March 31 – April 4, 2018

For our third trip we decided on Jordan.  This wasn’t really on a short list when we arrived in the United Arab Emirates but after talking to several other people there we were, booking flights for Amman. We thought it was good to go before getting into the summer heat, since we planned to spend at least one night under the stars in a tent.  I thought I knew a lot more about Jordan than Seychelles, and I did – but not much.  These trips have been very educational as well as just plain fun.  Here a few fun facts and interesting details I researched before the trip.

• Jordan is an Arab nation of about 10 million people in western Asia, bordered on the west by Israel, the north by Syria, Iraq to the northeast, and Saudi Arabia to the south and east. It is officially known as the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Hashemites being descended from Hashim, the great grandfather of the prophet Muhammad.
• Amman, in the north of the country, is the capital and largest city at about four million people.
• The country is relatively young, becoming an independent country in 1946 following a period as a British protectorate after France and Britain partitioned the Ottoman Empire following World War I. The country was a province of Syria during 400 years of Ottoman rule. The first recorded use of the name Jordan appeared in an Egyptian papyrus dated around 1000 BC.
• Although young as an independent country, it is an ancient land. Evidence of human habitation dates back 250,000 years.
• The country is stable compared to the turmoil in much of the region. A peace treaty was signed with Israel in 1994, one of only two Arab countries to do so (Egypt is the other).
• In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jordan captured the West Bank and ruled it until 1967 (although never internationally recognized). The area was recaptured by Israel in 1967, and Jordan officially relinquished its claims in 1988, including stripping West Bank Palestinians of Jordanian citizenship.
• Sunni Islam is practiced by about 95% of the population. They coexist peacefully with a small indigenous Christian population, and the country has accepted thousands of Iraqi Christians fleeing persecution by ISIL.
• The currency since 1949 has been the Jordanian dinar. The dinar is pegged to the US dollar at one US dollar = .709 dinar.
• Petra, in the south of the country, is one of the popular tourist sites known for its rock-cut architecture. It was the capital of the independent Nabataean kingdom around 300 BC.  They were skilled at harvesting water using a series of dams, conduits, and cisterns.
• Petra was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1985, and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World in 2007.
• Wadi Rum is a valley cut into sandstone and granite rock and resembles the surface of Mars, making it a popular filming and tourist attraction, including scenes in The Martian (2015).
• The Dead Sea is 9.6 times saltier than the ocean.
• Jordan is the 7^th largest producer of potash in the world.

We flew from Abu Dhabi to Amman on March 31.  Most people we talk to recommend just using bank ATMs to get local currency on arrival, and we probably would have been fine to do that.  We had to pay our local driver cash on arrival and I didn’t want to run into a snag right off the bat so I changed money before leaving Ruwais.  The markup at the local money store in the mall was about 2%, I felt that was okay.  I compared the rate at Abu Dhabi airport, it was about 6% markup.  I had noted at the Seychelles airport there was only a single ATM and wasn’t sure how big the airport in Jordan was.  I was satisfied with our decision, and that was one less thing to worry about.

We had a smooth 3-hour flight.  We are fine tuning our packing.  Each of us was able to pack everything we needed for a week in our day packs and stayed well under the 7 kg (about 15 pounds) limit. This frees us from having to mess with checked baggage and the additional opportunity for problems that presents.  An enthusiastic “George” (not his real name) met us at the airport and guided us quickly through customs.

Our driver for the first day was Mohammed, a third-generation Russian immigrant to Jordan.  He drove us from the airport to Jerash, our first stop. The city has been inhabited by humans for 6500 years, including periods of Christianity, Roman, Islamic, and Ottoman control.  The most prominent ruins are from the Roman period.  We had a local guide, Zaher Omar, that cost 30 Jordanian dinar. This was covered by our tour package costs, although we did tip an additional 20 dinar after a very thorough 2-hour tour.  Our tour package included a “Jordan Wanderer” pass that cost 70 dinar that got us access to all the state-owned attractions we went to (which was most of them) as well as the guide costs (minus tips) for guides we had at Jerash, Petra, and Wadi Rum.  We spent the night in Amman, finding out that the term cocktail (advertised as available in hotel literature) means something different in Islamic countries than in western ones.

