Guess Where We Went?

We went to JORDAN!

And the thing I will remember most about this trip was the Bedouin's camel that I rode out in the desert! (But more on that at the end of this lengthy blog update.) I didn't have internet at the house where we were staying so I couldn't update last week.

There were actually five things I really enjoyed. There were so many great places to eat! We ate Shawarmas several times which are Lebanese sandwich wraps filled with chicken or lamb. Deeelicious!

They had TGI Fridays, Fuddruckers, Applebees and Chili's! We ate at Fuddruckers 3 times in the weeks we were there because it was located next door to where the conference was held and because it was soooo good!

They also sold a lot of American products in their grocery stores. According to our source (our friends with whom we were staying), there are so many Jordanians that have lived in the U.S. that when they move back to Jordan, they want the food they grew to love in the U.S. Whatever the explanation, it was strange seeing so many products. They had lots more than these that I bought. Some of the prices were not too ridiculous so that made it nice. I bought Gherkins pickles because there is NOTHING like that available in Hungary.

I love Fritos but didn't buy any for Glenn and me because all they had were what I would call "individual serving sizes". They, however, call them "King size"! The bag was about $1, but would sell in America for 33 cents at Walmart.

My pictures are slightly out of order...after the conference was over we drove to Aqaba, located on the Red Sea, to meet with one of the men who lives in that area. Further down on the shoreline of the Red Sea, just a few kilometers down the beach from where I took this picture is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia! We drove to the border of Saudi Arabia but did not cross over. We'll save that for another trip!

From this spot looking across the Red Sea you can see both Israel and Egypt, and Saudi Arabia is around the curve less than 3 miles away. Four interesting countries so close together!

Downtown Amman (pronounced "Ay-men") is very congested. In some ways, it reminded me of Greece because of all the white sandstone buildings, but in other ways, it reminded me of Romania because of all the plastic bags from stores that were littering the streets and fields. There are so many plastic bags being blown around that the bags are referred to as the national bird of Jordan. Someone could make a nice living if they would gather the plastic bags and weave them into baskets to sell to the tourists!

We also drove to Petra in southern Jordan to see the remains of an ancient Nabataean city that was built into the mountains more than 2200 years ago. Petra was built at a crossroad for all the caravans laden with Arabian frankincense and myrrh, Indian spices and silks, African ivory and animal hides. Scholars believe that Petra was where Moses disobediently struck the rock to bring forth water and lost his chance of entering the Promised Land.

The scenery was superb! Clouds left obvious shadows on the rocky, barren rolling hills.

Every once in a while you would see where someone was obviously watering their grass!!!! Otherwise, from one horizon to the other everything was dusty, dirty and dry. And tan-colored.

Not much vegetation out in the desert. Scrub trees like this one dotted the countryside.

The only variation was the size of the rocks, from sand to mountains, nothing but rocks of every size. Even though everything was the same color and not much more than rocks, it was such an awesome sight and I never got tired of looking at it. I took 364 pictures on the day we drove to Petra!

We often saw sheep and goats grazing on hillsides. I'm not sure what they were eating, unless it was rocks! We saw lots of shepherds riding on donkeys as they watched over their flocks. We also saw camels, with which I was fascinated!

As I stood overlooking the valley, I thought of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. I thought of what it must have been like to wear leather sandals and a flowing robe, climbing the hills, eating in the heat of the day and sleeping in the cool of the night. I sometimes wondered if anything in the Bible had happened on the very spot where I was standing.

Jordanians are very nationalistic. Lots of flags waving in response to the high winds.

What more can I say about rocks and rocky mountains except that I never tired of looking at them!

This is one small part of Petra. There were many, many big rocks (mountains) with houses dug out of the sides. In the heyday of Petra, there were also theatres, temples, tombs, marble streets lined with sandstone columns, public buildings, shops and 800 steps cut into the rock leading to a monastery (Petra's second most famed attraction) at the top of a mountain called Ad-Deir. The view from the top is spectacular!

The most famous of all sights in Petra is the Treasury, an elaborately carved facade. It was carved out of one mountain in the 1st century BC as a tomb of an important Nabataen king, measuring 33 yards wide and 47 yards high. I cannot describe it well enough to do it justice. You just have to go see it for yourself to really understand how magnificent it is! (Notice the camels in the foreground?)

Eventually the trade routes shifted and the demand for frankincense decreased as Christianity replaced pagan religions, causing Petra to fall into ruins. It was virtually abandoned in the 14th century and lost to the world until a Swiss "tourist" named Johann Ludwig Burckhardt rediscovered it in 1812.

And on our way home, we saw Bedouin's traveling across the countryside on camels, headed "home" to their tents for the evening.

When we saw a Bedouin walking with his camel on the side of the road we were on, we pulled over closer to take a picture. The man was so friendly and accommodating (I'm sure he thought we were crazy to want a picture of a camel!) and then he asked if I wanted to ride it. I was estatic and jumped at the opportunity, of course! This was a real Bedouin and not a tourist attraction.

When I was high on the camel's back, he asked (using hand gestures) if I wanted to ride the camel out to the base of the mountain that was in the distance. I sort of panicked. I didn't want to go by myself, and I didn't want to go that far away from Glenn and the couple with us so I told him I was content just to walk in that area. I rode a camel in Israel 2 years ago but it was for tourists. This was the real deal!

And now we have come to the end of this lengthy blog. Thanks for sticking with me to the end!

Glenn and I returned to Budapest on March 14 but are headed out again this Saturday for Turkey where we will attend the Singles Retreat and then visit with some of our personnel in Istanbul. I will have slept in my own bed a grand total of 6 nights in the month of March. Fortunately, I will be home all of April!

Take care, and I'll update next Sunday if I have internet access. If not, I'll do it asap!