The cooking class

The lodge offers cooking classes. Today a newlywed couple from France has signed up for the class. The chef explains that the class includes making five dishes, but since they are newlyweds we will make seven dishes.
First is basil soup. I am not going to give the recipes here - they are secrets!
Then the newlyweds make dough for something called manakeesh, I believe. It's like pizza but you don't get to choose the toppings. The toppings are either basil mix or white goat cheese which is quite salty.
Then the make falafel. This is fun. First the soaked chick peas, peppers, onion, parsley, ect. are put through an old hand operated meat grinder. Half the mixture is ground a second time to get the right consistency. This is all mixed. A tool is used to make the falafel. The tool is a metal tube. The bottom of the tube has a thumb gizmo. When the gizmo is pulled up you can stuff the mixture into the tube. Then you use your thumb to push the formed falafel into the hot oil.
Next there is the salad that goes with the falafel. A mixture of tomatoes, cucumbers and tahini.
There are a couple of salads. Both have arugula as the base. One has white grapefruit and the other has some other fruits.
The last part is mint lemonade. This is fresh lemon juice with water, sugar, and mint put in a blender for a long while.
Lunch is ready in a couple of hours. The couple invite me to join them for lunch. It is very nice and well made.
The newlyweds cooking

Petra first day, and Petra by night

I arrange for a local driver to take me to Petra. We leave early. I want to scope out the place and figure out what to see and when.
Outside the main town we pick up one of the guides. He needs a ride to Petra. Shortly after that we pick up a local hitch hiker. This is common here, to get a ride. I've done it myself a few times. The paved road ends and we are driving on gravel. We start climbing. The drop offs get deeper and deeper. At one point we are on a ridge, with nothing on either side. The danger is fishtailing on the gravel and slipping down a cliff. This can be avoided by going slowly. However this driver is going a bit faster than he should be, I think.
We finally make it through the mountains and are back on a paved road. We reach Petra. The driver drops me off at the hotel. It is about 11. We go through the routine of introductions, and the tea offer, drinking the tea, ect. After unpacking, I go downstairs and ask the hotel staff for a shuttle to the Petra entrance. I am dropped off there. One day pass is 50JD if you are spending the night in Petra. Two day pass is 55, and three day is 60. The fourth day is free. I get a three day pass just in case I am totally blown away.
It's actually a walk to get to the real entrance. There are folks offering horse rides, horse carriage rides, and claiming it is included in the ticket price. My plan is to walk for a couple of hours and take pictures, so tomorrow I can pick up where I left off without stopping on the way.
At the beginning, there are chambers dug in the stone. They are burial chambers. I finally get to the real entrance. This is basically a path carved through the mountain leading to the main square, called siq, and beyond. By the way it is the Nabateens who built this I think. I figure I will see first and do the research later.
This path is quite long and impressive. At some point there were carvings on the sides. There are remnants of ditches on the sides for water to flow. Here is a picture of the carving of a camel with a man standing in front of it.

A couple of pictures of the path

Also a picture of a tomb

I pretty much cover the main parts of Petra the first day, making it to the temple and the inner siq.
Back at the hotel I sign up for dinner at the hotel and the Petra by night show.
The hotel is actually really nice. It has been going through a total renovation and just opened this month, so everything is brand new.

After dinner I grab the shuttle with a couple. I get to talking to them. The guy is from Hong Kong originally, but born Holland. The lady is from Seattle, actually north of Seattle as I learn later. We chat on the way. We walk all the way to the outer siq. This is a little less than two miles. There are many people going there and the path is lit by candles, so we kind of lose each other. The front of the siq is lit with candles.

The siq at night

The show starts with a guy playing an instrument called rababa and singing. Apparently rababa is the original string instrument. It sounds like the blues bedou style.
Next there is a flute.
I recorded both of these, but just found out that Google has dropped ability to upload mp3 files to blogs.
Then there is some story telling. Of course they serve tea. After the show it is the walk back. Actually it's a pretty good experience, if your expectations have not been set too high by people. At about 10:30 I take the shuttle to the hotel.

To Petra, maybe!

