Last week my friend Rodney and I took a trip to Jordan for a few days. Each of us had been once before: I with Emily during her visit and Rodney with a tour group a couple of years ago. Since Rodney is here under a tourist visa, he has to leave and reenter Israel every three months to renew it, and I was wanting to visit some sites in Jordan that Em and I had missed, so the Thursday before last we caught a ride with some friends to the border crossing at Beth Shean. After crossing into Jordan, we met with the car and driver we had arranged for the day and off we went. Our first site was Jerash, which is an enormous ancient city with Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine ruins. Here is a view of the Roman period forum (it is elliptical, which was kind of cool) that leads to the main street, or Cardo:
Down the Cardo on the left was the entrance to the Byzantine cathedral. This church had been a Roman temple that was converted. Here am I coming up the first set of steps that lead to the church:
There are two theaters in Jerash, one at either end of the city. This one is at the far end of the city and is the better preserved of the two:
After visiting that theater we made our way back to the entrance and came upon a reenactment in progress in the Hippodrome. Alas, it was not free, and Rodney and I agreed that a thirty minute show was not worth 12 Jordanian Dinars (= $17). We snuck off this picture before some employees explained the "no pay, no photos" policy:
Fortunately other entertainment was awaiting us in Jerash's second theater. These guys were really rocking. Shortly after this photo was taken, however, a mustachioed German tourist, who was wearing a wet bathcloth under his cap, came out and started dancing around them. The German seemed unaware of the awkward scene he was creating because he continued merrily without any encouragement from his friends (or us).
From Jerash we drove south through Amman and stopped at Nebo, the site where Moses is said to have beheld the Promised Land before he died (Deuteronomy 34:1-4):
And here is the wonderful view from Nebo. It drops steeply into the Jordan Valley, and we could see the northern edge of the Dead Sea:
Our final stop on this first day was the Christian town of Madaba, which is famous for its mosaic map of the Holy Land. It dates to the 6th century CE and is part of the floor of St. George's Church. Unfortunately, only a fraction of it has survived, as this plan shows:
But the surviving portions have provided an invaluable resource for understanding the Christian landscape in the the Holy Land during the Byzantine period. The most famous section is this depiction of Jerusalem, which shows, among other things, the Holy Sepulchre, the Damascus Gate and Holy Zion:
Madaba was a really charming town and easy to walk, so we took our time and enjoyed some of the local coffee. Here's me and then Rodney starting off the day:
Then it was on to Amman. The capital of Jordan is a booming metropolis (5.5 million people) and also has a few ancient sites. Here, for example, is the Roman theater, which is large but not as well preserved as the ones in Jerash. Here I am trying to work off last night's ice cream:
From here you can climb up to the ancient citadel, which is quite a hike. Along the way we encountered a man facing a group of children such that his back was to us. Just as we were passing I noticed that he was wearing a mask -- then a second later he turned to me, shook my hand and started to growl:
Yes, it was frightening. This picture was taken only after I stopped hyperventilating and we all shared a laugh. ("Ha ha ha. Thank you. That was funny.") The children, of course, had been laughing all along. Nothing like some wholesome fun at the expense of unassuming tourists.
The adrenaline rush of fright was just what we needed to power to the top of the citadel, where there is a Roman temple and a museum. This was a sign that was posted just inside the museum. Who could explain such a strange sign?
Then we walked back down the hill and found a local restaurant for some dinner. Here we had some kebabs
and of course hot tea:
After a night in Amman at the American Center of Oriental Research, which is kind of a sister institute to the Albright, we took a taxi back down to Madaba, where we had arranged for transport to Petra along the King's Highway. There's two ways to move north-south in Jordan: the Desert Highway, which is a straight shot on a plateau, or the King's Highway, which snakes up and down and through the wadi ("valley") system of streams that empty into the Dead Sea. The King's Highway is an ancient trade route that brought spices and other luxury goods from Arabia into ancient Near East, so it was cool to ride along it to get a sense of ancient traveling and also because it affords some breathtaking views. Riding along with us from Madaba to Petra was an Italian couple, whom you see here beside our minibus:
Here's a shot of Rodney and me at one of the two major wadis that we crossed. (This one is Wadi Mujib.) And for the record, yes, I did wear the same shirt and pants everyday, as did Rodney -- by this point we were both smelling pretty ripe.
