Days 379,383-394: Jordan
Amman, Jerash, Dead Sea, Madaba, Petra, Wadi Rum, Aqaba
Who has seen the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade movie and not wanted to come to Jordan? Petra alone is worth the trip.
The layout of Amman is a pretty confusing to wrap your head around. It sprawls over many hills (jebels) without a regular street grid. Thankfully, it’s the first city we’ve been to that the cabs are cheap and willing to use the meter. They also have something called “service taxis”. These are white, rather than yellow, and run a set route. You can jump in or out anywhere on the route and they cost even less than the regular taxis. The only trick is you have to know the route.
Birds doing laps around the hills of Amman.
Amman’s young folk are incredibly westernized (or as one Brit said “Americanized”). At a coffee shop on the hill, we took a good look around the place and from the dress, haircuts, perfect English, and food, you’d never know you weren’t in a cafe in the States. Well, except that half the people were smoking nargilehs.
Amman’s colorful vegetable market.
On the way back into Amman from Jerusalem we hooked up with a couple of great Cal grads (is that redundant?), Sam and Mike. Sam lives in Amman and is studying Arabic and set us up with all the good places to eat and visit. He introduced us to an incredibly friendly Iraqi restaurant that serves fantastic and dirt cheap food. The bread and spiced tea alone are worth a trip to Amman. We met quite a few Iraqis in Amman and were shocked by their continued friendliness after finding out we were American.
We took a day trip to the old Roman city of Jerash. There was a huge hippodrome holding mock chariot races for tourists, but we enjoyed the ruins despite this. Our favorite place was the ornately mosaiced floor of the church of “St. Cosmos” (okay, we really liked it for the cool name).
A curved colonnade at the oval plaza in Jerash.
Eleven of the twelve enormous columns at the Temple of Artemis in Jerash have been standing since antiquity – which explains why the ornate Corinthian capitals were in such great shape.
There were a bunch of big ol’ black millipedes roaming the ruins at Jerash.
On the bus back to Amman a tourist cop gave Marc his seat since he was getting off. He had a big medal with a skull and crossed swords. It seemed a bit out of place on a tourist cop. So Marc asked what it was for, to which he replied with a sinister smile, “Because I’m a dangerous man.”
There is a long loop through the Jordanian desert called the “Desert Castle Loop” and we split a cab with a French guy to take them in. Turns out they weren’t castles after all, but a mixed bag of caravansaris, forts, and bath houses. The coolest fort was where TE Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) set up shop during the Arab Revolt and was made of black basalt rock.
Kelly “walks into the light” at Qasr Al-Kharaneh – an old caravansari in the desert.
Some of the old desert bath houses (this one is Qusayr Amra) looked like Luke’s home from Starwars. Just for the record, we make so many Star Wars references because we’re sure everyone has seen it. Not just cuz we’re nerdy. 🙂
The buses in Jordan were good but didn’t go everywhere. So hitching is the way people get around. It’s usually no problem; just try to wave down every passing vehicle and eventually someone will pull over and only overcharge you by a factor of two or so after negotiation.
Hitching in Jordan. Who knows where we’ll end up next?
Another easy day trip from Amman took us to the Dead Sea. This was really quite cool. We were surprised by just how buoyant we were. When you bob vertically in the water, the water only comes up to mid-chest height without treading.
Kelly works through the “sudoko” number puzzle while floating high in the Dead Sea.
There were lots of spas in the area selling Dead Sea mud treatments. But all you had to was take a step into the water, reach down and grab a handful of the stuff. We looked ten years younger afterwards!
A creature from the depths of the Dead Sea.
Only one real bad part to the Dead Sea: salt in the eyes. Brutal! The place was full of families out to enjoy the Labor Day holiday. It was a bit odd to see full burka-clad women swimming next to bikini-clad tourists. Things got more weird when a group boisterous young men, escorted under armed guard, showed up for a swim. We never figured out if they were military or convicts.
Headed south to Madaba – the mosaic capitol of Jordan. The coolest one was a 6th century mosaic map of the Christian sights around the Middle East on the floor of St. George’s church. It was in Greek, so we had a hard time deciphering what we were looking at, but still cool.