I was a the reception parking lot earlier today, Monday. It's about 5 to 6 miles from the lodge over a rough road. Generally people park their cars there and hire a local with a truck to take them to the lodge. I missed the lodge driver who leaves around 8:30, so I catch a ride with three ladies who I met last night. They are all from NH and are thrilled to meet someone who's lived in NH. They all went to Exeder. One of them is currently working on her Phd at Oxford in Anthropology but living in Jordan. The other two are sisters living in NY and visiting their friend in Jordan.
Rather than waiting for a ride back or for the lodge driver, I decide to walk back to the lodge. It's a good hike. I walk about a mile when I see a herd of goats. There are some dogs guarding the goats. At first it seems that they don't notice me, but as I get to the other side of the goats they take notice. There are three of them, and like dogs they tr to circle me. I face them and walk backwards. They keep their distance and we depart without an incident. Apparently, dogs not bothering humans is not 100% true.
After another mile I see a kid in the fields. He is walking towards his truck. I hear him start the truck and a few miutes later he pulls up and opens the passenger door, offering me a ride. I want to do the hike but accept the offer and get in. It reminds me of the days when I used to go running in Morocco, and on the way back some of the mountain people noticing I looked tired would offer me a ride on their donkeys.
We get to chatting. We are going abour 5 miles per hour so it takes time. There is a tent about 70 yards from the road to our left. He tells me that is his home and invites me for tea. We go in the tent. The women on the other side of the divider start a fire to make tea. The tent floor is usually dirt with straw matts lined around a small fire pit. Guests are offered a foam matt and pillows to lean on. We chat some more. He speaks some English, so we switch back and forth between English and Arabic. The tea takes a while, but we finally have tea. I have a couple of cups. I thank him and leave for the lodge which is less than a mile away.
I make plans to go to Petra and book a hotel for three days. I read some forums online and people recommend at least two days in Petra. I am trying to line up a local driver when one of the guides tells me to wait. He will see if any of the guests are going to Petra and if I can go with them.
Later that afternoon the chef is glad to see me and tells me he is giving a cooking class tomorrow at 11 and it would be great if I can translate. He is dissapointed when I tell him I am going to Petra.
After dinner the guide who was arranging the schedules for guests finds an English couple who is going to Petra tomorrow and has arranged for me to go with them. I chat with the couple. They want to check with their driver and the tour company.
Tuesday morning I am all packed and ready. The English couple is expecting their driver to show up around 10. I go to the reception desk to say good morning. They are having problems with the computer. Someone has spilled sweet tea on the keyboard, apparently a common occurance, and some keys are stuck. They want to know if I can fix it, afterall I work with computers. There are a few other things going on, so I decide to push my trip to Petra out by a day, tell the duty manager to swap the keyboard with the other computer to get him going. I take care of the logistics of moving my trip to Petra, have breakfast and sit at a desk to pry the keys off the keyboard. I use alcohol and tissue to clean the keys. It works well and the duty manager is very happy. I head off to the kitchen for the cooking class.

I have a nice wonderful and pleasant beard

I was talking to one of the staff. Don't exactly remember the topic because I was taken by surprise when it seemed out of the blue, the guy says: "By Allah (I swear by God), you have a nice beard. Well, I had not trimmed my beard for about a week and so it was not the best looking beard. I was pretty sure of that. So I thought maybe he means it in a more religious sense. Since the prophets had beards, maybe he means that since I am letting my beard grow, that is nice. But that was unlikely too since my beard is not long enough to be considered a resectable beard in that sense.  I was going to complement him on his beard, but he was clean shaven, which made the conversation even more bizzar. He did not seem to care about beards, so I said thank you and changed the subject.

