CIA Investigates Missing American in Middle East

Petra Overnight

the narrow mountain alley leading to the Treasury

Atop the limestone cliff, 300 feet above the ground, after having hid from what we thought were police spotlights (it turns out they were!,) in a Petra cave, we awoke on the limestone cliff, with the gentle nudge of the dawn sun, marveling at just how caked in dust and dirt we were. I think even a heroin addict placed in our grimy shoes would choose a shower over actually catching the dragon.
I used to believe that if I lived in the time of Lewis and Clark, I would be the first to volunteer for their expedition. After one night out in the wilds of the Jordanian mountains I might be reconsidering my application. “No Richard, you need a real job! Apply dammit, apply!” I can hear my Father yelling in the background.

Strategizing our departure from the Petra, we decided to wait until the gates opened at 7 AM, and then proceed out as other tourists entered to avoid being arrested for our overnight activities.

“We came, we saw, we left. Sooo lame,” I informed utterly confused tourists as we walked the trail away from the Treasury during the first few minutes of the park’s opening.

“I thought we were the first people in line,” remarked the British woman to her husband.

“Mommy, how did they get so dirty?” asked their little girl.

We arrived at the park entrance, trying to sneak out as casually as possible, but the guard got very excited upon spotting us. “You are the American!” he exclaimed.

“The American?” I responded, feeling as though I had just been picked out of a police line-up for a robbery I DID commit.

 “You spent the night here last night?” The evidence was all over my clothing. I nodded. He animatedly shouts Arabic into his walkie-talkie.

“The tourist police will be here shortly, please wait here.”

The police. After us. In the Middle East. And we knowingly broke the law … This would bode a lot worse if not for the fact that the guard seemed genuinely happy to see us.

Ten minutes later the police haven’t shown up. Zuzka walks away, then doesn’t return. Yoni and I are confused. We begin to look for her, and not finding her, I hire a cab for a couple dinars in hopes of chasing her down. On the second time up and down the hill we spot her. She’s furious with us, apparently having told us “let’s go,” and neither of us following. She refuses to get in the cab. I leave Yoni to deal with her, agreeing to meet them at their hostel in an hour or so.

I walk into my hotel. (the hotel owner who I described in this post) Mahmoud’s jaw drops when he sees me. “That wasn’t nice,” he states.

I am momentarily confused, Mahmoud explains: “Last night I made dinner for you. The park closes at 6. I thought you’d be back by 6:30 at the latest. 7 o’clock arrives, and you still aren’t back. No doubt he’ll be back at 7:30. 8 PM and you still are not here. He MUST come back by 8:30, there’s nothing to do in this town for God’s sake. 8:30 comes, dinner is totally cold, I haven’t eaten because I  am waiting for you. 9:00, I call tourist police and report you missing.”

“I spent the night in Petra,” I explained, “Surely someone has done that before.”

“No!” bellows Mahmoud, “Aside of the fact it is illegal, No one else is stupid enough to pay $50 for a bed so they can sleep out on a dusty cliff with scorpions.”

As if on cue, two policeman enter the hotel. They point to me and utter, “The American!”

I haven’t done anything that bad, have I? They aren’t going to cut off my feet for stealing a few extra steps in Petra after closing time? I mean, this isn’t Saudi Arabia, right??! Hell, they already tried to gas me. I stand frozen, no place to run, no place to hide.

They walk over to me, and honestly, are beyond polite. They explain that I was reported missing, and that they just wanted to make sure I was alright. Tourism is one of Jordan’s few forms of foreign currency, and they take the protection of travelers very seriously, not wanting to have their reputation as a safe destination stained. They laugh when I tell them I spent the night in Petra, shaking their heads at the crazy American Cowboy. They leave soon after.

Mahmoud shakes his head. “You make me worry about you. You big asshole. I wake up at 2 AM and call to find out if you came in. I don’t sleep.”

“I’m really sorry Mahmoud.” Really I was. How could not be for putting out someone who cared for my well being and had made me dinner. “Is it okay if I go shower?”

Mahmoud dismisses me. I go upstairs and allow the cool water to wash away the dusty sin from my heinous crime. Re-birthed, I walk downstairs.

Mahmoud’s cell phone rings. He immediately switches to English. “Why should I call you? Police call you …” Suddenly I wonder if he’s talking about me. “No, no, you big asshole,” he yells into the receiver. “Okay, okay, I call you next time. Bye-bye big asshole.” He hangs up.

