Journey Around Jordan

WARNING: You will need about 1/2 hour to read this post completely.
                     It's taken me 3 1/2 hours to write it :-) Enjoy and don't forget to click on the photos to get                        a better view...

Yes, another holiday. Yes, sometimes it does seem that we have more holidays than school days but it's not our fault.
We have just spent the last 5 days in Jordan, based at Wendy Spence's place (Wendy is Carroll's younger sister) in Amman. Fabulous hostess! Gave up her bed and a hot water bottle for us. She was working though while we did the touristy thing each day.
First stop was a day in Amman with Wendy and Shawkat, her neighbour and fellow teacher. Places of interest included Rainbow Street, the "local shops" downtown, the amphitheater and the citadel.

Tony & Shawkat on the steps
leading to the Citadel.

Iti with the ampitheater in the background

Shawkat, Wendy, Iti & I at the Citadel.

Yes they are sarcophagi 

Guess what these are ...

City view from the Citadel

The mosque at the top of the Citadel

Day two we set off to Petra, in the south, via Mt Nebo and Madaba. The weather got the better of us on Mt Nebo as the wind was freezing. The mountain looks out over the Dead Sea and the Holy Lands on a clear day but we are here in Winter and the view wasn't so clear. The mosaic floors and artwork were amazing at Mt Nebo, the Madaba workshop we visited and in the oldest Christian Church in Madaba, St George's Church.

Entrance to Mt Nebo

The floor mosaics were protected from
the weather in a tent

View towards the Dead Sea and the Holy Lands

One of the mosaics from the Byzantine church's floor

Moses travelled to Mt Nebo before he died.

The tree of life - common mosaic design

One of the impressive mosaics in
the St George's Church in Madaba.

The church also contained lots of paintings

The entrance to the church.

 Petra was everything we expected and more. Our driver dropped us off at the Petra Palace, about 100m from the gates and left us to settle for the night. As it was only about 5pm we wandered around the local shops to find a place to eat and met a local who spoke English with an American accent, even had the slang and colloquialisms sorted. He directed us to a hotel on the hill where we could get beer (the hotel was going to be expensive) and it worked out a little cheaper. The hotel on the hill didn't have a bar it had a storeroom out back filled with alcohol and fridges. It did make us laugh because it was stocked so much better than our local bottle store in Maadi. After moving rooms (noisy Egyptian school group on our floor) and a good night's sleep we headed out to spend the day at Petra. It's hard to describe a place like Petra and even the photos we took don't really show the magnificence of the landscape and the temples, tombs and caves. We met the son of a Kiwi woman who married a local Bedouin and settled in Petra back in the 1970s. Raami had been to school in Nelson but had an Aussie accent because he'd spent 4 years at uni in Sydney before returning to live with his mother in Petra. The Bedouins had been moved from their caves in the wadi (valley) to a settlement on the hills but they travel down every day to trade and take tourists up to the Monastery by donkey (between 5JD and 10JD one way). Faced with the challenge to walk the 800 steps, from Wendy, we declined the donkeys. After spending 2 1/2 hours walking down to the Great Temple with our guide the walk from there up to the Monastery took another 50 minutes. It was well worth it. We stopped frequently to take in the landscape and to take photos. Once we'd reached the monastery we just had to go further up to the "best view", another 5 minute walk UP. The rest of the day was spent wandering around trails, climbing, photographing everything that took our interest (including each other) and more climbing. We had completely forgotten about the walk to get back out to the gate, another hour, through the siq (canyon) we had come through to reach the treasury and up the main entrance trail. What a day! The legs weren't bad but we slept well that night.

The obelisk tomb. A little bit of
Egyptian influence. Only the rich and influential
had large tombs.

The Nabataeans were ingenious.
They carved water channels into the rock to
carry water into the wadi.

Can you see the camels legs and body?

Our first peek of the Treasury from the siq.

Donkeys were everywhere, including the caves.

Inside one of the tombs. The parents were buried at the back
and all the children in the front.

The Treasury. They have recently
found more tombs underneath it.

