Middle East: Jordan 2008

"If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal."

Paulo Coelho

This is the continuing account of my 2008 trip to the Middle East countries of Egypt, Jordan and Israel (see other blog entries).....

Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Images of the ancient Nabataean city of Petra, carved from the rock over a thousand years ago, have long been most people's first impression of Jordan.  But while Petra is indeed one of the most stunning attractions in the Middle East, Jordan offers so much more for the modern traveller.

A well-travelled bridge between sea and desert, east and west, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a land of mesmerizing beauty and contrasts, from the Jordan Valley, fertile, ever changing, to the remote desert canyons, immense and still.  Visitors can explore splendid desert castles, gaze in awe at the haunting wilderness of the Wadi Rum, or bathe in the restful waters of the Red Sea or the Dead Sea!

Modern Jordan was founded by King Adbullah I after World War 1.  It was ruled by his grandson, the late King Hussein, for 46 years until his death in 1999, when his son King Abdullah II assumed the throne.  Jordan has grown into a modern nation which has enjoyed a remarkable measure of peace, stability and economic growth in recent decades.

We cross the Gulf of Aqaba from Egypt and land in......

Aqaba

The balmy climate and idyllic setting on the Gulf of Aqaba, ringed by high desert mountains, make this Jordan's aquatic playground.  While Amman, the capital, shivers in winter and temperatures  around 5C and the occasional snowfall, the daytime mercury in Aqaba rarely goes below 20C and is often a few degrees warmer.

Aqaba is strategically important to Jordan as it is the country's only seaport.  The town borders Eilat, Isreal, and there is a border post there, where it is possible to cross between the two countries.

The change in the wealth of this country as opposed to Egypt (from where I just came) is evident upon arrival in the port of Aqaba.  Notice the boats docked at the piers!

The local market catered to everyone....trinket store for the tourist right next to the butcher shop.....

....lamb anyone??

The town across the bay in the distance is Eilat in Israel.

The next day we head for the......

Wadi Rum desert

Wadi Rum is a desert valley cut into the sandstone and granite rock in southwest Jordan, full of large and imposing rock formations, all tinted slightly in pink.  It is the largest valley in Jordan.  In the west, Wadi Rum may be best known for its connection with British officer, T. E. Lawrence, or Lawrence of Arabia, who based his operations in Wadi Rum during the Arab Revolt of 1917 -18.

But first we had to get there.....

We hit the trail in our packed jeep-truck.

Within a hour, we enter the majestic theatre of Wadi Rum:  haunting moonscapes, with hues of red and brown that seem to change depending on the time of day.

Herd of camels hanging out in the Wadi Rum.

We stopped frequently:  here we got the opportunity to climb around the sand-pocked cliffs.

"I know let's play a game!  We'll all climb this huge sand dune up to the rock cliff under the blazing sun!!  Sound like fun?"

Steeper than it looked!

Move over Lawrence because William of Arabia is the new kid in town!

A journey to the Wadi Rum is like a journey to another planet.  A vast, silent place, timeless and starkly beautiful.  It consist of a series of valleys (Wadi means 'valley'), each about a mile wide, that run north-south for scores of miles.

We ALL pose under the Burdah Rock Bridge, a narrow piece of rock precariously perched about 80 metres above us.....

....but only Larissa, Brian, Sukra and myself was interested enough to climb to the top!  This picture gives a better perspective of the size of this arch!

Later while we stopped for lunch, I scampered up this pocked marked cliff.

From my perch I can see our guide getting mid-day tea ready!

Lawrence of Arabia described this landscape as "great bastions of rock, skewered and scrolled and fissure and wrinkled by salt, sand and wind into shapes that no delirious mind could invent embodied in rock and stone; landscape of the unconscious mind."

Ditto to Lawrence's description!

At the end of the day we head back to our camp for the night....

