Mr. Hakel Watches The Sun Set

Blog 6 Day 10 July 10, 2010
I’m writing unusually early during the day today. We visited the castle we slept next to in the morning (Karak). The castle has had a really interesting history. It appears the Nabateans were the first to have built a fortress at the location. Through hundreds of years it hosted a number of other landlords. Then it became a crusader castle. Saladin, who ultimately sent the crusaders into retreat, laid siege to the castle on two different occasions, but failed both times. If you recall the movie “Kingdom of Heaven” those events were supposed to have taken place in this castle. The movie was filmed in a desert in Morocco though, not in the mountains of Jordan where they actually took place. The castle has been restored in some areas. It was pretty cool to walk around in these passages that felt more like you were walking through tunnels underground. There is an interpretive museum on site that was interesting as well.
This morning we were up to two people who were too ill to participate, but they are both on the path to recovery. I’m taking the afternoon off because of mild illness that I can’t shake. The afternoon activity is a three-hour hike around the wadi we are currently perched above. We are in the equivalent of a National Park in this country. It is the Dana Wildlife Refuge. We are staying in a guest house that is pretty amazing. Josh and I have a small room, with the customary two smallish twin beds in it. Everything is gratifyingly tidy. The best feature is a large balcony that overlooks the wadi. I can’t wait for the sunset. It will be beautiful.
Lunch today was in an interesting spot. The village of Dana where we are staying tonight is an ancient location. It had been entirely abandoned until the park was created and the guest house we are staying in was built. Now, about 15 families have moved back into Dana with the assistance of the Dana cooperative, which we were told consists of around 100 families who used to live here that have contributed money to help continue basic services. Lunch was in the Dana Hotel which the cooperative owns. We were served lunch in a glass-walled tent on the roof top of the main hotel building. The staircase was made, rather ingeniously I thought, of bent rebar. The food was again delicious, particularly a potato dish that reminds me of camp breakfast back home. The temp. was hotter than hell, but it was good.
Smoking is quite common in this culture, I have seen women smoking, but this is less common in public, but perhaps not in private. Our bus stopped before we got here so the driver could pick up cigarettes for instance. What seems to be even more popular than cigarettes is the water pipe, or hookah. They are smoking an interesting slightly apple smelling mixture that is slangily known as “Hubbly Bubbly”. I have not tried it, but several of our group have. If I can ever get my stomach to stop hating me, I may give it a shot too.
After last night’s hotel in the wedding zone this is so peaceful and restful. It is a couple hours later and I’ve had a nap. I’m sitting with my feet up on the lower rail of our balcony enclosure. Between my feet I can see a drop of at least a thousand feet down the boulder strewn slope dotted with dusty green shrubs and occasional tufts of grasses dried in the blazing sun. Unexpectedly the sun is still shining, but it does not blaze. The haze is so thick that it has sapped the sun of most of its power. A cool breeze tousles my hair occasionally and makes the white curtains behind me flutter into our room. As Emily said a minute ago. “It is phenomenal!” I’ve run out of adjectives to describe the country I’m seeing. After I exhaust the adjectives of others, I’ll get back to my Arabic study.