May 28

Madaba by Giam

We spent a couple of hours walking along the streets of Madaba – checking out tourist goods, finding a really nice carpet shop, selecting one and sealing the purchase with mint tea, then we left and on to Jerash. The road passes Amman(on the right, a really spread-out city of 2 million), and all the market gardens which serve it (loads of plastic tents, and colourful fruit/veg/flower stalls along the roadside).

Jerash by NH53

We reached Jerash (one of the best-preserved Roman cities in the Middle East) around noon and spent a couple of hours walking among its hilly ruins, ending up watching a (hilarious!) re-enactment of the VI Legion practice, gladiator fights and a chariot race in the excellently preserved hippodrome. It had rained overnight and the weather was a lot cooler than on previous days!

We had enough time to drive further north to Ajlun and visit the Moslem castle of Ar Rabad, along some narrow, steep and winding roads, overlooking biblical-like fields complete with goats and goatherds. This is a lovely little castle (12^th Century again), but not built or occupied by Franks, and parts were better preserved than the more famous (and much larger) Kerak. While off the foreign-tourist route, it was being well visited by Jordanians. We ran out of time/left for “next time” the castle of Umm Qais – rather further north and giving a good view over the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights

Ar Rabad by Dale Gillard

We decided to head to Amman and try and stay an earlier night at the hotel I’d booked for our last night. Finding the hotel was not possible at all (more to the point, getting anywhere close to the hotel was impossible), we flagged down a taxi, who made a couple of calls and then we followed him to our hotel. Taxis in Amman are cheap and over half an hour of his trouble cost 10 JDs! The hotel itself is fine (apparently won Trip Finder’s “Best 4 star hotel in 2010” award) and found us a room for the night. It’s located in the upscale, business/ex-pat district, and we found a supermarket close by (Food City) where we wandered around…dinner at an extremely loud coffee shop (everyone was on the patio enjoying the Barcelona-Manchester football game, the former being the local favourites; we opted for quieter and sat inside). We enjoyed local sandwiches and ended with a shared shiesha. The cab home was 1 JD.

Thinking of travelling to Jordan? Check out these great travel books...

Gerry will be sharing her travels through Egypt and Jordan in a multimedia presentation as part of our 2011 Travel Day on October 29th. Check out this great day of programs on our homepage or through our program guide.

May 26

We had offered to take the American family (travelling by local transport) to Little Petra, but they decided they needed more time to get to Wadi Rum, so we went without them. Little Petra is just a few kms up the road from Petra, and is similar: Nabatean, has the long, winding Siq, and several lovely old stone-carved buildings. It’s free to enter and you are able to wander around more freely than at Petra. Also, there were far fewer visitors!

Next we drove off to find the remains of a Crusader castle, Shobak, a bit in the middle of nowhere, and not well marked, so we drove to a police station and they helpfully pointed us on our way. The castle was perfectly perched on a hill, small but wonderfully preserved, obviously with a great command of the surrounding land. We learned that the Crusader castles were all within a day’s ride of each other, but that seems fairly optimistic since it took us quite a while driving to the ones we saw.

Shobak Castle by Gerry

To find out more about these castles, check out Crusader Castles by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) who wrote his thesis on crusader castles, which was why he was co-opted into the Middle East Intelligence Service during WW!.

We then drove cross-country to the most famous – and biggest – of the castles – Kerak, which (obviously!) sits atop a huge hill with the booming modern town laid-out at its feet. It’s a great drive through the narrow streets as you wind up (and then down). We were ushered into a small parking space at the top, with the agreement of “coffee/tea afterwards”. As well as buying tickets we went for an audio guide which proved very informative. We walked up and down and explored the lower rooms which including extensive cooking rooms and eating halls. Although the castle was built by the Franks it succumbed to a siege by Saladin and was expanded by the Muslims. You can tell the difference due to different coloured and sized stones.

