We began our trip by driving north to Umm Queis, an ancient Roman city which has quite a few intact structures, such as a tomb, the base of a massive gateway arch, and several buildings reconstructed by the Turks. I honestly don’t have great recall about Umm Queis because I hadn’t had anything to drink all day and it was stiflingly hot up there, so I started to have some symptoms of heat stroke. Mostly I remember the first few things we saw, and then I just remember being way overheated, tired, and having a headache. When we got back to the bus I guzzled an entire 1.25 liter bottle of water and then slept for the ride to Jerash.
Jerash is the most well-preserved Roman city in the world because for most of the time since it was left uninhabited it was buried entirely in sand. The sand preserved the details of the structures extremely well, and so when we got off the bus to explore (myself feeling considerable better) we found a whole skyline of Roman ruins waiting for us to explore. We saw Hadrian’s arch, which was constructed by the Romans in anticipation of a visit by the Emperor Hadrian. Once entering the city we visited the main forum area followed by the Temple of Artemis and what many believe to be the first machine ever built: a wooden stonecutting machine which used water to cut pillar stones. We visited another theatre where several locals entertained us with bagpipe and drum music.
Tuesday was spent having lectures at JETS about Arab culture. During a break I visited the Safeway next door and discovered a drink that would get me through the whole of the remaining week: Mint Lemonade. Tropicana makes it in Jordan, but unfortunately not in the States. We returned to JETS and finished the day of lectures while enjoying another amazing meal cooked by some of the ladies at JETS.
Tuesday night the guys watched Top Gear (Fletcher had finally stopped hanging out in the girl’s apartment all night watching Australian soap operas) and Ben Baldwin discovered that he could play Pokemon on his laptop. These were all warning signs that for us, culture fatigue was setting in. I loved being in Jordan and the Arabic culture was fascinating, however, after two and a half weeks of it we were really starting to miss the casual, irreverent, and laid-back culture of the states. Constantly being aware of cultural cues and developments was far more exhausting than we’d expected.
Wednesday we hopped onto the tour bus for one last day trip. This time we drove south into the Jordan valley to visit one of the possible locations of Jesus’ baptism. We walked through a winding path into the unusually lush greenery around the Jordan until we came to the river itself. Though most of the water is now used for drinking and thus the river is considerably smaller than it once was, standing on the banks of such a historic river was an exhilarating experience, made even better by the visit of some Anglicans performing Eucharist at the spot while we were there.
Later that day we also visited Madaba, a town south of Jordan which housed one of the more impressive collections of mosaic art in the area. The centerpiece of this collection was a church floor which had been “mosaic’d” so that it formed a massive map of the whole holy land. Though parts of the mosaic were damaged, the whole thing was simply spectacular.
Our final two days of lecture began on Thursday and were filled with much learning, more mint lemonade, and one very security-filled visit to the U.S. Embassy to talk about the State Department. Friday afternoon we spent a good 3 hours or so doing what Chris called “preliminary processing.” We went over and had group discussion about the major things about biblical geography, Arabic culture, and Israel which we had noticed during our weeks in Jordan.
Saturday was to be our “free day” where we could pretty much do whatever we wanted. Ben Baldwin and I decided that first on that list was “sleep” so we didn’t get up until 10:00AM. After we’d gotten ready for the day we jumped into a taxi and met the rest of the group (who’d been wandering university campuses and buying coffee) to grab lunch with some Muslim friends of Hannah’s she’d met while working at Yellowstone. They took us to an Arabic restaurant and ordered us Mindee, which is basically chicken on top of some really fancy rice. We ate until we were stuffed, and the whole meal demonstrated the Arabic sense of time since we didn’t get our check and leave until 2:00PM. Following that we split up to shop and get one last taste of Amman before we left.
At 8:00 that night we set off for the airport, and after spending some time at the gate chatting with world travelers and one R+B band, we boarded our flight back to New York. I watched a movie, and then, after a long trip filled with crazy stories, profound moments, amazing sights, fantastic food, and other travel clichés… I fell asleep on the way back home.
And now I'm not in Jordan anymore.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
IT'S OVER 9000!!!!! Years Old, That Is
We arrived in Jericho mid-morning the next day and toured the site. Our guide wasn’t supremely knowledgeable (we hired him from the gate) but he did try his best. We saw several walls, which although they weren’t the original walls were still about 9,000 years old. By the time we got to the top of the remnants of the city it was getting REALLY hot, so we ducked into the visitor’s center cafeteria to get some lunch. The power was out temporarily, so they brought us falafel sandwiches and cokes with ice.