This Bedioun "tourist camp" nestled out of the sun in among the limestone cliffs is our camp  for the night.  This is a very Muslim country and it is also (still) Ramadan, so a cold beer was out, but I didn't want a beer so much as I wanted something to eat.  I was famished.

To my starving relief, supper was in the oven.....aaah I mean in a barrel, buried in the sand and placed over a mound of burring charcoal!

Yes by'!!

And let the feast begin!  I have to say the lamb was the best I had ever eaten.....bar none!

Later that night our host gathered around a raging fire and sang traditional Jordanian songs.  Or at least one can assume they're traditional Jordanian songs since we are in Jordan, but hey who knows?  I don't speak the language!

The next day we visit.......

Siq Al-Barid (Little Petra)

This 400 metre-long siq (loosely means entrance) was thought to have served as an agricultural centre, trading suburb and a resupply post for camel caravans visiting Petra.

The siq or entrance to Little Petra.

The siq opens up into larger areas, known as rooms.  This temple (?) carved into the rock face was in the first room!

This young entrepreneur approached me in the first room and very persistently solicited my business totting himself as a knowledgable guide.

Continuing onwards thru the siq's narrowing openings we would find ourselves in several more rooms.

Hanging out in a room or tomb or something carved into the rock!

There were steps carved into the siq everywhere but it was evident that very few went anywhere.

End of the road!  The steps were blocked at the top by a large fallen boulder.

The next day we head to.......

Petra

Petra, where breath-taking architecture is carved into rose-coloured sandstone, where words and pictures can hardly do justice to the true magnificence that it is.

Accessible only through a narrow gorge (called a 'siq'), Petra was one of the most easy to defend cities of the ancient world.  Its leaders became rich through trade, good water management and by exacting tolls from caravans.  Petra's glory days were in the century before Christ's birth.  When Rome annexed it in the 2nd century, Petra had about 30,000 residents.  Petra's temples, tombs, theatres, and other buildings are scattered over 400 square miles.  

Five minutes after we walk through the gates you come across three enormous monuments, known as the Djinn (Spirit) Blocks, built by the Nabataeans in the 1st century A.D.  Their exact function remain a mystery!

The beginning of the narrow gorge, the Siq, that leads to the ancient city of Petra.  

The Siq was famous around the time of Christ for being the only way through these mountains , and traders bringing back silk from China to Europe often travelled through here.  Back then the good people of Petra charged a fee for this passage and became quite rich!

Petra has often been called the Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World.  The entrance certainly has a WOW factor happening!

The Siq's impressive sides reach up an amazing 200 metres (about 650 feet).

Bizarre looking geological formations also occupy the Siq.  You tell me.....fish head?

The Siq and the temple at the end of it were popularized in American culture in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  Knowledge of Petra was lost to the western world until John Lewis Burckhardt tricked his Bedouin guides into leading him there in 1812.

As you approach the end of the Siq, you catch your first glimpse of the most famous building in Petra - the iconic El Khazneh, which is Arabic for Treasury

The end of the Siq is the massive city of Petra..........

The Treasury, so named because the latter inhabitants believed that the original inhabitants, the Nabataeans, stored treasure there.  In reality, El Khazneh was used as a tomb.  Built between 100BC and 200AD, and like many other 'buildings' in Petra, it was really a facade carved out of the sandstone cliff.  El Khazneh soars about 40 metres from the desert floor.  I'm dwarf by the hugeness!

After leaving the Treasury we head towards the centre of the city passing the 40 tombs and houses that make up the Street of Facades.  The tombs here are similar to the hundred or more all around Petra, but these are certainly the most accessible.

This structure, known as Tomb #70, is unusual in that it is freestanding making it look somewhat like a miniature fort.

I explore one of the tombs....

The tombs have amazing colourful interiors, splashes and swirls of magenta, midnight blue and ochre create natural pictures on the walls and ceilings that rival paintings in the finest museums, but the 'masterpieces' are solely due to the natural colours of the sandstone.

Tomb Raider!

Looking out from the inside.

