Around The World in 64 Days: 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.