After a supremely refreshing lunch the power came back on and we loaded onto the bus to drive back into Jordan for the final week of our trip. Israeli security was again both confusing and harsh, but we made it through and into Jordan, whose security was more reasonable. After a long day’s drive we got back to the apartments and collapsed into a heap.
Our next day was willed with lectures and Sunday we took some time to relax. Instead of rushing off at around 8:00am like most of the days thus far, we instead slept in until around lunchtime, then paid a visit to the Jordan times. The senior editor came out to talk with us about Jordanian issues and the “Arab Spring” as it’s been called by the news media. He was optimistic about the future for Arabs, but at the same time didn’t think that one revolution would change a country entirely.
After visiting the Times we went back to the apartments for some much needed rest before our day trip on Monday.
After a supremely refreshing lunch the power came back on and we loaded onto the bus to drive back into Jordan for the final week of our trip. Israeli security was again both confusing and harsh, but we made it through and into Jordan, whose security was more reasonable. After a long day’s drive we got back to the apartments and collapsed into a heap.
Our next day was willed with lectures and Sunday we took some time to relax. Instead of rushing off at around 8:00am like most of the days thus far, we instead slept in until around lunchtime, then paid a visit to the Jordan times. The senior editor came out to talk with us about Jordanian issues and the “Arab Spring” as it’s been called by the news media. He was optimistic about the future for Arabs, but at the same time didn’t think that one revolution would change a country entirely.
After visiting the Times we went back to the apartments for some much needed rest before our day trip on Monday.
In Which I Get Mad at Monks
We started our grand tour of Jerusalem in the Garden of Gethsemane, which is mostly covered by a massive Jewish cemetery now, but several groves of trees and churches built to commemorate Biblical events. The cemetery itself was interesting because Mokhoul explained several Jewish burial customs to us, such as the custom of placing stones on the tombs of the dead so that they can bring them to the temple when messiah comes. Gethsemane was my first taste of the bittersweet pill that is commemorative churches. These churches are beautiful and truly spectacular buildings, but as we toured these churches I found myself profoundly distracted by the spectacle of everything. Also really irksome was the various orthodox church’s habits of selling “holy” things inside the church. One particularly irritating moment came when Dr. Haddad went to take a brochure from a visitors stand and a nearby monk wouldn’t let her have it without a donation. I’m sorry, but what the heck!? That’s just disgusting. If it’s a church it’s a church, if it’s a store it’s a store. DON’T MIX PROFITEERING WITH RELIGION!
Ranting aside the churches were astounding, with frescoes, paintings, mosaics, and golden adornments hanging everywhere. Putting aside my concerns and misgivings about the place of decadence within places of worship, I was very impressed with the beauty of it all.
After we finished in Gethsemane (which Moukhoul explained came from the words for “Olive Press”) we headed into the City of David region of Jerusalem to trek through Hezekiah’s tunnel. This tunnel was built by the Israelite King Hezekiah to bring water into the city of Jerusalem and represents a tremendous feat of engineering for 800 BC. Using oil lamps and hand tools the Israelites managed to carve a tunnel which took us a good 40 minutes to walk through straight through the mountain Jerusalem is built on. The tunnel itself was straight out of Indiana Jones. Rock walls and about mid-shin depth in most places flowing through the bottom of the tunnel really made the tunnel spectacular. We came out near the Pools of Shalome, where Jews had traditionally washed before walking up to the temple.
Speaking of the temple, our next stop was the Western Wall, or as Americans call it the Wailing Wall. This wall is the closest thing to the Temple that modern Jews have, and as such security was tight. Inside the barricades we found that many families were celebrating Bar Mitzvah’s at the wall while others prayed fervently with hands on the wall. The area near the wall was divided into two sections, one for men and one for women, but women were tossing candy over the wall at their sons celebrating Bar Mitzvah so the separations weren’t as strict as the ones we’d seen in Muslim areas. Also, before men could go to the site, they had to don a kippa (aka a yarmulke).
