Gallivanting Grandma

Saturday – September 30, 2107

The Petra Moon Hotel was a short walk to the famous archaeological site.  We ate an early breakfast and walked down the hill to the Visitors’ Center.

The well worn path led to an area where local Bedouins had horses available for people to ride instead of walking to the Siq.  Al Siq is the narrow gorge that leads to the entrance to the city of Petra and is about a mile long.

Originally known as Raqmu, Petra is perhaps the most spectacular ancient city remaining in the modern world today.  The “Red City” is a UNESCO Heritage Site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World.  As we entered the Siq, the path narrowed to about 15 feet across.  The walls towered 650 feet above us.

Sometime during the sixth century BC, nomadic Nabataeans settled and made Petra their capital.  The Nabatean Kingdom preserved its independence for centuries.  They created an amazing system of hydraulic engineering in the desert.  Channels were carved out of the rock and earthenware pipes, dams, and cisterns were constructed to collect water and to irrigate farmland.

After we followed the winding path for about a mile, the narrow Siq opened to reveal the most impressive monument in Petra: al-Khazneh, (Arabic for “the Treasury”).  It was carved out of solid rock from the side of a mountain and stands over 150 feet high.  Although it served as a royal tomb, the Treasury gets its name from a legend that pirates hid their treasure there.

After walking more than two miles to reach The Treasury, we rested and watched the flurry of activity in front of the incredible stone carving.  It was a noisy chaotic mixture of tourists, camels, donkeys, horses, and local Bedouin boys selling postcards and jewelry.

We passed through another short steep gorge to reach the wide heart of the city between towering cliffs.  The steep rock faces were carved out for tombs, markets, temples, baths, and cave dwellings.

It was a long walk along the main canyon between Petra’s cliffs.  We were entertained by the camel drivers and their relatives selling donkey and horse rides.  The enterprising young Bedouin in the photo below told me his three donkeys were named Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Maserati.

Tourists passing the Royal tombs:

We walked along a narrow thoroughfare called The Colonnade which was built curing Roman times, about 100 AD.  Historians believe it was used for ceremonial purposes.  The ruins of the triple-arch Temenos Gate are at the western end of the Colonnade.

Our reward at the end of a long walk was lunch at the Crowne Plaza restaurant which is the end for point for most tourists.  Some tourists like to continue on the path and climb 850 steps up to the Monastery, but I did not.  After lunch, I began to walk back to the Visitors’ Center but was easily persuaded to take a camel ride back to the Treasury.

The kind owner with his two camels.  He said they were gentle animals with good memories.

My camel’s name was Zoo Zoo, and it was sooooo much fun to ride!!!!!  The highlight of my trip!!

We walked back through the beautiful Al Siq gorge and the long path to the Visitors’ Center and back to the hotel.  Visiting spectacular Petra was one of the most exciting, breathtaking, and amazing experiences of my life.  Riding Zoo Zoo was a thrilling and fun experience.  I will never forget Petra.

Friday – September 29, 2017

Lobby of the Cham Palace Hotel in Amman, Jordan:

After breakfast we set off on our drive south along the King’s Highway.  The road has been an international trade route for the last 5,000 years.  Our first stop was the ancient city of Madaba, about 30 km from Amman, which is known for its beautiful Byzantine mosaics.

Madaba is known for the 6th century mosaic map of the Holy Land which is located in the Greek Orthodox Church of St. George.  The “Madaba Map” is part of a floor mosaic and is considered to be the “oldest surviving original depiction of the Holy Land.”  The photo below is an artist’s drawing of the map.  Our tour guide, Muhammad, described the ancient symbols to us using this drawing.

The map depicts Jerusalem during the period from 542 to 570 AD.  It was created by unknown artists for the Christian community of Madaba.  Photo of the real map:

The interior of St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church is below.  The mosaic map is enclosed on the floor within the red chains in front of and to the right of the main altar.

Less than 10 kilometers west of Madaba is Mt. Nebo, known as Pisgah in the bible.  It is purported to be the place where Moses lived out his remaining days and viewed the Promised Land from a distance on top of the mountain.

The spectacular view from the summit provides a panorama of the Jordan River Valley, the West Bank city of Jericho, and on clear days, Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Mount Nebo rises almost 2700 feet above sea level.  Although it was a bit hazy, the Dead Sea was visible from the summit.

The plaque pictured below shows the distance and approximate locations from Mt. Nebo to many of the sites which my tour group and I will visit during the next few weeks.

The remains of a late 4th century Byzantine church and monastery were discovered on the Mt. Nebo summit in 1933.  A modern chapel was built to cover and protect the site as well as the ancient mosaics.  The original columns, mosaics, and walls were visible inside the chapel.

The chapel had been closed for renovation since 2007 and was reopened in 2016, so we were lucky to be able to visit this historic place.

We ate lamb stew, tabouli salad, hummus, and baba ganoush for lunch in a restaurant called the Terrace Souk.  Afterwards Muhammad took us to a mosaic factory located nearby.

