Halfway into my trip to Jordan, I was abandoned by the group I had been traveling with for the past four days. As the bus roared to life, I peeked out of my tent window and watched as it zoomed past me leaving a cloud of rust-colored dust behind as it started to diminish in the distance. Then reality hit me. I was in the middle of the desert in Jordan without any cell service, WiFi or any mode of transportation unless I could learn how to wrangle a camel in the event that the private driver the tour company was sending doesn’t show up.
In February, I took my first flight to the Middle East and I took my first step in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Quick history lesson on the formal name, Jordan is currently ruled by the Hashemite dynasty, which claims descendent from the Islamic prophet, Mohammed, and is named after Mohammed’s great-grandfather, Hashim.
How did I decide on Jordan? Long story short, my friend was on her own trip to Jordan when inspiration hit me hard because Petra has been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember. So, she gave me the name of the travel company she had booked through and a week later I was making my way towards the region.
Was I concerned about safety? The media casts the Middle East as an unfavorable destination for the solo female traveler due to the strict cultural codes of the Islamic faith. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to expect, and I didn’t have time to do much research but all I know was that the only way my parents wouldn’t freak out when I told them that I was traveling by myself to the Middle East, especially given the current news headlines of shot-down planes, was to assure them that I was traveling with a guided group.
What I had to look forward to? Eight days of traveling across Jordan with surreal moments where we got a good glimpse of the reality of our geography when we were pointed out the invisible borders that separated us from Saudi Arabia to the south, Syria to the north, Iraq to the East and Israel and the West Bank to the west all to affirm that the you should never just trust what you see or hear on the news to determine where you should or shouldn’t travel to next.
Why is Jordan now one of my favorite destinations in the whole world? Because it was so unexpected and kept surprising me with the richness of the deep historical culture, awe-inspiring landscapes and the endearing hospitality of the Jordanian people. I was there for eight days and traveled across the country and I had barely scratched the surface. There is still so much left to discover.
Ultimately, my driver, Hassam, did show up, about 25-minutes late, and we spent the next 6 hours together, driving through the desert sandstorms of Wadi Rum to the rainstorm-clouded resorts of the Dead Sea, sprinkled with a lunch stop for my hungry driver, who missed breakfast driving the 4 hours from Amman to pick me up, as well as a few police checkpoints here and there slowing us down to ask for an ID check and inquire on who I was and why Hassam was driving me.
Within 2 hours into our drive, Hassam had proposed marriage because I had figured out he was cussing in Arabic every time the police would wave him down to pull over or if a driver didn’t use their blinker to change lanes. I repeated the Arabic phrase back to him not knowing that I was saying the equivalent of son of a bitch and he laughed gleefully and asked for my hand and said that he could make a detour to the courthouse if I had wished. I politely declined which he respected and we spent the rest of the ride laughing and joking as if we were old friends taking a road trip together.
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