Thursday: Wadi Dana Nature Reserve
Last Thursday we had our midterm at Qasid (our school thing) and some classes, and then we all bolted back home to pack. We had an hour before we left for our epic weekend.
A 3(?)-hour drive took us south to the Wadi Dana Nature Reserve. At the top of a mountain we wound had the option of walking down to the camp or taking their "shuttle," which is pretty much a large pickup truck with benches around it. Most of us wound up walking down. Our guide had said it was "a few miles" but it definitely didn't seem like that on the way. I didn't think to time it, but it's not like we were walking super quickly or anything. We were taking a lot of photos and enjoying the crazy scenery.
We had time to kill before dinner, so after stashing our stuff in our tents I went with Jennifer, Morgan, Brittney, and Ashley and we hiked a little bit. Then sat and kinda sorta watched the sunset, by which I mean watched the colors in the sky change because the sun was behind a mountain that we thought we wouldn't have had time to climb but it turns out we probably would have. Oh well.
I couldn't tell you what dinner was, because I never usually know what food is here anyway. It was tasty though. After dinner we went and sat under some other tents in a little open area and then sat by a campfire and talked. And there were stars. So many stars. If there's one thing I miss about Morocco, that is definitely it. You couldn't see all of them from AUI, but you could definitely see a lot more than you can from home or Richmond. And then of course there were the zillions of stars I saw in Chaouen and the Sahara. But yeah. We could see lots of stars in Dana too. Not as many as I saw before, I don't think, which is weird. Or I could just fail at figuring out nature. Which is likely. Anyway. Yeah. Went to bed after that.
Friday: Showbak Castle, random fortress, Little Petra, Bedouin dinner?
Friday we got up bright and early for breakfast before heading to Wadi Musa, the city next to Petra. Petra being the old city/current park, Wadi Musa being the actual city. Out hotel was little across from the entrance to the park. On the way there we stopped for an hour at a 12-th century Crusader castle. It was empty and partially destroyed, but pretty cool.
We had a really tasty buffet lunch at our (5-star!) hotel, then I headed out with some friends to another 12-century fortress that was just chilling by the sid eof the road 10-15 minutes from the hotel. Just chilling. There wasn't a whole lot left of it, but it was pretty awesome. Especially scrambling up and down on it. We spent probably two hours out there. It was awesome being in the little mountain area and whatnot. But it was really hot and really windy, especially the higher we got up.
After the fortress and a glorious 40-minute quasi-nap, we headed to Little Petra, which was the commercial part of Petra. (The more famous part was the necropolis.) There's not a hole lot there anymore, obviously. Things carved into the cliff/mountain walls. Big things. I mean, they're pretty impressive and pretty cool, but I think I'm hitting the point where ruins aren't super awesome to me anymore. Olympos was amazing; Volubilis was okay but nothing too impressive; Jerash was kind of awesome; and since then I'm kind of getting tired of ruins. They're all pretty much the same thing. Granted all that I've seen with the exception of Petra has been Roman, which really is all the same thing, but... yeah. I still think they're awesome but I'm not in a hurry to see too many more. Maybe I should have gone to Rome during my semester in France, because now I don't know how cool it would be. =P
Dinner consisted of stopping the bus on the side of the road and walking into the desert/mountains a little ways. It was Bedouin style? But still consisted of the same things we have all the time at restaurants and such here. But sitting outside in the beautiful weather and enjoying the food and the people. Though we were all pretty exhausted already so we weren't entirely into it.
Saturday: PETRA
Up bright and early again. Breakfast buffet at the hotel. 8 hours spent in Petra. Lots of walking, lots of sun, lots of hot. The Treasury was awesome though. Tis the building in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Just being able to see part of it from the Siq (path/road/something between two cliff walls) and knowing the rest was around the corner was kind of crazy. Of course the sun was shining right on it so it didn't come out half as epic in the pictures, but it was awesome. I mean, none of my pictures of anything do things justice here. These are things that you just have to experience yourself to really get it.
From the Treasury (which is really a tomb but is so named because people believe/d that a pharaoh hid a treasure in the urn carved at the top of it) we went down the road (the only one in the city really) and then started an epic climb to the "High Place of Sacrifice." Lolz. Along the way we got separated from the large group that our tour guide was leading, but it wasn't really an issue. I wound up with Michael for most of the time. At the top of the High Place we were talking to two French ladies. And my French failed me, which is seriously disturbing. I mean, maybe not failed so much as when they asked us questions I fully understood them but the first words that popped into my head in terms of answers were definitely Arabic and I stumbled over them trying to force the French out. It was so frustrating. I mean, probably a sign that I'm getting a lot better at Arabic but really not my favorite feeling in the world. Meh.
We wound up taking the back way, ish, from the High Place. I mean, there was a trail but it was even more climbing down the back of the mountain and more dirt path behind everything. A few times I wondered whether we were even going the right way, but there was no other way to go. The map I had was a little deceiving in terms of the distance between things. But we found our way out in the end. Saw more old things. And a giant temple. And then had tasty lunch. Which made some people sick, but luckily not me.
After lunch Michael and I stuck together and headed up the 45-minute hike to the Monastery. It's the building in Transformers 2. Which I haven't seen but probably will even though it's supposed to be awful, if only to watch it and say "Hey I was there!" It was a pain in the butt hike, for real. But we made it. And saw the end of the world, which is just the view from the top of the mountains. But it was pretty epic. I have lots of photos of it, but they will have to wait til the next post because I'm having issues logging into Photobucket right now. But for now you get the text version, at least. I know I didn't write a lot but there's not a lot to write. It's a whole lot of seeing things and taking pictures and not being able to describe things accurately because there aren't words to do them justice.
