The Run up to Spring Break March 10-26

How does an environmentalist, non-spender, studious kid spend his spring break in far away Jordan? I missed the flotilla of groups going to Egypt or Turkey, the bunches of friends packing off to Syria and the Levant. I didn't get my act together until a few weeks before the best chance for travel I would encounter, the 10 day Easter break that splits my semester. The trouble is not merely my lack of attention to the preparations of my peers, but also my differing tastes in adventure.

I like absorbing a place, or at least that's how I describe it to myself. I've loved my time in Amman, even as it sometimes leaves me drained and overwhelmed. My trip to Ajlun was spiritual healing as much as a day's jaunt to the countryside. I love the outdoors, the spaces and views without the crowded doings of man intruding on my mind. Yet when I hike, bike, walk, or climb alone, I always do so to the accompaniment of an audiobook or podcast. I don't lose absorb myself so much in nature as I surround myself with nature while enjoying a relatively distraction-free time with a good book or clever lecture.

I finally awoke to the approaching break and my utter lack of thought given to any independent travel on the weekends and my inexperience with the workings of greater Jordan. While my peers had been to Syria, Jerash, Aqaba, and beyond in rushed weekend jaunts, I had been in Amman preparing applications, studying Arabic, and making excursions only to a few city sights. My sole times outside the city had been within the folds of CIEE's management.

I spent days pouring over my Lonely Planet and Rough Guide to the Kingdom. I had briefly considered a larger adventure, but frugality, and desire for a more sustained experience in either Istanbul, Damascus, or Cairo left me focused on the sights of Jordan. Wadi Rum was an obvious candidate, Dana Nature Reserve emerged as a central element, Wadi Mujib's canyons flitted in and out but were ultimately discarded because of price                                     and impracticality. A sudden message from Cycling Jordan added a Friday sortie to the eastern Wetlands of Azraq to the start of my vacation.

The cliffs of Rum at sunset

Plans came together, without a team of friends or peers to assist or accompany me. I would traveling alone, an oddity anywhere but especially in the tightly bound society of Jordan and the carefully scripted tour experience of the nation's tourism. I would take public transit, sleep in the cheapest rooms I could find, and spend my days in the wild's of Jordan on hikes and scrambles through two of its most renowned natural places.

12 km hike from Dana Village

I eschewed the typical guided 4x4 or camel trek to a lonely but luxurious, and ruinous, Bedoin desert camp. I don't want the emissions, the aches, or the expense. I called the Rum Rest House and was assured that tents would be available without a reservation. I couldn't get into my preferred Dana Hotel but was able to book two nights in a room and one in a tent with the Dana Tower Hotel. The two are played against each other in guide books with obvious preference stated for the collectively owned Dana Hotel against the "ugly" and privately owned Tower. I bought my one way ticket to Aqaba and managed to accomplish all my preparations as I scrambled to complete internship applications with my congressmen and a few D.C. think tanks.

The view from Karak

I went to bed on Thursday night excited for my first bike ride in Jordan and a trip to the otherwise remote and unlikely Azraq reserve. The place is a small tragedy within the larger story of water shortage in the Kingdom. 10% its former size and a shade of its former glory for migrating birds, Azraq is now kept on artificial life support with few hopes for improvement. My spring break had begun!