Stacey’s Mini-Extravaganza to the Middle East

The Dead Sea

After having such a grand time in Petra and in the desert only a few more days remained to cover the rest of Jordan.  Jordan is a pretty small country and there is quite a bit to see but at this point I was growing weary of sight-seeing and the lack of public transport was getting irritating (not to mention expensive).  I decided to spend my last few days in Jordan based in Madaba which is a smallish city just outside of Amman.  To get there, Celestino and I split a cab up the windy and very scenic King’s Highway.  This road is not the fastest but it has some rather interesting views and you really feel yourself winding down in altitude as you approach the lowest point on Earth: the Dead Sea.

I was surprised when I first saw the Dead Sea that it was so blue and green in color.  I don’t know what I expected…maybe black or brown because nothing grows there?  I’m not sure…but I found the shore with the salt crystals and the blue-green water to be beautiful.  On the way to Madaba the taxi driver stopped at Amman Beach which is a public complex where people can play in the super-salty water and there’s also a freshwater pool for when your skin can’t handle the Dead Sea anymore.  Floating in the Dead Sea was fun and rather interesting.  For one, the water tastes positively disgusting and even the slightest small drop of water burns your eyes.  It’s not a great idea to get in with any cuts or abrasions either as it will sting!  I was doing pretty well in the water…though after about 10 minutes I felt my skin generally starting to itch.  The floating was fun though…you become very aware of your center of gravity and it’s next to impossible to sit on the bottom because the salt water keeps you so buoyant.  As you can see, I opted for the Dead Sea mud treatment which is supposed to have some sort of healing properties…I don’t know about that so much but it was fun to smear myself with mud.  I had to stop short of putting it on my face though as the prospect of rinsing it off with that salt water made my eyes burn just to think of it.

Floating effortlessly

 Mud treatment

After a fresh water rinse and a dip in the regular pool, we headed off to Mt. Nebo.  Mt. Nebo is, of course, where Moses was shown the Promised Land.  I can only hope that Moses had better weather than we did as we were completely unable to view any of the Holy Land due to very dusty conditions.  Further, the ancient cathedral discovered in 1933 is currently undergoing some restoration and renovation work so there was very little to see at Mt. Nebo.  The few meager pictures I took are included here.

Mt. Nebo

Apparently a map of what I was supposed to see

Here is what I actually saw: dust

Church under construction…can’t go in there!

Seriously lacking in things to photograph at Mt. Nebo, this turkey seemed like a good option

The next day we took a half-day tour of Aljoun Castle and Jerash north of Amman.  Aljoun Castle is set high on a hill with great views of three valleys and is said to have been built atop a Christian monastery.  The monastery had fallen into ruins by the time of the Crusades so a local general decided to build a fortress around the monastery and the complex was much expanded and repaired over the next 500 years often due to earthquakes that have plagued the region.  This castle was better preserved than others I’ve been to and we had fun wandering through the rooms and windy passages.

Ajloun Castle

Selling tea and coffee

Scenes from inside Ajloun Castle

For use in a catapult

These icky things were everywhere

We stopped off to buy some fresh cherries

After Ajloun Castle we headed to the great Roman site of Jerash…one of the best-preserved and most explorable cities in the eastern Mediterranean.  Jerash is quite large and probably could’ve taken a whole day but we only had a couple of hours and my camera battery was dying.  Much of Jerash began as a Roman settlement in the 1st century AD and after an unprecedented amount of growth the city found itself astride the lucrative trade routes that the Nabateans of Petra had been guarding so closely for so long.  Only 100 years later things started to change in Rome and trade began to suffer.

Christianity became the official religion in 324 and as such many more buildings and churches were added but by the 7th century a Muslim victory over the Byzantines marked a new occupation in Jerash and ultimately, in a story that has become quite familiar to us, the city was largely destroyed by an earthquake in 749.  For 1000 years the city lay deserted until Burckhardt (of Petra fame) and his European colleagues “re-discovered” it and like Petra it became an important tourist and archaeological site.

Hadrian’s Gate at Jerash

Close-up of the gate

 The Oval Plaza

The Cardo (roman road)

The Nymphaeum

South Theater

Temple of Artemis

Temple of Artemis

The Oval Plaza from afar

North Theater

Musicians in the North Theater

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing this

My last day in Madaba was spent wandering around to all of the various churches housing the mosaics for which this city is famous for.  The most important is a massive mosaic discovered in the Greek Orthodox church that is the oldest known map of the Holy Land in existence.  The map is enormous so it was very difficult to take pictures of the whole thing so I’ve only included pieces here.  In recent years, many, many mosaics have been discovered beneath the modern buildings all over town.  Madaba, in seems, was the location of very important Christian mosaic art in the 4th and 5th centuries AD.  The remarkable map of the Holy Land was discovered in 1884 during which land was being cleared to build a new church.  I’ve included a few other mosaics from elsewhere in town though they don’t seem to photograph especially well.

And with that my friends the Mini-Extravaganza has come to an end.  I hope you all had fun looking at pictures and maybe learning a little bit more about the Middle East.  Thanks for reading!

Church of the Mosaic Map

Picture of the Holy Land Map mosaic in its entirety

Main portion of map: bottom oval is Jerusalem (center and most important) and above with boat is the Dead Sea)

Jerusalem and Bethlehem (starting with “BH” on the right)

Mosaics believed to be part of a mansion discovered during construction of new house

Close-up

Wadi Araba Desert

Expedition Wadi Araba minus Audi who is taking the picture

Desert

The original itinerary for this trip had me set to visit the protected area of Wadi Rum in the desert between Aqaba (the port of entry) and Petra.  The problem with Wadi Rum, indeed in all of Jordan, is that it’s not very well set-up for solo independent travelers.  There is very little public transport within the country and since Jordan is so small it’s easy to taxi around (though that can get very expensive when traveling alone).  In Wadi Rum, the standard tour is private and there are no group tours to be joined.  The procedure is that the Bedouin guides will pick you up at the visitor center and take you on a jeep tour, maybe do a hike or some camel-riding or rock-climbing and then you spend the night under a traditional goat-hair tent.  Sounds fun right?  Or at least something interesting to do for one night?

