That one time I went rappelling down waterfalls...

As promised, I shall now tell the epic tale of my journey through Wadi Feid. By journey, I mean an ecohike that lasted more than 13 plus hours and consisted of waterfalls, climbing down rock faces, walking through a canyon at night for 2 hours, and being saved from certain....danger by a former member of the Jordanian special forces.

Lets talk about the beginning: we woke up at our hostel in Petra at 4:45 am on a Saturday. The blasting call to prayer entered our room, waking up most of us. By most of us, I mean everyone except me. I did not sleep that night. The dogs and cats were playing out some version of West Side Story and I couldn't fall to sleep with all their noise. One dog literally did not stop barking.

We piled into the car, with some of us sitting in the trunk of the truck. I sat in the front seat, sleepily watching as our car went further into the wilderness. There were several moments where we teetered near the edge of cliffs. But our skilled driver never took his hands off the wheel and kept his eyes on the road.

When we arrived, we packed our backpacks with provisions and put on our gear for rappelling, which consists of a belt, a helmet and some caribeners. We began walking, our caribeners clinking and our eyes watching the ground to prevent slipping on the path. Before we knew it, we arrived at a giant rock face. To our horror, we realized we had to climb down it without any equipment. I went first, crawling crablike and searching and grasping for any place for my feet and hands. I willingly trusted my life to Ibrahim, a guide from the Jordanian special forces who explores canyons in his free time. I gave him my hand and he willed me down.

After this little adventure, we walked to the first waterfall. As I strapped in, our guide Hakim told me about The Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy and the quoted famous phrase, "Don't panic." With those reassuring words, I leaned back and managed my way down. Getting to the bottom felt empowering and I was ready to move on.



This was the next set of waterfalls. (I didn't take this picture...I didn't bring a camera). I banged my knee pretty bad on this one, but no sizeable harm done. In comparison to the other waterfalls, these are babies. But my knee is still bruised. It also made it difficult to walk.

The next waterfall passed without much trouble. I will mention here that to get to the waterfalls, there was a lot of climbing over rock faces, hoisting our bodies over crevices, and wading through water. Needless to say, it was no walk in the park.


It was waterfall number 5 that will go down in history as the scariest moment of my life. This time, we didn't really go down into the waterfall, but rather rappelled down the side of the cliff. This cliff did not have the nice curve you can slowly slip/walk down, but rather plummetted like a sheet. A completely straight drop that you had to stand on the edge of back wards and step into nothing. Needless to say, terrifying. My stomach flips just thinking about it.

So, I was a bit nervous, what can I say. I made my way down, but my weak and bruised knee was not cooperating. Also, I was not distributing my weight properly. So friends, I slipped and lost control.....going down a cliff. Not a great place to lose control.

My entire body twisted, I yelped and my head slammed against the side of the rock. I looked down at my hands and saw blood pouring down. I touched my nose and realized it was not my nose that was bleeding, but my head. This all happened in the matter of seconds.

It took all the strength in my wobbling legs and arms to reach out to Ibrahim and have him literally pull my body up. I sat in shock, touching the back of my neck, which was covered in blood that came pouring from the cut in the head. Well, I thought, I am going home. It is over. So long, Wadi Feid. It wasn't until he strapped me up to go down the cliff once again that I realized that wasn't a solution. There were two options: complete the trail....or complete the trail. Or you know, call in an air lift.

Since I could not do that cliff, due to psychological terror, we decided to climb down the rock face on the side and walk/slide down the valley. We got to the next waterfall, where Hakim told me my membrane had coagulated (?) and that I should be fine. I just couldn't get my hair wet.

We are rappelling down....waterfalls. And I can't get my hair wet. Also, we figured out that my helmet had been broken and that is why it got cut so bad. Did I mention I never signed a waiver?

ANYWAY, we decided I didn't have a concussion. I did the next few waterfalls, slowly getting back my courage. And my friends, I would need all the confidence to face the next waterfall.

This was one of the last waterfalls. If you look carefully, you can see a tinnnyyy person. This waterfall is about 60 some meters, a little more. It is the size of a 20 story building. And every single one of us rapelled down it. The hard part of this waterfall was the endurance you needed to withstand the sun and burning rope. Plus, by that time, all of our muscles ached, especially our arms.

But we made it down. And in true Jordanian fashion, there was tea waiting for us. Do not ask me how they got tea there, only God knows. I just drank it happily and we walked on to the next waterfall. Which you can see right here...

This one was not so bad since we could break it up into two parts. It also is about 70 meters lon g. Once we got to the bottom, we got to eat our sandwiches. After 12 hours of not eating, they were delicious.

My dear readers, if you think the story ends here, you are terribly, terribly mistaken. We were told that it would take us about 1 hour to get through the canyon if we moved fast. But by moving fast, I mean marathon lightspeed fast. After about 30 minutes, night had fallen and strapped with lights on our forehead, we had to climb over more rock faces, avoid huge things of mud, dive under trees and avoid sharp plants. Very very sharp plants. One smacked me in the middle of the face, allowing blood to now pour from the front of my head. Hakim told me I was just a mess. Like I needed to be told.

1 hour turned into 2.5 hours. We sighed our praises to God when it was over and sat at the top of the wadi, admiring the stars (absolutely no light pollution). We could see the lights from Palestine, which were several hours away from us. And naturally, there was tea.

My head is fine, the cut did not get infected and it hardly hurts. It is merely a bump now and an excellent testimony and proof that I did this journey. We got home around 2am and woke up the next morning terribly sore but invigorated to be alive.

Arabic class was the easiest thing in the world that day.

Best,
Liz