The next morning were met in the lobby of the hotel by our driver for the remainder of the week, a native Jordanian named Sulaiman.  He was a Muslim, like most in the country are. A very friendly fellow, his knowledge of the country and customs was a difference maker for the rest of the week. Having a private driver gave us a lot of flexibility with the itinerary.  Our first stop was at St. George Monastery in Madaba, known for having a mosaic map that accurately depicts the layout of the Middle East at the time. What we did fail to consider was that we had arrived on Easter Sunday, and services were taking place in the Greek Orthodox Church. So we didn’t get to see the mosaic map but we did step into the back of the church and admired the first of many fine mosaics we saw during the week.  We bought a fine little Tree of Life Mosaic in the shop.

We left St. George’s and headed towards Mount Nebo.  Sulaiman asked if we would be interested in seeing The Church of Lot and Procopius.  It is locked and not open to the public, but he knew the man with the key and was able to get us access for a look.  I tipped the man 5 dinar in thanks.  The mosaic floor dates back the 5^th century AD and was a nice bonus attraction for us that wasn’t on the agenda.

Our next stop was The Mosaic House, a craft house supported by the queen to provide jobs to handicapped in Jordan. I don’t know if it is for women only by design, but all the craftspeople we saw were women.  The store manager (handicapped himself) showed us around.  We were told 60% of the sale goes directly to the artist, and 40% to the facility.  We paid 840 dinar ($1180) for a small table made with a black iris (the national flower of Jordan) that included shipping to the US.  We paid no sales tax (normally 16%) by buying it there. An expensive trip we hadn’t planned but we got an excellent souvenir and supported a good cause.

We continued to Mount Nebo and the Memorial of Moses.  This is a privately held site that contains the spot where Moses is believed to have looked down over the Promised Land.  A small church was built there in the late part of the 4^th century AD that, again, contains fantastic mosaics on the floor.  A worker sat on the floor cleaning the tiles.  We spent an hour or so looking at the exhibits and taking pictures before continuing to the Dead Sea.  The road down was a curvy, steep road, dropping us down to the Dead Sea Spa Hotel where we swam in the Dead Sea, played in the mud, and had lunch.  The Dead Sea is both very low – at 1388 feet below sea level it is the lowest point on the surface of the earth – and deep – at 1237 feet deep, it is the deepest landlocked body of water in the world.  As we walked down to the shore, we noticed the signs indicating the level is dropping rapidly.  It looked like another 25 foot or so elevation drop since the turn of the century.  They had a box of mud they filled and mixed with the sea water for us to spread all over ourselves.  We had fun with that and floating in the water.  We had always heard about how buoyant it was due to the high salinity, but it was even more so than we expected.  The water was crystal clear.

We headed on south along the Dead Sea Coast for a time, with a couple of interesting stops along the way.  The first was a stop to see “Lot’s Wife”, a stone formation high on the bluff above us.  According to Sulaiman, the Dead Sea is also known as Lot’s Lake, a detail neither Lynn or I had ever heard of before, created when the Lord raised Sodom into the air and smashed it back to earth, creating the depression where the sea is now.  All very interesting.  Along the coast line, heavy salt deposits were evident, which include all the other trace minerals that go with it.  Sulaiman said there were several businesses further south where the minerals are harvested from the salt.  The second interesting stop was at Wadi al Mujib Nature Preserve, a slot canyon leading out to the Dead Sea. This is one of several nature preserves in the country and reminded me of Utah slot canyons.

We continued our drive on down to Petra, the landscape shifting from the generally green landscape of olive orchards and agriculture in the north around Amman to the high desert in the south.  We passed occasional commercial operations such as cement manufacturing and potash (potassium) mining.  We had fun with Sulaiman comparing the landscape to various parts of the southwest US (“Now we are in Texas”….”Now we are in Utah”….etc etc).