Also at this lookout was a German group, who were traveling in the "Rotel" you see here ("Das Rollende Hotel"!). By day they ride in the bus and by night they insert themselves into private compartments in the back -- touring has never been so efficient. Leave it to the Germans!
At last we made it to Petra. As a way of introduction to this famous site, here's a selection of quotes from the official brochure they give you in the visitor's center:
"Petra reeks of foreign and local cultural influences. The city was throbbing with life..."
"Three days are needed for honest exploratory coverage."
"This remote dead city is one of the great archaeological treasures in the world, undoubtedly."
First up is the Siq. This narrow passage leads to the "Treasury," which was made famous by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:
One climb Emily and I didn't make last November was to the High Place of Sacrifice, which is a perch that looks over the whole city. Its name comes from sacrifice table and altar that are on top of the ridge. The animal would be slaughtered in this circle where the blood would drain down, and then they would clean the animal using water from the cistern you also see here. Of course after the Samaritan Passover, I had plenty of mental images to reconstruct the scene here:
It turns out that on a sunny day this same cistern is the only place to find some shade, as this bedouin teenager showed us. Unless someone showed interest in her merchandise, she was just chilling in the cistern, legs flopped out, hitting up her friends on the cellie. (I don't understand Arabic, but she was probably telling her friends, "Y'all get up here; I'm stuck in the freakin' sacrifice cistern!") By the way, the altar for burnt offering is just to the right of the sacrifice site.
Here is the view from the High Place:
Of course we also made our way up to the Monastery. One nice thing about this time of year in Petra is all the flowers that were blooming:
After such a long walk up, the lookout from the Monastery made a nice place to showcase my beached whale impression:
Some of the other highlights included the Great Temple of Petra, seen here; it was only discovered in the early 1990's and is a huge sacred complex:
Our last adventure in Petra was to hike through an auxiliary wadi. Water that should flow into the Siq was diverted into this wadi, which proved to be even more narrow than the Siq and just as steep. This rerouting was actually an ancient innovation by the Nabataeans living in Petra.
The lowlight of the trip definitely came on our last evening when I ate something that didn't agree with my stomach. After some close calls with street vendors this year I guess I was due for a good old-fashioned stomach bug; this one woke me up every hour after midnight our last night. It was therefore with great trepidation that at 6 am I boarded the three-hour bus back to Amman. When we made a pit stop halfway through (as you see us here) I couldn't believe my good fortune...
Until I saw the rest stop bathroom. I was relieved all the same and made it back to Amman without incident. (Although no caffeine till 1 pm that day gave me a wicked headache, which was exacerbated by the blaring Arabic music the driver played.) From there I caught a cab to the border, crossed back to Israel and took another bus back to the Damascus Gate. Then I happily walked backed to comfort of my own room!
And then here is our group: me, Rodney, Christine and John. The castle is built on a long ridge with two large tower complexes on either end. We are standing on one and you can see the second in the distance.
Here is the cistern which collected water for the castle. I'm not sure if it's still potable. (Rodney was afraid to try it.)
One of the best parts of the visit was getting to the top of the second tower from which we could see Mount Hermon, the highest peak in Israel. It is the brown mountain rising from my right arm. The peak itself if slightly obscured, but if you follow the brown until it ends, that last part is the peak.
On our way back to Jerusalem, we drove down through the Golan Heights from which you can see Syria. Here is a shot of the only border between Israel and Syria; it is actually a UN outpost, and UN workers are the only ones who are allowed to pass through. Beyond this compound is Syria.
