Amman-The fascinating capital city of Jordan

AS A REMINDER, DOUBLE CLICK  ON THE PICTURES TO SEE THEM FULL SCREEN 

This morning June 21, we and our Avis rental car headed north from Petra … destination: Amman with a few stops along the way. We chose the “King’s Highway” route, an ancient route used for centuries and somewhat bordering the Jordan River and eventually the Dead Sea. Stopping at the Dead Sea was initially not in the plan but we decided on a course correction and packed bathing suits for at least a quick dip. The Sea is indeed dead due to the extremely high concentration of salt. Nothing is in the water … no fish, no seaweed, no coral, not even boats because they cannot obtain buoyancy. Oddly, there is only one public recreation area but a million private resorts. Not knowing this, we flew past the one public area and thirty miles later realized our mistake. Not wanting to backtrack, we decided to just stop at a seaside Marriot Resort and pretend we were inspecting it for a possible stay that night. Obviously, we were not the first two dumb-ass tourists to try this stunt. Once we got past security, passport inspection, and undercarriage bomb scans we found that the sea was actually way below the resort and the only way to get there was via golf cart, available by showing a room key.

 Camels are everywhere 

 

The Dead Sea, disappointing that there is no way to enjoy its healing properties without a tour. 

Next stop was Mount Nebo. This mountain is famed for the place where Moses in his last days before death saw the “promised land”, land of milk and honey (Israel). He died on this mountain in this spot and was buried in nearby Moab. There is a very beautiful monastery built in the 5^th century with amazing mosaics that has been restored.

What Moses saw as he proclaimed this as the promise land, the land of milk and honey. 

 One of the mosaics in the historic church

Our rental car must be returned by 5:00pm to the drop off point: the Intercontinental Hotel-Amman to avoid a charge for another day. We headed down the mountain shortly after 4:00 for the quick drive north to Amman. Our Avis guy in Aqaba told us to call his man Mohammad in Amman once we were about an hour away and he would meet us there to pick up the car. Two problems arose at this point. One, the traffic in Amman was unbelievable. Traffic circles everywhere with no lanes marked, horns blaring, illegible goggle maps on Andrea’s I-phone. It was terrifying! The second problem was that Mohammad wanted us to bring the car to him where he was, which was not at the Intercontinental Hotel and he couldn’t really give us a good address. Seriously? At this point, we told Mohammad that the car would be parked at the House Boutique Hotel Suites, our residence for the next few days, and he could come get it. Andrea did an absolute miraculous job navigating Bill to the hotel (almost). With the hotel building in sight above, we made the mistake of stopping at one guard shack short of the hotel which happened to be the Turkish Embassy to Jordan. The somewhat unfriendly machine gun-toting Turk suggested we move along. At last, we made it!

 

Amman is a city of five million people. It is unique in that virtually every building, old or new is the same beige or white color. Looking out over the city from our balcony, it is a beautiful but unusual sight being pretty devoid of any vibrant color. As a very conservative Muslim country, there are no bars along the streets, and very, very few places to purchase wine\beer, even in many restaurants. The people are special. Not once did we feel unsafe or threatened and if asked, they bent over backwards to help us and always said “welcome to Jordan” at the end. The city reminds us of San Francisco, lots of hills and stairs but a walkable city. Our room, or suite is every bit as big as the one in Aqaba but the stunning thing about this one is that our outside balcony must be thirty feet across, twenty deep and looks out over the pool and then the entire city beyond. Perfect place for late afternoon happy hours to watch the sunsets and twinkling lights beginning to glow.

 

Jordan at night from our balcony

 

After a Lebanese dinner that night, we hit the streets on Wednesday to explore. There are three destinations today. First, a beautiful and famous Mosque. After the obligatory confusion finding the place, we ask an old man sitting on the sidewalk for help. To our surprise, he jumps up and speaks near perfect English and informs us that he spent his freshman year of college as a Texas Longhorn and graduated in business and finance from SMU. After an interesting chat with this ol’ boy, he rendered Bill a salute as perfect as any U.S. military general could produce. Might have been more to his story … just saying.

