Sorry about the temporary delay in blog posts, but between the end of the trip in Jordan and various degrees of jet-lag here in the States, it has taken us a bit to catch up on the last few days of the trip. But for those of you who were patiently waiting for the ending, here you go:
(and if you are looking for pictures, visit here for pictures for the following days)
May 25th: Today we started the morning bright and early by loading our bags onto another bus and driving off to our next site, Baidha (also known as Little Petra). As the name suggests, this site was very similar to Petra, only smaller in size, and was located on the perimeter of the mountains. It was used as a rest stop for caravans and included multiple rooms carved into the rocks which were most likely used for eating and relaxing. From here, we then walked a bit to a site which is currently being excavated by archaeologists. This prehistoric site was a great example of why civilizations decide to settle in the areas that they do. Our guide Raed explained to us what the landscape would have looked like thousands of years ago when it was originally settled. Beside the mined out pits, archaeologists had constructed some sample homes of what may have been there before. We were able to see the progression of building from simple circular homes to two-story rectangular buildings. We then walked back to the bus and drove to a waste water farming project located in the middle of the desert. After taking a few pictures we drove on to Wadi Rum, one of the famous deserts located in Jordan where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed. After a couple hours of jeep driving over sand dunes and past grazing camels, we arrived at our camp site. The site consisted of multiple tents for sleeping and one large Bedouin tent for eating and relaxing that night. Some of the local Bedouin people cooked us up dinner and afterwards we spent the night watching the sky looking for shooting stars.
May 26th: The next morning we were woken up and greeted by a caravan of camels just outside our campsite. After quickly finishing breakfast, we each chose a camel to take us through the desert during the morning. We spent 2.5 hours on the camels and traveled to a few different sites throughout Wadi Rum. One of the sites had old pictograms from the early settlers in the desert. For many in the group, that was our first time riding a camel. Some of us had more difficulty than others in encouraging our camels to stay with the rest of the pack. But we managed to all arrive safely back at the site. After packing up our bags, we got back in the jeeps where they took us to Aqaba, a town located directly on the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba of the Red Sea. From Aqaba, we were able to see Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Some of the group went down to the public beach while others decided to head out onto the water on a glass boat. Aqaba is a large dive spot for scuba divers with many coral reefs along its shores. Although we only had a few hours here, some of us were still able to get some snorkeling in before we had to head back to the hotel for dinner. After dinner, a few of us explored both the tourists spots of Aqaba as well as the local markets.
May 27th: This morning we were greeted by a bus which was prepared to take us back to Amman for our flight the following day. The trip is about 5 hours but halfway there we took a short detour to a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) site. Here, we were able to meet with local tribe leaders and MCC workers to discuss the work they have been doing over the past years. In prior years, the tribal leaders told us that the two tribes were always fighting and to the point where they wanted to kill one another. Through some work done by MCC and some other organizations, the two tribes now work together and have just completed the installation of a large water reservoir which provides both drinking water and water for irrigation purposes. It was incredible to see how proud they were of the reservoir and drip irrigation system. They also mentioned that the King played a large role in many of the projects in their small town. Throughout the trip, we had come across hundreds of large banners of the King and his family hanging in the streets; it was neat to see that he truly had an interest in the rural people of his country and that he even made an effort to visit their homes to see and hear first-hand the problems they were dealing with. After finishing up our tour of the water reservoir and pump houses, we got back in the bus and finished the drive into Amman. For dinner, we met back up with the folks from MCC and continued asking questions about their work and what it was like living in Jordan. For dinner, we ate in a restaurant atop of a large hotel which overlooked all of Amman. What a view to end the trip on!
May 28th: After a full 2.5 weeks, our trip finally wound down and it was time to return back to the US. With nearly a full day of travel ahead of us, many of us were preparing to sleep for most of the flight. For some of us, we were lucky enough to sleep. For others, they weren't. Once we arrived in JFK, we were all eager to get to the van to make the return trip back to State College.
After a week back in the country, many of us are now recovered from jet-lag, yet still missing Jordan, it's people, and it's food (although perhaps not the portions!) It was quite the adventure with many, many stories to tell!! If you are interested in hearing or seeing more, throughout the trip we took lots of pictures (10,000+) and filmed hours of video. Indiana Jones and the Search for the Holy Soil is nearly finished and will be posted to youtube. Check back here in the future for the link to the movie. If you would like a personal copy as well, contact Spud (iamspud5@gmail.com). We will also be compiling video from the whole trip. Some of us may also be presenting what we learned and saw on the trip in some presentations in the future, if you're interested in hearing more, contact Kate (katebutler@psu.edu). We really appreciate everyone who checked in with this blog to keep track of what we were up to. Until the next great adventure... (which may be Jordan next year; some of us were scheming up ways to retake the class because it was so much fun!!)
-Spud
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