After we ate lunch we decided not to spend the 45 minutes to an hour waiting in line to get into the area around the Dome of the Rock. Instead we visited several places along the Via Dolorosa, but in all honesty I was so worn out that a lot of the impact of these places didn’t strike me as much as it should have. We visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the supposed sight of Jesus death and burial. The church itself is spectacular, but my experience there was again tempered by the problems I have with the profiteering and almost panhandling going on within the church.
Following this we bid farewell to Moukhoul and thanked him profusely for his kindness and willingness to show us around his country. From then until 7 we had free time, so we started by meeting up at an Israeli Starbucks analog, ordering coffees and iced mint lemonades and discussing the plan. We ended up splitting into groups, with Brenda, Dr. Haddad, Jennifer, Hannah and I headed up onto the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem and walked around to the Western Wall while Sam, Ben, Zach, and Fletcher took a nap under some trees. The rest of the group went shopping in the Muslim Quarter Bazaars. For my part, walking on the walls was definitely the best choice. The view was amazing and the people watching we did on the walls were the best way to end the day in Jerusalem. On the way back to the meeting point at the Jaffa gate, we bumped into several members of the other Covenant group that was in Israel at the time, but everyone I knew was apparently napping back at Jerusalem University College.
We came back to Bethlehem for another night at the Angel Hotel before heading to Jericho the next day.
Ranting aside the churches were astounding, with frescoes, paintings, mosaics, and golden adornments hanging everywhere. Putting aside my concerns and misgivings about the place of decadence within places of worship, I was very impressed with the beauty of it all.
After we finished in Gethsemane (which Moukhoul explained came from the words for “Olive Press”) we headed into the City of David region of Jerusalem to trek through Hezekiah’s tunnel. This tunnel was built by the Israelite King Hezekiah to bring water into the city of Jerusalem and represents a tremendous feat of engineering for 800 BC. Using oil lamps and hand tools the Israelites managed to carve a tunnel which took us a good 40 minutes to walk through straight through the mountain Jerusalem is built on. The tunnel itself was straight out of Indiana Jones. Rock walls and about mid-shin depth in most places flowing through the bottom of the tunnel really made the tunnel spectacular. We came out near the Pools of Shalome, where Jews had traditionally washed before walking up to the temple.
Speaking of the temple, our next stop was the Western Wall, or as Americans call it the Wailing Wall. This wall is the closest thing to the Temple that modern Jews have, and as such security was tight. Inside the barricades we found that many families were celebrating Bar Mitzvah’s at the wall while others prayed fervently with hands on the wall. The area near the wall was divided into two sections, one for men and one for women, but women were tossing candy over the wall at their sons celebrating Bar Mitzvah so the separations weren’t as strict as the ones we’d seen in Muslim areas. Also, before men could go to the site, they had to don a kippa (aka a yarmulke).
After we ate lunch we decided not to spend the 45 minutes to an hour waiting in line to get into the area around the Dome of the Rock. Instead we visited several places along the Via Dolorosa, but in all honesty I was so worn out that a lot of the impact of these places didn’t strike me as much as it should have. We visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is the supposed sight of Jesus death and burial. The church itself is spectacular, but my experience there was again tempered by the problems I have with the profiteering and almost panhandling going on within the church.
Following this we bid farewell to Moukhoul and thanked him profusely for his kindness and willingness to show us around his country. From then until 7 we had free time, so we started by meeting up at an Israeli Starbucks analog, ordering coffees and iced mint lemonades and discussing the plan. We ended up splitting into groups, with Brenda, Dr. Haddad, Jennifer, Hannah and I headed up onto the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem and walked around to the Western Wall while Sam, Ben, Zach, and Fletcher took a nap under some trees. The rest of the group went shopping in the Muslim Quarter Bazaars. For my part, walking on the walls was definitely the best choice. The view was amazing and the people watching we did on the walls were the best way to end the day in Jerusalem. On the way back to the meeting point at the Jaffa gate, we bumped into several members of the other Covenant group that was in Israel at the time, but everyone I knew was apparently napping back at Jerusalem University College.
We came back to Bethlehem for another night at the Angel Hotel before heading to Jericho the next day.
