Ok so it is more like Wednesday than Sunday but I have added more photos within the blog. know I am evil you have to scroll all the way through the blog again!
Check back on Sunday when we'll have more pictures uploaded, it takes too long from home so Nancy will put more up from work. For now, enjoy, you've waited long enough for....

Jordan Revealed

As some of you know, during Nancy’s latest school break, five intrepid travelers set off to explore the exotic and mysterious sights of Jordan. Nancy and I were two of the five and this is our story, our companions you’ve met in our previous blogs. The memorable Sarah, Queen of the Dance. The lustrous Laura, our Peruvian Princess, and the ever witty Wendy, the not so stodgy Brit. While we were there we met up with Mary and Paul in Petra, their friend Peter couldn’t make it.

Now I can hear some of you saying, Jordan? Why on earth would one go to Jordan? Isn’t it dangerous? Isn’t it scary? Don’t they dislike us? Rubbish all of it. Why on earth indeed? Some of the most amazing sights on earth are found there, namely Petra (a Nabateans), Ancient city and the Dead Sea (second saltiest of all bodies of water and the world’s lowest point not covered by ice at 1371 feet below sea level), Jeresh (one of the most important and best preserved Roman cities in the Near East). The first two have been on Nancy’s and my list of things we must see for some time, but honestly we didn’t think it would be one of the first things on our list we’d be able to cross off. Actually, cross off is probably not quite right because after only a few days we were already making plans to return. That’s the thing about travel. It always leads to more travel.

Our plan: Fly into Amman on Friday morning, rent a car, drive to Petra by way of a Karak Castle. Arrive in Petra before dark, check into the Petra Gate Hotel, explore Petra Saturday and Sunday, drive to Wadi Rum (how can you NOT go to a place with a name like that?), drive to Aqaba, city of mystery and enchantment, then return to Amman where we were graciously being allowed to stay with some friends of Sarah’s parents for the remainder of our stay. Day trip to Mataba, Mt Nebo, Dead Sea, Jerash. Return to Cairo the following Friday. Sounds pretty straight forward eh?

I had some ideas of what it might be like, after all, Egypt isn’t all that far away, how different could it be? But I didn’t really know what to expect, and this was proven out when we arrived and as we drove south because it was nothing like whatever I had imagined. Jordan is beautiful, at least the parts I saw were. The people, friendly, at least the ones I met. The differences between Jordan and Egypt were striking and immediately noticeable. Clean air for starters, we later learned that Jordan has far fewer people than Egypt. Maybe that helps.Green. Jordan is not as arid and gets more rainfall than Egypt, allowing plants and trees (picture of Olive Tree) to grow, especially in the north. While it may not be as lush as other places I’ve seen, it was surely a sight for sore eyes and an unexpected treat. It made us all a bit giddy and I heard someone exclaim that they wanted to stop, take their shoes off and run through the field. The desert does things to you.

We had heard that the roads were decent and since there were five of us, renting a car would be a good way to get around although public transport to the popular tourist sites is also fairly easy and direct. We also heard that we shouldn’t reserve a car in advance but wait until we arrive since this will be much cheaper. What we didn’t know was that there were only three places in the airport to rent cars. We rented a small Chevy Aleo which we were all able to squeeze into. I drove, mostly because I’m not sure I could fit in the backseat. Interestingly though, it did change hands several times in its long history. We explored and climbed through its dark passage ways for nearlyFrom the airport we headed south toward Petra, stopping at Al Karak castle on the way. Once a part of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and a former stronghold for the crusaders, the castle is set high upon a hill with commanding views all around and even to the Dead Sea. Trying to storm this castle would be difficult to say the least; you’d be knackered before you reached the walls just climbing the hill. two hours before we had to call it a day around 4pm so we could make it to Petra before darkness set in.

The road to Petra that we took is called the King's Highway. Here’s how the Jordan Tourism Board’s website describes it: “First mentioned by name in the Bible (Numbers 20:17 and 21:22), the King's Highway was the route that Moses wished to follow as he led his people north through the land of Edom, which today is in southern Jordan. The name may, however, derive from the even earlier episode recounted in Genesis 14, when an alliance of "four kings from the north" marched their troops along this route to do battle against the five kings of the Cities of the Plain, including the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The invading monarchs captured Lot, Abraham's nephew, before retreating, only to be chased and overpowered near Damascus by Abraham, who rescued Lot before continuing his mission. This may have happened around 5000 years ago”.

Of course the Pavarotti were there and captured this famous photo of Mike and I.



















Can you feel the history? Well, even if you can’t, you’d surely appreciate the natural beauty of the region. It took us almost 3 hours to navigate the hills and winding turns to reach Petra, fortunately reaching our hotel just minutes before true night fell.