The handmade mosaics were lovely and several group members made purchases.  Our next short stop was a liquor store because a few people asked about buying beer in Jordan.  Stores that sell alcohol in the Muslim country are owned by Christians.

We stopped at a very sketchy looking shop and a few people purchased what they wanted.  We learned it was 3 Jordanian Dinars for a can of beer with 8% alcohol.

We continued south on the King’s Highway through the Mujib Valley.  This long meandering road has been the route of north-south trade and scenes of battles since prehistoric times and is mentioned in the bible.

The view out of the bus window reminded me of the drive through the Kyzylkum Desert in Uzbekistan.  This was barren land as far as I could see with low hills of sand and stones.

Occasionally, there was a Bedouin village of shabby tents with enclosures for animals.

There were container trucks on the other side of the highway, driving north from the Jordanian millenniaport city of Aqaba on the Red Sea.  The terrain became more hilly as we continued south and I wondered about the people who live on this rugged land and how they survive.

At four o’clock, we stopped for a break at a rest-stop which looked like a caravanserai.  I paid mental homage to the traders, pilgrims, and Crusaders who passed through this region over the millennia while I enjoyed a refreshing ice-cream.

We drove down steep hills and around hair-pin turns to arrive at the Petra Moon Hotel as darkness settled onto the modern city of Petra.

Thursday September 28, 2017

A sunny cloudless 61 degrees Fahrenheit in the morning. We boarded our van and drove an hour and a half north of Amman to the city of Jerash, which is located near the Syrian border.  During ancient times it was known as the city of Gerasa and was inhabited from the third millennium BC.

We entered through an arch which was built in 130 AD to honor the Emperor Hadrian who visited Gerasa.

North of the arch is the Hippodrome which is currently under restoration.  A huge building was built during the 3rd century AD and was designed for horse racing and other sports events.

We entered the sprawling open-air museum through the south gate.  Alexander the Great conquered the area in 334 BC and Gerasa became the site of a Macedonian Greek colony.

The ancient city was ravished by massive earthquakes and many wars which took place over the years.  The ruins of Gerasa laid buried until 1806 when a German explorer, Jasper Seetzen, began a number of excavations.  During this time, Jerash was inhabited by a small Muslim community.  The Oval Plaza or Forum from the 1st century AD is enclosed by 160 Ionic columns:

Gerasa is considered to be the most significant and best preserved Greco-Roman city ever discovered.  Excavations and preservation continue today because much of the ancient city still lies under the earth.  Jerash has flourished during the last 100 years and is a popular tourist attraction.  The Temple of Zeus in the photo below was built during the 1st to 2nd century AD.

At the Southern Theater which is an amphitheater which seats 3000 people, we were greeted by three musicians dressed in traditional Jordanian military costumes.  They played Scottish tunes for us and led our group in a dance.

The Temple of Artemis was dedicated to honor the patron goddess of the city:

The Cardo, or main thoroughfare, connected the different sections of the city and led me back to the Arch of Hadrian.

We had a Jordanian lunch at the Green Valley Restaurant.  It was a large and noisy restaurant filled with international tourists and friendly servers.

After lunch, we drove through fertile green hills lined with olive groves to the city of Ajlun to climb up to the top of the Ajloun Castle.  This is a 12th century Muslim castle placed on a hilltop in the northwestern part of Jordan.

The fortress was constructed in 1185 AD in order to help the authorities in Damascus control the Bedouin tribes of the region.

The fortress dominated a wide stretch of the northern Jordan Valley and was one of the very few Muslim fortresses built to protect their realm against the Crusaders.  Here is a view of the modern city of Ajlun from the top of the castle:

We spoke to a lovely young Jordanian couple who were visiting Ajloun Castle with their young son.  Below is a group photo:

Mohammad ran into one of his cousins who was selling coffee-with-cardamom at the side of the road.  We decided that Muhammad had thousands of cousins scattered all over Jordan.  They posed for a photo:

Later, we went to dinner in the old section of Amman. We ate at a local family restaurant called Hasham which was tucked into an alleyway between two buildings.  It was an experience!!

We waited in a long line with local people to buy knafeh (pronounced: ka-nah-feh) a sweet dessert made with stretchy cheese layered with flat cake and topped with pistachios.

There was a lively crowd of local people shopping, dining, and walking along the main street.

Wednesday – September 27, 2017

Today was our day to explore Amman.  It’s an ancient city which has grown to become a blend of old traditions and modern advances.  One contemporary feature is the heavy traffic which clogs all the streets, so driving through the city takes a long time.

We met our Tourist Department Guard, Hady. Mohammad said not to worry this was a relatively new law that all tour groups had to have a uniformed armed guard for extra security.   Hady was a shy young man who had a pleasant smile and carried a hand gun.  I wasn’t sure if I felt more secure with Hady’s presence, but it was certainly handy to have him with us when we tried to cross streets because there were no crosswalks or traffic lights. Hady stepped out into heavy traffic, put up his hand, and the cars stopped to let us cross.

