After a week of midterms and papers, touring the desert and hiking during a fall break was quite the relief.

After spending weeks in congested Amman, I was ready to explore different parts of Jordan. A group of friends and I made our way to the south where we stayed two days in the Wadi Rum desert and two days near Petra, a famous archeological site.

We stayed exclusively at Bedouin camps. Bedouins are nomadic people who live all over the Middle East and have been in the region for hundreds of years.

While I was familiar with Bedouin culture before staying with them, being able to experience their lifestyle and speak with them about their culture was wonderful. In the protected land of the Wadi Rum desert, the Bedouins run tourist operations from their village and at different camps in the desert.

The workforce is divided very much by age and gender: the men dealing primarily with the tourism side, the boys attending school in the village, and women and girls tending to the homes and animals. Camels and donkeys were everywhere, while Toyota and Mitsubishi trucks from the 1990s made up the main forms of transportation. The place felt very old-fashioned.

We spent our first day in Wadi Rum on camelback, alternating between riding in the quiet, serene desert landscape and drinking tea with a hint of sage, what our guides called Bedouin whiskey.

We then arrived at our camp at sunset, which would be our home for the next day or so. I felt as though I was walking into another world; “Wadi Rum” means Valley of the Moon in Arabic. The red desert sand reminded me of pictures of Mars.

Actually, “The Martian” was filmed near our camp. Our hosts talked about not knowing that their friend, Matt Damon, was famous until tourists showed them videos of him.

After a long day of touring the beautiful desert by truck, and only getting lost once along the way, we headed to Petra, a World Heritage Site. The city is one of the new seven wonders of the world, and one of the locations of movies such as “Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade,” and “Lawrence of Arabia.”

The difference between the terrain of Wadi Rum and the tourist-congested Petra was a real surprise when we first arrived. After staying two days in the city, however, I realized the best time to see all of the sites was earlier in the day, when the place is less buzzing.

The highlights of my week can be summed up in conversations I had with tourists at the Bedouin camps where we stayed, our Bedouin guides and even a famous New Zealand woman who married a Bedouin.

Traveling while abroad is something I’m grateful to be able to do, as I recognize that it’s a privilege some people can’t afford. I was lucky to receive a Gilman Scholarship, which is awarded to U.S. citizens who want to study abroad and also qualify for financial aid at Syracuse.

The Gilman Scholarship has allowed me to travel during my time in Jordan, and has given me more perspective on what it means to be a Jordanian. I think domestic travel in the U.S. is much more expensive than it is in Jordan. However, I do see the benefit in both the U.S. and Jordan of visiting big cities and small towns, protected wildlife areas and historical sites.

Traveling gives better insight into the different ways people live their lives. You can only learn more about the society you live in, and learn to appreciate it more.

Katelyn Faubel is a junior newspaper and online journalism and international relations dual major. Her column appears weekly in Pulp. You can email her at kmfaubel@syr.edu.

Published on October 24, 2016 at 7:50 pm