 Hook Em Horns 

 On Rainbow Street and one of the many Souks  along the way 

 Suprised to find this at a book sale, one of my favorite books. 

Here fishy fishy

 

Love pickles and olives 

 Typical ! 

 Lots of loofa

 And spices 

 Rainbow street decor 

The famous Mosque turned out to be under refurbishment so it was closed. Next up was the Roman Theater, a 6,000-seat colosseum built during the 2^nd century by the Romans occupying Amman at the time.

 

After climbing the highest hill in Amman to visit The Citadel, a fortress that has been occupied by many different civilizations going back to 3,100 B.C.

 

The largest flag in the world (well they said it was until Egypt out did them) as seen from the citadel. It is 200x100 feet, visible from 12 miles and the flagpole is 416 feet tall. 

The uncompleted Roman Temple of Hercules 

We have seen this couple all over Jordan, Bill first met them while we were in Wadi Rum while I was climbing a dune and he waited for me. Very nice British couple on their anniversary. 

Sadly, we didn’t get their names but we kept running into each other! 

The church of the citadel

On the way back to the hotel...can you spot Bill in the picture? 

In between all this, we stumbled on to all sorts of souks, markets and shopping areas.  This is a very nice city! Dinner was at a Mexican place, at least that’s what they called it. Since Bill has taken on the task of writing this entry, I’ll add some color here…the food was mediocre and unfortunately caused for breaking out of the travelers diarrhea meds. I won’t say who… but it made a for a down day the next day. Morale of the story: stick to the local food fare. 

 Sometimes it’s best to not clean your plate… just saying. 

 

Friday, June 24 was one of the days we had circled on this trip; the day we were to go to the Baptism site of Jesus Christ on the Jordan River to be baptized. For whatever reason, we found it impossible to schedule this from the U.S. And, when we asked at the hotel about arranging to be baptized, the cost was almost $1,000. Okay, there’s a lot of sins to wash away … but $1,000 worth?? No way. So, we decided that for $70 the hotel would supply a car and an English-speaking driver to take us there and back and we’d just find out for ourselves. Off we went to “Bethany beyond the Jordan” as it is referred to in several places in the bible…the spot where John the Baptist performed his baptisms to the masses, including Jesus Christ. Sure enough … for an entrance fee of $15 and the purchase of a white robe with a color picture of the baptism on the front for $16, anyone could receive a tour of the area where John lived and then could walk right down into the Jordan River as Jesus did. Andrea and Bill faced each other, held hands and submerged three times … In the name of the Father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit.  Very powerful moment. It was also good to refresh our memory that the baptism of Jesus marked the beginning of Christianity as Jesus began his ministry afterwards. One other observation was that the middle of the Jordan River, which really was no more than thirty feet wide, is the border between Jordan and Israel as defined by a 1994 treaty. Prior to this for three decades the entire area was closed because of all the land mines. The Israelis on the other side have their own baptism site but archaeologists agree that Bethany by the Jordan is on the Jordan side.

 

It was very emotional 

Looking towards Israel, the two countries were separated by a rope down the middle of the river. 

Andrea collected water at the baptism site in a small bottle to bring back home with us.

 Our guide who walked us thru the baptism. 

Mosaic depicting the baptism 

The Dead Sea is actually 1385 feet below sea level. It is losing water rapidly due to the neighboring cities needing the water and rainfall here is scare. 

 

Our last day in Amman before moving on to Egypt was spent by the pool, chilling out, writing this blog and doing some last-minute laundry. It will be an early alarm tomorrow…3:15am for our 6:50am Royal Jordanian flight to Cairo. Jordan is indeed a fascinating country.

Chilling 

View from the workout room

Our room balcony was HUGE..overlooked the city and the pool area. 

Bye bye Jordan! It’s been a trip of a lifetime! 

