I told the girls, “we’re gonna eat the world’s best shwarma today!!” Melissa got out an ordered us each a shwarma and we enjoyed that in the car. It wasn’t quite the lunch I had planned, but it was good…..Not so sure it’s the middle east’s best, but it was good.

We had been invited to dinner at Widad’s house in Madaba. Widad is a wonderful sweet Jordanian woman who works for Mark. She and her husband were at our home in VA for Cara and Jesse’s engagement party when they were in the states for a conference. So, when the girls were here, she wanted to have us over for dinner. Madaba is a wonderful little town with some great shops and we stopped in one of them before we got to Widad’s home. Melissa bought a nice little mosaic for her new home. Widad served Mansef – the classic Jordanian meal normally served with rice and lamb, but Widad made it with goat. A mellow yogurt sauce goes over it. She also served a Palestinian chicken dish which is Mark’s favorite. There was enough food for a small army and there were 6 of us at the table. The dinner and the company were just wonderful and the girls got an opportunity to enjoy Jordanian hospitality.

Widad has 3 beautiful daughters who were showing us photos of themselves. They took out the photo book of Widad, but she forbade the girls to show it to us because Mark was sitting there. Widad wears a hijab and stays covered. Only men of her family can see her hair. She called the girls and me over to look at her photos from when she was married. She is beautiful and that’s all I can say about that!!

Friday we drove to Wadi Rum. It’s about a 3+ hour trip. We had a blast in the car playing “I’m going on a picnic”. You’d think 4 adults would not find this very fun, but we did. We stayed at Bait Ali in Wadi Rum. The woman who owns the place is a native English speaker – maybe from Australia – and she has lived in Jordan for about 20 years. She “upgraded” our rooms to the bigger rooms. I thought that was so nice. They were very simple rooms with 3 twin beds and your own bathroom. There was one fan on the wall. When the guy brought us to our rooms he opened the windows in this very warm room and told us it would cool off in the evening. We believed him.

Wadi Rum is a very famous place and you may not even know it. If you’ve ever seen the movie, “Lawrence of Arabia” then you’ve seen Wadi Rum. TE Lawrence was a British officer who was instrumental in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916-18. He based much of his operations out of Wadi Rum. A wadi is a dried up river bed and Wadi Rum is the largest in Jordan. It’s desert with sandstone mountains. Quite an amazing sight.

We had decided that we wanted to take a camel ride in Wadi Rum and a jeep ride. Since it is the desert and it was in the middle of the hot summer, we decided we’d try and do these things in the evening and morning. We went to the visitor’s center and decided we take the sunset jeep tour. There was a young couple from Belgium and we shared the cost of the jeep with them. The wife spoke fluent Arabic since her heritage was from Syria. Good thing we had her there, the jeep driver barely spoke a word of English!

The “jeep” was not actually a jeep; it was more of a Toyota pickup truck with seats in the back and a canvas covering over the top. The truck had seen better days. We stopped in the village and got gas. How does one fill up a gas tank in the middle of the dessert? With a funnel, of course!! The truck had some trouble with the ignition and would stall from time to time….but that couldn’t possibly be a problem in the middle of the dessert!!

The jeep tour took us to several locations and “tourist spots”. We stopped at the first sight….we don’t really know what it was all about since the driver couldn’t explain it to us. But, the girls got to climb up the side of a sandstone mountain. There was also one tree in the middle of this dessert….so amazing to see this. I wanted to break out into song, “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong……” None the less, it was quite lovely.

Then we went to a cave with some ancient writings on the wall. Mark and Melissa climbed in through there. I got the photos I needed. One thing that I found amazing was the color of the sand. It was RED. And it was redder in the shadow of the mountains. It was a busy place and there were tour guides there with their camels. There was a great sight with 3 camels riding in a line in the middle of the dessert with the sun setting. Since we were in the truck going 60mph in the sand, it was hard to get a good photo of that.