A couple of days go by and I am talking to another staff memeber. He says: "You have a wonderful beard." It was the same beard. So I am thinking jokingly that maybe this the fashion, and people have a hard time here growing scragly looking beards. Like people who have straight hair want curly hair and vice versa. I am also considering that this is an inside joke and they just have not let me in on it. So I wait, but the person looks quite sincere. So I thank the person. I need to find out what is going on. This does not seem to be a coincedance.
Later that evening I go to the rooftop with the rest of the visitors to look at the stars. Some people are huddled around the telescope taking turns to look at Jupiter, it's rings and moons. I am drinking a glass of sweet tea (there is no other kind.) I start talking to another staff memeber, and sure enough I find out that my beard is pleasant. Well I need to find out what is going on.
I see the guide who first informed me about the qualities of my beard. Since he started all this I decide to find out from him.
So I tell him that someone else just complimented me on my beard, and I need to know what is going on. He start laughing and asks "you don't know what that means."
"No I don't"
"Who said that" he asks.
"Several people have told me that"
He explains that when you want to tell someone that he is a nice person, or has a pleasant personality, ect., you pay the complement to the beard and not the person. So I ask him how do I respond, because I had notice people look at me strangely when I thanked them. He says the proper response is to say, best effort translation, I have nothing over you, meaning I am not better than you.
For the next few days some of the staff kept repeating this phrase when they saw me. Actually I think they were amused that I thought the complement was about my beard. Now I keep my beard trimmed but have not received any complements.

Back at the lodge

I am welcomed back at the lodge. Some folks want to know where I've been. Others tell me that they have missed me and some of them look quite sincere.
This the last day of the workshop that started on Monday before I left. After dinner the workshop participants all gather in the sitting room and they have an oud player, oud is an old string instrument. There is singing and dancing. I retire to bed early. The cold and travel has made me quite tired.
It's Saturday. It's been raining for more than a day, and the river is flowing. It does not look like people wi. Leave anytime soon. I take some pictures of the river.
Yesterday I met a bunch of folks including a fellow alumnus from Dartmouth. We talked about new Hampshire and Dartmouth.
Around one, one of the staff members asks me if I want to see something unnatural. We go outside to the river. Looks like a flash flood. Apparent, it rained and snowed heavily on the mountains and all the water is now reaching the lower valleys. Here is a  video.

strange thing is that if you sit by the river you can hear a bolder coming loose. It bounces up and down as it is being dislodges. Then you feel the ground shake as it bounces or hits other rocks. Then silence as it settles somewhere, or hits sand. Quite fascinating.
Strangely around 4 or 5 the rain has stopped and the river is emptying and everyone makes it out fine.
Around here you feel the weather. It becomes part of your life. Not in an abstract way, but in a real way.
The rain is much appreciated. There is slightly more grass. The goats look happy. They probably don't have to go as far as before for food. It is cold, but people are appreciative and smilling. My room is nearing 60 degrees F. Without sun for a couple of days the building gets cold. It is supposed to be sunny tomorrow.

Aqaba and back

I've wanted to see Aqaba ever since watching Laurence of Arabia. It's nothing like the movie, no surprise there. It is kind of a strange city. Local life mixed in with tourist life. Many cities kind of have a separation between the proper city and where the hotels are located. I decide to find the hotel on my own from memory. I looked at the map a couple of days ago. The hotel name is My Hotel. I can see other hotels that are nearby, like the double tree inn. I actually walk about a block from the hotel, but end up quite far. I get a cab which takes me to the hotel. It is about nine. No rooms are available yet. I decide to go get my visa renewed. I ask taskperson at the desk where the police station is explaining that I need to renew my visa. People get concerned when you say you need to go to a police station without offering an explanation. I get the direction and proper wordiwording him. It's only a few blocks away. I get there but do not see any official buildings. I walk around a bit and ask. A guy points me towards a market. It does not look right, but I walk over there anyway. There is a booth with a couple of policemen sitting in it. I ask them. One does not know. The other says it's far away and I should take a cab. Now in the blogs and maps and according to the hotel, it's supposed to be right around here, so I am suspicious. So I explain that I was told that it was close by. He keeps saying just take a cab. I thank them and leave.
As I am walking back towards the post office, my point of reference, I see the guy who boughtme the coffee coming towards me. I ask him where I can extend my stay. He knows exactly where. We go to the next block up from where I was. It's accross the street from there. At the gait he explains that I need to extend my stay. The policeman says that has moved and I should take a cab.
The guys hails a cab, he knows the driver. He tells him where to take. Offers to go with me, but I assure him that I can manage.
The cab driver has the low down. I am from Morocco, living in the US, and staying in Feynan. So he starts practicing his English and asking how you say this or that in English. Noticing that I understand Arabic he switches to Arabic and says: "You know that Moroccans have knowledge about where the gold is and how to get it." I reply that yes that is what I have heard and that I did not know that until I came to Jordan. There is that Moroccan and gold connection again. He stops in front of the police station. He says the ride is on him. I insist that I pay, and finally he accepts.
I have my back pack on my back and suspect they will search it or put it through the metal detector. The policeman at the gate looks at my passport records something, asks me what I need and directs me to a building.
I find my way to the office where they extend stays. We speak in Arabic.
"So where are you staying?"
"In Feynan."
"No here in Aqaba"
"At MyHotel"
"Yes, it's your hotel, but which hotel"
"My hotel"
I start to think that this like "whose on first..." Skit.
So I say: "The name of the hotel is my Hotel" He turns to his partner who nods. But I don't think he is cconvinced. He thinks that I am just not understanding the question.
He asks me for a card with the hotel name on it. Then I remember that my phone still has the home page of the hotel on one of the tabs. I show him the home page which has a big sign in red MyHotel. He is satisfied.
I leave the station. I am feeling pretty tired having woken up at 4:30 and the cold is demanding its share of attention from my body. It is also getting hot. It was probably in the forties in Feynan. It is in the seventies in Aqabq and sunny. I drink some water and head in the direction of the hotel. I walk slowly to conserve energy. After about 10 minutes, I am debating if I should get a cab. I look up and the hotel is right there, but it is still early. I walk to the back of the hotel. There is burger king, Popeye, pizza hut. All the places you would like to eat at abroad. Past them I see a coffee shop, Gloria Jean Coffees. It looks like it has potential. The pastries do not look great, but they do have lattes.
I order a regular strong latte. I assume that translates to a double tall. The barrista makes a perfect leaf, quite impressive. The latte is pretty good. It's the first latte in Jordan. At around 11:30 I head back to the hotel. The room is ready.

