Under the Desert Stars

Dana Nature Reserve was once again a highlight and a sheer spectacle to behold.  On the way out we took a rather hippy looking tour bus.  It managed to break down.  There was a wire involving the accelerator that had come loose.  once they found the problem it was fixed rather quickly, but it took them a fair amount of time to find it.  The particular road we were on does not bode well for our group.  It runs through the middle of the desert.  100K south of the latest breakdown was where I managed to get my “weekend from hell” transmission break dow last year.

Once we got to Dana we did what was supposed to be a 2 hour hike.  We found some caves and a 15 foot rock face that we wanted to climb.  This ended up taking an extra hour.  However there was a large amount of team bonding.  The place is very pretty, and is unlike the flat desert region one has to travel through to get there.  At night, for a few hours before the moon comes up is an amazing night sky.  The group went out on a rock a few yards from the campsite and seemed to start to really gel.  

staying and eating with us at Dana was a group of agriculture researchers from Palestine.  They were really interesting to talk regarding the Palestinian struggle and Israel messing up some of the research they were doing.  

In the morning we had breakfast (OMG I am so sick of these breakfasts, I NEED Pancakes!) and then went to the Dana village 8 km away, via bus.  I neglected to tell the group that is where we started last year, and hiked the 8km to the campsite.  All in all a good trip.

They way back was more of the south eastern desert in all of it’s vastness shooting by the window.  Ended up once again at City Mall, where Security had been beefed up to include a whole platoon of soldiers.  I am not in any danger, I think it is just a precaution due to the fun that is happening next door.  It is probably good the Palestinians researches were in Jordan on holiday.