Off to the largest sand dune in Wadi Rum. Mark and Melissa had to conquer this sand dune. About ¾ of the way up, Melissa just sat down and played in the sand. It reminded me of when she was a little girl. She got up the energy and they climbed the rest of the way up. They said it was really beautiful from up there. Cara and I hung out at the base of the dune and just chatted and people watched.

Then to watch the sunset. I don’t know if this was the original spot he wanted to take us to or not. We were running a little behind and he stopped in the middle of the dessert and we found some seats on the sandstone and watched as the sun set behind the mountains. The area is so vast and desolate. If you just sat and listened the quiet was deafening. It was so peaceful and tranquil. It was like the rest of the world didn’t exist. I guess I expected to see bright orange and beautiful colors, but that didn’t happen. It was just the yellow sun setting casting long shadows.

The trip back to the village center was remarkable. Our truck and a real jeep decided they would race back. The sand was whipping up, the wind was blowing and every last little bump in the sand was felt. Each of us hung on for dear life!! Thank goodness the woman who spoke Arabic told him to slow up a bit. Besides there was no way we would have beaten the better car.

Back at Bait Ali, we had a traditional Arabic meal. It was very warm, but tolerable. We played cards. I learned was “BS” was. Seems like my family are pretty good at “BS-ing”! We did a lot of laughing then called it a day. Back at our rooms we discovered that they didn’t cool down at all. There was no cross breeze and all we had was the little wall fan. I went to bed with a frozen bottle of water that we brought with us in the cooler. It was the only way to stay cool! However, the night was quite fitful. Melissa and Cara barely slept at all. They had considered taking their mattresses and sleeping on the porch area. The next morning we were all so exhausted from a lousy night’s sleep that we decided no camel ride this trip. The girls will just have to come back here so they can have that experience.

The next big adventure was Aqaba. The town located at the very north part of the Red Sea. We’ve been there before and it’s just a wonderful place. We stayed at the Hotel Intercontinental. We got settled into our rooms, got our suits on and headed to the pool for a very relaxing afternoon. Mark was coming down with a cold and just didn’t feel great, so relaxing was just what the doctor ordered.

The next day Melissa, Cara and I went snorkeling. Mark just took it easy at the hotel. I brought snorkeling equipment back from the United States and I am ever so glad I did. Mark and I had been snorkeling there before and learned that the equipment was only fair. The girls and I rented one set of equipment which Cara started off with. Melissa and I used the new stuff. Cara was struggling with the equipment and I gave her mine and she was enjoying the experience much better. I, however, did not and decided to sit on the beach and read for a while. They had a grand ole time exploring the beautiful reefs.

A little later on Cara and I went to the other reef and snorkeled while Melissa read. Cara found a fish that defended it’s home. She was enthralled with this little guy. If you put your hand near it, it swam around as if to say, “Go away, you are not welcome here” and then would hover over it’s home. I could hear Cara giggling through the water!

One of the disadvantages to snorkeling is the sunburn that is almost inevitable that occurs on your butt or upper thigh! I was pretty lucky, but the girls were not so lucky. We went back to the hotel and met Mark and had a lovely Lebanese meal in town.

At some point during this weekend – I think it was before we went snorkeling – Melissa had a ripped contact in her eye. I flushed her eye a lot but nothing ever seemed to come out. The next morning she was still feeling something in her eye. I just couldn’t find anything. We had a 3+ hour trip back to Amman. Since she was still feeling irritation in her eye, I tried to take her to the eye doctor. There were no openings and they wouldn’t see her on an emergency basis. We opted not to go to the ER. (NOTE: The ripped contact ended up falling out of her eye about 2 weeks later when she was in Bangladesh. Hopefully, no permanent damage to the eye and she feels much better.)

Melissa left the next day for her new adventure as a 3rd grade teacher at the American School in Bangladesh. Cara and I went downtown Amman where she bought a little gift for her boss. Cara left the next morning for Virginia. I think she was really missing Jesse.

This was such a wonderful time with my girls. I know they were happy to get on with their lives, but it was fun while they were here.