An entrepreneur sells colourful bottles of art-sand from inside the tomb....the sand comes in these colours!

Camera trickery?  Nope, looking at a hole in the wall of one tomb into the tomb of another.....just in case the dead wanted to talk to the dead in the other chamber!

We decide to climb up the side of the valley for a better view.....

A view of the Street of Facades as we climb.

It was a bit of a climb to get up here so there were no tourist other than our group and.....

.......one lone tethered donkey in the shade of a small cave.

From our vantage point we get a perfect picture of the 'Theatre'.  Built by the Nabataeans over 2,000 years ago, the captivatingly weathered Theatre was cut out of the rock.  The seating area had an original capacity of about 3,000.  However the theatre was renovated and enlarged by the Romans to hold about 8,000!!  

We head back down and walk further into the city centre.......

Crossing a footbridge on our way to the Royal Tombs.....

.....the Royal Tombs, before erosion took its toll on them, once rivalled the Treasury in beauty and grandeur.  They were carved to house the tombs of Nabataean dignitaries.

The 'Urn Tomb' is the largest of the Royal Tombs.  It was built in AD70 and was used in the mid-5th century as a Byzantine church.

Continuing onwards we approach the city centre......

The Colonnaded Street leads to the city centre.

The city centre is flanked by temples, public buildings and shops.

Ancient stone wheels or remnants of a stone column????

We take a small side tour to the remnants of an ancient Byzantine church.....

The Petra Church is currently being excavated and preserved and a protective tent covers the roofless walls.  Its a three-aisled basilica about 25 metres by 15 metres.  Each of the side aisles are paved with 70 square metres of preserved mosaics.

Most of the mosaics include subjects such as a variety of animals but also erotic personifications of the Seasons, Ocean, Earth and Wisdom.

We continue onwards and eventually upwards to the Monastery.......

The freestanding Qasr Al-Bint (meaning Castle of the Pharoah's Daughter) was built in 30BC and was actually a temple to a Nabataean god. 

All along the way are tombs.  This one smelled of piss ands is used, it would appear, for sleeping quarters.

The climb up to the Monastery takes about 40 minutes, and it is best to do it around mid-afternoon when there is welcome shade along the way.  The spectacular ancient rock-cut path of more than 800 steps can be taxing!

It's a spectacle of weird and wonderfully tortured stone and trees!

Al-Deir (the Monastery) is one of the largest monuments in Petra, far bigger (50m wide and 45m high) and just as impressive as the Treasury.

The Nabataeans had to be HUGE.....look at how small I am in this 8 metre high doorway!

I climb further up until I can climb no more......

.....the view from my perch.  Notice the Bedouin tent on the next mount over!?!

The next day we head for.......

Karak Castle

Whether you approach Karak from the ancient Kings Highway to the east, or from the Dead Sea to the west, the striking silhouette of this fortified town and castle will instantly make you understand why the fates of kings and nations were decided here for millennia.

An ancient Crusader stronghold, it took the Crusaders 20 years to erect this vast castle.  Once finished in 1161, it became the residence of the Lord of Transjordan, by then the most important fiefdom if the Crusader kingdom, rich in produce and tax revenue.

B.  Knight of the Odd-Table!

One of the many many tunnels found within Karak Castle.

While we were at Karak Castle these women from Saudi Arabia arrived and they took a certain fascination with the women travelling in our group.

Later that day we head for the....

Dead Sea

One of the wonders of the world in my mind is the Dead Sea, which is 1200 feet below sea level.  Over millions of years, the hot dry air and the high evaporation rate have contributed to the high salt concentration present in the Dead Sea, making it one of the saltiest lakes in the world.  Compared to the 3% salt content of ordinary sea water, researchers claim the Dead Sea water contains 32% salts!

The mud here contains a relatively high concentration of 21 minerals such as magnesium, calcium, bromide and potassium making it good for the skin, so of course one of the things to do is to cover oneself in the black gook!!