Oh, That Air Raid Siren? Yeah, That's Probably Nothing
Wednesday we drove the bus south to the seaside city of Ceasarea. We pulled over by the remains of Herod the Great’s aqueduct, which was perfectly placed on a Mediterranean beach, where we gleefully waded and enjoyed the beautiful blue waters of the sea. The scenery remained amazing as we drove through Modern Ceasarea, which is sort of the Beverly Hills of Israel. The ancient city itself is comparable to a very nice tourist retreat in America. Restaurants, a coffee bar in the remnants of a mosque, and a movie explaining the history of the town welcomed us to this remnant of Herod. Ceasarea was built by Herod the Great and survived multilple regime changes until the Arab sultan Beibars razed the city to the ground at the close of the crusades.
While touring the Roman ruins, an alarm went off which Moukhoul explained were used to warn of Hizbollah rocket attacks, but he suspected this alarm was merely a test. Increased air activity worried us after this, but nothing showed up in the news that night.
We later toured the massive Herodian fortress near Bethlehem. Herod the Great constructed an enormous palace with a series of escape tunnels throughout the mountain it sits on. We would have visited Herod’s tomb but more recent archeological diggings blocked the way.
Our final stop of the day was the Church of the Nativity, site of Jesus’ birth as alleged by many Christians. We toured the amazing Byzantine church, which was covered with mosaics and the remains of paintings on all the walls, and descended into the grotto underneath with the supposed spot of Jesus birth marked with lavish adornments and a silver star. It was incredible and made me feel very thankful to God for sending his son to such a messed up world (especially after all the turmoil we’d seen before then in the trip). However the decadent trappings of the place and the almost transactional way in which local monks traded money for “holy water” or even just tourist brochures really damaged my impression of the place. It was too showy, especially since the whole point of Jesus’ birth was that it wasn’t lavish or what anyone expected. It was humble, and totally unlike anything built on this site today.
After the church, checked into our hotel and took a short walk, grabbing some ice cream and discussing everything from accents and former jobs to the culture of the local people and American attitudes towards homosexuals. It was good bonding time for the group, and when we got back we retired to bed, happy and looking forward to Jerusalem in the morning.
While touring the Roman ruins, an alarm went off which Moukhoul explained were used to warn of Hizbollah rocket attacks, but he suspected this alarm was merely a test. Increased air activity worried us after this, but nothing showed up in the news that night.
We later toured the massive Herodian fortress near Bethlehem. Herod the Great constructed an enormous palace with a series of escape tunnels throughout the mountain it sits on. We would have visited Herod’s tomb but more recent archeological diggings blocked the way.
Our final stop of the day was the Church of the Nativity, site of Jesus’ birth as alleged by many Christians. We toured the amazing Byzantine church, which was covered with mosaics and the remains of paintings on all the walls, and descended into the grotto underneath with the supposed spot of Jesus birth marked with lavish adornments and a silver star. It was incredible and made me feel very thankful to God for sending his son to such a messed up world (especially after all the turmoil we’d seen before then in the trip). However the decadent trappings of the place and the almost transactional way in which local monks traded money for “holy water” or even just tourist brochures really damaged my impression of the place. It was too showy, especially since the whole point of Jesus’ birth was that it wasn’t lavish or what anyone expected. It was humble, and totally unlike anything built on this site today.
After the church, checked into our hotel and took a short walk, grabbing some ice cream and discussing everything from accents and former jobs to the culture of the local people and American attitudes towards homosexuals. It was good bonding time for the group, and when we got back we retired to bed, happy and looking forward to Jerusalem in the morning.
That Shower Came From Star Trek
The next morning started bright and early with the obnoxiously loud telephone in our room ringing for our wake-up call. Sam Bowman answered it and I got up to take a shower. After breakfast we loaded up in the bus and drove across the north of Israel to the seaside town of Capernaum. Our guide explained the remains of a Jewish synagogue we found there, which were made of a type of stone not found anywhere near the Sea of Galilee. This meant that the Jews (who were building a larger synagogue as a way of thumbing their noses at the budding Christian population in Capernaum) had to ship the stone from somewhere else, which would have been incredibly expensive. The upshot of this is that one of the stones used in the synagogue was carved by someone who inscribes his name as a son of Zebedee, which provides secondary confirmation that the family of Zebedee described in scripture actually existed in that area at the right time for two to become Jesus’ disciples.