 

The two top tourist spots in Jordan

Today is June 18th, the sixteenth day of the 64-day trip. Our destination this morning is to Wadi Rum, the second most visited tourist site in Jordan. In Arabic, “Wadi” loosely means desert. “Rum” is the name of this particular wadi, the largest in Jordan, about 280 square miles and owned by the Bedouin tribe. These nomads have existed for thousands of years and are basically goat and sheep herders who travel around the desert with no fixed home other than a tent for a week or two before moving on. These days, tourism has mostly replaced herding and the several thousand Bedouin descendants live in Wadi Rum village. They are all related, some have several wives and all the males work in support of the twenty or so tourist camps spread out within the Wadi. We are staying tonight at Memories Aicha Luxury Camp.

Riding to the camp. 

Nothing but desert as far as the eye can see. 

 Our camp in the distance 

                                                                  Our Oasis for the evening

At 3:00pm, we have signed up for a four hour “jeep tour” of the desert. Soi Soi (pronounced Sue Sue) is our guide and driver. He is an 18-year-old Bedouin, born in the village and has no plans or aspirations to ever leave. The “jeep” is actually a clunker pickup truck with seats and a prayer rug roof in the truck bed. It’ll work, though. The tour takes us through a part of the vast desert with just unbelievable scenery … a mix of the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Mars. In fact, many movies have been filmed here including the recent The Martian staring Matt Damion. Most of the stops include walking and climbing up and down the cliffs which gets old pretty quick for Bill. The last stop is the most interesting, the original stone ruins of the house of T.E. Lawrence, the British officer turned writer who wrote Lawrence of Arabia right here, and the movie was also filmed here in the early 1960’s. The tour ended at sunset with Soi Soi building a fire in the desert sand and preparing a pot of tea, Bedouin-style. A memory was made here!

 Red sand dune

 It was a tough climb

Bedouin guide 

 The face in the rocks 

The face in the background and camels resting 

 

Petroglyphs in the canyon, the figure to the far left depicts a woman giving birth 

Man, woman and child 

Deep in the canyon

 Tough climb to this arch

Celebrating that we made it! 

Just some camels passing by

       
                              We opted out of the climb and enjoyed the photo op  from the truck. 

Bill"s cap was soaked so he bought an Arab headdress, called a kaffiyeh. 

There were several tourists "shop" set up in the desert selling 

local goods, water and always complimentary tea. . 

Looking dapper! 

Soi Soi dropped us off on one side of this canyon and picked us up on the other. It was about a mile long and we walked a lot of it barefoot. The sand is very difficult to walk in with shoes. 

 

New meaning for toes in the sand.

This guy made a b-line for us! 

Look closely and you see camels in the bottom of the picture. 

Remains of T.E. Lawrence house, he wrote Lawrence of Arabia here. 

Andrea hiked, barefoot, to the top of this mountain. Soi Soi called her Spiderman. 

Tons of rock towers at the top. 

Completing the climb! 

Sunset love

The sun worshiper

Soi Soi making tea. 

Breathtaking setting

Lovebirds! 

What a great day and sunset! 

Back at camp, our room is actually a geodesic dome that at night, when the overhead curtains are pulled back reveals an entire glass roof with spectacular views of the stars.

Dinner and breakfast are both included (since customers are in the middle of nowhere) and it is buffet style but really pretty good. 

We have met some super nice people along the way. These folks are from India, Dad, mom and daughter (husband from Australia not pictured). Anyways, when Andrea climbed to the top of the mountain (barefoot) she screamed back to Bill "If you are ever going to leave me, nows your chance" ...well,, they were sitting below in their jeep and thought that was so funny. They came up to us at breakfast and said they were glad he didn't leave me. 

Breakfast in a cave

At 9:00 the next morning, we are loaded up in the back of the pickup truck and taken back to the car park area. 

 Something you would never see in the USA. 

