With another week long holiday on offer – this time because of a second Eid festival in the Muslim calendar, Eid-al-Adha which celebrates a story many faiths are very familiar with, the willingness of Abram to just about sacrifice his son – we were off to Jordan.Most people, if you have ever even thought of Jordan the country, and not the basketball player, probably only associate it with one significant site – Petra, the stunning and spectacular city carved into the sides of mountains, and hidden from Westerners for centuries. But Jordan is more than this newest wonder of the world. It has an incredible geography that comes from being so close to two continental divides, and a history that seems only fitting when you consider it sits directly in the middle of so much historical, political, and religious turmoil. And with that, it was time for our one hour and bit flight from Cairo to Amman.
We had been told renting a car was the way to go in Jordan as it is a small country that is friendly on the foreign drivers. Needless to say, we did, but not without some serious nerves having just come from Egypt where driving is as much a contact sport as soccer is – not really allowed, but if no one is looking (and no one is, ever) all is fair! But driving truly is the way to go in this country as it frees you from the schedules of public transport that is trouble-some and confusing at the best of times.
After an evening of recovering from our tough travel day (remember that whole hour of flying?), we set out to explore.
The Promised Land!
On the first day we traveled to Mt. Nemo to visit where Moses first spied the ‘promise land’ and subsequently died at the ripe old age of 120 (we’re shooting for 125); from there we wound down to the River Jordan (more of a muddy stream smaller than 16 Mile Creek at this time of year) to see where it is believed Jesus got baptized by John the Baptist; after that it was a short drive to the Dead Sea which is so named because of its incredible levels of salt which is a result of sitting at the lowest point on Earth, some 400 m below sea level – floating in this sea is really something that has to be experienced!
Day two took us to the former Roman city, Jerash. This city is on the Eastern frontier of what was once the Roman Empire, and the ruins here are compared to Pompei. It is truly extraordinary to think of how far the Roman Empire expanded at a time when most travel was by row boat and foot! And then to see the ruins, some incredibly well preserved, elbowing up next to a modern Islamic city is quite something.
The Temple of Artemis - trivia: Who was Artemis?
Day three was a driving day to find that lost city of Petra, but on our way we crossed some stunning scenery as we moved through mountains that separated the relatively fertile soils of the Jordan valley to the barren desert that covers roughly 90% of the country. Also along the way was a stop at a Crusader castle for some more history – the beginning of the truly violent divide between Islam and Christianity. It is a sorry history on both sides, and something that has us hoping that the bad decisions of today (or the ones we think are good, but turn out not so well) do not have 1000 year repercussions!After 7 hours of winding around 300 km of roads through the mountains we finally reached our destination, Petra! And just in time for the night walk – a highly recommended activity that takes you on a candle-lit walk to the city inside the rock. An eerie way to be introduced to such a place, but interesting as it is as close as possible these days to replicating what it must have been like to enter and leave the city in the dark. We followed this up with a trip to a cave believed to have been in use for some 6000 years, and for the last 1500 years at least, as a tavern for weary travellers. Today, it sits next to a posh guest house, but once inside you can almost taste the history.
The next day gave us a chance to really explore this magnificent creation of human ingenuity – a city protected and hidden, and very nearly preserved for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Believed to have been a place where the people of the area hid their bounty from controlling the region’s trading routes, it is more recently thought to have been a sacred place where many important people were buried in tombs. However you slice it, it is impressive to see and impressive to walk around in.
From here it was a short drive for our last adventure – out to the desert for some camping – which as it turned out is actually like staying in a pretty nice motel in the middle of nowhere that provides an outstanding restaurant, a pool, and even an ampli-theatre (that unfortunately sat empty while we were there). Now of course we have loads of desert here in Egypt, but what makes this desert interesting is the incredible rock formations and the fact this was the setting of the Arab uprising during World War I led by T.E. Lawrence, a British soldier made famous by Lawrence of Arabia. Epic and historical country for sure! Made even more epic when taken in at 60 km/h on your ATV! Not quite the romantic way of seeing the desert, like on the back of an uncomfortable camel, but pretty bad-ass none-the-less!
Bad-ass desert rovers!!Now if your head is spinning after having read all this, simply grab a map of the world and find Jordan – it’s just east of Israel and the West Bank, a little north of Saudia Arabia, west of Iraq, and a little south of Syria and Iran. No wonder this place has seen it all. Amazingly, it stands proudly as a place of incredible beauty and history!
Iraq? No thanks.Want to see more pictures? Tasha has pain-stakingly widdled our 400 wonderful photos to 150!! Seriously, 150. Maybe more like 75.
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