Comedy of Errors (Honeymoon, part 4)
[Now with some bold parts for skimability because I sure wouldn't want to read this whole thing if I were you]
Time to get up early for the
long trip to Petra! We set our alarms for 7am on the advice of the "Concierge" at the village (not sure what else to call this guy, but he was super friendly and helpful). We had a quick breakfast and headed down to the main road to hail a cab. Wait a minute! Why does the clock say 8:30? It must be off by an hour. Oh SHIT! Jordan is in
a different time zone from Israel because only Israel has daylight savings!! Well, no worries. We just lost an hour at Petra, but I won't let it ruin the day.
The bus we sat on for 4 hoursNow we're at the "bus stop" (a big gravel lot with some vehicles that could maybe pass for demolition derby buses). "WHEN. DOES. THE. NEXT. BUS. LEAVE. FOR. PETRA?" (that's me trying to enunciate to a non-English speaker). "30 minutes". Ok, no problem. Just enough time for a trip to the bathroom.
2 hours later, we're finally moving. Ah, public transport. In the intervening time, I not only went to the bathroom (the "bus stop" had no bathroom, and the closest one was past the Police compound in a covered market), but also listened to 90 minutes of Arabic radio and did some people-watching.
My favorite moment in Jordan happened while sitting here. A
Michael Jackson song came on the radio, preceded by the DJ saying "Blah blah Arabic blah blah Michael Jackson!" A young man and I locked eyes, sharing the moment of delight (the previous 45 minutes of music had been more of the local variety). He said "Michael Jackson!", and being speechless, I think I gave him a big nod and grin.
There was an
extremely uncomfortable moment when the bus was almost full and a young, single male had to sit next to an old woman. Instead of doing this, which Allah obviously forbids, there was a huge shuffling of seats to keep everything Kosher. I mean Halal.
The view out the window for the next 4 hoursWe were treated to 2 hours of desert and military checkpoints. Venessa and I listened to a few episodes of
WireTap she downloaded (I highly recommend this show). I felt uncomfortable laughing out loud for seemingly no reason on a quiet, gender-segregated bus, but whatev, the population of Jordan doesn't know what they're missing.
Now we're in Wadi Musa, the closest town to Petra. It's 1pm by now. To make a long story short, the last bus back is at 3pm and there's no time to take the
camel or donkey ride to Petra, so we turn right back home and call it a day.
Man, even the bathroom windows are dicksWe spent the rest of the day in our hotel room, feeling sorry for ourselves, and reading.
Sunscreen, a good book, and a passportThe next morning, we got a cab to the border from a very friendly man who should have been head of the Aqaba tourist board. It was a flat-rate fare and we weren't in a hurry, so he took us out of our way to see some sights of the city, including the King's summer home and the future sites of a couple of fancy resorts.
Not the King's summer homeThe buildings in Aqaba are either dilapidated hovels covered in graffiti, or half-finished construction, both of which were symbolic of the rest of our time in Jordan. Our little side-journey into the Arab world had potential, there was a plan or a scaffolding of something that used to be, or will soon be, but it was just out of reach for us on this trip.
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