Our last stop before checking in at the P Quattra Inn in Petra was the spring of Moses.  This was enclosed in a small, nondescript building.  A large rock is in the building, and a spring flows out next to it.  Moses in the Bible strikes the rock and a spring gushes forth to provide for his people, who are grumbling about being saved from Egypt only to die in the desert. He is shunned from entering the Promised Land for striking the rock rather than speaking to the rock as God commanded. It is interesting to note that Moses is mentioned in the Quran more than 120 times as a prophet and messenger, discussed in great detail.  We learned later that the Nabateans piped this spring water a couple of miles to Petra to provide their drinking water, using the water they harvested from the landscape there for washing, irrigating crops, and for stone carving (apparently soaked sandstone is easier to shape and carve).

The next day, April 2, we got an early start at the ancient Arab Nabatean Kingdom city of Petra.  There is evidence Petra was settled as early as 9000 BC.  The nomadic Nabateans established Petra as a regional trading hub to take advantage of its location along ancient east-west trade routes.  Sulaiman took care of the entrance details, and we were left with a local guide for about the first 2 hours.  He led us down the entry canyon (a ‘Siq’ in Arabic) to “The Treasury” which is one of the two most famous structures in the park.  This structure is carved into the sandstone face, about 120 feet high. It is believed to have been carved in the first century AD, involving hired Greek architects. It became known as “The Treasury” only much later when area Bedouins came to believe that the giant urn at the top of the carving contained treasures from the Pharaohs of Egypt.

From there we worked our way down the broad canyon, with tombs of the commoners on one side and for the elite on the other. The Nabateans believed in the afterlife, and tombs were an important feature to be provided for.  Tombs were established for entire families, not individuals.  Another feature described to us was the intricate water harvesting performed by the Nabateans to make life there possible. Terraces were cut into the tops of bluffs and the water channeled through troughs to a network of cisterns.

As we worked our way further into the park, we first passed the only ancient stadium that was carved directly into the rock, with seating for some 4000 people.  We then came upon the Roman ruins section of the city with a paved central street.  It seems the Romans took notice of the clever Nabateans, and Petra eventually fell to the Romans, although its importance declined with the development of sea trade. By the early Islamic period, the city became an abandoned place and remained so for several hundred years.

As we left the central Roman ruins, we bid our local guide adieu, and headed up the 960 steps to the second major structure, The Monastery.  Numerous locals tried to sell us the service of their donkeys to take us up, but we passed. It was a good hike, maybe a mile, lined with an almost constant stream of locals peddling all sorts of souvenirs.  Our guide said there was no licensing, people can set up wherever they want.  I bought a Jordanian keffiyeh for 5 JOD and put it on homdonie style.  After a while, we arrived at The Monastery, a stunning carving about 150 feet high and wide.  A small café was located there with comfortable couches with a great view of The Monastery under some trees.  I enjoyed a stout Turkish coffee, Lynn had a fresh squeezed juice, and we split a bag of chips for about $10.  There were a few other short trails that went still higher, advertising one of several “Best View in the World” we saw.  They were indeed very fine and gave you a nice vista. And they gave us the opportunity to observe that no landmarks are immune from graffiti. ☹

We came down from the Monastery and enjoyed a Jordanian beer before leaving the park.  Sulaiman recommended a location and dish and we were not disappointed. We had Mansaf, a Jordanian dish of lamb and rice with a cooked yogurt sauce, and Musakan, a spiced, grilled chicken Palestinian dish.  Each were 9 dinar, about $25 total.  We also decided to have another beer.  Because we were eating outside by the sidewalk, we had to pour the beer into coffee mugs so we wouldn’t have open beer cans visible in public. You have to do what you have to do……

We rested in the hotel for a couple of hours before returning for “Petra at Night’, interrupted only by the management stopping by to ask if they could borrow the mattress off our second bed (?).  “Sure, it’s all yours.”  Sulaiman picked us up and took us back to the park (have I said how great private drivers are?).  We walked back down to The Treasury by a candlelit trail.  We had a big crowd, maybe 1000, that sat by candlelight listening to Bedouin musicians play flute and rababh and tell stories invoking the mysteries of the ancients. At the very end, The Treasury was bathed in floodlights for a touching closure.  We walked back out and Sulaiman took us back to the hotel.  We were tired.