Kerak Castle by Gerry

We might have spent the night here, but we had time enough to make it down to the Dead Sea and that sounded like fun. The drive down from the top of the Rift Valley was spectacular: sharp winding road overlooking a deep wadi. The drop is from around 1000 meters to -400 meters! We didn’t realize that it was the Independence Day long weekend, so the hotels (there’s a strip of extremely fancy hotels) were full. We tried the Marriott first and they were full but they phoned around and came up with a room at the next-door Movenpick. The prices were extremely high, but as an incentive we were offered a “beach room” at a 30 JD discount of high 200s (multiple by 1.4), so we went with the room offered at a mere 180 JD or so! We checked in and went off to explore. We all wanted at least a mud “bath” and thought we’d have to go to the very fancy spa, but we walked down to the Dead Sea and saw people rubbing mud (clay really) on their bodies. You do this (there are large ceramic urns provided in which to mix the mud and water), leave it on your body till it dries, then swim it off in the sea, and shower well afterwards. There was no time for this, since the life guard calls an end to sea swimming at 6:30. We, however, begged a further 10 minutes so we could have a quick dip. Actually, the high buoyancy isn’t the surprising thing, but the absolutely awful taste of the salt water. It’s truly gagging, and painful as hell if you get any in your (contact lens or otherwise) eyes. There’s a mild current that concerns the life guards and other swimmers, but the only inconvenience are the rocks underfoot that make getting out a little awkward (you’d think the fancy hotel would put down indoor-outdoor carpet!). A shower and then a swim in one of the pools and we were ready for dinner.

The hotel has several restaurants, but the only one with local food was the buffet, which would have been fine if the hotel hadn’t been so full and boy, the locals are pushy – demanding this and that and pushing in line for their food!!! Actually the service in this Movenpick was nowhere like that at Petra, which is a shame because the hotel itself is quite lovely: beautiful winding paths through flowerbeds, with several swimming pools, some private (we discovered the one that would have come with the “beach rooms”), waterfalls and huge koi. We planned our campaign for the following morning and went to bed.

Gerry will be sharing her travels through Egypt and Jordan in a multimedia presentation as part of our 2011 Travel Day on October 29th. Check out this great day of programs on our homepage or through our program guide.

May 25

Big breakfast buffet and down for day 2 at Petra. We decided that Colin and I would take a carriage to the end of the “flat” part and then walk up the 800 steps to the Monastery (fantastic views over the Rift Valley and a very well-preserved building). We would meet at the top. Anna being fitter and much faster caught up with us before we were half-way up the mountain (the carriages only taking 2 passengers, and costing 40 JD for the round-trip). Dosed with pain-killers my knees were ok for the way up and less so for the way down, but the building and the views were well worth it.

We spent about 1.5 hours up and then slowly made our way down, past all the stalls selling postcards, Bedouin hand-made “stuff”, tea, donkey rides and anything else you don’t want!!! At the bottom we could only find restaurants offering full buffet lunches, when we only wanted a small bite, so we sustained ourselves with lots of cold water and pop. We decided we needed to see a couple more buildings, including the Byzantine Church that has lovely mosaics. Anna and I were Petraed-out and went to find my carriage for the return trip out. A little argument/discussion since we had vaguely said we’d be ready at 2:30 and it was 3:30, but with ill grace the driver agreed to take us back. Horse carriages are a fairly uncomfortable way to travel, especially over rough rocks or rough cobbles, but they certainly beat slogging back on foot; having done the journey once on foot to stop and marvel at everything, and then once by carriage seemed a sensible combination. Other modes of transport in Petra include camels, horses and donkeys (popular for the steep uphill treks, but frankly terrifying to observe, and since my “problem” is downhill, not so useful!). Anna and I retired to the hotel to relax, swim, use the sauna and wonderful “recovery” room, while Colin went on further adventurous treks in Petra.

