Climbing mountains and -400m in 1 day

My second time to Petra was more interesting than the first. Me and Frederik covered the same amount of sights in half the time compared to my last visit, and we took some amazing climbs up the various hills around the hidden city. For example, we headed up the stairs to the High Place of Sacrifice. From this mountaintop and destroyed temple, we had a beautiful view of the whole city. Amazingly, as we were up there, a windy front rolled in and caused a sand storm in the valley below. Very weird sight. Poor tourists. We also climbed to the top of the theater, which was awesome. I didn’t do it last time because it was closed by fences, but this time I just followed the Berserker Viking on his quest for ever higher heights. And man, was it great. From up high, it gives you another great view of the city and you can imagine the roar of 8,000 Nabataeans.

This last Thursday, I also visited the Kerak and the Dead Sea for the first time. The first part of the day was spent at Kerak castle, a Crusader caste from the 1200s. It’s mostly rubble on a hill, but the walls still stand. The most amazing parts are hidden deep underground and constituted the stables and living quarters of the Crusaders; they are magnificant multi-level halls, going down as far as four different levels. Later on the day, as Frederik and I drove down from the mountains to the lake’s shoreline, we could see a weather front roll in from over the hills in Israel. Just our luck. We were in time for the sunset, but alas, the clouds rolled in and that was it. We went to the Dead Sea Marriot Hotel, mistakenly bought 2 dinner vouchers thinking they were entrance tickets for the spa (which is the only way to go into the Dead Sea and enjoy a needed shower afterwards), but got in anyway thanks to a nice security guard. The feeling of not being able to sink is very strange. I got the hang of floating after one panicky help-I’m-going-to-sink-like-a-rock arm splash, getting the salty water into my eye –- not a recommended experience. The trick is to just stretch to keep your balance. After having been in the water for a while, I dutifully rubbed the last bit of mud from one of the jars at the beach on my body. Then I just sat back and enjoyed the view over the lowest part (400 meters below sea level) of planet Earth.

 

Travels in Spring

An abundance of experiences and travels and too little time to write them all up. The tragic result: it has been a month since my last update. In this month I worked, met yet more people, traveled around ancient Jordan and hosted one of my best friends. Now that I’m in bed with a cup of Starbucks coffee at my side, let me tell you about it all. View the photographs of all the places mentioned below at this Picasa web album.

Early in April, I decided to visit one of Amman’s most ancient sites: the Citadel, or Al Qala. This fortification in the middle of the downtown area lies high upon one of Amman’s mountains and stems from before Christ. However, most of the ruins date from Roman times, when Amman was called Philadelphia and was a major city in the Decapolis. It was one of the first sunny days since I arrived in Jordan, and the wind was howling across the mountains. Walking around alone, it was kind of eery; very few tourists around and a single armed guard. I walked around flipping pages of my Lonely Planet, trying to figure out all sorts of information about the site. The view down to the streets below and to the Roman Theater was spectacular. Supposedly, the Roman elite had a tunnel constructed to carry them from the temple complex on the Citadel down to the Theater, as to avoid mingling with the dirty riff raff in the streets. Nobody knows where this tunnel is, or if it even really exists!

Continuing to feed my hunger for history and archeology, I visited Jerash and Umm Qais in the north of Jordan, in Roman times respectively known as Gerasa and Gadara. These cities were also in the Decapolis. I rented a car with one of my best friends Frederik, who came over for a week while traveling from Dubai to Amsterdam, and drove up there. Jerash was amazing; incredible well preserved and an enormous site. The most amazing part was the theater. Beautifully restored and certainly worth a visit during the Jerash Festival this summer, for a concert or two! Umm Qais was a small Roman city but nonetheless an interesting visit. The first striking thing is the use of black stone instead of white marble. Really weird to see that! It is not nearly as impressive as Jerash or any other ancient site in Jordan, although it boasts a magnificent view of the Golan heights (Israeli occupied but actually Syrian) and Lake Tiberias. However, I value my visit to Umm Qais as more entertaining than Jerash, because of the complete rawness of the site. It hasn’t been excavated well and that means that you can just stray from the path and start your exploration. Roman pottery is spread all over the place.

I was also stalked by an Iraqi woman in Umm Qais. She was with her friends and started to giggle uncontrollably when I looked over my shoulder towards her. Wherever I walked with Frederik, I bumped into her and her friends. It turned out that she was Christian (‘My name is Mary!’), around 35 years old and wasn’t married yet - or anymore! Hence the stalking. Her 5 veiled friends discussed me in Arabic, and when I told them that ana (I) be7bti (speak) arabi (arabic) shway (a bit), they all just sort of applauded me and started to ask me all sorts of questions. I enjoyed my 5 minutes of admiration and then casually walked away.

 

Jordan blogs

Time for blogger RESTECP.

Before I came to Jordan, I decided to check out the Jordanian blogging world. I was pleased to see that it was quite big, largely Amman-based, and that it had a lot of precious information about life in Amman. This was exactly the information that I was looking for. Personal recommendations for restaurants? Any new stores opening? What is the best place for wireless internet? What are the places no tourist ever goes, but are a must-see? Where can I find the perfect store for this-and-that?

I’ll point you to a couple of blogs that have provided me with a lot of information over the past month and a half.

And last but certainly not least: an Arab blogging network, Toot. Great stuff.

Thanks to And Far Away for those pictures

 

“Welcome to Jordan!”

So, here I am. Finally with a decent Internet connection at the office. I landed safely on Saturday morning, and was immediately introduced to that Jordan way I had heard so much about. I was waiting at the luggage belt for my 2 sets of luggage, and only 1 arrived. So, bummed out of course, I headed over the the luggage service desk, where I filled in some forms. I was instructed to call and see tomorrow. Then as I turned, a maintenance guy asked me what the colour was, and then dove into the LUGGAGE BELT HOLE to see if he could find it. Eh voila. Crazily enough, out popped the green bag. Strange first impression!

I’ll update tomorrow with stories I’ll write tonight and some pictures. Still don’t have a connection at my appartment, but I hope that will change in the next two weeks.