Jordan travels! The last blog, for now ;)

Jordan was wonderful! Definitely worth writing another blog about even though I am leaving Lebanon tomorrow. It were four very very full days but we’ve seen a lot! Thursday morning we arrived in Amman and met my colleague Claudia at her house. The afternoon and evening were spend wondering through the city and being amazed by it. It really felt different then Beirut or any place in Lebanon. The buildings are short (compared to Beirut) and all have a beige color which makes the hills of the city look like they are covered in sand. The weather was perfect! Hot but very dry! I saw a lot of people on the streets wearing clothes more fit for the desert and almost all women were veiled. Despite my blond and unveiled appearance I was very comfortable. People were very friendly and polite, and of course I was wearing long pants and a shirt with sleeves. After dinner at a famous falafel place (about twenty white plastic tables squeezed in a small alley, waiters running around with huge tray’s of tea, vegetables, hummus and of course delicious falafel, dropping of about ten pp at each table) we went back home to sleep on time for our trip to Petra the next day. Petra is a historical city in the south of Jordan and a UNESCO world heritage site. Something worth visiting! We rented a car and drove a few hours from Amman (north) to Petra. The road, even though it was a high way, was filled with beautiful views of the desert. Petra itself was a real city. Not a small village you cover by an hour of walking. Since we arrived in the afternoon we decided to only visit the monastery a bit away from the entrance of the city. After one and a half hour of walking (climbing over 800 steps of stairs!) we reached a high and open space. While the sun had set over the rest of the city, we arrived when it was still shining the last light over the monastery. Absolutely amazing! The huge monastery seemed to be created by carving out the rock wall of the mountain and I was very impressed. On the way back to the entrance (down the stairs is always faster :) ) we saw many people passing us on donkey’s, pony’s or camels. The Bedouin who still live in Petra make a living out of providing these rides to tourists, and surely it will be a nice experience. I claimed to prefer walking while saying ‘no no no my feet are fine’ but have you ever seen how huge those camels are from up-close? And the wobbling way they walk? The tourist on its back holding on to whatever he can grab with the owner of the camel walking/running next to it while the camel itself looks all relaxed and moving its mouth all the time like it has a huge chewing gum? No no no, my feet are fine!
One more thing that amazed me at Petra: the entrance ticket. For Arabs, this is about 1 euro. For me, as a European, it was about 50 euros…!! Imagine if you will a famous touristic place in the Netherlands stating at the entrance: Europeans: 1 euro. Arabs: 50 euros. That would be intolerable discrimination! But here everyone just accepted it and, while complaining, so did yours truly, which is how the system remains intact. It reminded me of Kumba, in Cameroon, where people found it normal to point at me and yell: white man, white man (both the ‘white’ and the ‘man’ offended me) and I thought about how I would be sued if I would point at an African man in the Netherlands yelling: back man, black man!
But anyway, enough of this complaining. If we lived in a fair world I would be out of work.

After Petra we drove into the desert to find a camp in Wadi Rum (the valley of Rum) to find a place to stay the night. It was already dark so I did not see very much of the desert landscape. We found a camp and after a nice meal I rolled into my bed, completely exhausted and very thankful the weather was so nice a cool, unlike what I expected from a desert. The next morning my stereotype expectations were fulfilled when I woke up sweating and seriously considered making an omelet in the car. Yes, that is IN the car. Not on the hood but on the leather of my seat. It could have been a long trip of me complaining, were it not for the amazing view of the desert while we drove back to the main road. I took about a hundred pictures hanging out of the open window of the car, pointing out everything and feeling like child seeing the sea for the first time: so big and impressive, and yet inviting me to stay and explore. You can see the pictures on facebook but they don’t do it justice. I definitely want to go back to visit it again someday!
The beautiful desert-views continued while we drove to the city Aqaba, all the way in the South of Jordan, were we would see the Red Sea and drive on to the Dead See, both also bordering Israel. Both seas were very impressive and especially the Dead Sea, where we stopped to swim, was a great experience. Again, it was the end of the day and the sun seemed to have waited for us to come, swim, dry up and attempt to capture the breathtaking sites of the sun setting over the unusual and oily-like water of the Dead Sea.
We drove back to Amman where we arrived in the evening and had dinner. The next morning there was only time for some souvenir shopping before returning to the airport to go back to Beirut.
No need to say it again but I really had a wonderful time and I am very happy I decided to visit Jordan. Hopefully it will be the first of many visits.

Tomorrow evening I will be arriving in Amsterdam and seeing my friends and family again. I am very much looking forward to it, and I am also very happy and thankful I can go back to Beirut to work a few more months. This internship really was a fulfilling and impressive experience. Not just because of the work and all the things I learned about human rights and refugee law and the workings of an international organization, but also because I got to know another country, a culture, a people and a way of life which started to feel like a second home to me.

Thank you all for sharing my adventures over the last six months and I really hope to see you all soon!