The trip to Jordan was doomed from the beginning. Not only did I have intense, heated arguments with Jazeera about booking my flight, Waleed had issues with reading his Royal Jordanian ticket (ironic foreshadowing). Somehow, I made it to the airport for my 11 a.m. flight on time and in one piece.
The first order of business was checking in, which surprisingly went off without a hitch. They told me at the counter that I could pay for the Amman-Kuwait portion of my trip at the airport in Amman. I happily went off, confident that I had been able to check in with time to run the usual pre-boarding errands (that is to say, buy sunglasses because I forgot mine and exchange money). As I walked by the Jazeera counter, however, I decided not to risk it. I was hopeful. It was a brand new day, after all. Maybe Jazeera had made some changes!
Me: Hi! I’ve just checked in for my flight from Kuwait to Amman. Thank god. But hey, I still have to pay that 5KD for my change in dates for my return flight. Can I do that here?
Incompetent Person #4: Yes. That’s 5KD.
Me: Hot damn. I just changed all my Kuwait Dinars into Jordanian. Can I pay with my credit card?
Incompetent Person #4: No.
Me: What?
Incompetent Person #4: No. We don’t support credit cards when you make a change over the phone.
Me: That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life.
Incompetent Person #4: Yeah, well, we’re Jazeera. That’s what we do.
Me: Fine. This is a long shot, but can I pay with Jordanian?
Incompetent Person #4: HAHAHAHA. No. But, hey, there’s a money exchange place over there, you can re-exchange your money into KD.
Me: Okay, I lied, THAT is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in my life.
Incompetent Person #4: Toodles.
Since I work close to the airport, I have gone to the airport a few different times for lunch. I knew where three different ATMs were. I went to each of those ATMs. Every single one of them was broken. I ended up changing 10 JDs into Kuwaiti Dinars in order to pay for my flight home (more ironic foreshadowing).
I realized, at this point, that if I made it to Amman in one piece, I’d consider myself lucky.
After making it through the security check (where, as I was waiting, I heard Ugly American Kid tell his Somewhat Less Ugly American Father that the millions of security checks were totally lame and unnecessary, to which I really wanted to turn around to him and say “Have you heard of September 11?”), I entered the waiting area at Gate #2, sat down and pulled out my iPod. I had barely made it through the introduction of whatever I had been listening to when I was tapped on the shoulder by Elderly Hijab Woman.
“Excuse me,” she said, not unkindly.
I was befuddled, as most people are when they are interrupted by a random stranger at the airport. “Yes?”
Elderly, Hijab Woman: Please don’t take offense.
Me: (internally) Oh god.
Elderly, Hijab Woman: It’s just that, a little bit of your back was showing when you sat down.
Me: Oh okay. Thanks. (internally) Oh god.
Elderly, Hijab Woman: Please don’t be mad. You are like my daughter.
Me: (forcing a smile) Not at all! Thanks!
As the lady wandered away, I heard a clanging noise. Behind me, a 2-year-old had started climbing on top of chairs, using it as her own personal jungle gym. I glanced around the waiting room and counted over 10 children, all under the age of 3. It was official: My plane was being doubled as a day care center.
I checked the time. It was 10:34 a.m. I figured, at this point, if the Jazeera flight crash-landed in the desert, I would somehow find a way to hitch hike to Amman, to get away from both the children and the insane woman.
The worst part of it was, Jazeera is a dry airline.
When I finally landed in Amman, I sent Fahed a text message letting him know that I had landed. “And,” I added “You better have a bottle of wine with you.”
I got a text back immediately. “Welcome to Jordan. It be madness, it be alcohol, it be sexy times!”
That was yet to be seen.
After picking up the second group of Kuwait-refugees, we all decided to make a night of it. After all, we hadn’t properly partied (illegal parties on the roofs of apartments just don’t count) in months. We started off with dinner and quite a few drinks at Mandaloon, a restaurant/club in Amman. It was a high class joint, where, apparently, all the prostitutes gather with their pimps, according to all the boys there.
“They WERE?” said Erica. “Are you sure?”
