My trip to Dana - the sequel

........but going back to the camp was easy and took hardly any time.
After taking an hour -or two- of rest, and eating the -so little- food brought by Y-san, we decided to ascend the mountain, to watch the sun as it sets.
Going up the mountain was an easy adventure, had we not been tired from the "cave trail" dungeon. :)
But we climbed the mountain in short time, and were able to witness a very beautiful sunset, seldom do we have the chance to witness such a sunset in the city.



Descending the mountain using the longer, yet easier path, was -to my surprise- not the treat that ascending it, was to us.
Three of the guys were -for some unknown reason- psyched up enough to raise up their pace, and beat us to the camp, the ones who were left behind "suffered tortures of the damned sir, tortures of the damned", allow me to quote the old film.
The path down, was a long and tiring one, with no water or food at hand. (It's not like we NEEDED any food, but some cold water would've been nice, and some juice too, maybe some jelly....what was I talking about??)
And with Y-san hurting her leg, and barely being able to walk, we moved at a low velocity, being unable to help her in anyway. And the darkness falling on us wasn't helping, either.
After walking for so long, without seeing a sign of the camp, the courageous little me decided to go on an "exploring expedition", equipped with no more than a binoculars, a sony ericsson W800i (relatively good lighting) and a precious Canon G9, too valuable -to the courageous little one- to be used anyway. The courageous little one started running, holding the binoculars in one hand, and the precious G9 in the other, and even thought he strayed away from the road, and -soon enough- found himself " within a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost." like a great poet once said, 700 years ago. So the little courageous one decided to return to his little party that he left behind, and so he hasted towards them, and after "hasting" for a considerable time, he didn't see any trace of them, so he called them using his cellular phone, only to find that they've actually arrived at the camp, a little earlier. Now the little courageous found himself to be alone, in the night, lost, in a natural reserve that's "supposed" to have wolves and hyenas. The little courageous one is no more courageous, for fear is now within him like a tree having it's roots so deep in earth.
The little no-more-courageous one called his friends once more for guidance and moral support, but his friends being as insensitive as he expected them to be, decided to see what are the chances of a little not-so-courageous one surviving through such hardships.........

anyway, the camp was actually near, and the little not-courageous-but-able-to-run one was able to run all the way there, encouraged by the scary voices that you would only hear when you are alone, lost and with no sense of direction. :D



if there is a third part, it should be expected soon

My trip to Dana

Interior tourism isn't a real attraction to Jordanians, due to the fact that many of them believe that Jordan is a god-forsaken country with nothing but sand, and no good scenery, what-so-ever.
But a recent trip to "Dana reserve" proved me that this wasn't as true as I thought it to be, me being one of those people who believed so.
The seemingly-strange choice of "Dana" was made after hours of thinking, negotiating and making fun of really crappy ideas, while trying to choose a place to which we could go in a goodbye-trip, for our italian friend that is leaving jordan for good, and she wanted to see that place since she's never been to it before.
So we packed ourselves -seven people- and gathered at my house, to begin a trip that would leave us many memories, all of which are happy ones.
We left to Tafileh city -in the south- in a public transportation bus, from the "South Buses Compound", the trip that lasted for 2 hours and a half was not at all tiring, especially that we weren't over-packed, and our bags and belongings caused us to trouble.
Lunch and finding a bus -that would drive us to Dana- didn't take much time, we were able to see the tents -in which we are to sleep- around 2:00 PM.



The weather was nice, we were lively and ready to rumble, and our real trip was about to begin. The tents were spacious, to a certain extent, and the facilities were "Surprisingly" clean, I didn't expect to find such clean baths and showers so deep in the middle of the wilderness, were we able to call it "wilderness". :)

We decided to take what's called "The Caves Trail", we were given a map and a short briefing about climbing the mountain full of small caves, and topped by a cave called "The Church", were it was a Christian church sometime.
I liked climbing the rocks, and found myself surprisingly good, being a person who's been nothing but careless towards having a healthy body. But what I liked more are the new numbers I saw on my camera.....

Photography meaningless blabber (skip if not interested):
[Since it was probably the first time I was daring enough to take my lovely Canon G9 out of my "world" and into the real world, I was able to take pictures with really high shutter speeds, many of them were taken at 1/1250 seconds, and one of them was as high as a 1/2000 seconds, since the "program mode" thought there was enough light to go hyper-speed, causing my heart to throb at similar speed :D
photography blabber ends]

Reaching the top and "The church" was no easy mission, though. Two of us rested at a cave nearby, while the remaining five went on with defying the sun, the rocks, and the human stupidity that caused us to bring very little water :(

The following paragraph is written in a "weird" English, which is normally my version of the old Enlgish:
"....and thus began our journey, seeking the head of the mountain that layeth ahead of us. But think no little of such journey, for huge rocks have stood in our way, causing some of my company to fall back , and be satisfied with the climbing that hath been accomplished, such climbing be as impressive as it could be.
Yet, a number of us that can be counted on one hand, hath decided that such a challenge shalt not go over-looked, without a trial."

Before going on, I would like to say that the previous paragraph hath...HAS only been written for poetic reasons, and for the personal joy of the writer, and a certain person who enjoys this style. The trip wasn't as hard as described, so I had to mention this, for the sake of integrity, and integrity alone....

Here is a picture of us at "The Church"
Further post(s) regarding this trip are to follow.....