Flowing water in the desert?  Who knew?

Sami and Ali making the dam for the swimming hole

Chantel enjoying the swimming hole

Unfortunately, since I was traveling alone it was prohibitively expensive.  I could’ve offered to pay the rate for two people but that would’ve meant spending about $350 US for two days and that doesn’t even include transport costs to the site.  I was really hoping to find someone in my hostel who wanted to share a tour but that didn’t work out and when I polled the local travel agencies they were asking for over $500 for a day and a half!  So, I resolved that I would not get to spend the night in the desert after all until Sami and his friends said I could instead go to Wadi Araba with them.  To be sure, Wadi Araba isn’t as scenic as Wadi Rum but it’s much closer, has many fewer tourists and since I mostly wanted to sleep under the stars and a full moon I didn’t really care about the scenery.

Lunch: cheese, hummus, tuna and some unidentified meat.  We tore off pieces of soft bread and used it to pick up the food.

Fayed enjoying the water while Audi plays the flute in the background

After our hike we stopped for tea with some guys that Audi and Sami knew

I think these flowers are oleander?

A Bedouin family washing in the stream

Playing with the super macro setting on my camera

Goats are funny

So that is how I found myself on an expedition into the Wadi Araba desert with four Bedouin guides and one Belgian woman.  I met Sami about 9 am and while he went for supplies I hung out at his family’s house drinking tea and observing the Bedouin life.  Now is as good a time as any to return to the history of the local Bedouins so here is some background.  As we learned earlier, in the 1980s the Jordanian government removed the Bedouins who were still living in the caves in Petra and put them up in free housing near the village of Wadi Musa.  The houses are all quite large with lots of rooms as the families are big with lots of kids.  There are still 25 families that live in the caves and though I saw Sami’s personal cave I get the impression that pretty much everyone splits their time between the Bedouin village and their caves in the hills of Petra.  Sami said that the families are still allowed to remain in their caves as long as they’re not in the main tourist part of Petra and since the city is so large it is easy to find places far enough away from the tourists.  All the local Bedouins were given jobs within Petra mostly as tour guides, donkey drivers and the women and children sell jewelry and other goods.  Further, the men are likely to conduct longer tours and treks for tourists.  For example, the following week would find Sami and his friends on a 7-day trek with a group of Australians.

The moon over the mountains in the desert

Interestingly, the Bedouins all speak multiple languages: Arabic, English and their own dialect for sure but often French, Spanish and German as well from working with the tourists.  Even more interesting is that the vast majority of them are completely illiterate…they can’t read nor write in either Arabic or English.  This is starting to change as the younger kids attend the Bedouin school but Sami is 25 and says he’s never attended school.  He says he never wanted to attend school because afterwards you have to get a confining job and he wanted to be free and work in nature.  I wanted to point out that Ali (our jeep driver) could read, write, attended University and still ended up being free and working in nature but instead I said nothing.

So back to the desert trip.  While Sami and Ali were off getting supplies, I hung out drinking tea with Sami’s mom and sister.  I so wanted to take pictures of the house but it just seemed too rude.  The houses are quite large which really accentuates the fact that there is nearly no furniture.  There was a TV with stand in the main room but other than that the house was empty save for some gaudy silk flower decorations and a few family photos.  When they want to sit down they grab a thin mattress to sit on and everyone sits on the floor and drinks tea or eats.  I suppose if you never had furniture in a cave why would you need it in the house?

Sunset in the desert.  Unfortunately I never got a decent shot of the moon once it was dark.

Sand dunes

More sand…

By mid-morning we set off for the desert and our first stop was near some free-flowing water where Sami and Ali built a little dam to create a small swimming hole for everyone to cool off in.  Now, I imagine if you grew up in the desert then this body of water would seem like a reasonably significant swimming hole though to me it was little more than a puddle.  Since it was only big enough for one of us at a time I opted to just stick my feet in.  Still, it was cool and refreshing and we had lunch there and took an afternoon hike and relaxed into the afternoon on our little mattresses.

By late afternoon, we headed out again towards the sand dunes where the guides said the best sunsets are to be seen.  The sand dunes were fun to play in…kind of like snow but  warmer.  We climbed up them and slid down them and generally had a blast waiting for the sunset and for the guides to make dinner over the fire.  After dinner we sat around the fire drinking gin and orange soda before falling asleep on our mattresses under the full moon and the stars.  It was surprisingly warm in the desert at night…I expected it to be cold after the sun went down but it was probably 2 am before I needed the blanket.  We were up early the next day as Chantel (the Belgian woman) needed to catch a flight and I needed to meet Celestino as we were sharing a taxi up the King’s Highway to my final destination:  Madaba.  One last post from Jordan and we will finally be all caught up.  Stay tuned for the last and final post here on the Mini-Extravaganza…

Ali the university-educated-Jeep-driving Bedouin.  Any guesses on his age?  42 if you can believe it…Bedouin life can be harsh

Our meal made over the fire…chicken with tomatoes, potatoes and onions.  Yummy.

The Monastery

On Day 2 in Petra I got up bright and early to miss the massive tour groups and even though I didn't begin my climb to ... [Continue reading this entry]

The Treasury

The Siq

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Caves and building from Little Petra

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