Notes From Everywhere

Traveling through Jordan felt as though we had stepped into a landscape that had remained unchanged for thousands of years.

That morning, we crossed the border into Jordan and found a taxi waiting for travelers heading to Petra.

The drive would take about two hours. 

I sat with my face pressed against the window, mesmerized by the vast desert stretching as far as I could see, with a low mountain range fading into the distance. 

Before we had gone very far, I noticed something wandering through the desert. As we got closer, I could see it was a camel. It walked slowly, searching for something among the sand and sparse patches of dry grass. 

We pulled over, and I jumped out of the taxi with the biggest grin on my face. I honestly couldn’t believe it. 

It came surprisingly close to us, completely unafraid. 

Only then did I notice the strip of white fabric tied around its front legs. 

The driver explained that it was a common way of preventing camels from roaming too far from camp. They could still walk comfortably and graze on the dry grass scattered across the desert, but they couldn’t disappear into the open landscape.

As we continued north, the scenery gradually changed. The endless desert gave way to rolling rocky hills covered in pale stones and scattered shrubs. Narrow paths wound across the hillsides, hinting that life somehow existed in this rugged terrain. Every so often we passed a lone house surrounded by nothing but open land.

We passed several shepherds leading large flocks of sheep and goats across the hills. They wore dark tunics, their heads wrapped in traditional scarves, and carried long wooden staffs. Looking at them, it felt as though not much had changed since biblical times, except perhaps the color of their clothing. 

“They’re nomads,” the driver said. “Many nomadic families still live in these hills.” 

Looking across those rocky hills, I found myself wondering how generations of families had made a life in a land that appeared to offer so little.

A little farther along the road, the driver insisted on making one more stop.

“You have to see this,” he said.

The viewpoint overlooked a vast canyon carved into the yellow rock, with darker layers in all shades of purple across its walls. It was far larger than I had expected, and completely different from the landscape we had been driving through only minutes earlier. 

By early afternoon, we reached Wadi Musa, the small town that serves as the gateway to Petra. The houses climbed the hillsides, their sand-colored walls blending almost seamlessly with the surroundings. Only one bright red house stood out among them. I was surprised by how yellow everything looked. Somehow, I had imagined that the landscape around Petra would be in warm tones of red and orange rather than yellow. 

The driver dropped us off at our hotel and promised to return the next morning to take us back to Eilat. 

Petra was still waiting for us.

But somewhere between the desert, the camel, and the shepherds walking across the hills, Jordan had already made its first impression.