Jordan Challenge 39: Remembering the Red Sea Dive

For months I've been meaning to write this post.  It's the very last challenge I did before leaving Jordan, and it makes no sense that I didn't write about it the week I got home, or the next week.  But I didn't. I think on some level I knew that writing it was acknowledging that my year in Jordan had ended and my life in Vermont had picked back up again.

Something's changed, though, and now I felt like writing the post, and I think it's because my excellent Fulbrighter friend Grace recently came to spend the weekend in Vermont.  Grace was a part of many of the adventures I posted about last year including our Christmas-y Madaba excursion; my first trip to Beirut; our Wadi Mujeb wet hike; camping at Dana Nature Reserve; and perhaps most memorable of all, our trip to Cairo. Throughout the year last year I annoyed my fellow Fulbrighters to the point of distraction by insisting that not only was Vermont the best state of the Union, but that Camel's Hump was quite possibly the best place in that best state. So when Grace yielded to my arm-twisting and agreed to come see Vermont for the very first time, it was only obvious what hike we needed to do. An additional bonus came when my friend and former student Alexsis decided to come for a visit as well, with her roommate and friend Meghan in tow.  (Alexsis has participated in plenty of other projects on this blog as well, including among many others, a trip to Jordan, the West Bank and Dubai; snowshoeing at night; and helping me become a better skier in winter 2011).

Grace, Meghan and Alexsis all agreed with me that this bench near the beginning of the trail was pretty cool.

Alexsis, Meghan and I on the top of Camel's Hump complaining only a little that it seemed pretty snowy for early November!

So, I think Grace has helped me accept the fact that it's past time for me to fully reorient my life back to living in Vermont.  I'm going to do this final post, and after this I'm going to move into my new blog project for 2013 (and the part of 2012 that's left), which for now I'm calling Focus on Five.

But before that happens, here's a short story and some pictures from my final adventure in Jordan, doing a "try dive" complete with a scuba tank in the Red Sea.  Grace and I had agreed that we'd squeeze this one last experience in before I left the country and her office colleague and friend, Lucy decided to join us for good measure.  Because we didn't have time for a full-fledged (or even a half-fledged) course, we opted for the baby version, a "try dive".  In this version, the dive master cuts straight to the chase and runs through the most basic of basics -- mainly what to expect in wearing a tank and how to communicate via hand signals under water. Thus oriented, we strapped on our weights and surprisingly heavy tanks and other gear and explored a coral reef with the luxury of breathing under water.  Because there is so little instruction beforehand, in a try-dive the dive instructor literally leads his or her charges by the hand (and never lets go).  Grace and I swam on both sides of one instructor, and Lucy swam with the other one.

Most important sign we learned: I'm not drowning (yet).

 

Pulling off my diving shoes at the end of our try-dive adventure.

 

Everything about the experience under water was amazing.  The red sea coral reef was alive with a huge array of colorful tropical fish, corals and sponges.  It really was like visiting another planet where the atmosphere was completely different, and the movement was so much more three dimensional than ordinary life.  At one point I thought about the fact that this reef might, like so many others, be killed by our human activities that are destroying the oceans, and it just felt so incredibly tragic.  How could we destroy such a beautiful alternative universe?

Lucy checking out the coral at close range while snorkeling

Grace and I attempting (badly) synchronized snorkel-swimming for the camera.

After the dive was over, we were allowed to keep our fins and masks, and given snorkeling equipment so that we were able to pass a good chunk of the day snorkeling around the same reef that we had done our dive in.  Grace had a waterproof camera, so we were able to take some pictures then as well, though they didn't really do justice to what we had experienced previously.

Spending my last weekend in Jordan in Aqaba, the only seaside town in an almost entirely landlocked country, was a great way to experience one last facet of the fascinating country that was my home for ten months.  Doing it with my friend and fellow intrepid explorer Grace made it that much more outstanding.  And now that Grace has been to Vermont and started to explore the wonders of my chosen permanent home, it feels like the pieces are starting to settle into place.  I've been reminded that the world is full of amazing places and friends we haven't met, but who when we do, have the potential to become lifelong fellow explorers of still more exciting new and returning destinations.  It's great to reminisce and exciting to look forward and imagine what might lie ahead.

A perfect reminder that life is always changing, and that there's nothing wrong with that.  Grace and I, posing with Lucy in front of the Red Sea in Aqaba, Jordan in June, 2012...

 

...and less than six months later, Grace and I standing with Alexsis at the trail head to Camel's Hump in Vermont.  Halfway around the world, still having adventures with great people in great places.

 

Jordan Challenge 34: Go Snorkeling in the Red Sea

Despite the brief nature of Leah and Siham's visit, we managed to get in what I like to think of as the Triple Crown of visiting Jordan: Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba.  Aqaba's claim to fame is that it sits on the very small bit of coast that Jordan has, which borders the Red Sea.  This makes Aqaba important commercially as the country's only port, and for tourism as it's only seaside city. But what is most spectacular about Aqaba is what lies beneath in the form of a vibrant coral reef just begging to be explored.

