Adventures...Edition 2 - Wadi Rum, Aqaba

So the next day of the trip....starting with waking up at 5:30 am, just to be able to catch the one and only bus to Wadi Rum.

What do you need to know about Wadi Rum? If you have ever heard about Lawrence of Arabia, or have watched the movie the name must be familiar, as Wadi Rum has been his "headquarters" during the Great Arab Revolt (1917). But this is not the most important about it. The pictures can not really give it back how beautiful the view is (it seems like a lot of sand, but what is so nice on sand? :P ). It is again you have to see to understand....Sand, rocks and magnificent mountains.
The hard thing is to believe that people lived and still do live in that area...the usual question is that from where the heck they get water :P

But let's list all the adventures:
Getting there - it was not that huge advanture besides a few things. The bus left from the hotel at 6:20, our hotel is only one stop. I ordered five tickets, the bus driver remembered 4, but never mind, we did manage very easily this part (one more person paying the ticket...so no points of debate). But getting to the bus was funny, as the gate of the hotel was locked, and noone was at the reception. So we search and found someone sleeping in a hidden corner "guarding" the hotel reception, but he did not have the key, only knew where the dude with the key is sleeping - so one round of running as the bus was already there for us. But this was also sorted, we left Wadi Musa (Petra) without any remarkable story.
Then in the middle of the way the bus stopped, everybody waking up on what is going on??? We have been stopped by the police, our driver almost ended up in jail for a week, coz instead of 80 km/h he was speeding with 120 and the bus was also overloaded. How did it end? With a ticket to the bus driver worth 60 JD (around 70 Euros). Dude coming back swearing, and starting to tell us about his 'heroic' fight with the police, that he was already locked, when he managed to negotiate (like the hero being on the corner of death, but escaping with an inch :P ).

But we did arrive to the visitors' center in Wadi Rum. We wanted to get to the village, but they told us that we can go only if we buy a tour for a hillarious price. We did buy a tour, but for half the price :P

So we bought a jeep tour for 3 hours. As we were 5 of us it was not epensive, so we thought, it is all ok.
It was ok....but....our jeep broke down in the middle of the desert. In the middle of nowhere getting stuck with the only working vehicle....fun :P though it was not that bad, as we were at a tent, with a few beduins, consulting over the dead car like in a medical consilium :P And one of them even had a super weak, but operational signal on the mobile, so they managed to call another jeep for us from a top of the one dune the phone was working (I don't want to know what we would do if we break down only a kilometer deeper in the desert :P ).
Our new driver was then indeed amazing! I felt like in a rally in the desert on the top of an open plato jeep!!!! We were racing, loud music (Papi Chulo like 15 times :P) from the driver cabin and racing on the dunes...super awesoooome :D. I guess the guy was not used to young people enjoying the situation, but we really had great fun. Of course we stopped for a bit of climbing or to check out the house of Lawrence (or rather what was left from it) and sometimes also for a beduin tea (yummeee). And our 3 our trip ended up to be a 5 hour one :P
Poor Eyad who came from Aqaba to pick us up needed to wait for us because of our sudden compensation for the dead car :P He was sweet coming and picking us up from Wadi Rum to take us to Aqaba.

So we did go to Aqaba. There is not that much to see in this town, the only port of Jordan to the Red Sea. It is a holiday zone (duty and ta free, so I got winter coat, muhaha), so it is really great as the end of the trip for relaxing. I rather mention some pleasure moments in points, just to give back the feeling:

• Having beer in the sunset of the sea, at the shore of a 5 star hotel where we sneaked in :P
• Having breakfast of hummus and fool for 2,5 JD, at 11 o'clock in T-shirt looking at the sea
• Having a fast swim and sun bathing on the public beach - on the 11th of December
• Feeling like in the zoo, coz we were the only foreigners on the public beach (most foreigners have their hotels with private beaches :P, we are rather adventurous people than rich :P)
• Walking around in the city, searching for the shade of palm trees in short and T-shirt (again, it is still december :P )

I still need to get the pictures from Aqaba are not yet uploaded, those are coming soon, also some additions to Petra pictures to be epected!

The end of the story....getting back to Amman, arriving by 11 pm, closing with another adventure.
What? Oh yeah, after 11 pm in Amman taxis are not using taxi meters. So we got into the cab started to go on the way. Then we realized the meter is not working....awesome, so we asked the dude to switch it on, answer is obviously no. Ok, then how much? 4 Dinars (the normal fair would be 1.8, but of course there is not hope to get that). But we learnt from our 2 days earlier experience and ended up paying 2,5 JD.....which is barely a bit more than the usual fair. We are foreigners, but learning fast :P

I guess you can see from all these stories that it is worth coming to Jordan, seeing a bit of it and enjoying your time (especially that you would have a guide who is already experienced in the Jordanian way of taxi 'management' :P ). These 3 days were amazing...and really needed in the same time. My brain is totally refreshed, I can approach my challenges with a fresh, again solution oriented, approach. My energies are back...though I almost wrote that the old Szaki is back, but that is not true, this country changed me, I like the changes I feel and I already know that I will feel really alien when I go back to Hungary.

It is also the time when I start thinking on the next steps, outside of AIESEC. I give myself till the end of January to see if I can fit into Jordan and line up my options and chances. Then it is time to decide which country will see me in the next 1-2 years as an employee :D But this is a story for later on ;)