Egypt, Abraham Path, and Wadi Feid

Well, it's not exactly tomorrow. So far, my record for how long I've been able to regularly post/write a journal/blog is 2 months, so I guess I subconcsiously decided to take a break before writing about the second 2 months. Our spring break just started, and I am currently in Egypt. However, the Wadi Feid trip (the day after Petra) and the trip I took last weekend with CIEE to al-Alyoum were too cool to not describe, so I'll talk about Egypt next time.

So, Wadi Feid (wadi means valley in Arabic) was not at all what we were expecting. Our guide, Hakeem, and his driver picked us up from our hotel in Petra at 5 am in a pickup truck that seated 5 technically, but we fit 4 in the backseat, and my roommate Lauren and I and Hakeem sat in the back of the truck. It was actually quite nice because we could watch the sun rise, until we got to the dirt roads. Then it was a bit bumpy. Being able to look over the side down a very steep mountian was a little disconcerting too. I'm not afraid of heights at all, except in a car, it seems. The trip took about 2 1/2 hours. After that, we walked. Hanna, who found this company through CIEE, didn't get much information about the hike, and the website was pretty vague too, so we didn't really know what kind of terrain we were dealing with. We thought it would be mostly hiking, with probably some walking through rivers, and a little bit of rappelling. We also knew there were 12 waterfalls, but that was all. So it was a little worrisome when on the ride down, Hakeem mentioned that this was the most technically difficult hike he offered. He didn't really specify what he meant by technically difficult, but that part became clear when we all put on climbing harnesses as soon as we got out of the truck. That was when we found out that not only were there 12 waterfalls, but we were going to rappell down them.

So instead of a hike with some rappelling, this trip turned out to be rappelling with a little hiking in between. At least 2 of the girls were afraid of heights, and even though I'm not, it's still unnerving to rappell, because you have to go backwards, and to begin, you pretty much have to just lean back and trust the rope. By the end, I had the hang of it, but it was definitely hard to begin with. Also, because we were rappelling down waterfalls, it was slippery. You have to keep your feet in front of you so you can control where you're going, and if your feet slip, you usually end up smacking into the wall. We were all doing alright until the 3rd or 4th fall. It was the first really long one, and it went straight down, which is actually easier to rappell, but unnerving to look at. Half of us got down, including me, when we had our first (and only major) accident. Liz, one of Hanna's roommates, was starting to go down, but she wasn't centered on the rope, she was off to the side. If you keep your legs apart, that's usually fine, it's just harder. In her case, I think she slipped (I didn't really see), swuwng on the end of the rope, and hit her head on the wall. We were all wearing helmets, but hers didn't fit properly apparently, and it slipped up just enough so that she hit her head and not the helmet. I was at the bottom for all of this, but apparently the first aid kit the guides (we had 2 at this point, one to be at the top of the rappell, the other at the bottom) had consisted of iodine. That was pretty much it. Liz is fine now, there wasn't any infection or anything, but the fact that that was the entire first aid kit wasn't terribly reassuring.

Liz ended up climbing down that fall with the guide, and we all kept going. She actually couldn't turn back, even if she had wanted to, because we only had 2 guides with us, and we needed them both. As bad as all of this sounds, it was a very rewarding experience to know we had done this, with almost no prior experience, and not much more than basic instruction. The tallest fall was about 200 feet, straight down, and that one was second to last, so we were all tired. By the end of that fall, my hands were burning, probably from holding the rope too tightly at the end because I was afraid I was going to let go. We came down the final fall just as it was starting to get dark, ate lunch quickly (we hadn't eaten since 5 am, and it was now about 4;30 pm) and headed off to find the car, in the dark. There wasn't what I would call a trail, although our guide knew where he was going. We had 5 headlamps for 10 people, so that was interesting too. We walked for about 2 hours, I thihk, before we reached the car, and then we had a 3 or 4 hour drive back to Amman. We got back aroun 2 am.

It was an amazing trip, despite Liz's accident and several people's fear of heights. It was truly beautiful country too, although I admit I wasn't always paying attention. The canyon was mostly sandstone, the same as Petra, red and yellow sandstone. The waterfalls were really beautiful too, although again I didn't always appreciate it while I was doing down them. Unfortunatley none of us had cameras because we knew that we were going to be getting wet (I accidentally went swimming at one point- I went down the wrong side of the fall), and no one had waterproof cameras. I especially would have liked a picture of the 200 ft. fall. Maybe I'll try to draw it when I get home.