After dinner at a good local restaurant we met up with the American family and exchanged experiences. Turns out a boy friend is keen to do the London-Mongol Rally so we exchanged e-mail addresses. We also explored the fancy (expensive!) shops and bought some great Movenpick ice creams.

Gerry will be sharing her travels through Egypt and Jordan in a multimedia presentation as part of our 2011 Travel Day on October 29th. Check out this great day of programs on our homepage or through our program guide.

In the meantime, find out more about the history and inhabitants of Petra, check out these great books!

May 23-24

Colin’s cards wouldn’t work at an ATM so we spent some time getting a Visa cash advance, then filled the car and hit the road. Big 3-lanes (ish!) in each direction to Amman; we’re only going 1/3 of the way – till the turn-off to Wadi Rum. The biggest hazards are the speed bumps which can come as quite a surprise if you’re not paying attention! Otherwise the roads are really quite empty and so far it’s very easy driving.

Reached the Wadi Rum Visitors’ Centre around 10:30; paid our 15 JD entry fee and called Mohammed our tour operator to tell him we were here. He gave us directions to drive to the village (about 6 km further – on paved road), where we were met and led to his garage. We parked, had tea and eventually transferred our overnight bags to our tour Land Cruiser (which had certainly seen better days!). Our young guide/driver’s English was very rudimentary, but his driving (except when we were outside exploring dunes and he was making doughnuts!) was fine. He took us on the pre-arranged tour of Wadi Rum: a great desert plain with fabulous rock formations all around. TE is the local hero and many features are called “Lawrence this” and “Lawrence that”. Much of Lawrence of Arabia was filmed here and we thought we recognized some of them! We reached the Bedouin Camp around 5:30, but don’t think goats and other livestock. These are pure tourist camps, and there aren’t many tourists (not sure if it’s due to low season or Middle East troubles…). Our camp had the main eating tent and lots of small sleeping tents; ours had foam mattresses, unnecessary quilts and pillows for 4. There was also a nice toilet/shower block. The tents themselves are black/brown/white striped heavy woven wool, presumably authentic. The “host” was a German woman called Barbara who was volunteering for a number of weeks to learn more about Bedouins and Wadi Rum. She was the general camp cleaner, and she did a good job! We sat and waited for sunset, and a 2^nd vehicle disgorged 3 American flight attendants seeing the Middle East in 8 days! One had just worked 1^st class from LA to Heathrow and said Peter O’Toole was there (she didn’t recognize him; we thought he’d died a couple of years ago!). Anyway, he had his foot in the aisle and someone trod on it and he yelled “You just trod on m @!&#% foot!” She apologized to the woman accompanying him, who told her he was O’Toole!

Dinner cooked by a Sudanese man (we noticed in Aqaba that a lot of the hotel staff looked to be Pakistani: right religion, will work for lower wages?), and was nice but not the feast I was somewhat hoping for! Perhaps if a whole party books the camp they will cook accordingly. The night was beautifully clear. We didn’t feel the need to sleep outside, and I for one slept really well tucked in my sheet bag…

Next morning we had breakfast and our camels were waiting for us before 8 am. Unlike my Bactrian camel rides, these (single-humped) dromedaries have fancy saddles, and the 4 camels were tethered together (Colin got the tallest and he led the pack). We plodded and sat between the front and rear pommels, with our legs bent over the neck – quite comfortable actually. (In Mongolia there’s no saddle just a thin blanket covering the very bony back and stirrups, and my guide made me jog; I refused to gallop!) It was a 2 hour ride back to town. Back in Mohammed’s house we were served tea, and likely could have spent the rest of the day there, but we wanted to get moving, so we paid and left.

Back in the car we drove towards Wadi Musa, the town where Petra is located. We searched for our hotel, only to find that it is still undergoing renovations (I confirmed our reservation a few weeks ago; we heard that someone called to book 3 days before arriving!!!) Anyway, keen to find a hotel we went for broke and checked into the extremely fancy Movenpick hotel which is right at the entrance to Petra (nice to have working Visas!!!). The hotel is designed in a Jordanian theme and has antiques and beautiful rooms. We washed, washed clothes and went to explorePetra.

