Night 55: In Which I Accidentally Go Biking Through the Desert

Okay, so maybe the "In Which I Accidentally" posts are getting a little old, especially since I'm not really using that word correctly. But I meant to go to Ajloun today but actually ended up going on a bike trip through the desert. That's an accident, right?

I can just hear Inigo Montoya in the background saying "I do not think that means what you think it means."

In any case. My day was pretty awesome. It began with me holding the door open for Batman. Or, a five year old version of Batman anyway. A tiny little Jordanian boy left my building with me this morning dressed up as Batman and carrying a Spiderman lunchbox (Christian schools here have school on Saturdays). He ran to his bus shouting "Yom Halloween!" Cutest ever.

My plan for today was to go to the University at early o'clock to get on the bus to Ajloun and go paint a school all morning, then hike to an archaeological site on what is supposed to be one of the best hikes in Jordan. I'll have to find out whether or not that's true after the Eid break though, 'cause we did not go to Ajloun today. Since only two of us showed up for Ajloun (myself and my friend Elizabeth), the trip was postponed. However, at the same time, a bunch of other CIEE kids were straggling into the University to meet up for one of CIEE's mini-trips, the Desert Castle trip. At that point, Ahmed pulled Elizabeth and I aside and told us that the Ajloun trip would happen after Eid, but that since we are (and I quote) the best CIEE students for showing up for Ajloun when no one else did, we got to go on the Desert Castles trip as well! We also got some free Ajloun postcards.

Now, some of you may remember that I really wanted to do the Desert Castles trip, but decided to go on the Biblical Jordan trip instead. Man, am I glad I did 'cause I got to do both! The trip consisted of a bus trip out to the desert, where we saw two pretty fantastic castles, then a lot of biking, and a trip to a marshland. First off, the castles. The first castle we reached was called Kharaneh, and was pretty excellent for climbing around in, and there were lots of nooks and crannies to explore:

The second one was a castle with a giant well and a water pump and an old reception hall that is currently being restored. There was a lot of scaffolding, which diminished some of the cool factor, but also added to it. When I was younger, I remember reading books and watching movies about the kinds of archaeologists that restore historical sites like this one and I thought it would be the coolest job ever. I've since taken an archaeology class and changed my mind, but still. The people restoring this castle have pretty excellent jobs and I took quite a few pictures of them:

Ignore the strange man I don't know in the photo. 

Empty well!

Restoring the awesome frescoes. 

Ceiling fresco. 

After that we went biking through the desert! I'm not sure what desert, or if the desert has a name. But it was pretty flat and dead and looked quite a bit like South Dakota. It was still really cool though, if a little rocky and hard to bike on. We biked about 25 kilometers (15-ish miles) through the dust and sand and rocks. We saw giant camels (twice as big at least as the camels we rode in Wadi Rum), one of which I thought was a statue like  those big plastic buffaloes or cows you see near gas stations in the Midwest. But no, it was just a giant camel. We also came within about 100 miles of Iraq, so that was pretty cool.

Nothing funnier than a Bedouin man trying to get cell service with a herd of camels in tow. (No joke, that's what he was doing). 

The trip was cut a little short due to ALL the studying, but we made on last stop at the Azraq wetlands. It's a desert oasis/marshland that has a number of endangered species, as well as some water buffalo (the water buffalo were the only animals we saw). It turns out that not only did Jordan previously have awesome animals like rhinos, elephants, and cheetahs, but the country used to have a whole lot more water, too. The elephants and rhinos and cheetahs have been gone for a long time, but only 20 years ago we would have been neck-deep in water on the paths we were walking on. It was a little sad. But the water buffalo were cool, and the watery-marshiness felt like home.

And now I'm tired. My butt hurts like none other and I have a midterm to take tomorrow. Momkin (maybe) a smart person would have stayed home to study today, but this day was totally worth the potential lost points on that test. Still, studying and sleeping time!