Jordan’s Biosphere Reserve is an Oasis in the Desert

Dana (Photo credit: sharnik)

Up in the Ottoman-era labyrinth of Dana village, the RSCN is shepherding a groundbreaking restoration project with U.S. Agency for International Development funds. The developers who have despoiled the Dead Sea coast with large, unsympathetic resorts are being kept at bay, in favor of boutique hotels that complement the region’s rich heritage.

Though not as spectacular or wellpreserved as some other Jordanian ruins — Dana’s main site, the Byzantine citadel of Khirbet Feynan, was reduced to rubble by an earthquake in the 8th century — Dana’s ruins lay claim to being as valuable, for some of them are infinitely older. On a stony hillside overlooking the desert plains, I spend hours picking through the animal bones and limestone crockery of a Stone Age settlement believed to date back 11,000 years.

It’s little wonder that the locals should feel a potent sense of ownership. Yet all the people I talk to seem to have embraced the influx of low-level tourism. The old indigenous life perseveres, but interactions between tourists and locals seem unjaded. My trip is punctuated by invitations to share a cup of Arabic coffee — a spicy brew infused with cardamom — and handshakes with grizzled farmers driving their herds in search of meager pasture.

According to Tarazi, this honest cultural exchange has become one of Dana’s main drawing cards. “What started as a project aimed at benefiting the local community has traveled full circle,” he says. “Now, the opportunity to interact with local people is one of the main reasons for Feynan’s success.” From the outset, conserving Dana has meant conserving this timeless human presence.

Mohammad epitomizes the way this coming together of old and new has served to enrich the tourist experience here. Born in a cave not far from where the lodge now stands, he lived his childhood on the knife-edge of subsistence. From age 6 he worked as a goatherd, camping out at night among the rocky pinnacles with only his flute for comfort.

After he finished school, the opportunity to go to university lured him away from Dana — just one migrant in a wider diaspora, as the countryside’s young people, disillusioned by the traditional life, headed for the cities — until the prospect of a job with the ecolodge enticed him back. Today, that job, well-paying by Jordanian standards, means a better life for his young family and a small home in a village on the reserve’s western periphery.

And the job comes easy. Mohammad is a natural guide, as deeply reverent of the old ways as he is proud of his work. “Some visitors have said that this is the best trip of their lives,” he claims, later sending me the TripAdvisor testimonials of former Feynan guests to prove it. “This makes me very happy.”

Together, in pleasant springtime temperatures, we meander along the tracks that radiate from the lodge. Barely a minute goes by without Mohammad stopping to point out things that my less keen eyes might have missed, such as the pattern of a plant fossil high on a wind-polished wall, or a brief cameo from the reserve’s shy wildlife: a blue lizard darting across the pebbles or a griffon vulture wheeling against the lapis sky.

Of the reserve’s stellar cast of mammals — several of which are endangered — we find little, save for the gaggles of domesticated camels that we see often, their forelegs fettered to stop them from striding off into the shimmering desert.

Over at the pioneering copper mines, we spend a whole morning peering into the crab-holes that perforate the bedrock, attempting to imagine the files of blinking men emerging from below, laden with ore chipped from the seams that begin 100 feet down and run for 300 feet underground. In between sites, we walk along gulches scattered with shards of green malachite, where Mohammad demonstrates the knowledge that develops where harsh conditions demand ingenuity: that the white-flowered artemisia can be used as an antiseptic and that marjoram, when crushed, behaves like soap.

But our most memorable foray takes us into the famously beautiful slot canyon of Wadi Ghwayr. The scenery gets better the deeper we go. The walls gradually narrow, until we are burrowing into a gullet of granular rock that rises in raspberry-ripple dips and bulges, blocking out the sun. An hour in, rivulets of water appear at our feet, running in braided channels before disappearing back underground — a sign that up on the Shobak plateau, the rains are beginning.

“Where you find the water you can make the life,” Mohammad counsels happily, hopping from boulder to sandbank before pushing on up the gorge. Five hundred generations have done just that in Dana. And as Jordan sets the standard for eco-tourism in the Middle East, it seems likely that people will be living here for generations to come.