One day tickets are 50 JD each and 2-day tickets just 5 JD more, so we went for 2-day ones (no discount for students, but we met a really nice American mother and her 2 daughters, one of whom is studying in Amman and has a resident’s card, and she got in for 1 JD (x 1.4 = US$)).

We took the “free” horse ride down to the start of the Siq, then walked slowly down through the canyon, admiring every turn in the way…then suddenly, there was the “Treasury” (actually a funerary temple), and benches to sit and admire it and catch your breath. We walked slowly marveling at the temples and other buildings hewn out of the rock, and the later Roman additions (amphitheatre, colonnade, etc.). We felt walked-out around 6 pm and slowly made our way back out and back to our hotel. Here we met the American family, and walked back with them. Once at the hotel we stopped off at the bar (a beautiful Arabic room); Anna and I had wonderful lemon juice and mint slushies and Colin downed a beer. Too tired/lazy to venture out, we ate in the very fancy restaurant: buffet everything from grilled quail and seafood pasta to sesame dessert (delicious; rather like liquid halva!). Anna was wearing her long green tunic and black pants, and was complimented by one of the extremely gracious staff (turned out to be the Food and Beverage Manager); Colin commented to him that she only needed something red and white and she’d be wearing the Jordanian flag. He returned a few minutes later bearing a red apple and a glass of white wine!!! We had a nice chat with him about tourism in Jordan; apparently the tours that “do” Egypt, Jordan and Syria have cancelled, but those that just do Jordan have not; so tourism is down but not disastrously as in Egypt!!!

Explore Petra yourself through Petra, Jordan, a 2007 DVD available through theCalgary Public Library:

Gerry will be sharing her travels through Egypt and Jordan in a multimedia presentation as part of our 2011 Travel Day. Check out our upcoming programs on our homepage or through our program guide.

May 20-May 22

Aqaba! We left our “home” in Cairo to much good wishes on both sides; lovely Hotel Longchamps and its friendly, delightful owner and staff (e.g., when we got back to the hotel from Alexandria our bags were already in our room!).

Our guide from the desert was waiting for us at 8 am, with another driver and a far less “robust” vehicle.

We wanted to see the Suez Canal, but it’s a military zone and you can only see it if you’re in it! We tried to take a side road to a view point but (likely due to tensions withIsrael and Palestine) were turned back. You cross the canal via a tunnel and then (now in Asia) it really is a different place: men were differently dressed (in more Saudi-type robes), it was a lot sandier. We drove southwards with the coast on our right. Beautiful blue-green sea. Every few miles there was an attempt at a resort development, either hotels or houses, we couldn’t really tell. A few looked occupied but most looked more optimistic than actual. I read a newspaper article about the Egyptian real estate bust and maybe this was part of it…

On we went into the mountains in Sinai. Fortunately top speed wasn’t so high, since the driving was ok but no more! Lots of windy roads as we gained height. Not much other traffic. We reached Saint Catherine’s around 4 pm. It was Friday and the monastery is only open for 2 hours on Fridays. We spent the afternoon wandering around the small town of Saint Catherine’s, which obviously owes everything to the tourists who come to the monastery and to climb Mount Sinai(which we did not do!). There were plenty of small boys asking for hand-outs, and some sweet girls who were not…We actually shared our hotel with a group of young Austrians; not very wonderful buffet dinner and breakfast…

Before we left Cairo we’d looked up in the guidebook and Internet about the ferry from Nuweiba to Aqaba – and it wasn’t very optimistic, especially about running on Saturdays (you’d think, and we had, that Fridays would be the “dodgy” day – apparently not!). Anyway, we mentioned this to our guide, and the alternatives of a shorter ferry from Taba or trying the land route through Israel. Initially he was not in favour of the latter (maybe due to the volatile situation), and he called friends in Nuweiba to check, and later that evening went down himself to check out the situation. Next morning he said we should try the land route since there was only the slow ferry which may or may not leave at 3 or 4 pm.