The receptionist tells me that there is a sight seeing tour at 1:30 on a boat in the red sea. I tell him I will think about it. I try to rest, but can't sleep, so at around one I decide to check out the tour. It appears as if the tour was canceled. He calls other places. In the meantime I check out his brochure and it looks like these are snorkeling or diving boats. So I decline.
I find a nice Lebanese restaurant behind the hotel and have lunch, salad and chicken kabob. It is good. I feel much better. I go take a nap.
Later, I go out for a walk. On the north side of the hotel there are many restaurants, stores and shesha cafés. I am still tired, so I decide to try the hotel restaurant. I have fish. It is fillet of white fish with rice and vegetable curry. They do have grouper here, and this looks like grouper but I don't think it is grouper.
Dinner is OK. I decide to go to bed early. The bus does not leave till noon.
Next morning I get to the bus station a little after 11. There is no bus. Ia toldth driver might have gone shopping. At 11:50 the bus pulls in. As I am getting on the driver asks me where I am going. Tourists apparently don't ride this bus. I say Gregra, in the local accent. Gregra is the closest town to Feynan. He looks surprised but not convinced. So I say Feynan. Now he is convinced. I ask him if he can takeme to Feynan, about 3 miles from Gregra. He says no problem.
The bus drops people off at their door steps, so it takes a while to wind through Gregra. Finaly we are off to Feynan. The driver invites me to his house for dinner. This is the Islamic way. You should invite a traveller, and he has the right to stay for three days. I thank him and tell him people are waiting for me at the lodge. Fortunately he does not insist. I have seen invitation and declining the invitation process go on for a good fifteen minutes. I get off at the reception center and hire a local driver to take me to the lodge.

To Aqaba

Saturday I did the Wadi Dana hike. This time we go further than what I have done in the past. The Wadi is completely dry. We cross from one side to the other a few times. There is an old gravel road here that is no longer mmaintained. The road connected Dana Village with Feynan Village.

It started with a big long rumble that continued for a few seconds. Looking out the window I saw dark skies. The rumbles continued mixed with intermittent lightening. It took sometime before the rain started, just a few showers on and off through out the day. Some people went for short hikes. I decided to stay put. It was still warm.
Later as I got ready to go to bed it started to rain. A steady rain, alternating between a soft and a hard rain. I openened a couple of windows so I could fall asleep to the sound of rain. I did fall asleep to the sound of rain and was woken up between one and two, by a much louder sound than rain makes. After listening to it for a while, I concluded that it must be a flash flood, with water gushing through the river.
In the morning when I woke up shortly after dawn, for the morning prayers, I looked out the window and could see the water running. My guess is that it was about three feet high in a river bed that has been dry for at least one month. The rain was subsiding. Some folks had gone down to the river at three AM and said it was quite high.
By eight the water was lower. I will post some pictures later.