Related articles

• Travel Joran schwarzschild – Amman, Jordan (travelpod.com)
• Microbe oasis discovered under desert could advance Mars research (dvice.com)
• Mohammad : Jordan (kiva.org)
• October 1955: Arab League rejects water plan to help entire region – because it would help Israel (ifaynsh.wordpress.com)
• Mohammad : Jordan (kiva.org)

Is Egypt ready for eco travel and eco tourism yet?

Image via Wikipedia

With the “Arab Spring” protests and revolution in Egypt, travel has nearly stopped to the fabled country, and that has hurt tourism.  Regulations in Egypt are a mess, and were even before the revolution, but unregulated development is threatening many natural areas in Egypt.

Egypt in the past has had a “mass tourism” model – trying to get as many people into Egypt to spend as much money in aggregate as possible.  But some developments, like the Desert Lodge in El Qasr, and efforts to protect dolphins and sharks in the Sinai Peninsula, as well as a new eco-village in upper Egypt, the Hermopolis Eco Village, could change that.

I have never been to Egypt, although I have always wanted to.  I hope Egypt grows and learns how best to protect their natural treasures.

Related articles

• Is Troubled Egypt Ripe Enough For Eco-Tourism? – Green Prophet (greenprophet.com)
• Egypt attempts to its post-revolution tourism industry (travelnews.britishairways.com)
• Egypt to host World Travel Awards Ceremony (travelnews.britishairways.com)

Cheap Angkor Wat – buyer beware?

Here’s a tour provider for Angkor Wat that seems too good to be true – what can you get for under $300? (As a reminder, I don’t endorse, I just provide the info).

Tara Angkor Grand Opening Package
Trip Id:	TREP0882
Destination:	Siem Reap, Cambodia
Activity:	Arts & Culture, Historic sites / Temple visits, Hotel package
Price:	start from $289 per person
Duration:	3 Days / 2 Nights
When?	TODAY – 31 Dec 2008
Marvel at the grandeur of Angkor Wat and other magnificent temples in Siem Reap. A full board package includes airport pickups, private tours, meals and accommodation in a new boutique hotel in Siem Reap.*Best deal package, from 1 Apr-30 Sep, 2008

Another Angkor Wat Tour Provider

Purple Dragon Tours (love that name) is another tour provider that I found for Angkor Wat.  Their website has the following tours:

Purple Dragon’s Siem Reap packages offer great value and save you time and effort by arranging your choice of hotel, round trip airport transportation, and sightseeing with a personal English-speaking guide. You can always add extra nights and optional sightseeing if you wish.

Angkor Adventure In five days and four nights you get to see the best of Angkor, including magnificent treasures that very few visitors bother to see.

Essential Angkor This two-night exploration of Angkor Wat’s Ancient Wonders is just right for visitors who want to see just the highlights

Angkor Leisurely On a budget and want to spend more time enjoying Siem Reap? Angkor Leisurely is a five-night “free style” package that includes fun extras. You stay at Golden Banana, Siem Reap’s gay boutique resort hotel.

Ultimate Angkor If you are not the kind of “drive by tourist” who wants only a sample of Angkor Wat, why not stay longer? You will see the most famous of Angkor’s sites, of course. But we will also show you Cambodia’s magnificent countryside and some unbelievably spectacular temples where you will probably not see other visitors.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, Angkor Wat is one place I’d just love, love, love to visit.  It’s got everything I am looking for in travel – archeological significance, adventure, excitement, and is physically challenging.

