Wrapping up, I split with Noah in East Jerusalem and hopped a bus to Jordan.
I spent the night in Amman, but not without some adventure. I had been to Jordan before, so naturally I thought my visa situation was all good. Not the case. They took me off the bus at the border, and I was sitting in an air-conditioned office surrounded by pictures of the King of Jordan before I could say "American consulate." It really wasn't bad, though. I was very lucky. The guy phoned it in, all the way to the Ministry of the Interior I was told, and after explaining my situation they eventually let me through.
And everything happens for a reason. Another guy in the same boat turned out to be a Jordanian-American from Michigan. We got to talking and he offered me a ride in a car that was picking him up. Having been the recipient of much generosity, I wanted to pay it forward, so I offered to share the ride with these girls met at the border. The guy had no objections, but then word kinda got around and it ended up being me, the guy, the driver, and three girls. They were all cool: a French-Moroccan, a woman from Texas, and an undergrad from Colombia University. They had female-amounts of luggage, though. But seriously, the trunk couldn't close so the driver stuffed all the bags in and took a piece of string and laced it through the handle of each bag and tied it to the handle of the open-trunk. The Colombia girl ended up sitting on my lap for the hour-long ride into Jordan proper.
In Amman, I met up with my friend Anna, who was having a goodbye party for her roommate. I invited the Moroccan-French girl to come, too, because as it turned out, we both had the same travel plans; Petra, Wadi Rum, and then Aqqaba. So with a new Arabic-speaking travel buddy, we left for Petra the next morning.
Petra is where Indiana Jones "Last Crusade" was filmed. Enough said. It was truly breathtaking, and the Moroccan-French girl, Latifah, and I had a lot of fun taking pictures and hiking through. Things took a sour turn though, and it ended up with me spending some time with the Jordanian tourist police. Let me explain, in brief: Latifah decided she wanted to ride a donkey with this Bedouin guy, so we decided to meet at the top. 30 min. later though, I didn't see them. I waited. Waited some more. At this point, my big-brother instincts kick-in and I go to the tourist police tellin em that Latifah kinda went missing. To spare you (and me) the agonizing details, five hours later she shows up happy as a clam after a wonderful evening with her new Bedoioun friends, while I'm running all over the place writing things like "black shirt, longish hair" on scrap pieces of paper at the police station. Anyway, not important now.
In Wadi Rum I met these really down dudes: two Egyptian Muslim brothers and a German Christian guy. So it was them three and me, the American Jew, wondering through the Jordanian desert talking about The Simpsons and religious tolerance. As it happened, I was wearing my t-shirt from "Operation Understanding," the African-Amerian and Jewish dialogue group I did in High School. The logo is of half an Israeli flag and the other half the colors black, green, and red, colors of black identity but also the colors of the Palestinian and Jordanian flags. Everything happens for a reason.
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