I am supposed to go down to the reception center. It is nine and the driver is not here. I talk to the duty manager and he tells me the road has washed out and no vehicles can make it through. Actually, there is no road where the road has washed out. Vehicles cross the river bed at a point further down where the two valleys meet. The river bed shifts whenever there is sufficient rain, so the vehicle crossing gets washed out and a new one is created. This time the washout is bad enough to require a bulldozer. Plus there are a few guests who need to get out. Finally around 11 the traffic starts flowing again. It's too late for me to go to reception center, so I hang around.

I am supposed to go to Aqaba tomorrow to renew my visa. I made hotel reservations yesterday, but still need to get a driver to take me to the bus. I am told the bus leaves at 6.
Yesterday I started coming down with a cold. It is getting worst and I feel quite worn down. It is shaping up to be a nasty cold.

There is going to be a three day workshop at the lodge. Last night two moderators arrived. One is from Italy, the other from Norway. They both live in Beirut where the company is based. I think the workshop is about harasement in the work place. They are having problems with their computer and can't get the course ready. I help out and get the material ready on the computer.
The attendees start arriving in the afternoon. They have a late lunch. I learn later that dinner will be at 8:30 instead of 6:30 due to the late lunch. I need to go to bed. I am not feeling well and need to get up at 4:30.

It's almost 10 by the time I finish dinner. I ask the duty manager if my ride is all set for tomorrow. He has forgotten. He calls a driver and says I am all set for a 5:15 pickup.
I go outside around 5:05. At about 5:10 I see a light. It looks more like a single light instead of two headlights. In any case it stops moving. It looks like it's near the mosque, so it could be someone going to the mosque. Morning prayer these days is between 4:30 and 5:50.

Shortly after 5:15 the light starts moving again. About five minutes later I make out a truck with a single headlight coming over the hill. Another 5 minutes and the truck pulls up. I get in. Abu Isa is the driver. In general it is not polite to call people by their name especially if they are older, instead you call them as the father of so and so; generally their first son. Also it is not uncommon to name people after the prophets, such as Moses (Musa), Jesus (Isa), Mohammed, ect. (may peace be upon all of them.)
I've been given the nickname Abu Mohammed, not because I have a son named Mohammd, but because it is my father's name. The logic behind this was explained to me, but I failed to understand it. Other people call me Abu Zaid, after the famous Abu Zaid Al-Hilali, no relation.

So we set off down the hill. While the bulldozer has done a decent job, the road is still washed out in many places. It takes more than half hour to make it to the road, which has a lot of debris on it, so the going is slow. Also, I don't think this truck can go more than 30 miles per hour. Many of the trucks are very old and only the engine works. Many don't have seat belts and no one wears them anyway at low speeds. I think seat belt law here only applies when driving at high speeds. Of course the lack of seat belts poses a delima for parents with babies and baby seats.

We drive to the next town and finally make it to the main road that leads to the road connecting Amman and Aqaba. The driver stops the truck and we wait.
The bus shows up at 6:30. I get on the bus.

We are now south of the dead sea. There is more sand but not the large sand dunes. Also there is some kind of grass growing on the sand in many places, so there are patches of light green among the brownish sand. There are herds of camels here as well. On both sides there are mountains, but they seem to be different ranges, so this is not a valley. We stop at a roadside store. It's a clean store and the bathrooms are also clean compared to others. I decide to order a coffee. Of course there are many kinds, just like Seattle. I am not talking about double tall skinny latte, or regular mocha with no foam. Here it is turkish coffee with sugar, no sugar, nescafe (which I have now learned to enjoy), Arabic coffee ect. I only see pots for boiling turkish coffee so I order turkish coffee with no sugar. As I ask how much, a guy jumps in and pays for the coffee. He is related to a couple of people who work at the lodge and has seen me around. Now the rest of the folks on the bus are curious, so I tell them my story. There is a lot of welcoming.
We make it to Aqaba.