7

Sept. 20.

I just spent one week in Jordan with two of my new teacher friends – Mary and Kendra.

In all, we spent 2 nights in Amman. 1night in Marriot Dead Sea. 2 Nights Dana. 2 nights Petra.

This blog is from 9/20/09 – before Petra. Petra will get it’s own post.

We woke up early and left Dana in route to Shoubak Castle. The morning started off slowly, with clouds and cool temperatures. I was disappointed because the city of Dana is perched on a precipice in an large canyon, with beautiful rock formations and colors everywhere. It looks a little like a miniature Grand Canyon, but the cost to stay there was only 7 Jordanian Dinar per night, or about 10 USD. The previous day, it was sunny early, and the morning rays lit up the canyon. On that day, I had forgotten my camera, as luck would have it. So I had hopes to shoot the scenery this morning. Due to the overcast and cloudy sky, It didn’t work out that way, and we left for Shoubak Castle.

We spent two hours climbing around the ruins of the castle, but I was really waiting for our exit. Mary had been reading the guidebook, and very early in our explorations she said, “this staircase leads to a secret crusader staircase exiting the castle” in a non-chalant manner. My curiosity was peaked! So after two hours of fun hiking around up on top of the castle, we decided to go to the staircase.

I had only my tiny Vodaphone to use for a flashlight, so early on it was a little unnerving. (I for the first time considered using the British inspired and very popular around the world word for flashlight – torch – but still couldn’t bring myself to do it.) Within 30 steps from the entrance, I could barely see 5 feet from the flashlight to the ground, and there were three of us. We travelled steeply down and slowly some stairs. Luckily it was mostly dust from the top of the stairs in the air that was obscuring the light. After another 5 minutes or so, visibility cleared up and things got better. But the way was completely dark and dangerous, as the dust on the stone steps continued to increase making the way very slippery. The rock floor steps were cut from sandstone or limestone, so even the thinnest layer of dust became very slippery.

We descended more and more, and went well past the “365 steps” that we were told were in the descent. I’m sure they picked the number symbolically, and not practically. I was trying to count to test their accuracy in the count, but quit after about 20, as there were many more half steps, and partial steps, and gaps of slant with not steps…at any rate I’d guesstimate the total count at well over 600.

We continued the descent, and were travelling along a sedimentary rock line, going right along with the fault in the rock wall. I’m pretty sure the cave must have been naturally formed along this line, and the crusaders entered later and carved small steps in the bottom of the tunnel.

After 45 minutes of progressively steeper slopes, dustier steps, and in absolute darkness, we finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel. There were small pieces of rebar acting as a ladder up a 15 foot crusader manhole. UP. We were under the ground in the bottom of a valley. Climbed up the ladder and emerged dusty, tired, but mostly relieved that we actually made it. In the U.S., this cave would have either been closed totally to tourists, or would have had a OSHA approved staircase or tram inside.

In total, we descended 205 meters by the guide at the top’s measurement, but it definitely felt like more.

Next Stop: Petra.