The Jordan Tourists Never See 5: Burqu'

Leaving at dawn from a research station in the eastern desert, about 140 km east from Azraq on the straight highway to Baghdad, we passed through the village of Safawi, where we filled our water and gasoline containers and bought groceries for lunch. After another 90 km we passed a military checkpoint, Muqat--but no town--about 50 km before the Iraq border. The desert was flat and featureless and the 4 x 4 droned on. After hours of this, Hannah was absently watching miles of nothing pass by, listening to Lebanese music on the radio while Dr. Saad, an ecologist, and I chatted about our project (see December 31, 2009 post: Trek of the Al Kuwaiti). Suddenly Dr. Saad braked, turned off the pavement and began driving in the soft sand perpendicular to the highway. This got Hannah's attention: There was no road. "What...?" she asked, not a little dismayed.

"We have no further need of roads," I said, grinning. "This is the way to Burqu'."

I had been to Burqu’ before, but it was Hannah’s first time. Burqu’ is astonishing, not so much for the Roman/Byzantine/Islamic fortress, or even the lake, but for where it is. It is the only permanent water supply south of Syria, west of Iraq, north of Saudia Arabia, and east of Azraq Oasis (see my January 6 note on Azraq). The Bedu (Bedouins) have watered thelr livestock there since ancient times. Nabateans (no, their culture was not limited to Petra, as you might gather from the tourist literature there) had created the lake by damming a permanent spring around 300 BCE (Before the Common Era). Later, the Romans built a "castle" fortress to house a garrison, one of the most remote of their realm. Still later, Byzantine monks used it as a monastery. In 700 CE the Caliph’s son, Prince Al-Walid, built a wall enclosing the castle in a courtyard. On its walls are Roman and Kufic (an early form of Arabic) inscriptions. Throughout recorded history, Bedouin tribes have fought over it and travelling caravans stopped there to water their camels. In recent years, the government enlarged the pond into a reservoir by building a new dam further along the wadi.

Burqu' is as important to wildlife as to people. Being the only water source in a vast stretch of the great Syrian Desert, it is a crucial stopover for migrating waterfowl, shorebirds and raptors. For all the birds migrating between Eurasia and Africa, there are only two routes: one down the Jordan Valley and across the northern end of the Red Sea, and the other across the Syrian Desert and across the southern end of the Red Sea. They need water, and Burq'u is the only source for hundreds of kilometers. In winter and during migration, Burqu’ hosts millions of birds of more than 200 species. It is one of the Middle East’s most important sites for raptors, and the basalt desert surrounding it is also the last refuge for gazelles, small mammals such as hares, jerboas and girbils, and a considerable diversity of predators: red fox (Vulpes vulpes), sand cat (Felis margarita) Syrian jackal (Canis aureus syriaca), Arabian wolf (Canis lupus arabs), Ruepelli’s sand fox (Vulpes rueppelli), caracal (Caracal caracal), wild cat (Felis sylvestris tristrami), and Syrian hyaena (Hyaena hyaena syriaca) have been detected there in recent surveys.

Dr. Saad continued navigating the trackless desert. After a while, Hannah said, “I see the oasis!” Our colleague smiled conspiratorially, leaving it to me to tell her that it was only a mirage. After another hour, we crossed a rise and saw an eight metre tall black castle looming over a 2 km long lake. Flocks of ducks and shorebirds flew up, watched intently by hawks and eagles—I counted five species—while hoopoes, larks, wheatears, warblers, flycatchers and other birds sang among the bushes. A shepherd watched her sheep grazing in a grassy meadow on the far side. Hannah waited a moment before saying, “Okay, that’s not a mirage.”

The rough surrounding terrain limits hunting, providing a natural refuge for rare wildlife. A 700 km2 nature reserve is proposed. If Arabian oryx, Persian onagers, blue-necked ostriches, and cheetahs are ever reintroduced to Jordan, it will be here.