Auf der STraße

Auf der STraße

They say the desert is dry. They say the desert is hot. They say the desert is dusty and exhausting. They say the desert stretches for miles and miles with nothing but sand and mirage as far as the eye can see.

They’re right.

This past weekend we traveled out of Amman, toward the trifecta of trade routes going from Aqaba at the Red Sea in the south to Saudi Arabia in the east and Iraq in the north. Straight into the desert. This is the region where the Academy Award winning picture The Hurt Locker was filmed.

It’s rocky. It’s sandy. And it’s hot.

Even Arabian Prince Feisal as portrayed by Sir Alec Guinness in the 1962 classic Lawrence of Arabia said that “no Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees, there is nothing in the desert. No man needs nothing.”

Until this weekend, I liked the desert. I liked the warmth, the smells of the sand, the views of the windswept mountains and wadis. Now I know I like Amman. I like all of the stuff about the desert from the comfort of the city.

Not that I’m turning my back on the desert, I am still really excited to visit Petra next weekend and to camp in Wadi Rum desert and ride camels and sleep with the Bedouin there, but something about ample water supply in the city just is a big plus for me.

We started the desert trek out of Amman at the Qasr al-Kharraneh, an Umayyad fortress about 300 km from the Iraqi border. All of the various passages, windows, inscriptions (some unfortunately more modern than others), and rooms inside the castle were like stepping back in time. The way the light played through various openings in the plastered stone was mystical and awe-inspiring. Many rooms had little or no light except for a tiny sliver in the outer facade here or there.

Driving in the Desert

Mar 15, 2010

Next was Qusayr Amra, a bathhouse and rest-stop for early Islamic and late Umayyad travelers on their way through the desert. The structure itself was pretty cool, especially being able to see the pipes and pools where hot water and steam were pumped into the ancient sauna, but the real attraction that makes this a UNESCO World Heritage Site was the fantastic early Islamic frescoes on the ceilings and walls of the baths.

Plus, is it just the Sci-Fi fan in me or...

...does this bathhouse remind you of the Lars Homestead on Tatooine from Star Wars Episodes II, III and IV?

...does this fresco look just like the make-up from the original Planet of the Apes?

The desert scenes of Tatooine from Star Wars were actually filmed in Tunisia, and Planet of the Apes is supposed to take place in the far-off future but you can’t help but wonder...

The last stop on our desert castles tour was Qasr al-Azraq. Azraq is known for the black stone that is found all over the area. Azraq was also a strategic point as it is the intersection for important trade routes (today it is the intersection of the highways from Amman, Aqaba, Saudi Arabia and Iraq) as well as the natural oasis that is nearby. It was built by the Romans but has been used by the Byzantines, Umayyads, Ayyubids, Ottoman Turks and finally as a fortress for T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) and the Great Arab Revolt in 1917.

Our final stop was one of rest. The main destination for this desert-trek was the Azraq Lodge, near the Azraq Wetland Preserve. It was our first (and hopefully not our last) encounter with Jordan’s Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (their version of the U.S. National Park Service). At the lodge we enjoyed good company, great food and were able to watch some really amazing nature films about Arabia.

For example, we learned all about the re-introduction project of the Arabian Oryx. The Oryx was hunted to extinction in the wild in the mid-1970s. The Phoenix Zoo in Arizona is credited for bringing the Oryx back because of their breeding program. After successfully working to bring the population up in the United States (starting with nine in captivity, the zoo had over 200 successful births) a handful of Oryx were shipped to places like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Oman and Bahrain. There, local governments have taken steps to help protect the Oryx and slowly bring the population back up so they may be released back into the desert.

At one point, the Saudi herd (the largest in existence) was struck with tuberculosis. Over 50% had the disease. In animals like the Oryx, generally there is no treatment for TB except for euthanasia. The Saudi government had a tough dilemma. They could spend lots of money on trying to develop a cure for the Oryx’s ailment, or they could throw away decades of work by killing the herd to stop the spread of the disease.

In the end, they decided to try and save the Oryx, only to be hit with another hurdle. The easiest way to administer the TB vaccine is to dissolve it in the animal’s drinking water. The Oryx doesn’t drink water. They are a desert animal and can smell rainfall from hundreds of miles away, but they follow the rain to eat the newly watered plants, not to drink the water directly. So the Saudis found a way to mix the vaccine with milk and other supplements that the Oryx gobbled up.

The Oryx reserve is currently closed for construction, so we couldn’t visit, but we did visit the Azraq Wetland Reserve, another ecological disaster that is now under the care of the RSCN.

The Azraq wetlands is a natural oasis and has been for thousands of years. Hence why the trade routes I talked about earlier converge on Azraq, which means blue in Arabic. Due to water demands in Amman, water started being pumped from Azraq at a rapid rate. By 1992, the natural springs had dried up completely. Today, water is pumped in to Azraq to keep the wetlands at 10% of it’s original size. Azraq was once home to many species of Lions, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, Elephants, Gazelles, Cheetahs, Ostriches, our friend the Oryx and more, but now only Water Buffalo and the occasional migrating flock of birds can be found at the rapidly drying marsh.