Exploring Petra

“That was CIA,” he explains. “My friend mad at me for not calling him the moment you got back. They were about to call your parents to tell them you were missing.”

I couldn’t imagine my poor, overly worried Mother reacting to the news that I was missing in the Middle East, on a trip that she begged me not to go on, telling me she had a “horrible feeling” about it. Turns out that while working with the American army in Fallojuh, Mahmoud had made friends with CIA operatives and had also called them to report that I was hadn’t turned up last night. They were mad that they weren’t the first people he called upon my return, and that it was rather via contact with the Jordanian police that they became aware of my reappearance.

For my part I can only thank God they didn’t call my Mom.

The Unbelievable Hospitality one Experiences in the Middle East (Amman, Jordan)

Amman, Jordan
It takes another hour and a half to get to Jordan’s capital city of Amman. We finally escape the bus at 1:30 AM. Badr is greeted by his three cousins there to pick him up, who warmly embrace their Syrian counterpart. At Badr’s behest they unquestioningly agree to take me to the hotel I haven’t booked yet. I load my bags into Mohammed’s small car. They insist that I ride shotgun, while they squeeze three into the back.
Mohammed speaks the best English out of everyone and does most of the talking. He is a graphics designer with a penchant for film, and I am the first American he’s had the pleasure to spend any time with. Hopefully, in hip-hop terms, I’ll “represent .”
I am immediately struck by the visible signs of Westernization that have befallen Jordan; KFC, Mickey D’s, Pizza Hut, and the added poundage they bring to the population of Amman. My new friend Mohammed is one them, patting his small pot belly, while describing his affinity for McDonald’s cuisine, which he eats so regularly it landed in the hospital with persistent stomach troubles at the ripe age of 23.
My hosts pepper me with questions about my travels, about America, about how I find the Middle East, and I vice-versa, while we dine on a late night snack of Lebanese pizza.
It’s nearly 3 in the morning by the time we’re done, and all four of them are driving me around to help me find accommodations when they should be home in bed.
Honestly, if you are a guest in any Arab society, it is mandated by the culture that they treat you with respect, lay out their best wares for you, and go out of their way to helpful. It seems impossible to feel unwelcome in this society.
For a moment I forget all I just wrote about Arab hospitality, the Pavlovian response of anger races through me. Graffiti on a wall - in black letters is scrawled, “Osama.” It takes me a second to realize that this is a common name in the Arab world and merely a tagger seeking to meet his need for significance externally. “Osama is a bad word in the West,” I remark to my new friends.

At 3:30 AM we find a suitable hotel, at $50 a night it is by no means cheap for this region of the world, but it’s far too late to keep looking. My Arab friends have been kind enough as it is.
My room is HUGE, bigger than my two bedroom Los Angeles apartment. You could get lost in here. On the downside, electrical wires peak out of the walls in every direction, some with the copper directly exposed, the plastic covering stripped. It’s probably even money that I die in a fire tonight: Russian Roulette with worse odds. I book the bet, far too exhausted to move.
I wake up and marvel at my good fortune. From wrestling wild crocodiles in Ghana, to surviving the sloppy electrical wiring, it seems that the Grim Reaper seems to have no immediate plans for me.

Check out this quick video of Koran TV-- 24 hour satellite station, non-stop Koran (common through the Middle East)

My first order of business is to find Internet and grab some breakfast. Should be easy in a big city like this right?
WRONG: Today is Friday, and in Islamic tradition, everything is closed,.
The bank, the exchange, the laundry-mat, restaurants—All closed. For such a huge city this place is a ghost-town, no movement whatsoever. I walk around for an hour before deciding to take a taxi around to investigate if there is more to see.
There isn't: Amman is dirty, dusty, old, and ugly. The buildings are worn down, the ancient cars spout noxious fumes into the air, furthering the surrounding blanket of pollution that makes it all but impossible to breathe. Venturing to the Middle East with asthma would be suicide.

