Jordan

On Saturday February 28th we grab a 2.5 hr ferry from Nuweiba, Egypt to Aqaba, Jordan, sailing with only 5 other foreigners in a sea of Arabs, when we get tipped off that the US and Israeli have attacked Iran – an auspicious start to this leg of our journey. We very much appreciate the powerful WiFi in our hotel where we absorb the news and plan our next steps. We learn the siren code – 3 blasts for possible danger, 1 blast for all clear – and watch the locals carry on without regard. We pick up our rental car for our 2 week visit traveling south to north and take a private walking tour of Aqaba with a local guide. Throughout Jordanians urge us that this is business as usual – they’re used to life in a tough neighborhood and watching the missiles soar above. Since Eilat, Israel, is just across the bay, somewhat like SF to Oakland, one woman said she and her friends like to watch the missile displays with snacks on their rooftop as entertainment. It’s all a bit surreal but we take cues from our hosts and try to take it all in stride. Jordan is known as the Switzerland of the Middle East, more interested in brokering regional peace, so they tend not to be the target of aggressions and mostly just receive random debris fallout. They are however friendly towards and coordinate with the US, putting their military bases at risk. Every Jordanian encourages us to stay, ensuring us that our visit wouldn’t be impacted, and offering to house and help us should we need. Their generosity and composure are certainly encouraging.

We head first to Wadi Rum, a desert region just to the east, mostly known as backdrops in the Star Wars and Dune movies, among many others. The scenery is stunning and serene, harkening to the majesty of the Southwest, and we have the place almost to ourselves. We are the only guests at our bubble camp, the rest being forced to cancel due to airspace being shut down since Saturday. We enjoy the beautiful desert scenery from the bed of a pickup truck, faces in the wind like dogs’ noses out the window, soaking it all in. The experience however is dampened whenever our phones reconnect receiving outreach from friends and family with concern as the war situation worsens. It is hard to reconcile while living in such solitude except for the consistent JAF jets patrolling their skies. On our second day after Trump proclaims a month of non-stop attacks on Iran, we start to seriously research our options. We cancel our arrangements further north to the Dead Sea bordering Israel and to Amman which has military installations nearby. But we are a mere 1.5 hrs from the UNESCO World Heritage site of Petra, the key reason for our visit, which we are reluctant to leave without seeing. With a flurry of texting and reservation making, we hatch a plan for the next day.

Wednesday March 4th is a very long day. Up at 6am, we’re on the road by 7:30am headed to Petra. Once on the main highway we hit a police checkpoint where they ask our nationality and destination – standard fare. When we mention Petra, the police officer asks if he can hitch a ride! A police escort? Yes please! We quickly become fast friends, exchanging family photos, sharing food, wife jokes (“one is MORE than enough!”), and even Facebook profiles! Mohammed says we are like “blood and sugar” – blood like family and sugar like sweetness – and again he says we should reach out if we need anything at all. For us, he is a gift from Allah.

After dropping Mohammed off near his home, we head to Petra. Surrounded by the most dramatic of rugged sandstone landscapes, we walk down the Siq, a mile long gorge entrance to this ancient Nabataean civilization positioned at the crossroads of trade and pilgrim routes. The big reveal of the fabled Treasury facade via a sliver in the gorge takes my breath away! With only ~200 tourists due to the war situation compared to an average of 5-7,000, we are again enjoying this Wonder of the World almost to ourselves! Our guide takes us through the site sharing both historical and cultural tidbits to imagine this city of 30k inhabitants enhanced by the flow of journeying pilgrims and traders. With our visit shortened from 2 days to only 5 hours, we hit the highlights before hitting the road. We drive 2 hours down the Kings Highway, past a Japanese-sponsored windmill farm and towns rivaling Sausalito for steepest neighborhoods.

Our 10pm ferry ride back to Nuweiba, Egypt is a somewhat different experience than the ride over, with around 50 non-Arabs this time joining our ranks on a mostly full ship. We promptly fall asleep, waking up around midnight to find we’d only just started our 2.5 hr journey. With our driver Mohammed (I should start counting how many Mohammeds we meet but clearly the most popular name on the baby charts for decades) patiently waiting on the other side, we’re concerned about our delay. We finally dock at 3:30am (one hour time difference) and it takes forever to disembark. Customs decides to confiscate our 2 sets of binoculars targeted for our safari journeys, even though they’d passed airport security in both Cairo and Sharm el Sheikh but the war has heightened security several notches. We finally dive into Mohammed’s backseat for the 2 hour drive to Sharm. He’s been running non-stop shuttles for fleeing tourists, making hay while the sun shines with many dark days ahead. As they all say about their fate in this tough neighborhood “what can we do.” We are finally in our Sharm hotel at 6am as the birds start chirping, a very full 24 hour day.

With a solid 3 hours of sleep, we head to the airport for our flight to Cairo connecting to Athens. We encounter a traveller from Boise who had been on a group trip in Israel between Tel Aviv and Haifa when war broke out. The missiles and sirens were as non-stop as the trips to the bomb shelter and shrapnel fell on the hotel next door. The group of 16 pooled thousands of dollars to secure a sketchy 12 hour overland crossing, fleeing south via Eilat to Aqaba and finally Sharm el Sheikh. The border crossing was especially hairy, took hours, and they felt very unwelcomed, but greased palms got them through. Such a harrowing story and the relative safety of Sharm was to him a massive relief.

Although our visit to Jordan wasn’t all that we’d planned, we hit our highlights of Petra and Wadi Rum and are glad we came. We wish we’d also seen the Dead Sea,  Jerash City, and Amman but Allah had other plans. What stands out the most, more than the war travails, is the support of the Jordanians who opened their homes and their hearts so naturally, showing an ingrained impulse beyond times of crisis. We never felt unsafe in Jordan though we are grateful to have left a region with increasing risks. Tourism throughout the area will be pummeled for the foreseeable future and our hearts go out to all of the amazing people we’ve met along the way who will be impacted – hoping for a descalation and quick resolution inshallah!

Next up: Athens

NOTE: Apologies that email notifications of previous blog posts were not sent since I’m a total hack of a website developer. Having outsourced this job so I can focus on our trip, the website issues should now be fixed! Phew!

Here are our previous posts for your reading pleasure:

• https://cybereeds.com/egypt/
• https://cybereeds.com/launched/