I'm told its good for the skin.....yeah that's the ticket.....good for the skin!

The group of tar babies: Larissa, Katie, Maria, Sukra, Brian, Karen, David and moi!

Swimming here is difficult because you are too high in the water to stroke properly, but of course you can always float on your back and read the newspaper!  The buoyancy you experience is the sort of thing you can only understand once you've been there.  While paddling about you'll discover cuts you never knew you had!  Suicidal travellers should note that drowning would be quite the feat!

After the Dead Sea a few of us leave our guided tour because we are near the Israel border and we plan on going to Israel for a week.  The tour continues on to Syria, however if you have a Syrian entry stamp in your passport, you cannot get into Israel (travel restrictions) and I have to catch my plane in Tel Aviv in a week's time, so it's off to Israel we go!!

Read about in my next Part of the Middle East.

Cheers  

DIARY ENTRY:  Tuesday September 30, 2008  8:47AM:  Arrived in Nuweiba at around 12 to find that we were staying at a 4 star resort.......very nice!

I spent most of the day sitting at the swim up bar drinking beer and writing up my application for the MMDP program at work.  Can't escape it, but I got it done so that is all that counts.  Also wrote my update #3 and that was good as well.

On Sunday (Sept 28/08) I was up very early to catch the ferry to Jordan.  I hate these early mornings, especially when I'm hung over.  So we arrive in Aqaba (a free trade zone of Jordan) and settled into a run down hotel in this small community.  I posted my emails, got some Jordan Dinars (their currency), went shopping (never bought anything).  Aqaba was intended (at least for me) as a relaxation day and that was exactly what it was.

On Monday (Sept. 29/08) I was able to sleep in and take my time getting ready.  Once on the road, we headed for Wadi Rum, a desert in Jordan.  We stayed in a Bedouin camp last night in the desert.  The Wadi Rum is the remnants of an ancient ocean and the sandstone mountains (which dot the landscape) show signs of water erosion.  This is the area made famous by Lawrence of Arabia.

Today we head for Little Petra (as opposed to Petra).

DIARY ENTRY: Thursday October 2, 2008  9:18PM: Just got back from supper and I'm waiting for the hotel internet....and waiting.....and waiting.

So on Wednesday (Oct 1/08) we went to Petra.  The ultimate site in Jordan.  It wasn't disappointing, albeit long.  We walked around the site for 10 hours.  Petra was built centuries ago right into the rock face of the desert cliffs.  The movie Indiana Jones was partially filmed here.  the most exciting part for me was the actual walk down into the Siq to get here.  This is a long narrow canyon that has many different colours within the rock face and it stretches for 1.2 kilometres.

After Petra we headed back to the hotel where I quickly fell asleep.....I was walking for 10 hours after all.

DIARY ENTRY: Friday October 3, 2008 9:10AM:  I was up on Thursday (Oct 2/08) early and off to Karak Castle in Karak (of course!). This is an old crusader castle located high up on a cliff face.  We wandered around here for about a half hour before heading for the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea Spa is a five-star resort located right on the Dead Sea.  After a pretty good buffet (yes another buffet) I headed for the sea.  The water (actually 33% solid salt) is so salty that it is near impossible to sink.....not that you would want to because the salt burns every cut and scrap a person has.  Similarly, if you were to get it into your eyes it would severely burn them!  One of the benefits of such salt and mineral concentration is it is supposed to be a good skin conditioner.  Actually one of the things a person does in the Dead Sea is cover themselves in mud from the shoreline....so I did!!  Head to toe.....covered in black mud.....hmmm nice!!

After a couple of hours here we were off to Mt Nebo (purportedly where Moses is buried).  To me it was much-to-do-about-nothing, but for a big Christian I expect it would be enlightening.

Landed in our hotel and headed for supper with most of the group for the last time.  the beer was cold and that made my meal!

I'm currently sitting here at the Jordanian border waiting for a shuttle to take us across into Israel.