May 14, 2006: Dana…

What a surprise Dana was… It’s amazing to me how Jordan can have yet another breathtaking national park in such a small country. Dana is 300km of virtually undisturbed wilderness and when you stand on the threshold looking out at it there’s a certain overwhelming aspect to it that makes you want to look at it, but not disturb. At least, that’s how I felt. I guess because it also demanded more of my attention than I could give. I was allotted a couple hours at Dana, at the most, and looking out across the landscape I knew that this was the kind of place where one needed to linger and would be best experienced in the evening. One of the rangers at the outpost gave me some literature, from that I read about a small hotel in the southern part of the park that you could stay at that is completely candle-lit or the Rumana village that consists of tents and makeshift kitchens for overnight stays. I try to imagine Yousef and I hanging out at the Rumana village silently staring off at the rocks, neither of us being able to say more to each other than identifying fruit and animals…no, Dana is a place that I could see coming back to with friends. A place to recount past experiences, laugh at our escapades, and enjoy one of the few places on earth where the land exudes solitude.