We slept in a bit the next morning and didn’t head out to Little Petra until about 9:30. Little Petra is 5 miles north of Petra. It is believed to have been built when Petra trading was at its peak (1^st century AD) to house visiting Silk Road traders.  The nature of the structures is similar minus the grandeur of the Treasury and the Monastery, and with much fewer people.  There were several people selling goods but again much fewer.  I got some nice character shots.  One was a lady making yarn from camel hair, and one of some Bedouins I bought a cup of tea from.

We left Little Petra and headed to Wadi Rum by way of the Kings Highway and partly on the Desert Highway.  The Kings Highway connected the Ammon, Moab and Edom kingdoms, and has been in use for over 5000 years.  It curves and meanders along the Dead Sea and isn’t used too much since the advent of the newer, faster Desert Highway for driving south from Amman.  We stopped at a truck stop for shawarma sandwiches, a popular dish in this part of the world.  Meat is shaved off a column of meat rotating by a heat lamp, then rolled up in a piece of flat bread and grilled.  Three of us ate, including fries, salad, and drink for 7.5 dinar – about $10.  He said that was because we were at a truck stop, not a tourist destination. I noticed again, as I have noticed before, it is common to not be given any utensils. People eat with their fingers, even rice dishes.

We checked into the Hassan Zawaideh Camp in Wadi Rum (Valley of the Moon) for our authentic Bedouin desert camping experience.  Not so much. The tents were actually simple wooden buildings covered in fabric, complete with front porch, running water, toilet, and shower. They didn’t have AC, so we were roughing it that much.  We rested for about an hour, then headed off for our desert jeep trip.  The sky was filled with hazy clouds but the temperature was pleasant.  Our driver looked like a very young teenager but seemed up to the task of driving us around the desert for several interesting stops.  One stop included a demonstration of using a native plant, Seidlitzia Rosmarinus, to make soap by crushing some of the stems and adding water.  We stopped by some petroglyphs and Siq Lawrence (Lawrence Canyon of Lawrence of Arabia fame) before heading to a rock outcrop to admire the sunset.  We returned to our camp to enjoy our Bedouin barbecue known as Zarb, a layered dish cooked in an underground pit for several hours.  I also relaxed watching some of the natives play the Rababh and drink tea by a fire.

We headed out the next morning for our return to Amman after a breakfast of traditional foods.  We chatted with the driver on the way back and made some interesting observations and learned some facts about the country:

• An hour north of Wadi Rum, we passed a joint venture Egyptian-Jordanian photovoltaic farm.
• Random police stops around the country are frequent, checking IDs and registrations. Our driver handled all these smoothly.  The tourism trade is very important to the Jordanians and they take security seriously.
• In addition to the solar farms, we noticed many wind turbines either already installed or being built.
• The driver said the people are happy with the King and think he is good man.
• There are speed cameras throughout the country. You only find out if you had violations when you renew your insurance. Your rates can go up or you can even be fined if you have too many.
• If the police pull you over and give you a ticket, you must pay for it on the spot. If you can’t, they take your license and you have 30 days to pay.
• I have seen okra many times in the Middle East. After a bit of research, it turns out it is originally from Ethiopia.

Our last tour stop was the Citadel in Amman, another historical spot with Roman ruins. Overlooking the city, you can see a Roman auditorium that is still in use.  When we visited the auditorium later, some local school girls came running up to us and wanted a selfie with us.  Funny, but we obliged.  From the opposite side looking over the city, Sulaiman said we were looking at a Palestinian refugee camp.  Jordan is a country of refugees from war plagued countries all over southwest Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and Africa.

Sulaiman treated us to a fine lunch from a tiny local vendor before dropping us off at the airport.  This was another perfect vacation.  Total expense of $4460 inclusive of everything seemed like a good value.