The beaches south of Aqaba are beautiful, and who wouldn't want the occasional camel adding to the scenery?  But the best part is what you can't see: the incredible coral reef just a few meters out from the shore.

Since we only had a day to spend, we headed pretty directly to an area known as South Beach and got fitted out pretty quickly with our snorkeling gear.  Siham wasn't feeling well, so did some sunbathing while Leah and I followed our aptly-nicknamed guide, Shark, through a reef called the Japanese Garden.  It was spectacular! There were corals in all kinds of shapes, sea anemones, starfish, pipefish, jellyfish, and brightly colored tropical fish. 

A dried-up version of the sea urchins we were swimming with.  Our guide, Shark, plucked off a spine and ate it, claiming it was full of minerals.Siham tried one and said it tasted like the ocean.

It really did feel as if I'd been shrunk and was swimming in the most exotic fish tank I'd ever seen. If time allows, I would love to go back and do a "try dive" with oxygen to be able to go deeper.  But for now I'm just grateful to have been able to see this unexpected side of the desert kingdom of Jordan.

Taking in the sun after we did our snorkeling.  I wish there would have been a way to capture the reef in pictures.  The fish were so beautifully colored, and there was a bright purple coral that I wish I could captured on film.

Shark insisted that try on the sea urchin as an accessory back at the dive shop where we rented out equipment.

Jordan Challenge 14. When in Jordan During Eid, Head to Aqaba

There's nothing like leaving your own culture to make you realize which cultural values are so deeply embedded that you don't even notice they are cultural values.  Being in the Middle East, like being in East Africa a few years ago, makes me acutely aware that I am an American who thinks about time the way an American does. For us, time is a commodity to be scheduled and once the schedule is in place (as far in advance as possible), to be adhered to as rigidly as possible.  Jordan's not like Tanzania, where a 6 pm dinner appointment might just as easily mean 7 or 8, but there is a certain fluidity to time here that is tough for a lot of Americans, including me, to acclimate to.  Some of it is fun, like the fact that waiters will NEVER kick you out of your table here, and you can sit for hours without ever being brought a check.  But other parts really challenge Americans to put their day planners away, because we can schedule till we're blue in the face, but things might change.  Religiously-based holidays, for instance, can only be estimated on the calendar and aren't actually fixed till a few days before the holiday based on where the moon is. This year, that turned out to be a bonus for everyone when Eid al-Adha -- a very big holiday in the Muslim calendar commemorating the end of the Haj and also God's relenting and allowing the prophet Abraham to sacrifice a sheep instead of his son -- happened to start on Sunday (which is the first day of the work week here). Then the powers that be announced we'd be having the whole week off for Eid. Bonus!

We had hoped to spend at least part of the Eid holiday visiting the West Bank and Israel, but that was not in the cards because I am still waiting for my Jordanian residence permit, making travel across the border quite tricky.  So, we decided to visit some places in Jordan, including first Petra and then Wadi Rum.  And Aqaba, it turns out, is only an hour's drive away from Wadi Rum and situated right on the Red Sea.  So of course, we decided to check it out as well. The only problem with our little plan is that it was shared by many Jordanians who were as excited about the week-long holiday as we were.  We found this out through experience, when, for instance,we showed up at the JETT bus station an hour early to get tickets to Aqaba, only to find the bus sold out.  No matter, we bought tickets for later in the day and luckily had thought to book a hotel room earlier.

Although Aqaba reminded us both of other seaside resorts we've been to, the beautiful mosques of Aqaba were part of what made it unique.

Chris and I both thought that Aqaba reminded us of Mexico, particularly the Baja coast, in terms of both weather and the general atmosphere.  Of course, Mexico has many fewer mosques and many more displays of skin among the beach goers, but still, after the rainy chill of Amman, the easygoing atmosphere was quite easy to take.  We sandwiched out trip to Wadi Rum in between two days and nights (at two different hotels) in Aqaba and managed to get both desert and beach sand all in one trip!

On our first night in town we took a stroll on the waterfront.  The lights behind Chris are of the much larger Israeli resort of Eilat across the water.

Here's where the Middle Eastern perspective on beach-going starts really diverging from ours.  The only people wearing swim suits on the public beach were little children and teenage guys.  As you can see with the woman sitting in the foreground, Jordanian woman pretty much stay fully clothed on beach days.

Chris enjoying a (non-alcoholic) drink at sun-down and taking in the terrific view.

We never made it down to the resorts south of town where the snorkelers and scuba divers explore what are supposed to be amazing coral reefs -- that will have to wait for another day.  But we can now say we've taken part in an important institution -- celebrating a part of the Eid vacation on the shores of the Red Sea the Jordanian way.