The Treasury in Petra

I have been invited to have dinner with Mohammed and his family at their house. I’m picked up in the late afternoon, and driven to the outskirts of town and their modest home.
Mohammed lives with his large extended family under the same roof along with his wife who is also his cousin. Both these scenarios are common amongst Arabs.
I am fed a small meal of chicken and grains, before we adjourn to the patio for a talk. I am eager to find out what Jordanians think politically. I ask. It’s not as taboo a question as it is in Syria where if you ask someone their opinion, they answer back is, “An opinion? What’s an opinion.”
As eager as they are to please me, they answer, but honestly, they "really don’t care about politics one way or the other, they just want to live a happy, peaceful existence."
The family is of Palestinian heritage. I ask Mohammed what he thinks of Israel. The unmistakable micro-expression of anger flashes across his face. He plays it off, again stating that he doesn’t really care about Israel he just wants to live his life. I back off the political, they invite me on a tour of Amman.
We drive to the main drag where twenty-somethings congregate, puffing away on their cigarettes amidst an ocean of storefronts selling sweets and drinks. You won’t find alcohol here, although underground clubs reserved for the wealthy do serve it elsewhere.
My friends are proud of Jordan’s modernity, at least as compared to the rest of Arabia. It’s still ultra-conservative compared to the West. To give your fiancée so much as a peck on the cheek in public would be considered quite risqué.
Amman’s shopping district seems to be additional source of pride for Jordanian’s, a confirmation of the relative progressive nature of their country, and the availability of quality goods that come with it. From my standpoint I just see another Western mall, with such names as Gucci and Tiffany- a tribute to mankind’s egoic nature and never ending need for validation.
I discuss this with Mohammed who tells me that he is infected with consumerism. “I see something advertised, I want it bad. I can’t not have it.”
“What does that mean?” I inquire.
“I am in debt,” Mohammed explains, “This car. Thousands of dollars in debt. My computer, I had to have it, another $1,200. I pay interest on this money too.”
“Well,” I answer, “Your car gets you around, you can move heavy items in it. You can communicate with the world using your computer, and you edited your short films on it. You invested money in things that increased your quality of life. If you are going into debt to purchase something, I don’t know any reason more sound.”
“But I see something, and then I just want it.”
“Again, if you go into debt $3,000 to purchase a Prada hand bag to be able to walk around with it and show it off, then that’s Madison Avenue manipulating the human ego at its worst. If you buy something of quality because it increases your productivity/ makes things easier, what’s wrong with that? The important thing is to understand the reasons behind the impulse. Having that Prada bag won’t change who you are, but for a split second your un-satiable ego might take a mollified breath and tell you that you “are” something: worthy/good/important, but that car will get you to work every day. Like right now, I’m going to buy you all ice-cream. Why, cause I’m having a lot of fun with you guys and I feel like it.”
“Oh, we cannot let you do that, we will buy you ice cream.”
Damn Arab hospitality. “No, this time I treat you.”
So we all enjoyed our sweet treat, on this warm night in the Middle East, under the lights of the Prada and Tiffany signs. Consumerism has invaded. I’m at peace with that. If I wasn’t, how could I enjoy this moment?

Crossing Jordan- the Syrian/ Jordanian Border adventure

I woke up early in the morning in my extravagant $10 a night hotel room, easily the highest price I paid for Syrian accommodations. Upon venturing outside, I was accosted by a red-head, let’s call him Rooster, who insisted that I take his cab.
“I want breakfast,” I told him, “Maybe later. Talk to me in an hour.”
Twenty minutes went by when he approached me again. “I’m not ready dude, back off.”
Rooster waited for me to finish eating and followed me to my hotel, anxious for my fare. Honestly, this is one of the rare times in all my travels that I have felt concerned for my safety. While money is scarce in Syria, and everybody is eager to serve a tourist flush with cash, he was trying waaayyyyyy too hard to get me into his cab. It was just one of those moments you have to use your intuition, and back away from the situation as coolly as possible.
I walked into my hotel, explained to the owner that Rooster was making me very uncomfortable, and would he be so kind to inform him that I won’t be using his services. This served the dual purpose of ridding myself of The Rooster, and also letting him know that the locals know who he is.
A friend of the owner’s showed up to drive me to the bus station. We stopped at Palmyra’s only currency exchange, which made your local DMV look like it operated with the efficiency of a Japanese assembly line. With only three people ahead of me, it took over a half hour to exchange $100.
Now, the exchange rate for Syrian pounds to US dollars is 45-1. Add to the mix that each bill is a different color from the other, AND, that the government is in the process of replacing all their old money with newly colored bills, with the ensuing rainbow of cash you get, a rocket scientist would have a hard time figuring out what he’s actually holding. As I traded most of my US dollars for 50 Jordanian Dinars ($70 US) I decided it would be prudent to tuck that quite valuable bill away into a special fold of my fanny pack, out of reach of possible contamination by the lowly Syrian Pound.

