It’s May 17^th and we have been in Jordan for just under a week. We are currently staying at Ajloun Nature Center and this morning we spent 5 hours hiking through a better part of the valley on an 8 mile trek. The trail was called the “Prophet’s Trail” and was meant to show where Elijah had wondered through these mountains. After trekking through a couple forests, a wheat field, and a couple sheep pastures, we made it to the peak of the final mountain. On the top of the mountain were the ruins from an old church and is said to be where Elijah was taken into heaven. Stone walls bordered and tiled mosaics covered the floor of the old church. From here, you could see the entire mountain range we had just hiked through. Beyond the mountains lay the Jordan Valley and past that, the West Bank.

After getting back from the hike, we had lunch at the camp site and were then given the rest of the day as a rest period. Although we should have taken the opportunity to take a little nap, Sauder and I decided to try our hand at Aboriginal painting instead. With plastic bags in hand, we ventured out into the woods to find berries, flowers, and dirt to create die for our painting. After successfully collecting the die material and a couple rocks to serve as a mortar and pestle, we came back to the tent. Sadly, our yellow looked like… well we’ll just say it didn’t look yellow, and our red turned green, go figure. But we did manage to make a nice brown and green color. Now, after semi-succeeding with the painting, we’re taking a break. Dinner will be in a few hours and we still have a few videos we need to make. Every night we have been making some sort of random video. We’ve had everything from songs about bidets to Arabian slapboxing. But first, let me update everyone on everything else that has been happening.

May 15^th: Today we left our hotel in Amman and boarded three 4x4’s. Our first stop was an old Roman/Nebutaen (I can guarantee you that is not spelled correctly) site, Umm Aljmael, with multiple ruins of a military barrack, homes and cisterns. We toured many of the ruins and every now and then would stop to analyze the soil. From here we got back in the cars and after making a brief stop at a mine pit, traveled to Jawa. Jawa is an ancient Roman city with the first recorded man-made dam in the world. Currently it is located in the middle of the desert, but during Roman times it would have been situated in a forested region with rivers flowing on either side of the city. However, the only catch is that to get to Jawa you have to drive quite a distance through the desert. And unless your drivers know where they are going (which in our case they didn’t), it can take quite some time. We found ourselves driving in the middle of the Basalt desert for a couple hours until we were all stopped by a text message that all of the drivers received which said: “Welcome to Syria, enjoy your stay!” Apparently in the desert they don’t worry too much about defining country borders, and we had managed to cross from Jordan into Syria, it all looked the same though. We stopped and got out of our cars, and as a celebration, we created a pile of rocks on the side of the road. Surprisingly enough, although the desert consists of only millions of rocks and few if any people, somehow every so often we would come across stacked piles of rocks. Sometimes, nomadic and pastoralist people would create these piles as monuments to important sites, but there’s no way that there were that many important sites in the middle of nowhere. Regardless, we felt it fitting to create our own pile of rocks. After finding our way back to Jordan, we managed to eventually come across Jawa. We went and explored the ruins and checked out the remains of the oldest dam in the world. After our tour, we had lunch outside the cistern and then got back in the cars. We made one last journey through the desert where we arrived at our next hotel in Azraq.

May 16^th: After spending the night at Azraq Lodge, a restored war hospital, we went to visit the Azraq wetlands. Although suprising to most, Jordan does have wetlands. However sadly the wetlands have been destroyed compared to what they once were, primarily because of water being pumped from the wetland to supply the larger cities with drinking water. However conservation efforts have been underway in an attempt to save this ecosystem. Azraq used to be the pitstop for roughly 400,000 different bird species on their migration route from Africa to Europe, however this is no longer the case. It is still an excellent bird watching location and many tourists come here to observe the wildlife. Once at Azraq, we took a walk through the wetlands where we arrived at a bird watching hut. Continuing on, we checked out the history museum and then finally wandered back outside. As we were standing looking back on the wetlands, we saw something moving in the distance. With the aid of some binoculars, we quickly realized we had found some water buffalo grazing near the water. Conviently they were right in front of the bird watching hut, which I remembered how to get back to. Grabbing the camera, Drew and I sprinted, a quiet sprint, back to the hut. Looking out the window, we found ourselves a few feet from the herd (or possibly flock, gathering, or cluster). A few seconds later and Sauder dashed into the hut and began clicking away. We quickly found though that water buffalo are easily startled by the sound of a cameras shutter. Although the video makes it appear to be natural, in reality Sauder just spooked all of the animals. But it made for a cool video.

After capturing the shot, we got back in the cars and traveled to the next location, Desert Castle #1 (because I forget the name of it). Driving through Jordan’s desert you come across many Desert Castles, which are buildings built as rest stops for trade routes throughout the desert. DS#1 had one of the world’s oldest hydraulic pumps in the world. Inside, the walls and domed ceilings were covered with old fresco paintings. Desert Castle #2, also known as El-Kharaanah, was massive and resembled a miniature European castle made out of sand. The castle had too floors and many rooms to explore. The most interesting thing about the building was it’s ventilation system (I guess I am an engineer). In the walls were narrow slits resembling slots in a castle in which arrows would be shot from a bow. However, these slots were angled down towards the ground outside. Because of this, wind would blow in from the desert, and any sand that was carried with it would be trapped on the walls of the slot. It was very effective. After exploring most of the castle, we came across a group of locals with many kids with them. They were naturally very curious about the camera (probably because my microphone looks like a dead animal on top of the camera) and wanted to see themselves in it. It was really refreshing to interact with kids again, that’s always one of my favorite parts about trips. If I would have had more time, I would have probably asked them if they wanted to play hide-and-seek tag in the castle, it would have been awesome! After the two desert castles, we got back in the cars and headed for our current lodge, Ajloun Nature Center.

It’s now 6:00pm and getting time for dinner. Food has been really good here except for one problem, the portions. Let’s just say we all rejoice when we see a beffet, not because we can get a lot of food, but because we can get a little bit of food. Nearly every meal we’ve had so far, none of us have been able to finish. The one night alone, we counted over 50 appetizers spread out across the table. The meal starts by us sitting down, and then a procession of people following us each with multiple little plates of food. That part is fine because we can pick what we want, but then they come around again and serve us a whole separate round of appetizers directly to our plate, that round is unfortunately much harder to avoid. The ironic part about the whole situation is that throughout the past semester in our class, we talk a lot about the population problem and being unable to feed everyone in the world. However we have wasted so much food in Jordan because the portions are absolutely huge, and we have no way to tell them no because we never get to order, they just bring the food. Anyway, we are finding now that we are outside of Amman in slightly more rural areas, the portions tend to be smaller, and buffets are more common. Thank goodness. We’ve never been more happy to be hungry.

Other minor things to note, the temperature is surprisingly cold at night in our current lodge. Actually, we are sleeping in fancy tents elevated off of the ground (which I would prefer to the fancy hotels before). Last night I slept with two thick blankets and most of my clothes on.

Also, quickly in the trip, the rest of the group got very used to Eric and I constantly recording what is happening. We haven’t been able to find a picture yet where either of us don’t have our cameras in our hands. Today during our hike, we ended up filming a mock of “Tuck Everlasting” by searching for the Fountain of Youth. We also filmed some musical clips from “The Sound of Music.” Editing all of this video should be fun.

Well, it’s about time I wrap this entry up, I have to go clean up the mashed berries and leaves on our porch. As we travel through the rural portions of Jordan, internet will be in and out. I’ll continue writing posts on my computer and when I finally get online, I’ll post them all at once. Looking forward to seeing everyone when we get back!