Finding the Familiar: A Foreigner's Hike Through Jordan

by Thomas Hudson (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown Jordan

Waiting in the customs and immigration line at Queen Alia International Airport, I became intensely aware that this was the most foreign place I had ever been. Through all the research and trip planning, the wonders of e-mail and the internet had made it all too easy to set aside the fact that we were going to a country with an alphabet I couldn’t read, an unknown language, and a culture I knew little about. As I nervously checked my papers for the 20th time and watched other groups of foreign travelers get bundled off together by tour operators, I worried that we had made a mistake arranging everything ourselves in such an unknown country. Three days later, feeling at ease lying in the sun on a ridge in the Dana Biosphere Reserve, with warm rocks against my back and our Bedouin guide describing the little changes that told him the wet season was coming to an end, I thought of similar conversations and observations I had made in the deserts of the American West. For the first time, Jordan started to feel familiar. I reflected on how traveling in the desert heightens your senses, makes you pay attention to things you would otherwise miss, and take notice of the world around you in a different way. This desert had that same effect. The details the Bedouins observe might be different, but the character of attention they require is the same. This sense of the familiar creeping out of the unknown was counterbalanced by reminders that this was not the desert I was used to. As we rested on the ridge, the arrival of our guide’s herd of goats pulled me out of my reflections and back to the unknown world of Jordan. This wasn’t just a beautiful place to getaway; it was a home to our guide and his family. The deserts of Jordan are still inhabited in a way that deserts of the American West haven’t been for hundreds of years. These deserts are not tamed through the diversion of rivers and the creation of fake oasis; but adapted to, lived within, and understood by generations of people. I was clearly an outsider amongst locals. As the reds and pinks of sunset painted the cliffs of Wadi Dana, and we felt the chill that comes like a great sigh of relief at dusk in deserts around the world, the sound of the local mosque’s call to prayer formed another counterpoint to my feeling of familiarity. It certainly wasn’t something I would expect to hear in Utah or Arizona, but it felt natural here. The sound wasn’t an unwelcome intrusion or reminder of my foreignness, but simply part of the rich texture of this place that was both so similar and yet so unknown. The same was true of the Bedouin tent café that we encountered hiking in the backdoor to Petra. Far from seeming out place, it was a welcome addition. Set up high on an exposed clifftop several miles down the trail from the nearest road, it was a perfect pit stop to enjoy some Bedouin tea (equal parts black tea with sage and sugar as best as I can tell) and enjoy the view. So it was that through an opening formed by a shared appreciation of the desert, I stopped feeling like an outsider in the unknown and started feeling comfortable in Jordan. It wasn’t until we reached the resorts lining the Dead Sea that I realized just how profound this change had been. As we ordered familiar drinks off an English menu and watched burgers and pizzas be delivered around the pool, I found the whole scene strangely out of tune and uncomfortable. The guests here didn’t appreciate where they were. They were hiding from the realities of the desert around them, just here for the sun and the Dead Sea. Returning to the airport for our flight out, I wasn’t worried as we cleared through security. The unknown signs and language no longer seemed threatening as I haggled over the price of postcards. My hesitation from that first day had been replaced by curiosity about a place unquestionably foreign but somehow familiar.