Anne ’27 and Elizabeth ’24, share reflections of their visits to Wadi Rum and Aqaba in gratitude for the friendships made and experiences being shared.
We started our morning out before the sun even peaked out from behind the desert mountains of Wadi Rum. Our tired eyes quickly opened because our beautiful camels were awaiting us. But before we could ride off into the sunrise on our camel, we had to challenge our fear, mounting the camel. Mr. Mo, our tour guide, thankfully taught us the correct way to mount a camel without falling on our faces.
Once we were all on the camels, we started our ride. The sun was slowly rising as our camels walked the sand dunes of Wadi Rum. The suns colors were vibrant yellow and orange that painted the mountains of Wadi Rum. Our camel tour guides took us around the desert a little more after the sun rise before we had to head back for breakfast at the camp.
After, our delicious breakfast of Labneh fueled us for our hour bus ride to Aqaba. On our way to Aqaba, we learned about the history of Wadi Rum and the multiple cultures that have lived in its vast region. The bus ride soon came to an end when we saw the Red Sea. Coming down the road into Aqaba, we could not just see the Red Sea but Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia as well.
Before our main event of the day in Aqaba, we had a bit of time to explore our hotel and have some down time at the pool. After a couple hours of pure relaxation at the pool, we had a main event of the day which was a boat ride with snorkeling. We snorkeled at one of the reefs in Aqaba which had numerous animals including eels and Lion fish. The water was cold but it perfectly balanced out the hot air around us. We weren’t done after this though. We had our big dinner to rush to after the boat ride.
Our dinner was amazing. We had numerous dishes that satisfied our hungry stomachs after a long day of activities. I never have felt more full than I had then. We talked and laughed for we are almost at the end of this amazing trip. The dinner was not our last activity on our itinerary though. We closed out the night with a fire on the beach. From the beach we could see all of Aqaba’s skyline and even Israel’s and Egypt’s too.
This day full of activities really was one of the highlights of the trip for me. I never have felt more peaceful than I did on the camels in the morning. I never have felt more happy than I did snorkeling and relaxing at the pool in the afternoon. I never have felt more connected than I did eating dinner and at the fireplace. This trip has connected me with so many people on campus, even though we are not remotely close to campus. As a freshman currently, this will always be a core Deerfield memory for me even after my four years are done.
-Anne ’27
It has been quite a while since I have felt as connected to nature as I have in Wadi Rum. The joy I felt from climbing a sand dune with bare feet, eating the most fall-off-the-bone lamb zarb, dancing and feeling like the embers of the campfire we ate around, and lying down in the vastness of the universe carried over to this morning’s camel ride despite getting up before the sunrise.
This might come as a surprise, but I had never been close to a camel, much less ridden one before this morning. To anyone in a similar position, I’d advise them to imagine riding a disproportionately long-legged horse that frequently burps and jarringly kneels down when you need to dismount. One thing that surprised me about camels is their capacity for speed: our fantastic guide Mr. Moayad later told us as we drove past a camel racing track that camels can run faster endurance races than horses. I had so much fun—at first, everyone was too distracted by the adorable baby camel that followed its mom and too busy getting acclimated to the height and gait of their new ride to marvel at the sunrise, but slowly it dawned on us that we were essentially on Mars, watching pastels paint the sky. Some things are impossible to capture on camera, and this sunrise was one of them.
The sheer awesomeness of Wadi Rum (awesome in the sense that it filled me with awe) contrasted with the more developed Aqaba (pronounced Akaba). Our hotel was in Ayla, a walled-in commercial compound with different resorts and shops. Because of Aqaba’s proximity to the Israeli border, the hotels are confined to a specific portion of the coastline. I marveled at how from my balcony, I could see Israel to the right and Egypt straight ahead; though it was not in my line of sight, Saudi Arabia also shares Jordan’s branch of the Red Sea. In my mind, countries like Egypt and Israel have always seemed so far away and rather removed from my world in the US. Being in Aqaba was a wake-up call to how close countries can actually feel to one another. While drying off on one of the boat’s decks after snorkeling at a reef and diving down to see a shy lionfish and an ostentatious puffer, someone pointed to the Israeli part of the Red Sea and said, “Look, they’re swimming too.” What struck me then was how close the war felt, despite Gaza being on the complete opposite side of Israel. That distorted sense of proximity juxtaposed with the peace and playfulness of both the swimmers on the Israeli side of the border and with my own group. The duality of the situation and my own sense of privilege struck me: I was looking into a country with an active war zone I could not see while being immersed in a country whose population is 50% Palestinian and therefore emotionally affected by the current war. Yet, I was observing scenes of total normalcy from a place of internal tranquility. To someone viewing the situation having just awoken from a long coma, it would appear as though no tension existed between the people on either side of the border. However, my experiences learning about the conflict both in class and on this trip left me intensely feeling the sense of situational conflict present within the moment.
After a multi-course meal at the hotel, the squad headed to our friend and classmate Abdullah’s house on the beach. One of the invisible gifts of this trip has been that as a group, we have gotten much closer, and the range of tonight’s conversation was no exception. Abdullah also introduced us to a family tradition of his to add to our group bonding: running into the sea at midnight (or close to midnight, for our curfew) to let the salt water cleanse us. I don’t know how physically cleansed I felt afterwards, but mentally, I felt so happy and grateful to be with my friends, to be in Jordan, and to truly be where my feet are.
-Elizabeth ’24