The hotel we stayed at was more of a hostel (or less of a hostel, depending on your point of view). The proprietor was a genuinely kind man, who was doing his best to welcome us to Jordan and his establishment. 15 years ago I might have even stayed here a second night, but consensus between the 5 of us the following morning was to find a new place. I found the bed (I use the word loosely) terribly uncomfortable and imagine showering directly over the loo. Those of us who had water that is. Even with that in mind I think it fair to say we all felt awful about leaving for new digs the next morning, after all, we had planned to stay two more nights here and the owner was very kind. I think the rooms were $9 each per night so we decided to pay for the second night even though we didn’t stay. He did not think that was fair to us and said so, since we weren’t staying, so we had to insist. How’s that for a change?

So now it was time to explore Petra. But now I wonder… how many of you know of Petra. Once famously described as "a rose-red city half as old as time", I’m sure many of you would recognize its hallmark “Treasury” from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. A treasure is a great way to describe it too. This ancient city perhaps as old as the 6th century BC, and which in many ways is still a mystery, was only revealed to the western world a mere 200 years ago. It covers a vast area, much of which is still being explored and discoveries are still being found. Forgetting the magnificent tombs and buildings carved directly into the cliff faces for a moment, the area itself is naturally beautiful, with colors of the cliff reminding me of that of the Grand Canyon, changing with the angle of the sun. Add to that the intricately carved buildings, massive in scale, impressive in scope; for this was a huge thriving area at one point, it’s enough to leave one speechless in wonder. Perhaps that is why Petra is lobbying, indeed Jordan is lobbying, to have it voted as one of the new 7 world wonders. Without seeing the vote I can assure you that it is. I hope Jordan can find a way to preserve the site if it does make it onto the list.

Our first day found us doing the traditional tourist trail, walking several km along the Siq, a sort of natural gorge which in places is only several meters wide. Parts of which were paved by the romans around 106 AD. Did they know how to build roads or what?The canyon walls climbing high above us, resplendent in their colors and shielding us from the sun, were awesome. The narrow outlet finally arrives at Petra’s most renowned site, the Treasury.
From there we meandered through the ancient city passing many tombs carved into the cliffs until we reached the amazing theater. I took this picture the next day from high above.

After lunch we climbed to the Monastery, along a steep trail with over 800 steps. Nancy counted each one of them. Can you say OCD?













The Monastery carved into the cliff here was gigantic and the views were incredible and easily worth the effort of the climb. This region is a hiker’s paradise. Those who don’t like walking would find it a bit more challenging.

I had to be quite far away to get the whole building in, to give you some scale if you look closely below the door that's Nancy, Sarah, and Wendy.

Again the views from up here were terrific, I caught Paul in a moment of solitude out on this peak. Talk about being on top of the world!

Got to love lizards. Mike and fun chasing this one around!

That night we stayed in real beds although the rooms were so bloody hot that we passed another frustrating night without decent sleep. Sarah, Nancy and I decided to head into Petra a little earlier than the others, taking a lesser known trail through a narrow wadi. The sign near the entrance said, "Warning: Don’t go beyond this point without an experienced guide." What can I say, we’re adventurous. We saw nobody until we emerged an hour later near the theater where we had arranged to meet Laura and Wendy. The trail was narrow and continued getting narrower until we came to a place where we had to climb down a fairly steep drop. I went first and helped the others down, several more similar drops later, it was too late to think about going back the way we’d come. I think we all felt a sense of accomplishment for making it through this trail. For me it was just nice to be away from the throngs of tourists.














As we emerged we met Laura waiting for us and Nancy and Sarah were looking at some jewelry being sold by one of the local women. The woman mentioned a trail we didn’t know about that was nearby that led up to a point above the treasury with nice views down to it. Sounded intriguing to us so after buying a few trinkets and with Wendy arrived, we set out to find it. We started our climb and met one guy coming down, he encouraged us that it was worth the view so we climbed, and climbed and climbed and eventually made it to the point where we could look out at the treasury. Again, the views were amazing, and the solitude divine. We met nobody else except a local Bedouin boy who was taking the day off from touting tourists. He saw us and came to chat a few moments, invited us to share tea with him (he was maybe 10) and then left us to enjoy a small picnic we’d packed, the view, and to be alone with our thoughts. A near perfect day.




We decided that night that visiting Wadi Rum on Monday, which is unquestionably a must see in Jordan from all who have visited, was not feasible since we were scheduled to be back in Amman that evening and the driving would have been brutal. After a brief discussion we decided to head back toward Amman, visiting Dana wildlife reserve on the way. Half way to the park we began hearing a wup wup wup sound and so I pulled off to the side of the road to investigate. One of our tires was going flat, great! We had a full spare in the trunk but since I didn’t feel like changing the tire on the side of the road and since it wasn’t completely flat I drove on slowly until we reached a town, pulled up to a place that looked like it specialized in tires and made our problem known. Apparently air is free, free being the only english word I understood and possibly the only one the gentleman knew. I told him using sign language that I thought there must be a reason the tire was flat, he must have understood and told me to pull the car into his driveway. He and his assistant jacked up the car, removed the tire, found the screw, removed the tire from the rim, removed the screw, patched the tire, put the tire back on the rim, put the tire back on the car all for 4 Dinar (about $5.60). I think he felt badly that I was stuck in the car with what he assumed were my 4 wives. We were on our way 10 minutes later.

