After seeing the Great Pyramid of Giza and Machu Picchu, it was more
than logical to visit yet another world wonder: Petra
(and yes, that's
in Jordan ;-). With that in mind, and seeing a fairly nice offer for an
8-day trip through Jordan, my wife and I decided to go.
The only downside to this all, was that we had to travel in a group. A
group of random strangers, no, worse! A group of random Dutch
strangers! 29 people who we'd never have chosen to travel with
annoyed us throughout most of the trip by being loud or "Dutch"
(meaning: arrogant, selfish, a total bastard and disrespectful).
But oh well, let's quickly forget about them.
The trip
In just a few days, we've traveled to some interesting spots of the country.
In short: Amman, Jerash, Amman, Mt. Nebo, Madaba, Karak, Petra, Little Petra,
Wadi Rum, Aqaba, Dead Sea, Amman.
Day 1: Amman
This was our first trip to the Middle East and we expected it to be roughly
the same as Egypt (where we've been before). That was our first
misconception. At the airport we already noticed that the Jordanian people
are a lot friendlier than their Egyptian neighbors. While driving
through Amman to our hotel, we also found the city to be different than,
e.g. Cairo. It just all looked a little more civilized / advanced compared
to Egypt.
We had a nice dinner in Amman and quickly went to bed, for the next day,
Jerash was planned and we wanted to be well rested.
Day 2: Amman / Jerash
The first thing to do was to visit the King Abdullah Mosque in the city,
known for its' blue dome. The women, like in all mosques, had to cover
their heads and everybody had to take off their shoes. Nothing new
so far. Inside the mosque, our tour guide (who was a Jordanian national
who married a Dutch woman and lived in the Netherlands for 7 years)
explained the basic principles of a mosque, a little history etc. etc.
While walking around the site, I noticed the mosque was surrounded by
christian churches. According to the guide, there were no problems
at all between Christians and Muslims in Jordan. At least less than
in the Netherlands. Both lived happily next to each other, like it's
supposed to be. I tried to capture that thought in this image, but
it was cloudy, so lighting wasn't too good.
After the mosque, the city tour was next. First we went to the
Roman Amphitheater, followed by a trip to the citadel. I've read
about the Romans being in Jordan, but had no clue everything was so
well preserved.
Jerash was next up. A police agent of the tourist police joined our
bus which seems a standard procedure with large groups of tourists.
Although Jordan is a stable country and very safe, the government
tries hard to make it even safer for tourists, hence they get
personal protection from a guy like this. Jerash was also a Roman
site and also extremely well preserved. The weather wasn't too warm
but at least it didn't rain, so we happily shot some pictures before
returning to Amman.
Day 3: Amman, Mt. Nebo, Madaba, Karak, Petra
Early in the morning we left Amman to visit Mount Nebo; the mountain
where Moses looked at the promised land. The sun kicked in, but
unfortunately it was hazy, so we couldn't see what Moses saw.
Nevertheless, the view was spectacular.
After absorbing a few rays of sun, we went to Madaba where a
Byzantine Church still showed us an ancient map in the mosaic
floor. The sun was now shining and after quickly buying some
souvenirs we went on to Karak.
Karak showed us ruins of a crusader castle where
Saladin
beat the crusaders. It felt like I was walking in Assassin's Creed
(part one) while the tour guide explained what went on in the
castle through the years.
After all this beauty, we went to our hotel in Petra.
Day 4: Petra
We woke up early to beat the stream of tourists that usually flood
the site of Petra but on arrival, there were but a handful of
buses. I was happy to find out it was still low season. Would I
be able to take a photo the famous Treasury without tourists?
Before reaching the Treasury, one has to walk through the
siq. After reading on some sites that it was long and boring,
I didn't expect much, but oh was I wrong. The siq is beautiful.
Wonderful colors greet you everywhere and to be honest, the walk
wasn't that long.
After some time, our guide pointed us to some tall rock and
asked us how high we thought it'd be. A rather pointless question,
but it was to distract us from what lay behind the corner:
The Treasury!
Everyone was excited and wanted to run towards it to see the
glorious building. I was happy to find the area not flooded by
tourists, but still, it'd be impossible to shoot a pic without
the bloody tourists!
The Treasury was more impressive than I imagined it to be. This was
absolutely marvelous. But where was the Monastery? Our guide
explained that we could walk around the area and that it was
a rather large site. The Monastery would be one of the hikes,
but he also recommended the High Place of Sacrifice. Not per se
the Sacrifice altar, but the trip from there, around the mountain.
We decided to walk them both, ending up walking / climbing around
30 km. that day (see the
GPS track )
But before we went climbing, my wife and I decided to check out
the Treasury once more. We already took many pictures and shot
quite some minutes of video, but I truly wanted a picture without
tourists. When we walked back, we found the place almost deserted.