One company I found has a four day Angkor Wat vacation – just short enough to get enough of a taste to want to go back. The itinerary is below:

Day 1 Transfer to Siem Reap * Ta Promh * Angor Wat Transfer to Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport where you will board your flight for Siem Reap in Cambodia where you will be met and transferred to your hotel for check in. Have an afternoon visit Ta Promh and Angkor Wat temple until sunset. The temples of Angkor, built between the 7th and 11th c., represent one of the most impressive examples of man’s creativity.  From their dazzling temple structures the rulers of Angkor controlled an empire which expanded over six centuries to cover a region extending from present day Vietnam in the east, to the shores of the Bay of Bengal in the west. Explore the site of one of Asia’s most magnificent archeological ruins, the religious citadels of which were part of one of the most powerful kingdoms to rise in Southeast Asia The estimated 100 temples, which constituted the foundation for Angkor’s administrative network, were made of wood (long since decayed) as construction of buildings from stone or brick was reserved solely for the gods. Ta Prohm was built by King Jayavarman VII, 1181-1219.  There is hardly a temple anywhere else that shows so clearly the destructive power of the luxuriant tropical vegetation. When French archaeologists first discovered the site of the temple, they left the giant trees standing, even though their huge roots were coiling themselves like enormous snakes around the temple, penetrating its stonework and breaking it up.  But now some of these giants will have to be felled in order to save the temple.  Jayavarman VII has the monastery built as a residence for his mother, who had been deified as Prajnaparamita.  Ta Prohm looks rather like a smaller version of Angkor Thom.  B Angkor Palace Resort & Spa (4-star)

Day 2 South Gate of Angor Thom * Bayon * Phimeanakas * Elephant Terrace * Terrace of the Leper King After breakfast visit the South Gate of Angkor Thom (WHS), Bayon, the Royal enclosure, Phimeanakas, the Elephant Terrace and the Terrace of the Leper King. The Bayon (WHS) is considered the single most outstanding monument of Khmer culture and also the most mysterious.  Constructed during the reign of King Jayavarman VII (1181 – 1201), this temple complex marks the exact center of Angkor Thom, making it the most venerated of the city’s temples.  Early archeologists (beginning in the mid 19th century) debated the identity of the great faces ornamenting the central tower with many believing the temple to be a shrine dedicated to the Hindu god Shiva, others to Bahamas, while later specialists concluded (through the assistance of ancient Chinese records) that this was a Mahayana Buddhist temple.  The faces depicted however were not the Buddha, but rather the benevolent Bodhisattva, Avalokitesvara. The structure is staggering in its construction and most Angkor specialists agree that it is one of the finest examples of classical Khmer architecture.  Its third level is stunning – 49 towers adorned with 172 smiling faces of the omnipresent Avalokitesvara.  Sixteen chapels inside the structure indicate its religious importance while on the outer perimeter over 1,200 meters of exquisite bas-relief record scenes of daily life from 11th century Angkor. Terrace of the Elephants (WHS), built by King Jayavarman VII, at the end of his reign, early 13th century.  The terrace has three platforms of different heights, to which five flights of steps lead up; the northern one was probably built later than the others.  The terrace takes its name from the outstanding depiction of elephants and of an elephant hunt, which takes up the major part of the frieze. Terrace of the Leper-King, built by King Jayavarman VII at the end of his reign, early 13th century.  There is no path connecting the two terraces.  This one owes its name to a sculpture which used to stand here.  It was of King Yasovarman, 899-910, who originally founded Angkor and was popularly known as the “Leper-King” because he died of leprosy. In the late afternoon, embark on a boat trip to visit a floating village on the Tonlé Sap. The residents of the floating village literally reside on houses, which stay afloat on the river and the lake.  An unusual characteristic of this river is that its water flow changes, depending on the season.  As the rainy season sets in and with the water level rising, residents move their houses by boat closer to the shore.  And during the dry season, when the water level goes down, they again move their houses, this time towards the center of the lake.  Since their houses float, movement is not an inconvenience. Tonle Sap is known to the natives as the ” Sea of the Fresh Water. “  The river links the Mekong River to the southern end of the Great Lake.  The Great Lake was the lifeline of the Khmers as its pattern of movement provided the rhythm of daily life and served as a source of fish and rice to an agrarian society.  B, Dinner with Apsara Dance Show at local restaurant. Angkor Palace Resort & Spa (4-star)

Day 3 Flight to Saigon After breakfast at the hotel, transfer to the airport for your departure flight to Saigon where you will be met and transferred to your hotel. The rest of the day is at leisure.  B, D Sofitel Plaza Hotel (4-Star)

Day 4 Return to U.S. Depart on your flight(s) returning home.