The weather had turned considerably colder (as evidenced by this rare image of Nanook, captured on film) which made our thin skinned companions bundle up even more. The park was extensive and required a fairly lengthy hike down into a ravine. Further than we had time for so we turned around about half way down and headed back to the car. Perhaps on our next trip we’ll schedule a full day or two here to explore the area on foot. Having our daily exercise out the way, and it being near feeding time, we wandered into a little, what’s the word….hotel, I guess. That’s what the sign said anyway. A bit like a hostel from what I saw, we asked the first person we saw that looked like they belonged to the place if we might be able to find food here. He told us wait here and disappeared only to reappear a moment later and say yes. After a brief staring contest in which we both seemed to be deciding our next move, we climbed some stairs where we could hear what sounded like dishes clinking. It indeed did look like a dining area, long tables arrayed with seats all around and some people just finishing up on their way out. We seated ourselves in a clean (ish) area and chatted for a few minutes. After a few minutes more, and no trace of anyone else, we began to wonder if perhaps we were mistaken. I know for a fact that many people not really conversant in English, when they don’t understand a question, just say “yes” and was wondering if perhaps that had happened to us. So now, maybe we were sitting here waiting to be fed, and maybe the guy was down stairs wondering what we were doing here on his roof and not knowing what to do next. More time passed and a man walked by, Wendy flagged him down and asked if perhaps we could have menus. He indicated to us to just wait. By now we had the waiting thing down, so reassured that we were doing the proper thing sitting here, we waited. Moments later, men laden with trays of food descended on us (well, ascended really, we were on the roof) with the most wonderful, authentic Jordanian village meal we could have dreamed of. All vegetarian, which delighted our vegetarian (Sarah). In fact I think we were all astounded and although perhaps a simple meal, it was none the less delicious and we devoured it.

Having gorged ourselves on this wonderful meal, we all piled into the car amazed we all still fit, and some of them already getting ready for a nap. Onward to Amman and our gracious hosts and friends of Sarah’s once removed, Pat and Hamed. We were met by our hosts and followed them to a Chinese restaurant where we ate with them and their two sons.

The next day we headed toward the Dead Sea by way of Madaba, famous for it’s 6th century map of Jerusalum done in mosaic tiles on the floor of a greek church.

What we thought would be a half hour stop turned into an hour and half when you factored in shopping time so we decided to scrap the rest of our planned stops and head directly to the Dead Sea. Following signs for the Dead Sea we finally ended up on a hillside, overlooking the sea, on a winding one lane road that we were hesitant to continue on. We turned around and went back to look at the road sign, sure enough it said we were on the right road to the Dead Sea. No tour bus ever took this route though. At one point we had to stop and honk the horn for two horses who were sleeping to get out of the road. A few military checkpoints later and after finding the main road, we arrived at the Dead Sea Spa and Resort.

We floated in the water, amazingly suspended without effort due to it’s high saline content of over 30%. Even more amazing, there is one other place that’s saltier. We soaked for awhile, then taking mud from the banks slathered it all over, gross eh? Cheapest spa treatment I’ve ever had though, our skin was a soft and smooth as if we were babes. We relaxed at the pool for the last few hours of the day, watching the sunset across the sea behind the mountains of Israel.

On the ride back to Amman, Wendy was jabbering non-stop about how great she felt, how invigorating, how energizing the Dead Sea was for her and made the statement that she felt years younger already, then off-handedly stated that Sarah (the youngest in our group) was going to wake up in diapers tomorrow. I almost had to pull the car over until I recovered.

Pat and Hamed joined us the following day for our visit to Jerash, the spelling of which seems to be in some dispute as we saw many road signs all with different variations. Before we left Amman, we were treated to a traditional breakfast with falafel, hummus, tahini, vegetables, and fabulous freshly baked bread. Each time a plate emptied, it was immediately refilled or replaced. We ate forever! We toured the ancient roman city, one of the largest of its kind, for almost 2 hours. We might have stayed longer if not for the local school trips that apparently chose the same day as us to visit.

We drove on from there to another castle, this one built by Saladin. As far as castles go, it was pretty impressive, setting high on a hill with views of the valleys surrounding it.

The leisurely drive through the pretty countryside was nice, although I had to keep my eyes mostly on the road. We returned to Amman where I proceeded to get my hat handed to me by Wendy in ping pong, after the equal thrashing she gave me in fooz ball, I’m not sure I can live with myself. The one upside, at least I think its an upside, is that Sarah got hooked on ping pong, it was certainly a side of her I hadn’t seen.

We spent Thursday shopping at a local mall, bought a few knick-knacks and necessities then returned to P&H’s for a dinner party they were throwing in our honor. We couldn’t have asked for more gracious hosts. After some pleasant conversation and a few more games of pong we called it a night. Nancy, Laura and I flew back to Cairo the next morning bidding farewell to Jordan, but pledging that one day we’d return to this fascinating country.