Monday, December 19, 2005
Houses
During the last 14.000 km we saw many different houses. From really nice ones to downright dump holes. From houses in green garden to houses built on top of each other. Many houses look as if they are not even finished yet: Iron pins stick up from the roof and when enough money comes in or more space is needed another floor can be added. Also a lot of them still need to be painted because you see the rough stones and concrete. Most of them never seem to get finished. This means that most towns, especially in Libya, Egypt and even more in Jordan look quite uninspiring. When the wind blows the dust and sand through the streets its gets even worse.In the Sinai of Egypt and in Jordan we see a lot of Bedouin tents pitched somewhere in the desert. Some tents are made from woven wool, but others from old brown bags sewn together. Somehow all the way it looks like houses are never really built according to a city plan, but just somewhere on the available lot the owner bought. Compared to Holland it is so organized over there…
Our last evening in Dahab we go to a restaurant near the beach for dinner. The men enjoy a pizza and I order fish. Maybe not a good choice because the next day I am ill. Not very well timed as we have to catch the ferry from Nuweiba to Aqaba in Jordan. Hans does most of the job: packing, looking after the boys, driving, collecting stamps in the passports and the carnet de passage, changing more money for exit taxes and spending the last Egyptian pounds on food. By the time we can board I am feeling better and drive the van backwards on board in between large trucks. We celebrate Saint Nicolas on the boat, singing songs, reading poems and opening gifts with sweets (later we find more gifts – books, in another bag). As they clean the carpets with kerosene the air is hard to breathe inside, but outside it is too cold and windy. Despite Saint Nicolas it is a difficult crossing of about 3 hours. We are happy to enter Jordan where Hans collects more stamps in passports and carnet, changes euro for Jordanian dinars and buys insurance for the car (one month). In the dark it is nearly impossible to find our way in between the trucks parked around the port. Thanks to a helpful Jordanian we find the road towards Saudi Arabia and thanks to a German mobile home a (no charge) place to spend the night (with electricity). The next morning we wake up to see the beautiful blue sea and a beach. Not bad. We take it easy and go to the aquarium in Aqaba where the boys finally can see some of the fish we already saw when snorkeling and find a MacDonalds for a nice ice cream and Bart is eating his first cheeseburger. It feels like having a holiday. Although the wind is severe I go snorkeling but am disappointed: most of the coral is dead and only a few fish are swimming around. Nothing much compared to Dahab although this is the Marine park of Aqaba famous for diving and snorkeling. The next morning I try another spot, see my first morene but can still not rave about it and Hans does not even try. We continue to Wadi Rum to enjoy the beautiful rock formations in the desert. We stay at the Moon Valley Camp and have tea in the Bedouin tent while the boys enjoy playing with their toys in the miniature Bedouin tent. In the late afternoon we climb a hill together to watch the sunset and to our surprise they prepared a dinner of chicken, rice, potatoes, cauliflower and yogurt we have under the stars. After the dinner we make music together on drums and other instruments, clapping hands, singing and the boys dance. What a wonderful evening. When the generator is started the whole wall is lit with coloured lamps, a fairy tale.
The next day we climb the hill again for sunset after decorating the bus with Christmas items as bells and trees cut out of carton boxes.
In Wadi Rum we change our bus for a 4WD again and set off to see bridges of stone, rock carvings, sand dunes and the ruins of TE Lawrence house. We drive through the soft sand enjoying the fact that we do not have to find our way and can simply enjoy what we see. It is pretty busy in some places and we are happy to return to our silent camp. Only to find it is weekend, so other guests had arrived, new loudspeakers were bought and used and a smoky campfire was lit. This is not like our first night in the camp, but nice to compare the difference.
From Rum we drive to Petra and camp at the parking. Petra is a site high on our list of Things to see. In the past whole buildings were carved out of the rocks, mainly as tombs and you enter through a narrow canyon. This is a great gift for my 41st birthday and I enjoy it very much. We walk all the way, carrying one or two children most of the time. But as the low budget travelers we once were we still do not hire a horse, donkey or camel. We hike together along the various tombs, the theatre, the market street until we reach the museum of Petra. I stay behind with Bart and Rik while Hans hikes up 800 stairs to the so called Monastery. On our way back we meet an American family traveling already for 15 months with their 3 children, unfortunately we do not have enough time to exchange experiences. But the fact that their children had stones thrown to them and people spitting because they were American was quite shocking to me.
After Petra we feel we are ready in Jordan but still drive north. We are surprised to find the King’s way so narrow and winding up and down the hills. We do not like all the towns we have to drive through although it is always easy when you need to do some shopping. We have our first shoarma for lunch and find the prices indeed much lower than in Petra where they adjusted the prices for the tourists. That night we stay with a Bedouin family living in 2 tents. Only the older children who go to school the next morning wear shoes. This is something Rik noticed as he says “shoes no” in Dutch. They offer us tea and are very curious to see how we live in our “tent”. The next morning we stay a while so the children can play together which they do most of the time. Of course our boys like their “toys”: old tyres to run with and an empty container to drag around. Their children like the plastic animals and small cars we have. But Rik is also playing with the animals that are walking around, chickens and his favorite: a small goat.
When I get tired of all the dust and the heat we continue to visit the mosaic floors in Madaba and swim in the Dead Sea. To swim in that awful tasting salt water is not easy, I notice my legs stay above the water when I try breath stroke! Floating is easier and I can even have Rik on top of me and still keep floating. This is a nice experience. Unfortunately Rik gets some of the water in his mouth and starts to cry so loud we have to leave the sea. Maybe he is also crying because the salt is getting into his damaged skin on his hands and feet. Who knows?
We have no desire to visit Amman (smog and too big) so we drive to the east towards Iraq to see the desert castles along the way. In a vast and empty area huge stone structures were built to accommodate guests that traveled the desert in the past or came hunting. Nowadays there is nothing left to hunt, but in the past deer
and oryx were roaming the plains. In the Shaumari reserve they try to raise the Arabian oryx and of course we go there to have a look. We are lucky because they come to eat when we arrive. Beautiful white animals with 2 large horns nearly completely lost forever and family of the oryx we saw in Botswana a few years ago.The Azraq wetland reserve dried out completely in 1991 thus depriving thousands of migrating birds from their feeding grounds. But the government has secured part of the wetlands water supply and it is wonderful to see water, reed, water birds like cormorants and ducks in the middle of the desert. There is a short hiking trail and a hut to watch the birds, but we are not in the right season.
Back in Jerash we have rain all night. The first rain this season in Jordan is good for the country but not for us. It is quite small in the van with 2 actively climbing children around you and we are happy to have tea with the tourist police every once in a while and getting to know more about the country and the Arab world. When the sun returns Rik and I hike through the old Roman streets among many columns, old temples for Zeus and Artemis and do our utmost to make slides to prove this site is quite big compared to other Roman cities we visited before during our trip through the Middle East. After 14 nice days it is time to leave Jordan and head further north to Syria.
# posted by Hans, Monique, Bart en Rik @ 1:40 pm 