We left the hotel soon after 8 am but the monastery doesn’t open till 9 am. We had total tourist shock as there were more tourists crowding into the forecourt than we’d seen in all the other sights put together!!! And we were told usually there are several thousand visitors a day. The whole experience was frankly disappointing: we queued, shuffled around the church in semi-darkness, looked at icons, listened to rude tourists and ruder orthodox monks telling tourists and tour leaders off. We saw Moses’s well and the “burning bush” (it wasn’t!), admired the old walls of the monastery and that was it.

A short drive took us down to the coast and to Nuweiba which looked dead, then we turned north to Taba. Lots of deserted and lovely-looking beaches on the Red Sea and again some sad-looking resort-attempts. We agreed to pay an additional $75 (although strictly speaking it’s likely they would have driven that way back toCairo anyway – no big deal!). Suddenly there was the border! We said fond farewells and they volunteered to wait 30 minutes in case there was a problem. So, 12:15 leave mini-van; we paid 2 Egyptian Pounds each (6 to the Can $), filled in a form with a stamp, walked through a large a/c hall and were out of Egypt. We put away our Canadian passports and pulled out our British ones. A shortish walk in the heat, multiple questions by multiple friendly Israeli officials (mostly young women in tight jeans and short-sleeved shirts; Anna thought they were there as deliberate provocation!) and the first proper x-raying of our bags (a supervisor had to be asked about the hammer!) – and we were in Israel at 1:00. There were 2 taxis waiting, we jumped in one and for $25 US he drove us through Eilat to the Jordanian border. Here we had to pay 101 shekels each (no idea how much that was; they took Visa!) for the transit visa, then another short walk. This time (since we already had our Jordanian visas in the Canadian passports) all they wanted from us was a retina scan – really; never had one of those before! Into the parking lot, and this time the taxi was a lot more expensive - $45 US, but our hotel is at the very southern tip of Jordan’s Red Sea coast; in fact, we’re only 5 minutes away from the Saudi border…Checked in to the hotel around 3:15-ish! Later that evening we might have seen the slow ferry crossing the sea, but by then we’d rented masks and fins, had our first snorkle (absolutely amazing corals!), swam in the pool, booked dives and were about to eat dinner. Our hotel is rather disappointing (except for its location on the beach and the lovely bougainvillea bushes), most noticeably its meals: the only offering was a fixed meal with choice of steak or fish fingers!!! We pushed a little and out came a feast of tabouli, tahine, egg plant and tahine dip (not called babaganoush here!), tomatoes and cucumbers and a local specialty of ground meat cooked in tomatoes, onions, garlic and other yummies!

This morning Anna and Colin went for their dive and I snorkled, then arranged for the Thrifty dealer to drop the car off here rather than me going to them (much more intelligent!). We met for lunch, then they did their 2^nd dive and I did the car. Once in my hands I went into Aqaba to try and change our Egyptian pounds and some dollars. I stopped outside the Intercontinental compound and they would have let me in once they had checked the under-side of the car with a mirror on a pole, but the attendant told me I’d get a better rate at an exchange, and he gave me (perfect!) instructions to get there. Aqaba is small; the local housing area looks small; the largest industries are the huge hotels (2 Movenpicks, Intercontinental and others) and the huge container port). I got back to our hotel avoiding a police check stop (obviously white women driving rental cars are ok), and driving into the naval base next door to our hotel – just as Colin and Anna finished their dive. A nice lazy afternoon of reading/snorkeling/swimming. We’re going to look for a nice fish restaurant for dinner (it was well-recommended!). Off tomorrow to Wadi Rum.