Gallivanting Grandma

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!

Sunday September 24 to Monday September 25, 2017

It was a very long day waiting for an almost midnight flight out of JFK to Amman, Jordan via Paris.  The trip was seven hours flying time plus a 3 hour layover in Charles de Gaulle Airport, plus a 4 hour and 40 minute flight to Queen Alia Airport, arriving at 9:30 pm local time.

I had read about obtaining a visa before going through passport control at the Jordan airport and I hoped it wouldn’t be too complicated. Fortunately, it wasn’t. There were large signs in English and Arabic proclaiming a 40 JOD fee ($56.50). The exit signs led to a large white marble room.  There was a currency exchange booth and an adjoining ATM machine along one wall.  Opposite there were side-by-side booths, one for purchasing a visa and the other for passport control.

After I used the ATM machine, I lined up with other tourists to get my visa.  Totally painless.  Afterwards, I took the escalator down to the exit to find a taxi.  I had read about a variety of rates: anywhere from $7 to $50 and “official government” taxis as well as “unofficial” buyer-beware taxis.

I was stopped by two separate smiling men asking if I wanted a taxi, but fortunately I saw a “tourist information” sign near the doors and rejected their offers.  I went to the tourist desk and inquired about a taxi to my hotel.  The man welcomed me to Amman and asked if I had a reservation at the hotel.  I suppose he would find a hotel for me if I didn’t.

I told him I had a reservation at the Fairmont Hotel.   He said he didn’t know it so I took out my reservation papers and then he recognized it and said the hotel was very new and had just opened three weeks ago.

He wrote the name and address of the Fairmont on a piece of paper and told me the official taxis were white and it would cost me 20 JODs to travel 30 kilometers to the city center.  I went out to the line of waiting white official taxis. I showed the little paper to a group of men in official blue shirts and followed one of them to his taxi.

The driver spoke a little English but I was too tired to chat. I looked out of the window to see what Amman looked like. All the other cars on road looked dusty and covered with sand. The highway looked shiny and clean like the asphalt had just been poured. Alongside the roads there were short pine trees randomly sticking out of sand and rocks.  There are hills everywhere and the lights from the houses lit up the darkness. The gray buildings were very plain and all looked like poured concrete slab construction.  When we drove past a building with armed guards, the driver told me “security is very good in Amman.”

I arrived at the Fairmont about 11 pm exhausted but excited. A platoon of doormen descended on the taxi. They opened my door and greeted me, took my suitcase from the trunk, said something to the driver, and escorted me into a security room.  One of the doormen put my suitcase and backpack on the conveyor belt and all my bags went through airport-like X-ray.  The security guard looked me over throughly.

Then the doorman led me into a spacious, flower-filled, white marble lobby.  I thought I had arrived in heaven!

Ahji, a polite young man who told me his American mother lives in California, welcomed me to Jordan and checked me in.   The doorman escorted me to my fabulous room and placed my suitcase in the walk-in closet.  It had been my idea to arrive one day early and stay at a nice hotel after traveling so far to get a good nights sleep before joining the tour group.  The Fairmont was wonderful and even better than I expected. (I even got a good on-line rate with breakfast and late check-out.)

A nice touch was complimentary bottles of water and a bowl of fruit and pastries: paklava and a fantastic white chocolate dessert covered with assorted berries.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t hungry….

This was a great way to begin an adventure.  I slept quietly and peacefully, and I looked forward to touring and seeing more of Jordan.