What I didn't expect in Jordan was..

When I thought of what bags to bring to Jordan, I thought "I don't need a backpack, I won't be going on any kind of journeys where I'll need one. I've got my sling bag for day trips, and my leather weekend bag for longer trips - that'll be more than enough." Wrong. You'll see why in a bit. Things I wished I had brought with me? A backpack. Whoever comes visit me first is in charge of contacting my parents to pick up my backpack and bring it to me! Preface done, on to the story.

While I characterized last week's adventure as a 'learning experience', and 'part of the journey', I can confidently characterize this week's day trip as phenomenal, and the best/most unexpected outdoor adventure I've had in a long time. My flatmate organized this hike she called it, with guides she climbs with, for a few of us interns, mostly AIESEC, and others. I guess it's more that she organized it for a group of friends, of which I am beginning to be a part of, which is nice. Granted, half of them are Canadian, so it's not much of an integration into society here, but it does offer a little piece of home abroad.

So anyways, we leave at 8am, to drive down 2 hours South to Wadi Hasa. 'Wadi's, it's been explained to me, is the area surrounding (and including) streams that flow down the middle of a canyon-type crevice in the earth. Because the region south of Amman is so hilly and mountainous, there are quite of few, and I think still many to be discovered. These guys, for example, guide in 15 different wadis. There are some in which you need equipment to propel down (is that the term? I'm not too familiar with climbing talk - yet!) the big rocks, but this one was pretty simple, we just needed life jackets. What?! Life jackets? This is when I started wondering what kind of hike this was. I had already been told that I would get wet, walking under waterfalls and such, but I really thought that was it. It wasn't.

We arrive at the top of the ravine, put on our life jackets, and bottles of water in our bags. This is where a backpack would have been much more comfortable to carry around 4 litres of water. Oh well, I still managed, and it was a good incentive to drink water.. I wonder if that's why they ask each of us to carry some water - you start drinking it pretty fast when you get sick of carrying it!


Everybody ready? Let's go. We walk down a bit, to the 'entrance' of the hike - a slide (in the rock - the water's shaped it that way) down into a pool of water. I'm talking almost a whirlpool - I plugged my nose, because I definitely went under (and upside down and around - there were a few different currents in there) before bobbing up again.

Thank you life jacket, reduced the effort quite a bit there. I waded around to follow where the others had gone, and floated looking up in awe. These rock formations were unreal, just breathtaking. Combined with the flowers, and the sunlight streaming in (at that point the rocks went up and over the stream, with just a thin area for the light to come in), I was blown away.



And so for the following 7 hours, we walked in and out of the water, floated around, jumped in (see picture below - that wasn't me, but I jumped too!!), hiked the sides of the ravine, back down to cross the stream again (it got much smaller near the end), through jungles of high grass..

All natural and untrodden land - there was no path to be followed (thank you guides for showing us the easier way), no garbage, no noises other than the water, birds maybe, and the rest of the group. Even the group we crossed halfway through of Bedouins with their goats were virtually silent.

I wish I had been able to take more pictures, but even if I had taken some at every turn, I wouldn't have been able to adequately convey how incredible it all was. I did manage to take a few though - they provided a sealed container to put our cameras in, and we stopped every once in a while to take some pictures.

The group wasn't going very fast (there was probably about 12 of us), so there was plenty of time to catch, even when everyone else kept walking. We finished with a dip in the hot tub before the long hike back up the side of the ravine, to get back on the bus, and go home, where we arrived around 8pm. Came home, had a shower, and went back out with Kristina to have a dinner of hummus, falafel, fresh-baked bread and tea - lovely finish to a lovely day.

Most unexpected adventure ever. Phenomenal.