4000 Years in 4 Days

What a sweet time we had with Kari and Andrew in Jordan! Our first night was fully familiar...We played Ultimate Frisbee with some of Kari and Andrew's friends, indulged in Papa John's pizza for dinner, and closed the night with The Three Amigos. The next morning, we caught a bus to southern Jordan, past the ancient city of Petra (to be sure, everythnig in Jordan is ancient!) and camped at a bedouin camp in Wadi Rum. (A bedouin is traditionally a nomadic or semi-nomadic people group that lives in the desert.) Camping in the middle of the desert was definitely a highlight! Abu Hashim, the bedouin who seemed to be a main organizer, invited us into the "sitting tent," where we watched the fire dance, drank endless cups of hot, sweet tea, and ate a meal the bedouins had prepared. For hours, we talked and listened. They passed around a small drum. Mike played. Andrew played. Abu Hashim played the oud and sang traditional songs in Arabic. Around 10pm, we walked outside to find the clouds uncovering an almost full moon. The desert lit up with a mysterious blue haze. I could see my shadow like it was noon. The desert was silent in a way I may only hear ten times in my life. The breeze was slow enough enough that it moved not even the sand, but I could still hear it whispering in my ears. We decided to play frisbee.

For this month of intense traveling, Mike and I carried-on a backpack each. For me, that meant...One pair of pants. Three t-shirts. No make-up. No laptop. However, we did manage to pack a rainbow light-up frisbee!...the necessities. The four of us played frisbee with our two new bedouin friends past midnight.

Glow-in-the-dark frisbee. In the desert. With bedouins. By moonlight. At midnight....where do you go in life from there?!

We started early the next morning. Abu Hashim gave us a full tour of the desert--where Lawrence of Arabia had lived, a couple naturally-formed bridges, a cavern, some ancient engravings in the stone, mountain-like sand dunes. The desert was our playground that morning. We climbed and hiked and played till early afternoon, and then it was time to head back to Amman.

We spent our remaining day and a half exploring Amman. We ate the best hummus and falafel of our lives. We met the guy who sells Kari and Andrew their veggies. We toured the Citadel ruins with its thousands of years of history. Andrew and Kari's love of the rich history and culture was contagious, to say the least! Conversation was really good and non-stop.

Unfortunately, the morning Mike and were leaving for Africa, I woke up around 5am with a wretched case of food poisoning. Talk about an anti-climactic farewell to an epic four days in Jordan. To be sure, it took nothing away from our time here, but it did make the transit to Africa a little rough-going.

We arrived in Uganda at 3am this morning. We'll meet up with Kristi and Ruco tonight, and Gus joins us tomorrow. We have an eventful week-end ahead of us. Weather permitting--rafting down the Nile on Friday and a safari week-end. Hope I see a monkey!

Internet is pretty scarce and slow here, so it may be a while before I can post again. Also, I'm having trouble uploading pictures, so I'll add the ones from Jordan in a later post. We'll be in Uganda for about a week...Be in touch as soon as I can! Thanks for reading! :)