Our tour group met after breakfast and we boarded the van to take us to The Amman Citadel.  This is an important historical site located on one of the seven mountains of ancient Amman.  The Citadel is considered to be among the world’s oldest continuously inhabited places.  The Temple of Hercules in the photo below, was built about 166 AD.

Today, the Citadel is a large complex of ancient Roman, Greek, Byzantine, and Islamic ruins built during the last two thousand years.  Nearby is an early Bronze Age cave which dates to the 23rd century BC.  It was re-used as a burial chamber 4000 years ago.

The Umayyad Palace was built during the early 8th century and later used as a Byzantine church:

A small museum displayed items found at the site.  We had time to explore the grounds on our own and visit the museum.  We marveled at a large group of elementary school students who were verbally communicating in English but writing in Arabic.

The sign above greeted us at the entrance to the Citadel.  It shows King Hussein’s son Abdullah II who is the current King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Members of the OAT tour group resting in the shade at The Citadel:

Afterwards, we drove to the old quarter of Amman and walked along busy sidewalks to see small shops and businesses.  Mohammad explained some cultural sights as we negotiated crowded streets.

We stopped for a cool sugar cane drink.  It was hard to imagine sugar cane growing in the desert climate.  The young man in the middle of the photo pushed dried canes into a noisy machine and the other man filled our cups with sweet water.

We went into a shop that sold exotic pet pigeons for very high prices:

Then we drove to the famous Roman amphitheater which dates to the 2nd century when the city was known as Philadelphia.  It’s an impressive 6000 seat theater located in the heart of downtown Amman.  Two small museums were located on opposite sides of the arena: the Amman Folklore Museum and the Museum of Popular Traditions.  Exhibits of traditional Jordanian life were on display.

Afterwards, we went to a very nice restaurant called Tawaheen al Hawa for lunch and had delicious Jordanian Middle Eastern food: hummus, babaganoush, salads, yogurt, 3 kinds of kebabs, rice, etc.

An elderly woman sat in the lobby of the restaurant and demonstrated how to make the thin bread Armenians call lavash.

We returned to the hotel to rest up for a couple of hours before going out to a Jordanian family’s house for dinner.  They were a kind and generous couple who had four young children. We enjoyed a delicious traditional one-pot chicken and rice dinner with them.

Today was a very full and busy day!  We saw many new things and learned so much about Jordanian culture!

Tuesday September 26, 2017

I slept comfortably at the Fairmont and woke up about 8:30.  As I began to open the dark curtains, I could feel the heat of the sun coming through the glass windows.  I looked out for my first view of Amman, the capital city of Jordan.   A brilliant sun shone down on rectangular beige concrete buildings.  Traffic moved quickly along on the road.

I remembered that breakfast was served until eleven, so I had plenty of time for a shower and relaxing before checking out and moving to another hotel which was picked by the OAT tour group.

About ten o’clock, I went downstairs and took my camera with me so I could take photos of the hotel on my way to breakfast.  The restaurant was lovely and had several dining areas which were decorated in different regional styles.

The head waiter explained that the main room had Turkish decor and the other adjoining rooms were decorated in traditional Jordanian and Moroccan styles.  I’m standing in the Jordanian room in the photo below. The walls were full of photos of the former King Hussein and his family.

The morning buffet was beautifully arranged with an amazing variety of breakfast options at different stations.  Waiters hovered nearby to fetch coffee or tea.  Turkish lanterns illuminated the main dining area:

I stepped out to see the street in front of the Fairmont Hotel and to feel the weather.  It was a bright sunny day and the temperature was cool and dry.

Eventually, I asked the concierge to call a taxi for me after I checked out and he booked a Fairmont car with a driver to take me to the Cham Palace Hotel.  (For only 5 JOD)  I had a nice scenic drive through Amman.  The driver asked me why I was changing hotels and if I had a problem at the Fairmont. I told him I was joining a tour group and the Cham Palace was their hotel.

When we arrived at the Cham Palace, the driver looked around for someone to take my luggage.  A young man hesitantly appeared and the driver commanded him in Arabic.  As the youngster clumsily took my bags, the driver said to me, “It’s not the Fairmont,” and we both laughed.

My bags and I passed through another X-ray machine in the outer lobby of the Cham Palace.  I guess security is good in Jordan.

I checked in and was able to go to my new room to relax and wait for Marilyn, my roommate on this trip, to arrive.  Below is a photo of the view of Amman from my room at the Cham:

By 7:00 PM, Mohammad, our tour guide, Doris, Marilyn, and I were sitting in the hotel dining room eating dinner and chatting.  All the other people were due to arrive later in the evening.

Large noisy tour groups from Roumania and China arrived.  They clamored into the dining room and filled all the tables around us.   This was definitely not the Fairmont!