Nov 2007

Bastard children

"Welcome!" was a phrase that shot out at us from every direction as we biked through villages as well as seemingly empty landscapes. Sometimes it was coming from someone on a rooftop, other times it was from the lady buried under a burka, and sometimes it just seemed to have come from some goat on the side of the road. Unfortuenately though, dealing with Jordanians is not always farts and giggles. You see, normally, after a long haul in the wilderness, it is refreshing and interesting to show up in a little village. Here though, small children and teenage boys congragate in large packs and eagerly wait for us in each village (I think that they communicate between villages). As soon as they see a bike, it triggers some deep primal instinct and the rocks start flying. As you get closer, they start to leap on your bike, kick you, and if they're old enough, grope for a handfull of boob. God help you if they have a car.... But, Wim put it into perspective when he said," In ten years from now those same kids will be asking us to join them for tea." And it is true, grown up Arabic people are great.

The one thing that we've learned while traveling through this country

If you are in trouble, have money problems, or are lost in the desert, don't ask your mom for help, first find an Arab (sorry mom). These people will go completely out of their way to help a complete stranger. As our friend Mohammed said, "Book of Muslim speak, man have problem, I problem help." How true that is... This is Mohammed (ex-jihad fighter in Iraq!), who took us into his home, fed us breakfast lunch and dinner, took us to all of the sights and tried to convince us to stay another day and afterwards send him our friends from Belgium. It was great fun eating Bedouin style on the floor with our fingers!

Wierd gender relations

Mohammed felt sad that in the west women do not get much respect. In his culture, men show respect for women by avoiding eye contact, as well as physical and social contact, with women they don't know. Women and men do not shake hands or sit next to each other. They also don't date before marraige. Women in turn show respect by covering up. Thus you can imagine the horrible cultural misunderstandings that come up when you see giggley tourists in bikinis having a chat with some young local guys. Thus, in trying to prove that she was not the stereotype of a loose western women, Amy always covered up, avoided too much eye contact with men, and let Wim do most of the initial socializing. That was really weird...

Burkas for Amy and Wim

After biking around like two greaseballs, layered in multiple days of sunscreen, we had to convert to the local way of sun protection with some make shift burkas. Wim always says that it makes him feel like a little old Polish woman. I think that he looks more like ET.

With the sun out of our eyes, we can now enjoy the barren and dramatic desert landscapes. The kings Highway, which is actually a peaceful old trading route, leads through steep canyons, rolling hills and lunar desert landscapes. It was often the case that we gained well over a kilometer in altitude during a days ride. In the end, we were rewarded with a breathtaking 100 km downhill stretch towards the coral packed red sea.

Along the King's Highway

We floated in the dead sea (if you were wondering what it is like to be a cork, you can find out here).

Along with everyone else, the police yell, "shy, shy" (tea) as we ride by. (We always make sure to stop for a few shys during a long desert ride). They always tell us that King Abdullah and the police like Belgium.

Elections are coming up, so it was sometimes hard to read the road signs.

We now realize how unimpressive the caves in Turkey were. Two thousand years ago, some really passionate cave dweller carved this major piece of artwork out of a single rock. Duuuuude....

We're now spending a week in the warm Red Sea, getting certified in diving so that we can visit the Jordanian fish as well.

Goodbye Turkey.

• Goodbye land of Ataturk and Islam, where devout muslims like to assure you that they are not living in an Islamic state.

• Goodbye cafes full of old men.... and amy.

• Goodbye enthusastic yelling locals, trying to show you the way, even when you didn't ask and they don't know where you're going.

• Goodbye waiters who freeze and go bug eyed when you refuse your after dinner tea.

• Goodbye policemen who honk and wave and stop us to ask how many gears we've got.

• Goodbye wierd yummy candy things.

• Goodbye potato farmers, who grow silly with excitement at the thought of loading potato sacks into our paniers, I'm sorry we pedaled by so incredibley fast...

• Goodbye prayer guys who blast us from the mosque each morning with their pumped up sound systems.

• Goodbye to the big meaty dogs that tried to nibble on our heels, only running off when we pretended to throw large rocks.

• Goodbye yogurt.

• Goodbye curious hoards of old men, who gather around our bikes the minute we stop and start fideling with things, honking the horn, and poking our speedometers.

• Goodbye roadside turks who yell at us and do the "tea gesture", I'm sorry that we pretended not to know what you meant most of the time.

• Goodbye stray cats that made a game each night of trying to pee on our tent and attack our food paneirs.

• Goodbye Turkey, we will always remember your people when we are feeling greedy or unfriendly...and we'll try be more Turkish.

Goodbye Turkey.

Having said our goodbyes and boxed up our bikes, we're flying off to...

JORDAN!!! The only country that will let Amy in...

"Turkey is always warm, we don't need to be prepared for cold weather during the winter," exclaimed Wim in one of his less clever moments. However, he is much wiser now, and knows that Turkey can be cold and rainy in October. When we saw the bad weather approaching on the internet, we started running. From Balikesir, we made our way to Cappodocia (1000 km east) via bus and hitching a ride with friendly turkish guys (shockingly enough, these both involved drinking a lot of tea). Lucky for us, the weather here has been dry, sunny, but freeeeeeezing at night.

So we've been hiking, biking and camping in and around this amazingly beautiful area for the past days. Here are some photos to make you jealous:

We slept in one of the caves in this big rock! This was very, very cool. People have scraped out cute little homes from the soft volcanic rock. Even the table, chairs and cabinets are carved out of the rock!

Christians used to hide out in this area during around the 11th century and they carved out huge cathedral sized churches and painted the insides. You can walk through any unpopulated valley and explore these abandoned old structures.

We also saw an underground city which was like a big swiss cheese carved out underneath a little village. Up to 10.000 people used to live to escape invading armies.

Wim going off of the edge of a cliff.

uncanny resembelance, eh?

This place is littered with ruins...very interesting indeed.

Of course we keep meeting old guys and drinking tea....