Waleed did his patented looking-at-you-over-his-glasses look. “Of course. It’s obvious.”
Having had enough of the pimps & ho’s, we went to Dove, a basement dive bar at the bottom of the Best Western hotel. Like most dive bars, their decorations were alcohol-theme posters and signage. As we entered, Samer immediately began scanning the walls.
“I want one,” he said, squinting through the darkness. “It has to be in good condition though.” He selected a Johnny Walker Red Label carpet-style wall hanging and set it on the bar table. “This is it,” he said, proudly.
He recruited Fares and I to help him get the sign out of there.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to tuck the sign into the back of my pants, put on Fares’ jacket, and you’re going to hug me so they don’t see.”
Which is exactly what we did.
"This is so going to go on my wall at home," Samer said.
Days 2: Wadi Rum
Our original departure times was set for 2 p.m.
“We have to see the sunset,” claimed Waleed when telling us about the Wadi Rum adventure. “It is gorgeous. Everyone goes to Wadi Rum to see the sunset.”
Then our departure time got pushed to 3 p.m.
“It’s okay!” said Waleed, clearly overcompensating for his original declaration. “We can see the sunset on the way to the camp!”
We all met at the Four Seasons at 3 p.m. Except we were missing three people. So we had to wait. For an hour.
Waleed, Samer and Fahed took this opportunity to bond with our bus driver, Hisham, as the rest of us sat on the bus, complaining about waiting around.
Ziad peered out the window at Hisham and the boys talking. “You know who he looks like?” he asked the rest of us rhetorically. “Have you ever seen Thundercats? You know that walrus character?? He looks just like him!”
He handed my camera back to me. “Take a picture of the two of us,” he said, racing off the bus. “I want to post it on Facebook, and tag him as the walrus.”
By the time we actually got moving, it was 4 p.m. Hisham reached over and pulled out the microphone. “Hello. Welcome to the bus,” he said. “Would you prefer me to speak in English or Arabic?”
Everyone looked at Erica and I, the only two who didn’t speak Arabic.
“Welcome to the bus,” repeated Hisham. “As we drive to Wadi Rum, I will tell you about different sites to see. Also, I only have a tape deck on this bus. Thank you.”
Putting away the microphone, Hisham popped in what was soon to be the soundtrack for Wadi Rum. He had one tape. It was Egyptian songs. He played it for the entire six hour trip to Wadi Rum and the entire five hour trip back from Wadi Rum. Occasionally, Hisham would turn down the radio and tell us about some sight along the route.
About two hours into the drive, Hisham tapped the microphone. “Irani girl,” he asked, looking at me through the rearview mirror. “Are you Shia’a?”
The entire bus went silent. The Kuwait crew, in particular, was trying to muffle their laughter.
I looked at Waleed, who was sitting in front of me. He motioned for me to nod.
“Yes, I am!” I replied, enthusiastically.
He smiled at me. “To your left,” he said. From the backseat, Fares quietly chimed in by paying homage to Beyonce. “To the left, to the left…”
Hisham didn’t hear him. “To your left,” he continued, “You will see one of the most holy sites for the Shia’a people.”
Dead silence on the bus.
“Wow!” I responded, trying to be enthusiastic.
“This site,” he said, “is the home of Jaafar.”
“That’s so amazing!!!” I gushed.
Hisham continued on with the tale of the site. I honestly don’t remember the details. After he finished his story, there was an awkward silence until he started playing the tape of Egyptian music again.
“That was fun,” I told Waleed.
A little while later, we pulled up alongside another tour bus. “The driver of this bus,” said Hisham, “is my nephew.” All of us turned to wave at the people inside the bus, who in turn stared at us, befuddled. We pulled over to the side, where the people from Nephew Bus exchanged coffee for food from our bus.
“Old fashioned bartering!” said Waleed. “I love it! It’s like the olden days!”
We hit the road again, making a pit stop at a tourist trap rest stop, where everything was overpriced and spelled wrong. “Hand me your camera,” declared Ziad. “I have to take a picture of the Emergency sign.”
After some overpriced shopping, we made our way back onto the bus.
