The time has finally arrived- it's vacation weekend!!!
We woke up and met downstairs at 9 am. We took a very short bus ride to a restaurant that Muhammad loves called Hashem (I think?). He ordered for us. We got hummus, and a dish that was a combination of fool (maybe fuul?) and hummus with olive oil. Fool/fuul is a fava bean dish similar to hummus. It was SO good and I represented the CPC well (I am not sure if anyone else finished their plates...). After a very big breakfast we went to Zam Zam (a smaller grocery store) to get some snacks for the road, but I didn't get anything. Then we piled onto the bus (I got 2 seats to myself--- for the ENTIRE THREE DAY TRIP...lucky girl). I totally passed out on the bus (food coma) and woke up when we stopped for lunch. We went to this place that was kind of like a bakery, and got cheese bread and mini pizzas. I also needed some sweet, so I asked for some cookies that were SO good. They had big sprinkles on them and I couldn't even bring myself to share any, even though I definitely had more than enough. We drove (slept) some more, until we finally made it to the first stop on our excursion: Wadi Rum.
It was unbearably hot--dry heat though-- in Wadi Rum (it IS the dessert after all...). Getting off the air conditioned bus was a rude awakening to say the least. It was also weirdly windy, but it was like hot wind. Everyone kept on saying "at least it's not humid". True, but it was still VERY hot................. We watched a movie about Wadi Rum on a television inside an air conditioned theater, which was nice. After the movie we had some time until we had our scheduled 4 by 4 rides thru the area, so we went to 'see the Bedouins', but I don't think they were really expecting us, so we just ended up sitting in an outdoor living room area and hung out. Finally the 4 by 4s arrived. These were different than the ones in the Sahara, which were actual 4 by 4s. The ones here are more like pick up trucks with a tarp functioning as a roof.
The coveted seats were on the end (obviously). I liked them because you could hold on... At first the ride was slow and boring, but by the end we were going VERY quickly. I attempted to get the driver to speed up by tapping on the roof of the car, but he took that as me wanting him to stop, so he did and asked what was wrong- woops. Anyway we saw a lot of beautiful scenery. Again, VERY different than the Sahara, which I guess makes sense because Wadi means VALLEY in Arabic, not desert, but it is the only place that I can equate it to. According to my guidebook, Wadi Rum is a valley cut into sandstone rocks. That's exactly what it looked like. The first stop on the 4 by 4s was a VERY STEEP uphil area that we tried to walk up. It was wayy harder than it looks, and I only made it half way...
From there we drove to another area, having something to do with Lawrence of Arabia.
On the way the 4 by 4 picked up some serious speed. He went over some sort of a bump and we all screamed. It reminded me of that HUGE bump on the FDR that was so terrible when you were sitting in the back of the bus- coming home from a soccer or softball game. Anyway this bump was huge, and my camera was around my neck and hit me in the face. It hurt more than it seemed to, and I had a small fat lip/blood blister for the rest of the night. Crazy driver. The Lawrence of Arabia place was more of a tourist shop, so we didn't spend much time there- there WAS free tea, but I think my lip was too raw to drink some.... jk, but I didn't get any. Backkkk on the 4WDs. We took another crazy ride to an overlook to watch the sunset.
It set SO quickly- I have a video of it, which I hope will be cool when I figure out how to speed it up. After the sun set (not completely, just behind the mountain that we were looking at), we went back to the Bedouin camp place for dinner. The ride back to the camp was THE CRAZIEST. I was literally drooling all over the place and couldn't move my limbs (it reminded me of the gravatron). It was a lot a lot of fun.
We sat down for dinner and got delicious and necessary DC. Dinner was to be served in a half hour so we just rested and chatted. 15 mins later- the waiter called us over. We went to see the way that they cook the chicken. They dig HUGE holes in the sand, put the chicken in buckets and bury these buckets in the sand. Apparently they leave it there for a few hours and then take it out. We watched them dig up the chicken- it smelled like delicious BBQ- I was
hungry. After seeing the chicken, they prepared everything else veryyy quickly, and we were called to the beautiful buffet.
There was lamb, chicken, hummus, babaghanoush, 2 types of rice (one regular, one is called "Freaky".....), veggies, yogurt sauce and hubz. I went to town (obv). Everyone was VERY impressed that I finished my plate (see below for evidence....) AND that I got seconds...
THEN the party started... the waiters started to do some Dabke dancing, and our boys and other patrons joined in. The next thing I know, our waiter took John and my hands, and dragged us to the back of the camp area. John joked that they were going to kill us, which was not very funny in retrospect. We went to some back room and they handed us a pile of clothes and it all started to come together. The women seen on my other arm in the picture below, dressed me. I was laughing a LOT (again, obviously) but John was totally keeping his cool- "maintaining character". I really started to laugh when the man took out some eyeliner and motioned that he was going to draw on my face- "bedouin tattoo".... When we were all ready they interlocked our hands and lead us out of the room. We were greeted by ALL of the diners smiling and taking pictures. It was overwhelming, and I really could NOT stop laughing. We went to the main area, and sat down in the middle- totally on display. Everyone was dancing and laughing- idk it was a little blurry, but we definitely danced a lot and my stomach hurt because I was laughing so much. Then we sat back down and EVERYONE took a picture with/of us. We were like the entertainment of the night. SO funny. Everyone also lined up and congratulated us- "Alf Mabrook". I danced with a few children- it was a great night. Not sure if the wedding was official or anything, but next time I go to Wadi Rum, I'll ask. Muhammad took a video with my camera that I will upload later- "so your mom won't feel bad that she missed your wedding". After we took off our costumes and became ourselves again I RAN to the bathroom to wash off my 'bedouin tatoos'. John kept his beard & mustache on for as long as possible...
After the celebrations, we rushed to the bus because it was laaate. We were driving for about 20 minutes and then OBVIOUSLY got a flat tire. Max was a knight in shining armor and helped fix it. We got to the hotel well past 1 am. The next stop was Petra and we had all previously agreed to wake up at the crack of dawn in order to see Petra in a tolerable climate, AND get to the Intercontinental Aqaba ASAP.... We wanted to be at breakfast at 6:30, but because of how late we got in- we agreed on 7 am. LONGEST DAY EVER.
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