Our posh hotel in Madaba had satellite TV with a good movie channel. We watched Ghostbusters and were surprised by the scenes that were editted out to make it more palatable to the Middle East market. Of course the implicit sex was gone, but so was the rant about the end of the world and most of the other religious references.
From Madaba we headed south to Petra but made a few stops on the way. Kelly makes a super-sized wish on an enormous dandelion in Karak castle.
The town of Wadi Musa has sprung up next to Petra as one big nasty tourist trap armpit (unlike most of the rest of Jordan). It seemed like everyone and their dog tried to cheat us in this town. Even the post office guy tried to charge us double for stamps! The best example was a mini-market with prices clearly written in Arabic numerals (NB. “Arabic numerals” means numbers in Arabic, not what we use). The guy tried to overcharge us by about 50%, and it took way too much convincing that we could actually read the numbers before he relented. If the town wasn’t bad enough already, we ended up next to what must be the worst muezzin in all of Jordan. While most muezzins do a couple minute call to prayer at 4am, this guy made it an hour-long, off-key test of endurance.
Nothing satisfies a thirst in Wadi Musa like a hot cup of herpes.
Petra was so incredible that it was worth putting up with Wadi Musa. It was built by the Nabataeans around the 3rd century BC and covered a huge area. We spent three full days hiking around the place and there was more left to explore.
The entry way to Petra is via a long fissure called a “siq” that eventually curves to reveal the Treasury through a crack. Felt like Indiana Jones.
The most famous tomb in Petra is the richly-statued, rose-colored Treasury. It’s a bit of a carnival in the mornings, but in the afternoon we had the place to ourselves.
The canyons at Petra echoed the sounds of baying donkeys and we could only think of the Sand People (yes, from Star Wars). Trust us. You’ll think exactly the same thing when you’re there.
The red, grey, and white stone of the Petra cliffs was amazing. Most of the tombs were carved into this beautiful rock and we can’t figure out why they plastered over it.
There were shockingly blue lizards basking on the warm stones in Petra.
The inside of one of the more elaborately carved tombs. Usually most of the effort went into carving the outside.
The monestary at Petra was enormous. Note the person standing at the foot of the doorway.
The striped “silk tomb” at Petra with Kelly for scale.
Cool green beetle ready to take off.
Some of the cliffs were jam packed with tombs.
We took an early morning bus to the desert of Wadi Rum and met a pair of Brits, Alan and Katherine, who had booked the same Bedouin guide. We all took off in a Land Cruiser for a day of desert exploration and a night sleeping under the stars. The landscape was pretty and reminded us of Utah and Arizona. Lots of neat red sand dunes and rock outcroppings.
Slim pickin’s in the desert. A camel munching on the tender flowers that grow in the sand.
Kelly hikes across a huge red sand dune in Wadi Rum.
Marc of Arabia.
Young thistle bud in Rum. A surprising variety of plantlife in the desert.
Us on top of a natural rock bridge in Wadi Rum.
Red Rum, Red Rum!
Our last stop in Jordan was the surprisingly pleasant resort town of Aqaba. Here we got our first view of the Red Sea (well, technically the Gulf of Aqaba). This is where we caught the boat to Egypt. The Egyptian consulate was very fast and friendly and we headed out the next morning.
Tags: Jordan
Kelly & Marcus
May 23rd, 2006 at 10:32 am
So who took the picture of you on the Wadi Rum natural bridge? You’re not going to tell us the camera was on a timer are you?
May 23rd, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Sweet!
May 23rd, 2006 at 8:48 pm
WOW! Make you feel like you’re in the movies… Very cool pics guys!
xoxox
May 24th, 2006 at 9:21 am
“great Cal grads”
Not redundant, but oxymoronic 🙂
Great pictures.
May 29th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
Marcus:
The Dead Sea mud treatments typically don’t start off in pile form as your self-applied treatment clearly did. Next time, splurge for the salon application and enjoy a nice cup of herpes on me.
JR