“You know,” said Ziad, looking towards the rest of us sitting in the front of the bus. “My friend Aziz doesn’t believe that rape should be called rape.”
He paused, letting the sentence hang in the air. “He says it should be called ‘surprise sex.’ You know. It’s just like (makes jazz hands) SURPRISE!”
The theme for Wadi Rum was born. Not so much a fan of rape jokes myself, the concept of “surprise sex” was just so unbelievably bizarre that it quickly caught on with the other 14 of us on the bus.
Around 8 p.m., we pulled over on the side of the road to wait for Abdullah, Fares & Fahed’s cousin, to meet up with us.
We waited about an hour.
“You know, I have spent more time in waiting than I’ve actually spent in Amman,” said Ziad. “The theme of this trip is going to be waiting.”
By the time we made it to Bait Ali (literal translation: House of Ali), it was about 9:30 p.m. and the last call for dinner.
Calling it “dinner” would be generous though. The kebab was chewy. The rice was sort of edible. The chicken looked burnt. The salad was limp. “This is disgusting,” said Samer, looking at his plate. “I know,” said Sally. “I can’t really eat this.”
After settling in, Sally, Rula, Erica and I declared ourselves the “No Surprise Sex Tent”. “Come on,” said Fares. “Nothing?”
“No.” responded Sally. “Pre-mediated sex, maybe. Surprise? No.”
Eventually, we settled down with drinks, sheesha and conversed while waiting for the Jeep 4x4s to come pick us up and take us to the desert. When they finally did show up, however, there was only one of them. And fifteen of us.
“We’ll take the bus!” declared Hisham, who had had a few drinks himself. “Everybody on!”
Hisham followed the 4x4 into the middle of the desert, playing his Egyptian music enthusiastically while the rest of us cringed in fear. He overtook the 4x4 at one point, driving off into the desert.
“I’m sure he knows where he’s going,” said Fahed. “I mean, he’s driven this desert for years.”
None of use were convinced. We eventually stopped, and piled off the bus, as headlights approached us. It was like encountering the Others on “Lost”.
“Oh, god,” muttered somebody. “Are we going to get surprised?”
Turns out, this wasn’t the stop. We drove a little bit further, and reached a sand dune. Hisham got out of the bus, while the rest of us sat nervously inside, as the Egyptian music kept blasting.
Then, the bus died.
The lights went off, the engine shut down, and Hisham definitely was not in the drivers seat to have control over that.
“I guess this is where we’re settling,” someone said. We piled off the bus, and moved cushions and backpacks up the sand dune. Five of the boys went to collect firewood in order to build a bonfire.
The No Surprise Sex Tent girls huddled together on cushions close to the fire. “It’s so cold,” complained Erica. Surprisingly, I was not cold – considering I grew up in Kuwait and later moved to California, this was a miracle. Eventually, the girls called Fahed over.
“I get to be a lezabian?” he asked, clearly elated.
“Come keep us warm!” cried Sally.
As it got later and later into the night, the fire kept dwindling, until it was finally just out. That was our signal to return to the tent, at around 4 in the morning.
Hisham rose from where he had been sleeping on the sand dune next to the bus and drove us back. Upon arrival at Bait Ali, we found that the front gate had been locked.
“We are going to end up sleeping in the bus,” I told Waleed, laughing. At some point, you just had to laugh at the absurdity of it.
We tried rattling the doors to no avail. Waleed’s cousin had met up with three of her friends from Israel at the camp, and they were with us. “Look,” said one of them. “We’ll just hop the fence.” And, hop the fence he did. With a boost, he climbed over and opened the door for us.
“So,” pondered Waleed. “The Israeli just jumped the fence and broke in. I really hope the irony of this is not lost on anyone.”
As we made our way to the tents, dawn was just starting to break. Waleed had been the biggest supporter of watching the sunrise and sunset in Wadi Rum, and he began his campaign again.
“Look,” he told all of us. “The sunrise is supposed to be beautiful. Amazingly beautiful. We have to watch it.”
We had already missed the sunset. We figured we could stay up the extra half hour and see sunrise.
Part two to follow.
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