Wednesday, June 3, 2009

6/3/09

            I was woken up by my 6 a.m. wake up call and was somewhat surprised that it was actually useful.

            We had a meeting at 8 a.m. with Father Nabil Haddad of the Jordanian Interfaith Coexistence Research Center.

            Father Haddad, who is Catholic, played a major role when the Pope visited Jordan a few months back.

            He spoke to us about the importance of respecting people of every religion and said that journalists had a noble responsibility to change opinions about the Middle East.

            “You are messengers,” he told us, “the prophets were messengers. The angels were messengers. You have an important role.”

            He had a powerful message that I completely agreed with.

            He was very proud of his country for its relationship with the U.S. and its tolerance of all religions.

            It was a very inspirational breakfast that helped me forget about the frustration I was dealing with the day before.

            No matter what form of media I used, I would be sure to share my experience in Jordan with others and in the hope that they see a side of the Middle East that is rarely reported.

            After breakfast, I finished packing my bags and met my group in the lobby to begin our excursion to Petra.

            Checking out was a little bit of an issue because the hotel had charged our group for their dinner that they had on the first night they arrived.

            But since I had missed the first night, I didn’t have any problems.

            Merissa argued with the man behind the desk.

            “They are guest of the Prime Minister,” she finally said, “would you want to pay for dinner if you were a guest of the Prime Minister?”

            Eventually the problem was settled and we boarded our bus.

            On the way there, we stopped in the municipality of Madaba.

            Madaba is the site of Mount Nebo, which is where it is said that Moses died after God showed him the holy land.

            The view was spectacular. I could see the city of Jericho and Jerusalem off in the distance.

            I was even able to shoot some video of the Jordan River flowing into the Dead Sea. The shot was very wide and distant but it may have been the only chance I had to get video of the river.

            Our next stop was a Greek orthodox church that had existed since the 6th Century.

            The church was rebuilt because an earthquake destroyed it in the 18th century.

            Mo did an excellent job explaining the church’s history.

             Inside the church, there were remains of an old mosaic map that had been made to guide Christian pilgrims through the holy land.

            The earthquake had destroyed parts of the map but you could still clearly see the city of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea.

            In the corner of the church was an underground room that was full of ancient paintings of Jesus Christ.

            Standing alone in this room was creepy.

All these sad eyes from the paintings were staring at me. The sorrow in their eyes seemed so real.

            Before hitting the road, we stopped and had lunch in an outdoor courtyard at a quaint Mediterranean restaurant.

            The meal was very similar to my first dinner in Jordan.

            Hummus, babaganush and pita bread were constantly being put on the table.

            The main dish was beef and chicken that was baked in an oven and covered in potato slices.

            The beef was covered in some sort of cream sauce that seemed like a watered-down version of the sauce they put on gyros. It was pretty good.

            After lunch, we stopped at a local craft shop to do some tourist souvenir shopping.

The store made their own mosaic art and we got a quick demonstration of the painstaking process of cutting stone, carefully placing it in a design and gluing it all together.

I was glad that I finally had some time to shop for my family and friends.

Each one of us was followed by someone in the store and was constantly offered items for different prices.

I was looking at the mosaics they had made when this woman began to follow me.

“That is 90 diner,” she said, “85 with discount.”

“OK,” I said with no intention of buying the piece of work that I knew no one I was shopping for would like.

After not showing any interest the woman lowered the price again.

“15,” she said, “how much will you pay?”

I told her I was just looking around but this didn’t stop her from following me throughout the store.

I started to look at a rack of handbags that seemed more in line with what I was looking for.

“Were all these made here?” I asked my newfound companion.

“Yes,” she replied, “all made in Jordan.”

I opened one bag up and saw a white tag on the inside lining.

“100% Cotton,” it read, “Made in India.”

I paused for a moment and then turned to the woman.

“What about this one?” I asked with interest.

“Yes, yes” she quickly replied.

“But it says ‘made in India,’” I said.

“Oh, really?” she said with a surprised tone as I showed her the tag.

She took the bag from me and hung it up on a different rack.

As I continued to look through the bags, I noticed that she had moved away from my side and was looking through the insides of all the other bags.

Another woman came over and the two spoke in Arabic.

My personal shopper said something and laughed in a way like she knew she had been caught red-handed.

I decided to look elsewhere for my souvenirs.

After our group finished our tourist shopping, which I was now sure was overpriced and not even genuine, we embarked on our three-hour drive to Petra.

            I ended up falling asleep and waking up as we stopped to take some pictures of a nomadic Bedouin camp.

            The cool desert wind felt amazing and the temperature in the evening was perfect.

            But the desert air is very dry and I could feel the inside of my nose burning from the lack the moisture,

             We stopped once more at an old castle that had been built by Christian crusaders and took some pictures.

            It was getting late and Mo kept encouraging us to be quick so we could get to our hotel near Petra.

            The final leg of the drive reminded me of the Grand Canyon.

            The landscape had suddenly changed from a flat sandy desert to dark red rocks jutting up towards the sky.

            These mountains looked especially gorgeous as the sun set.

            Our hotel was actually an old village on the side of a mountain that had been turned into a resort.

            Uneven stone walkways guided me through the tight alleys of the stone buildings.

            “Are you kidding me?” I exclaimed as I entered my room.

            I had never seen anything like it before in my life.

            The tall ceilings and uneven, white plastered walls gave the room a cave-like feel but it had all the amenities of a modern hotel.

            My living room had a TV and a mini bar and the sleeping area had a huge bed that was low the floor. This place was very cool.

            The bathroom, however, could have been better.

            The plumbing needed work and you could hear running water and rattling pipes long after you flushed the toilet, washed your hands or took a shower.

            The built-in hairdryer on the wall looked like some sort of respiratory machine from a hospital.

            “Whatever,” I thought, “this place is still really cool.”

            Dinner was at 9 p.m. but I headed to the restaurant early.

            I wanted to explore the resort a little more and I also figured I would get lost trying to navigate these tight stone corridors that crossed and weaved through the grounds of the hotel.

            The resort had its own line of shops that seemed to have more genuine gifts than the previous gift shop.

            I looked around for a bit and then went to the restaurant.

            Dinner was a buffet that I tried to make the most of.

            I ate beef, lamb, fish and chicken along with mashed potatoes, rice and vegetables.

            The meal was good but nothing great.

            I had some cheesecake for dessert but it paled in comparison to the cheesecake at Wild Jordan the night before.

            The best part of dinner came afterward when we moved outside to the patio for an after dinner drink.

            I was excited to finally try a local beer.

            Petra Beer was a light beer that had an alcohol content of 8%. It had a little more flavor then Bud light but had a weird metallic taste, which may have been from the tall can it had come in.

            We all had a good time telling jokes and sharing stories about favorite TV shows and movies.

            Harry Potter was a particularly popular topic in the conversation.

            An hour or so later we all headed off to bed.

            I still had not gotten a case for my contacts but luckily my room had scotch and wine glasses.

            We had a long day of hiking and climbing ahead of us and I was looking forward to finally getting to see Petra.

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