I started climbing to the High Place of Sacrifice and it wasn’t long before I was greeting by a young boy on a donkey who watched me huff and puff my way up the steps. When I reached the area where he was waiting he asked, “Donkey mam?” “No, I don’t want a donkey.” “Why […]
I sighed and handed over my 55 Dinar ($77USD) to the man at the ticket counter; a hefty sum for an otherwise budget friendly country to travel through. This fee would buy me two days in the ancient city of Petra. He asked me to type my name in the computer and then handed me […]
Petra was the main topic in John William Burgon’s Poem Petra. Referring to it as the inaccessible city which he had heard described but had never seen. The Poem was awarded the Newdigate Prize in 1845 : “ It seems no work of Man’s creative hand, by labour wrought as wavering fancy planned; But from […]
Smoke billowed throughout the tent and left the area a-glow in orange. The flames lapped up from beneath the metal spherical disk. She pounded the dough into a flat pizza like form and simultaneously stoked the fire with more wood with her free hand. The spherical metal ‘griddle’ was just the right temperature…thwak! The flattened […]
As soon as I entered the house I could smell it. The familiar scent of cardamom – my favorite spice in the whole world. Etedal asked if I wanted some Arabic coffee, of course I did…I had been up for more than 30 hours and if I were going to somehow make it through jetlag […]
I came all the way here; I couldn’t chicken out. No matter what, I had to get in that buoyant water. Winter be damned, I was going to go float on the lowest place on earth, the Dead Sea. One of the great things about the Conversation Corps program I’m participating in is that you […]
Jordanians, no matter what God they believe in, all huddle around it worshiping the black metal God. There’s one in every house I’ve been to…and it always seems to be the center of attention.It’s the most used appliance in Jordan’s homes. Ladies and gentlemen…I bring you the gas heater. Let me shatter a stereotype that […]
What are the odds…I am in a remote eco lodge in the middle of the dessert in Jordan; surrounded by goats and Bedouins that I run into someone who knows about and is planning on doing the Mongol Rally? Seriously. You might think this chance meeting is a good thing….unfortunately it wasn’t. Don’t get the […]
When you get those late night hunger pains, attacking your insides as if they miners in an empty cavern; when you can hear the echoing grumbles of your insides – what do you do? In Amman you go to Salah El-Din sandwich shop. It’s so ‘local’ you can’t even find it on a Google search!
You never forget your first impressions – right? That’s why they are so important. My first impressions of Jordan.
