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.

 

Petra

I like antiquity and history, and I like to explore urban areas. Instead of walking the usual path home, take a right at the crossroads and see what happens. If you find nothing or a deserted place, what was there at some other point in time? Petra - Jordan’s most famous tourist attraction - is always swarming with people, but it offered me the thrill of just those thoughts.

Petra is, in fact, an entire city. You’re guided through it along a path. And although it is busy with tourists you’re in absolute awe of the surroundings, soon forgetting all about the chitchat and footsteps around you. The Siq, a gorge of a few kilometers long with steep walls shooting up beside you, guides you to a sandy plaza, well-known from all tourist pictures. The Treasury, a huge Corinthian style temple cut from the rose-red rock, rises up in front of you here. And this is just the start. The trail continues on to a valley with houses and temples cut from stone on both sides. Most striking were the caves, the steps and the colours. Caves could be found everywhere in the city, and I entered a couple; basically, most of them are squarely cut rooms with high ceilings, some of them with an elaborate entrance. Also, you find carved steps everywhere, sometimes in the most amazing locations. How people ever got up there absolutely baffled me. Finally, the colour of the rock is stunning. In essence the site is a rosy red, but especially where the outer layers of rock were cut away, an unendingly more brilliant spectacle of colourful lines and patterns may be seen. Beautiful.

As I experienced when walking through Pompeii, I find myself intensely trying to imagine the city in all its glory, filled with people and carts, filled with sounds other than the snapping of camera shutters. Some 20,000 Nabataean souls working and living in their regional trade capital on the edge of the desert, supplied by an intricate network of waterways and trade routes. A Roman-style theater holding 4,000 spectators, enjoying theater and drama. It was harder to imagine than a living Pompeii because of the difference in preservation and my lack of knowledge of ancient Arab cultures, but the living city did appear in my mind’s eye. Simply amazing!

Click on the Flickr account on the right hand side for some pictures!