The Golden Triangle

This weekend was the epic “Golden Triangle” CIEE trip. We went to Wadi Rum, Aqaba, and Petra.

Wadi Rum is a valley dessert that has large beautiful rock formations and waves of sand dunes. We spent the first three hours riding camels. Let me just say that is about 2.75 hours too long. Not that my camel was mean (I think three people got bucked off their camel) but man those saddles are not built for comfort. However the day did contain a major revelation. Believe it or not, Arabs actually know what they are doing when they cover their heads in the sun, IT MAKES SUCH A DIFFERENCE!! I was in the dessert, in the sun, on a camel and didn’t sweat the whole entire time because I had something on my head. I was amazed. Not that it should be all that shocking; they have been living here forever.

Our camels took us to a Bedouin camp where we ate some awesome food, danced, had some argilla, shaay (tea), and laid out in the desert under the stars. I thought the stars were good in Maine, but they can’t even compare. There were so many it seemed we could connect stars anywhere in the sky to make any constellation. There were even shooting stars. However we did have to watch out for trucks barreling towards us. Since we were near the Saudi border we had to be careful cigarette smugglers did not scoop us up or run us over for that matter. I hope it is just as beautiful when I (hopefully) go camping in Egypt with my friend Veasey.

The next morning there were maybe 25 trucks waiting outside the Bedouin camp. I was reallllly excited for this activity. It was super fun but I was expecting driving up sand dunes, maybe flipping the car over, but everything was pretty tame. Towards the end our driver finally got some pep and would drive out of the line of cars, and over plants and such. We cheered him on calling him Ricky Bobby, not really sure if that translated but he laughed, we laughed, it was great.

Our next stop was Aqaba, a port on the Red Sea. We got off the bus and went straight on to three big boats. It was a beautiful ride where we passed Israel and saw Egypt and Saudi Arabia across the way to get to the coral reef where we snorkeled. It was the coolest thing ever, just like the pictures in national geographic. I had never been before and everything was just so exciting. I saw sea urchins, a puffer fish, sea cucumber, tons of vibrantly colored fish and lots of coral.

The boat I was on had a ledge on the second floor that we could jump off of into the water. My friend Karina was a little nervous about jumping and said she would jump if I would. I instantly started counting to three and when I jumped I did a dive in the pike position. Little did I know that at that moment not only everyone on my boat was watching, but the other boat too. When I resurfaced (and got my bottoms back on super quick) everyone seemed super impressed, it was my five minutes of fame. Even getting off the boats I had people coming up to me saying how pretty my dive was. Score. Thanks Andy : )

As soon as we got off the boat we went straight to Petra. We didn’t get to see any of Aqaba except our exclusive boats so I definitely have to make a trip back. We arrived at our second Bedouin camp at 10 30 and we were starving! I shared a tent/room with my friend Emily, had some nice pillow talk with the guys next door, and then hit the hay to get ready for a full day at Petra.

Petra was cool. I personally liked the snorkeling more but I guess you can’t live in Jordan and not go see Petra.

Overall the weekend was realllly fun. I was so tired afterwards though, and I had class at 9 am the next day! I am really looking forward to this weekend so I can just sleep in. Waking up each morning has been made easier by the fact there is a tub of hummus in the fridge that I make a pita sandwich with each morning and grab a piece of fruit on the way to school. Best breakfast ever (well obviously second to chocolate chip pancakes and home fries but you can’t really have that every morning). Only one more day to the weekend!