Selling tea leaves and the best watermelon we've ever tasted 

View from a mountain pass

 

Continuing on, the destination this Sunday morning June 19th is Petra, Jordan about 50 miles north and the top tourist destination in this beautiful country. Petra is one of the seven new wonders of the world, although it certainly is not new. In the five-hundred years from 400 B.C. until around 100 A.D., it was the capital of the Nabataean empire of 30,000 people and is one of the oldest cities in the world. It was a major stopping point in trade between the Egyptians and all points north. Somewhere in the tenth century the place's location was lost, but not to history and was finally found and rediscovered in the 1800’s. The unique thing about Petra is that the entire city of buildings is built and carved out of the mountains and hidden within a single entrance of a crevice in the mountains. Today, the area is controlled and inhabited by Bedouins most of whom live in caves (yes, caves) in these mountains.

 

Our base for two nights is the Marriot Petra, a beautiful property about 5 km from the entrance to Petra. It faces a mountain range where Aaron, the older brother of Moses is buried and a mausoleum was later built at the burial site. That night, we had an absolutely stunning dinner that consisted of a traditional Bedouin dish, called Zarb, which is cooked underground in pots for hours.  We ate in a Bedouin tent overlooking the mountains at sunset and listening to a Bedouin guy play his Oud and sing Jordanian love songs. We topped it off by smoking a Shisha (Hookah) and conversing with two new friends. We shared a bottle of Arak, a distilled spirit of the anise family. The next day came awfully early. 

 Where our dinner, Zarb, was cooked. 

Salads before dinner

Dinner! 

 Dinner music played on an Oud

Chef Marshall and Chef Kartik from Abu Dhabi 

 

The next morning, the hotel provided a shuttle to and from Petra so we got an early start to tour this place. From the entrance it is about a 2 km walk downhill through the mountain crevice to the beginning of the ancient city. The first building, called “the Treasury” comes into sight and it is truly magnificent. Probably 150 feet tall from the ground, this 2,000-year-old structure still maintains the accurate and intricate carvings that from a distance, appears as though it was built from marble, not carved into the sandstone mountain. No one knows how in the world they built\carved these structures ... sorta like the same questions about the Egyptian pyramids. Unfortunately, from the beginning of our walk and throughout, we are besieged by hawkers selling cheap trinkets and jewelry, camel\donkey\mule rides and ice cream. It really would take weeks to explore every nook and cranny, but there are about a dozen primary sites spread over a few square miles. Since the crown jewel “the monastery” is about nine-hundred fifty winding steps practically straight up on 2,000-year-old and very narrow stone steps, we opted to spring for two mules, “Suzy” and “Jackass”. We learned from our mule ride at the Grand Canyon last year that mules and donkeys are extremely sure-footed animals. It truly is amazing. What also is amazing is the Bedouin guide that maneuvered two mules with people on them up those steps, keeping everything moving and almost running most of the time. The other thing that was amazing is that except for his small size he was a DEAD-RINGER for Actor Bradley Cooper. Even though he made $140 off us, he could make a lot more in Hollywood as Bradley’s double. Oh, and he lives in a Petra cave with his one wife (at least one for now) and five kids.

The treasury, this was also in a scene from Indiana Jones. 

These guys worked hard! 

Caves

Headed thru the gates

The Great Temple, over 7000 square meters 

 Mosaic on the floor of the Petra Church

Inside a tomb, swills of different color rock make up its facade. 

The royal tombs

The Theatre, which held up to 4000 people

See the black line below the window.. this is balsam wood and the only thing that saved this building from collapsing in the big earthquake of 749AD. 

Almost to the Monastery 

Our very cute guide..Mahmoud

The Ad Deir, or Monastery, the crown jewel of Petra is the largest monument in Petra. It dates back to the 2nd century AD. Just imagine, this was all carved out of the sandstone. 

Stunning! 

After a pretty grueling walk back UP to the entrance to catch the return hotel shuttle, we opted for a few beers and a good ol’ American Burger and fries in the Marriot bar. And, after three weeks of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean food, it tasted very good!