(the view of the surrounding mountains from a cliff in Petra, Jordan)

An uneventful four and a half hour bus ride landed me back in Damascus, where I had to transfer to bus terminal on the other side of town to continue my journey into Jordan.
The cabbies see me, and their eyes go wide, as I have far more “rip-off equity” than the locals, and everyone’s fighting over my fare (not ‘fair’.) Some went as far as to grab my suitcase from me without me so much as asking to insure my patronage.
“Put it down!” I order in a tone understood in any language.
A green-eyed cabbie is the only one who speaks any English, thus I choose to ride with him. He looks 50, which means he’s probably mid thirties. People age much more quickly in the Middle East.
A pleasant ride, we get to the bus station. He asks me for 200 pounds more than what we agreed upon, telling me that we had to go out of the way for the extra stop we made to get some food. It’s par for the course. I’m running out of Syrian pounds, but I have enough for the bus, and odds are I won’t ever be back here. I give him the big tip.
I go into the terminal and somehow communicate that I need a ticket to Amman. Syrians grab my suitcase and tell me in very broken English that they will make sure to get me on my bus. “Please putdown my suitcase.” They don’t understand. I lack the energy to argue any more. Upon getting to the bus they naturally demand money. I don’t have enough cash or patience left for this shakedown. “No,” I state, “go away.”
“We make sure you get on bus!” they argue.
“I didn’t ask you for help.”
“We help you! We don’t understand!”
At that point a diminutive young Syrian, Badr, stepped forward to help translate. I ended up giving away sixty cents, which by Syrian standards, is a decent tip, but they were expecting far more and clearly let me know just how discontented they were. I dragged my belongings onto the bus, tired of the continual haggling.

The Trip To Amman
Badr sits down beside me. The bus is relatively empty, and normally I’d have moved to an empty seat without a word, but as he had helped me, and it was obvious he wanted to converse, I stayed put.
Badr shyly practices his English, completely unsure of himself, getting frustrated when he doesn’t know a word.
Turns out he is part Russian, and is of the Catholic faith. I ask him whether it is ever a problem in a country that is over 90% Islamic.
“Yes,” he replies, “sometimes people get violent with me because I am.”.
It was around 10:30 PM that we finally hit the Jordanian border. Badr and I get out of the bus and walk into immigration. Having traveled for the last 11 hours just get to this point. I prayed that immigration would go smoothly.  That of course was a joke.

You’re more likely to win the mega-millions than to have an uneventful border crossing in the Middle East. The Syrian/Jordanian border was a mess. Long lines of Arabs moving slower than glaciers, people waving their passports near the front of the line, trying to get their ticket out of Syria stamped by the disgruntled government worker whose sandwich break coincides perfectly with your arrival to the front of the line, giving you the option of waiting for his return (estimated at between two and twenty days,) or starting over at the back of a new line where they have an amusement park ride style sign stating, “from this point: two weeks to the front.”
Two weeks later, my passport finally stamped, I am told to get into another line to pay a 500 pound exit tax. Oh no, do I even have that much left? I check. 400, 450 … fuck, I am 50 pounds short. Badr offers to give me the money. I don’t want his money, but I’m not sure I have an option. Let me see, I might have it somewhere, I look in my fanny pack. Success, a fifty! YES! Everything always works out for me! I pay them with my rainbow of cash, happy to Finally be done with the Syrian side at least.
We walk back to the bus, where we wait for the Jordanian guard to search our bags. “You had better hope they don’t search you,” warns Badr, “If they find your computer we will be here all night while they pour through the data and make a copy of the hard drive.”
We get lucky. We walk to Jordanian immigration. They have separate lines for foreign and Arab passports. Out of a thousand people there, I am the only Caucasian. I am done in five minutes. They stamp my passport and give me what I was a told was a 15 day visa. Great. I wait for Badr. Half an hour, forty-five minutes, an hour … Lord … He finally finishes , we get back to our bus. Our driver is upset with the time it has taken. Three hours to cross the border.
At that moment it dons on me: That extra 50 bill I so “luckily” found in my fanny-pack to pay the exit-tax out of Syria, was in fact the 50 Jordanian Dinars ($70 US) versus the $1 in Syrian Pounds it should have been. Everything always works out for me. I have to laugh- at least that border guard will be eating well tonight. Maybe he’ll even offer up a toast in honor. Hopefully he doesn’t use a word worse than “moron.”