Welcome. Welcome!

JORDAN
I- Aqaba to Petra


It’s some Muslim holy day here. No-one seems to be able to explain which one. I’m full of chicken kebab, bbq’ed and scrumptious. Long day in bus seats, but I made it here in a day , so I’m satisfied. Tel Aviv to Eilat was five hours of trying to build on the 3 hours of drunk sleep I had, between Israeli girls playing eyes, vacationers headed to surf city for some sin. Nothing but lip-gloss and chest-chuckling, these Israeli chicks, and loud as chickens. Thanks God again for my earplugs. Eilat’s stinkin hot at 2pm, so I forget looking for a bus to the border, and hop in a cab.
The border’s a breeze, over and out. Share another cab with some awkward Americans. The cab-driver tries to lie to me while we’re driving to Aqaba, Red Sea port city, tells me it’s a holiday, no buses to Petra, I should let him drive me there for 25 Dinars. –Give me your card, but drop me at the city centre. I’ll call you if I need you, I tell him. Full of shit for sure.
Big-backpack man, turning this way and that in the dusty quiet streets of central Aqaba. People are so friendly though. Welcome. Welcome! Welcome, says the butcher as he smiles and holds a guttering chicken down by the throat. Welcome! yells the pint-size little man from his daddy’s sweet shop. Everybody saying welcome, it’s hard not to feel.. welcome. Here in Jordan. A kind man walks up the street with me, shows me where the bus depot is. And there’s the Petra minibus, full and just about to leave. Good timing. Rickety little thing. Give the driver the dinars, only white guy, people glance, curious. I wedge into a seat and we’re trundling.
Outskirts of Aqaba look strangely like Leh- dust brown cliffs and crags rising into the screaming blue sky. 12000 feet lower and 40 degrees hotter though, so it is. Powerlines across the scrubby desert, random camels and Bedouin lean-tos with their pick-ups parked outside, (what lives those people must lead; wanderers). Seems to be a black plastic bag stuck to every desert shrub out there. Hard to believe they’re still handing these things out in the super-markets back home.
The three curious Jordanians behind me finally pipe up after half an hour. One wants to know how much is my camera, can he buy it. Another wants me to take a photo of the red sandstone bluffs in the distance, they are important in Jordan. It’s hard to understand their English. I’m surprised when a woman in a head-covering hijab and black robe to the ground translates what they are saying to me in English that’s a little clearer. As we climb and climb through the desert, the land finally falls away in the west, miles of deep gorges and sandstone islands in the air, like a Grand Canyon near the Red Sea. It’s breath-taking. The woman opens her curtain so I can see better and points out the canyon where Petra is hidden as we come closer.
A town begins to engulf our speedy little highway on either side. Wadi Musa. Again like Leh, built into the sweeping hillside above the sea of canyons that echo into the distance. This is where I sleep tonight.

Jamal in the pick-up says he’s got a room, I hop in. Jamal’s wrong, there’s no room- things are busy. He feels bad for taking me so far up the hill away from town, though, so he drives me around to three different hotels until I find a room. Private bathroom, two beds, a TV that doesn’t seem to work and a gob-smacking view of the sun sinking into the myriad of gorges in the distance beyond the town. I’ll take it.
Walk down around the town centre, lots of smiles and Welcomes. And nobody really trying to sell me anything. Feels like Pleasantville, Arab-style. Things aren’t even so different here. Kids in jeans hanging out on the corners, maybe smoking nargileh, men in the pool hall, families at outside table for kebabs. Allah-u-akbar riding the breeze and some men chatting in Arab head-dress. Not too many women out, and their heads are covered if they are.
The man in the grocery store smiles when I tell him I’m traveling alone so I can hear myself think. And here I am now, listening.