Roman Temple - freestanding buildings
are rare due to earthquake damage.

The path up to the Monastery begins.
Only 799 steps to go.

The view back towards the Royal tombs.

The view of the Monastery from the best view.

Tony and Iti at the Monastery.

Click on this photo for a closeup of Tony 

on the sacrificial platform. He's the iti 

yellow dot

Heading back up the siq. 

Wadi Rum was the next stop on our journey. Wadi means river or creek bed or valley. This wadi was one HUGE valley. The rock formations were immense and the areas where rock had eroded and formed sheer cliffs were incredible. We spent an hour on the back of the 4WD before our camel ride, definite highlight for the day, and a cup of tea at a camp site before heading back to the car. Tea with cardamon is my new favourite, Bedouin style. Back at the camp where the car was we were invited to have lunch with a group of Israeli tourists. 27JD later we headed off to Aqaba, the Jordanian port on the Red Sea. Aqaba is just another city, nothing exciting, with lots of business, hotels, etc. We spent about 10 minutes so Tony could take photos and Bashar could have another cigarette. We didn't mind the smoke stops too much because it meant we were smokefree in the car. Unfortunately we missed the Dead Sea by daylight but saw the lights of Jerusalem and Jericho on the west bank was we continued on up the border towards Amman. We did mind missing the daytime view though! The Dead Sea was the main reason for coming back past Aqaba. Next time inshallah.

The view as we drove into the wadi.

Camel and car tracks. Classic.

All set to go. Surprisingly camels
are comfortable to ride.

The ride was so comfortable we
managed to take plenty of photos.
No hands!

Heading into a camp as a group were heading out.

Tea and cardamon made on a Bedouin fireplace

A typical tourist campsite out on the
wadi - solar power, toilets all included.

It was nice to be back in Amman for a night and catch up with Wendy again. Lots of chat about what we'd seen and comparing notes about Petra. Great fun! The next morning we were in for a real treat. We got to visit a real castle, built around 1180 AD by the Islamists, in a place called Aljun. The castle had been damaged by earthquakes, just like everything else in Jordan, but was still in great condition and we loved exploring something different for a change. Jerash was our last tourist destination for our trip. It was a Roman city and covered a massive area. The ruins we visited included a hippodrome, for racing chariots, amphitheater, temples, churches and lots and lots of columns. We won't be in a hurry to visit Roman ruins for a while because I think we covered a lot in just this visit. We had paid for a guide in our package but decided to flag this one and just pick and choose what we wanted to see. We probably would have learnt more from a guide but there was too much to see and not enough time if we'd had the guide. Back at Wendy's before she got home from school meant we could buy a few groceries and have a late lunch.

The castle high on the hilltop
overlooking modern day Aljun.

The walls were really high.

On our way up to the roof

We found narrow stairways to explore

Finally found a sign to explain
all the different periods in history

The view down the valley from the top.

The stone work and arches were incredible.

The entrance to Jerash. 

The oval 

The colonnaded street leads away from the oval

The view from backstage at the amphitheater

The ancient and the modern Jerash

You gotta be here!

There were times we just had to
sit and take it all in. 

The dam (reservoir) that was built to cater
for the agricultural farming in the area
north of Amman

Last night we headed downtown with Wendy and Shawkat for some more Jordanian food. We have tried quite a few local dishes, mansef being my favourite, and the locals have been lovely towards us. We've been able to practice our Arabic and have learnt some new words as well. We have loved our trip to Jordan even though it's very cold and we are acclimatized to the Egyptian weather. I think we've persuaded Wendy and Shawkat, along with his family, to visit Egypt in the near future. One dinar is worth 10 pounds so there's no worry for the exchange rate and we are looking forward to showing Wendy around Cairo and sending her off to explore Egypt just as we have done in Jordan.
Last minute exploring by Tony - he has decided to walk to the car museum (about 2km from here) while I post the blog. He spotted it on Wendy's map and couldn't help himself after he saw the word "motorbike". What can I say?

Home tonight. Back to work on Sunday :-)