Jordan ‘19

On Halloween night, my parents arrived at the Dammam, Saudi Arabia airport, via Amman, Jordan via Chicago. The next morning, we enjoyed a walk around the compound followed up with a parade that happened to be held that day. I was walking with a dozen members of a student service club I help sponsor at my school.

The parade culminated in a celebration.

We then headed down the King Fahd Causeway to Bahrain. The line of cars was pretty brutal as it was a payday weekend and everyone’s ready to spend that cash.

We walked around the old Bahrain fort the next morning before heading back in a 2 hour line of traffic at the customs border back into Saudi.

The next few days I had class but my parents made the most of their time that I was at work driving to the Arabian Gulf beach in Ras Tanura, traveling to the Al Qara Caves in Hofuf, and spitting camels along the desert highway.

We also enjoyed some good time on the compound.

We then headed to Jordan for the three-day weekend. We flew in at 11pm, so it was after midnight when we pulled in to the Dead Sea.

After the late drive in, we were pleasantly surprised with an upgrade to the Crown Suite because the hotel rented our room out. Um, yeah. Fanciest room I’ve ever been in.

At the bottom of the hotel’s three layers of pools was the one and only, Dead Sea.

Our room in the picture above is the whole middle balcony in the center of the picture above the fountains. Insanely extravagant.

Then it was on to Jesus’ Baptism site North of the Dead Sea along the Jordan River which borders Jordan and Israel. My mom, Dad, and I were given secret permission by our guide to walk down and touch the stones between the four pillars, believed to be THE site. I guess he could tell it meant a lot to us to be there.

We drove four hours toward Petra after that amazing experience.

Our place was right next to the Visitor Center and entrance into Petra, so it made for easy access the next morning. We got up early and headed in to see the ruins of the Nabatean City. Of course, the Treasury is the crown jewel of the area. You’ll recognize it as the building from Indiana Jones.

We headed up a trail less traveled to the ceremonial sacrifice point at the top of the mountain.

Then a walk around more of the incredible ruins. We finished with a 2 mile hike up to the monastery building, which looks similar to the Treasury building. You can see it as “Ad Deir” on the far left of the map below.