Second Half of the Last Post in Jordan

The weekend after Wadi Rum, I went with 2 of my friends, my roommate Lauren and another girl, Kim, to the Dana Nature Preserve. Dana is kind of an experiment in Jordan, where they are trying to set aside land and still support the local people on it, mostly through tourism. It's basically a canyon, not like Wadi Rum but an actual canyon with a (very small) river at the bottom and cliff sides. There are quite a few trails, most of them requiring a guide. Getting to Dana is a little bit tricky, mostly because there's no bus that goes directly there. Lauren, Kim and I got on a bus in Amman that was supposed to leave at 9 (not surprisingly, we left around 10:30 and the bus driver was disappointed we knew how much money to pay) which took us to a large town that was sort of close, then we had to negotiate for a taxi there. Fortunately, there was a Jordanian woman who I had befriended slightly on the bus (she was the one who told us how much we should pay for the bus) offered to help us get a good price on a taxi. We probably could have managed on our own, but it was definitely helpful to have someone who really speaks the language do the negotiating. The town of Dana itself is very small, so there are a limited number of options in terms of accommodations. We ended up staying at the Dana Tower Hostel, recommended to us by other CIEE students who had gone earlier. It was called a tower, but while it may have been the tallest building in the town, it definitely didn't look like a tower. It was too sprawling for that. A common feature of the architecture for hostels in this part of the world seems to be circuitous stairs and multiple levels but not necessarily directly on top of each other.

All three of us were not feeling especially energetic, and it was the hottest part of the day when we got there, so we decided to take a very short hike to the spring just outside the village and relaxing before deciding what to do. We only had one day, since all three of us had exams on Sunday, and in my case a research paper on Monday, and so we had to come back in the morning on Saturday. The spring was not particularly impressive. There did seem to be a small waterfall above where the stream started, but there was too much underbrush to see clearly. We eventually gave up trying to find it and returned to the hostel to have lunch and wait for the day to cool off slightly. We were all feeling very lazy, at least partially due to the heat, but also, at least in my case, because there was no stressing about homework or preparing for exams, because the material was in Amman. I couldn't study, even if I wanted to, so relaxing was the only option. This semester has been the easiest academically that I have ever had in college, but stretching the finals out for 3 weeks was still somewhat stressful because even though the volume of work was never really high, there was always something. I prefer more of a sprint to the finish style of finals.

Anyway, when we finally did decide to move, we chose to go down the only non-guided trail, straight down into the canyon, so we could go at our own pace. As it turned out, we only got about half-way down when I spotted some sandstone rock outcroppings with shade that looked interesting and we decided to stop. We didn't leave until sunset. I did a little climbing around on the rocks, but mostly we all just sat, occasionally talking, mostly just relaxing. It was a wonderful afternoon, although I can't claim to have seen much of Dana Nature Preserve. I did see a lot of birds though, and different varieties too. It was the most diversity of wildlife I've seen in Jordan. When the sun was close to setting, we started up, which was actually quite challenging. Those switchbacks were extremely steep. We did manage to beat the sun though, and were able to watch it set from the top. It was a great day, except that oddly enough none of us could sleep that night. Our bus was leaving at 5:30, but the other two were too hot to sleep, and I just wasn't tired at all. So we mostly ended up sitting outside, watching the stars. We watched the sun rise and set in the same 24 hour period. It wasn't the most exciting trip, but it was definitely one of the most stress-free. Again, I'll post pictures when my internet is working better.