Digging Day 5 and Wadi Rum
We've had a really exciting couple of days, starting off with our fifth day on site. Meaghan and I were really excited to have uncovered two pieces of channel, but Madeira (Dr. Reeves - it means "director") wanted us to move towards the aqueduct, focussing less on avoiding disturbance of the presumed dump pile from 1989 and instead moving towards the South to expose and articulate the aqueduct itself. That meant more heavy work, as we had to continue using the big picks, and because of our short time frame she had another square (Mike and Darcy, again!) come join us to speed up the process. By second breakfast, we had completed much of the square, but the aqueduct was largely still buried. Since Thursdays are a short day, we only had a little over an hour to finish. Craziness. We sped up again, and Mike, using a small pick, finally hit a stone wall - a lower stone in the aqueduct's system. SO EXCITING. It was such a rewarding feeling to have a worthwhile feature, though even now our finds are essentially meaningless. Hopefully that will change as we descend in our square. As the day wrapped up, we had nearly finished the entire 00 locus - pretty exciting stuff! Then, a tour of the site ending with a celebratory baklava for Natasha's birthday! It was really cute and fun to watch her walk around in a ridiculous party hat.
When we got back, we went out to dinner in celebration and drank beers on the roof. With cool night air, neon lights flashing "Showekini" and constant laughter, the late night was well worth the lost sleep. When we woke up the next day, it was our day off - with a planned daytrip to Wadi Rum (Wadi = valley). Wadi Rum will, in 2012, join the list of the Seven Wonders of the natural world - a well-deserved reputation. We hopped on a bus at 7:30, an extra-late start, and crowded in to fill every seat and even the armrest. It was funny and silly and just plain ridiculous, but also super fun since we were all so excited.
We traveled for around an hour to reach Wadi Rum's visitors' centre, then broke into groups to form trucks. I was in a 7 person group, planning to do a 3 1/2 hour tour. We left Miranda in charge of finding a guide - resulting in one of the most entertaining, and mildly unsettling, tours of our life. We left through the front entrance, and our driver claimed we could pay the visitors' fee on our return. Then, we took a back route, going sketchily onto a path that took us around to the area where we saw other trucks waiting to receive passengers as well. Ours was a Jeep van, and with seven people that meant 2 in the front seat, four in the centre bench, and one in the trunk with the bags. We were packed in, with doors that wouldn't open and Erin's window wouldn't crank down properly. When she asked about this, our driver, Mohammed, announced "twenty minutes" and then promptly ignored her request to open it. By this point, we were laughing hysterically, wondering if were were about to get left in the desert, or robbed, or completely taken in. It was such disaster of a car that our imaginations got the better of us, especially as Mohammed kept repeating that he was an "official guide" in a refrain that made us certain that he wasn't. Showing us a beat-up map, he indicated the sites we would visit for our 59JD. After a quick stop to pump up the tires (a necessity on the bouncy, sandy roads), we continued through the village where he's in school - a high school student, working on his day off. We were still giggling when he stopped suddenly at a house, where a young boy dashed out to hand off a wrench! So silly. Ten minutes later, we stoppped again, and Erin's door was opened, and her window lowered using a hand crank - all hell broke loose as Mike's laughter took over and we laughed ourselves to tears. We couldn't believe what we were seeing.
And it was only the beginning.
We drove on, and arrived at our first site - Lawrence's spring, a natural pool of water up a hill and behind a tree. Mike decided that this was the perfect opportunity for an adventure, and so the rest of us followed him, though we were told we only had fifteen minutes to spend at the site. But we climbed up, and after quite the hike we'd reached the top and had our first view of freshwater in its natural setting since our arrival in Jordan. It was green. And slimy. But very beautiful - the most lush setting I've encountered outside of parks and the occasional farmer's field. Even so, it was so much more sparse that even the most feeble front yard in Ontario. Such a difference, and yet the green was shocking in this setting. Turning around, we were blown away by our first beautful view. The sun made the distand rock ledges seem hazy and dark. With a breeze hitting us an a sense of accomplishment, we climbed down and continued our tour. Second up was a canyon, deep and shaded. We followed it in to a series of man-made water collection spots - so cool and so different from our first view. The sand here was so red, and such a site to behold, especially when we caught a glimpse down the shaded tunnel that we were traveling through. Still overwhelmded by the beauty, we carried on to our third stop, a small bridge carved up into a large rock in the centre of the valley. We climbed up, and crossed the bridge, with a final step onto a platform providing a 360 degree view of the Wadi.
Looking around, observing the colour and depth and majesty of the space, it was so surreal. Thinking, too, that water carved these massive channels millions of years ago, I was taken aback by a sense of insignificance - we were no more meaningful in thisvalley than the grains of sand were to us beneath our feet.
When we moved on from the bridge, we traveled to Lawrence's house, the presumed house of T.E. Lawrence [of Arabia]. On our way, though, the four-wheeler started to skid and got stuck on an uphill climb through the sand. We had a mild freakout, and then piled out of the truck to push it. The cherry on top of a ridiculous truck journey. Mike and Aaron fought against the sand, briefly helped by us girls. With much effort, they crested the hill, and we stopped for more photos - I forgot my water bottle and had to make Aaron jump out to grab it - not the first time on that journey, sadly, that I'd lost track of it, nor the last.
Arriving at Lawrence's house at last, it was a fallen stone shelter with tall rocks to the west - it was pretty neat, though not nearly as spectacular as some of the other sites. Then, we continued to stop at the base of a series of carvings, 2500 years old. THe shapes carved into the rocks were unbelievable, and peppered the side. Loved it. However, the best was yet to come. At our last stop, we were in a more intimate space with some incredible red sand dunes.
Mike bounded up, and I followed - a close but much more careful second, stepping in others' footprints along the crest of the dune to make the adventure easier. Sand filled our shoes - hot as an oven. We had an amazing time climbing, but it was so hot, and the sand so heavy, and by the top we were super sweaty. But looking at the distant haziness compared to the warm lines of the sand dunes was just unreal. With a stunning view, we sat an enjoyed until the last possible minute, finally bounding down in ridiculous, long strides to the bottom.
We sat down and laughed and started piling into the bus, this time joined by a Bedouin man named Ahmed, who had to pick up his truck after a hike. He and Mike sat in the front seat and he turned the rearview mirror to look at the girls in the back, now doubly crowded with Tash joining Aaron in the trunk. Watching us, they bargained over how many camels we were worth - 1000, it would seem, and white ones to boot. Mike was even told he could have a few startup camels to find a bride of his own.
After a long day, we returned to the bus, exhausted and happy. It was great :)