Mr. Hakel Walks On Water....well in water.

Blog 5
Today we made two stops. The first was the palace of Herodatus the Great and is believed to be the location at which John the Baptist was first held and then beheaded. The villa sits high atop an isolated hill/mountain and the walk up was pretty strenuous. At the top were a few reconstructed pillars, but everything else appeared to be natural. (As I am typing tonight I can look out the window to my left and see the ancient crusader castle at Al Karak. Since this is the weekend and the wedding season we can hear sporadic gunfire coming from the valley below…ahhh;) The view from this location was incredible. I really did not realize before I came just how mountainous Jordan is. We are overlooking the hot spring we visited yesterday. The temperature was reasonably moderate, but the sun was howling. On the way down we met three people who work at the U.S. Embassy.
Then we had probably our longest single drive of our trip so far. We had planned to have a picnic lunch on a hike we took this afternoon, but the timing was off so we ate it instead in a Bedouin tent high above a reservoir just above a wadi that has been given the English name “Grand Canyon of Jordan”. The name does in fact apply. It was majestic.
Then back in the minibus for awhile longer, worked on lines for a play I’m in for awhile. Up until now I’ve had my eyes pretty much glued to the scenery, but I did keep glancing up. I quit working on lines when I glanced out the opposite side of the bus and saw an awe inspiring drop off just outside the window. In a moment I was envisioning the headline of tomorrow’s newspapers around the globe…well, around somewhere. TOURING TEACHERS TOPPLE or something like that. Obviously we did make it down this goat path of a road safely. (If any goats were offended by my applying the term “goat” to that road, I apologize. Quit reading my blog.) At the bottom, which was an incredibly long way down, there was a parking lot scarcely bigger than our bus, that nevertheless has several vehicles in it. After all were ready, which generally takes (Hey, that’s a wrinkle…machine gun fire! And no, I’m not making this up. Josh and I decided the heavy metal shutters on our windows are meant to be bullet proof….) Back to the hike. As we began we descended to a stream bed, with actual running water in it. It is spring fed, by the way, but interestingly it is fed by both cold and hot springs, so the water would not be an unpleasant bath. In fact I did see a bottle of shampoo on a rock. We waded in, for the most part, ankle deep water for about a kilometer. It was perhaps the most amazing hike I’ve ever made and I have been on some amazing hikes. As we walked the canyon walls grew both higher and narrower until the 8 foot wide stream was touching both walls. The slope was quite gradual until we came to the site of a small cave-in. At that point we had to scramble down a rope ladder that was there for the purpose. The walls of the canyon finally closed to the point that we could not see sunlight above us. The presence of water meant the presence of plant life. This canyon is known in English as “The Hanging Gardens of Jordan”. The name does in fact apply. It was beautiful. Ferns, palm trees, flowering trees all growing out of the sides of the canyon next to and above us lined the stream. Occasionally another spring joined from above. Remember, minutes ago in the bus we were in parched, arid land where it was impossible to believe it had ever rained.
When we reached the end of the canyon, it widened out some and Absalaam, our head guide, built a small fire and prepared us some Bedouin tea. He insists that hot drinks are best on hot days, but I just can’t quite get my way around that. Several of us spent some time diverting the main channel of the stream in a slightly different direction by building a dam. Readers who knew me when I was a child will not be surprised. We returned by the same route of course and it was just as impressive. We were frequently surrounded by these large bee-like lethal looking insects that really liked to buzz around us, but left us alone. No one was stung, gut they took a little getting used too. Our guides thought it was pretty funny…. I suppose it was.
Last thing…dinner tonight was outdoors watching the sun set over a valley full of the city of Al Karak adjacent to castle walls with a gentle breeze blowing over us. Over and over and over this first week of touring in Jordan, I’ve wondered if everything I was seeing and experiencing was real.

Salaam,

Lane/Dad/Mr. Hakel