Susan_Hirasuna's Blog

Check out the photo in my photo album. I'm the one on the camel, far left. ;-)
In the spring of 2004, three journalist friends of mine and I joined a group to tour the country of Jordan.
I look back fondly on that trip and mourn the changing times that make a return trip in the near future, unlkely.
Who knew 2004 would be a relatively good time to visit a country that bills itself as the oasis in the turbulent Middle East.
Jordan is bordered by Iraq to the east, Syria to the north, Israel and the West Bank to the west.
Back then, family and friends questioned the wisdom of visiting a country so close to Iraq. The US had invaded Iraq just a year before and then as in now, the fighting was intense.
We were well taken care of in Jordan and the tour guide, Ali hoped we would go home and tout all that Jordan had to offer so that others would follow.
Jordan has no oil, so tourism is a key economic asset.
The backdrop of my camel ride photo is Petra an amazing, mysterious series of cave dwellings of the Nabateans. The exteriors are elaborate, architectural carvings. Petra is well worth a return trip alone. I also loved the other worldliness of Wadi Rum desert and buying fresh cardammon in Aqaba, near the Red Sea.
But our fond memories were marred when last fall, bombs went off in hotels in Amman, just blocks from the one we stayed in. My friends and I exchanged frantic phone calls, trying to figure out how close or worse we could have been to the bombings had our trip had been in 2005, not 2004.
Some day I will return to Jordan. I'd love to take my sons. But today as fighting continues in Iraq and bombs fly back and forth between Lebanon and Israel, the oasis that is Jordan seems way too small.