Hike through Wadi Hidan Part 2 in a multi part series

The guide explained that we will make a stop to pick up ice, juice and some other stuff and then we will on our way.  As he was talking I could tell that he did not have a native Arabic accent and I had heard that accent before.  As he walked into the store, it finally clicked.  His walk reminded me of a guide I had met when I was in Jordan last time in Feynan.

I remembered a guide who stopped by the Feynan Eco Lodge a few times as he took his hiking party down to Petra.  I had talked with him briefly when he stopped at the lodge.  I was pretty sure it was him.

When he came back to the bus he sat across the aisle from me, so I asked him if he took hiking parties through Feynan.

“Yes,” and he looked at me with recognition.

“You were the guy who spent a couple of months at the Feynon Eco Lodge.”

 It is kind of strange that the only guide I know in all Amman would be the guide on my first hike from Amman.  

We got to talking joined by the English professor.  The guide explained that he is originally from Chechenia.  His grandfather migrated to Jordan in the 1800.  He mentioned that some tribes from Chechenia migrated around that time with some settling in Turkey, others in Syria and a couple in Jordan.  This was before Jordan got independence so they were considered as part of Jordan.

He explained that Chechens are proud of their heritage, culture and language.  He said his daughter, five years old, had just started speaking Arabic because they only spoke Chechen at home.  But now she had started school and so had started picking up Arabic.  He also spoke Chechen with his friend Hamadi.  It seems quite remarkable that the language and I assume culture had been preserved for three generations.

I also learned that there were a number of Circassian tribes in the area as well.  However, they had mixed much more with the other groups and did not preserve as much the culture and language.

It is quite interesting what you learn when you engage people in meaningful conversations.

As I have mentioned before, the terrain in Jordan is quite rugged with mountains everywhere.  The roads snake and wind up and down the rock littered mountains, most of them barren with no trees or vegetation.  The valleys, give a glimpse of green vegetation with fields that grow surprisingly plenty of vegetables in the poor rocky soil and the limited supply of water painstakingly, pumped, siphoned and brought to the fields.  It is quite amazing how these vegetables are coerced out of the ground.

The slender roads have been carved into these mountains winding endlessly up a mountain along the ridge to eventually descend rolling rapidly towards the bottom just to cross over to the next mountain and start a new journey on a new hillside.

The ravines on the edge of the roads are deep with no barriers.  It is easy to imagine tumbling down and rolling and rolling; sometime seeming scary and other times feeling like just another event written in destiny on a land that has seen many tribes and nations come and go; that has seen many battles; that has seen much cruelty through the ages and much generosity.  A lively mix of history buried in the mountains.  The never ending history winds just like the roads and one is lost in imagination and day dreaming tumbling towards the destination or is it towards destiny.