About five stranded strangers were blocking my wanted shot, so
I kindly requested them to move out of the picture. They understood
and quickly moved away from the building, leaving me with this:
Look mom, no tourists! My day was already good.
But this wasn't all. There were more tracks to walk. The guide
was right. Our first walk (High Place of Sacrifice) was
stunning. The place itself was fairly boring, as explained, but
the view and walk afterwards were beautiful. Many tombs could
be seen and the weather made it even more pleasant to walk.
We walked slowly, taking many pictures and enjoying the absolute
silence, for in the two and a half hours we walked, we've only
met two other tourists once and a handful of locals, trying
to sell us either donkey rides or stones / necklaces etc.
We arrived back at the place where we left the group and after
a small lunch, we found out we had but little time to make it
up to the Monastery and back to the bus in time. Different
people gave us different answers to the question how long the
hike up there'd be. From two hours to thirty minutes. We decided
to try it nevertheless. We got the guide's phone number and
he already told us that anyone who didn't make it in time could
get a taxi to the hotel.
On our way up to the Monastery, we met a lot of people of our
group already walking back and informing us we were insane and
would never make it in time. It took us ~ forty minutes to get
up there and about twenty minutes to get down again.
This track was a lot less interesting for there weren't any wide
views. After making it up there we found the place to be close
to deserted. The Monastery is a lot bigger than the Treasury,
but less detailed and decorated. Nevertheless, very impressive.
We had little time and had to walk down, back to the Treasury and
through the siq again to make it to the bus. So many people told
us we'd never make it, so we just had to prove them wrong. We
arrived one minute before the bus left, laughing at the group
as we drove back to the hotel, where I smoked a water pipe. Much
deserved after all the walking.
Day 5: Little Petra, Wadi Rum
The day started early again as we drove to Little Petra, a small
site with a tiny siq and some interesting tombs, but nothing
compared to the real Petra site. Not much time after, we drove
to Wadi Rum, the desert. (If I recall correctly, "wadi" means
"valley" and Rum is the name of a mountain).
We would spend a night in a tent camp and tour the desert by
Jeeps to make it to a nice place for sunset. The trip was, as
expected, dusty so everyone wore scarves around their faces.
The desert was beautiful. Lots of sand (duh) and rocks with
marvelous views. In the end we looked for some wood (which
we did find) to build a fire and make some tea, while we waited
for the sun to drop behind the mountains.
The thing I remembered about deserts was that it's usually quite
warm during the day, while when the sun drops, the temperature
follows, so I brought some warm clothes. I was right to some degree.
It didn't get freezingly cold, but chilly it was.
While the sun dropped, I finally had a chance to play with my
camera again (I do use the 'auto' setting too much ;-)
We returned to the camp for dinner and some entertainment
(two guys playing Arabic music around a fire place), but we
were quite tired, so we went to bed early.
Day 6: Aqaba
From Wadi Rum, we drove to Aqaba, the only port of Jordan and
a tax-free haven. As it turned out, I ran out of cigarettes here,
so I could buy a pack (and a lot more) of Gauloises for but
one Dinar. A Dinar is similar to the Euro, so it was cheap
(considered the package in the Netherlands costs me four and a
half).
The optional excursion was to cruise the Red Sea on a yacht
with snorkeling and BBQing. The weather was still pleasant,
while the news reached us that Amman was about to suffer snow.
We went snorkeling nevertheless. Fun, but not shockingly
beautiful. Relaxing on the boat was enjoying though (as was
the BBQ at the back of the yacht).
Day 7: Aqaba, Dead Sea
After a good night in Aqaba, we drove back north, close to the
Israelian border towards the Dead Sea. I remember my mother talking
about it (from the Israelian side) and imagined the Jordanian
side wouldn't differ too much. A fun experience to float on the
water at the beach of the beautiful resort.
By now, it was indeed snowing in Amman, yet we still had good,
sunny weather and the idea of a snow covered Amman on our last
day in the country quite excited us. We arrived in Amman in the
evening to find only some snow covered cars, but nothing
much.
Day 8: Back to Amsterdam
Wake up call at 04:00am. Yuck. Just enough time to drink some
coffee and have a quick bite before hurrying to the bus. Our
vacation was over.
The flight back was nothing special. I was happy to see a personal
screen in the Royal Jordanian airplane with on demand audio / video
(the Dutch KLM still doesn't offer this in every plane).
Conclusion
Jordan is a beautiful country, plagued by a lack of water, which
gives it the beautiful deserts. The people I met were friendly
and never did I get an feeling of not being safe (unlike Peru).
I can only recommend it to everyone and please do look at the
other things Jordan offers besides the marvelous Petra. It's well
worth visiting (but preferably not with a group of Dutch people ;-)