From Capernaum we drove deeper into the disputed Golan Heights.Prior to the 1960’s the whole Golan area was part of Syria. In the mid-60’s, the Israeli military launched a surprise simultaneous assault on every major Arab air force and essentially obliterated them all. This meant that their subsequent land invasions of the Sinai peninsula in the south, and the Golan Heights in the north were easy victories as the Arabs had no way to contest the Israeli fighter jets dropping bombs on their heads. Since this assault (named the Six Days War) Israel has held the whole Golan region, though it exchanged the Sinai Peninsula for a peace treaty with Egypt.
We stopped for one final time before returning to Nazareth for the night at Hatzor (Hazor in the Bible). Hazor was the site of a major city and is the famed location of Jabim’s palace during the time his people oppressed Israel until Deborah the Judge’s uprising. The view was amazing, only slightly lessened by a haze which settled across the whole of Israel caused by dust storms blowing in from the southeast. We finished touring Hazor, and by now we were all completely exhausted. We returned to the hotel, ate dinner, and relaxed for a few hours while preparing for the drive to Bethlehem the next day.
From Capernaum we drove deeper into the disputed Golan Heights.Prior to the 1960’s the whole Golan area was part of Syria. In the mid-60’s, the Israeli military launched a surprise simultaneous assault on every major Arab air force and essentially obliterated them all. This meant that their subsequent land invasions of the Sinai peninsula in the south, and the Golan Heights in the north were easy victories as the Arabs had no way to contest the Israeli fighter jets dropping bombs on their heads. Since this assault (named the Six Days War) Israel has held the whole Golan region, though it exchanged the Sinai Peninsula for a peace treaty with Egypt.
We stopped for one final time before returning to Nazareth for the night at Hatzor (Hazor in the Bible). Hazor was the site of a major city and is the famed location of Jabim’s palace during the time his people oppressed Israel until Deborah the Judge’s uprising. The view was amazing, only slightly lessened by a haze which settled across the whole of Israel caused by dust storms blowing in from the southeast. We finished touring Hazor, and by now we were all completely exhausted. We returned to the hotel, ate dinner, and relaxed for a few hours while preparing for the drive to Bethlehem the next day.
No, Officer, I Don't Normally Dress Like This
We met up the next morning with Adventure Mark to make the border crossing. Israeli security deserves its reputation as the strictest in the world. As soon as we got off the bus I was pulled out of line along with several others and questioned about all sorts of things: the reason for our trip, where I was from, who I was, who my parents were, if someone gave me anything before coming, who was paying for my trip, what was the name of my school, why was my bag smaller than everyone else’s, etc. Finally, after explaining my father’s lineage to the third or fourth generation to the passport stamper (no joke, they asked all that stuff) I made it through with the group and we met our guide for the next several days. He was a Galilean Arab Christian whose name was Moukhoul (which is an Arabic version of Michael). I just thought it was cool that his name had a “kh” in it.
Moukhoul was extremely friendly, and he explained our tour as we drove to Bet Shaan, one of the ten cities of the Roman Decapolis, and the only one in Israel. Bet Shan is the historical site of the death of Saul as well as the subject of David’s lament in the beginning 2 Samuel. While there, we toured another Roman theatre, saw a mosaic containing an advertisement in Greek for a local store, and marveled at the ingenuity of the Roman roads there. We ate lunch (a chicken and hummus pita sandwich with vegetables amusingly called a shnitzel) and set off for Meggido.
As we drove, we passed a number of historical sites, such as Mount Tabor (home to the battle between Deborah and Sisera in Judges) Mount Carmel, and the site of Gideon’s mustering of the troops of Israel. What really struck me about coming to Israel was just how close together everything was. You could see Nazareth and Mt. Tabor are literally right next to each other and Meggido is easily visible from both. The plain in between the three sites was home to 70% of the battles recorded in the Old Testament, because the land there was the most fertile and the most valuable for farming. I almost wonder if the reason that the land is so fertile is because so many people were killed there over the course of history. When I used to read in the Bible about the Promised Land being the land of milk and honey what I never realized is just how drastically more fertile and desirable Israeli land is than anywhere else in the Arab world. Jordan, for example is very rocky and dry, and is one of the three water-poorest countries in the world. In Israel, everything is green and beautiful and vegetation and trees are everywhere. It’s a totally different world than Jordan.
We arrived at Meggido, which is also known as Armageddon and is thought by some to be the site of the Last Battle mentioned in Revelation. Biblical interpretations aside, this place has seen some serious wet work over the millennia. The city itself overlooks the plains I mentioned earlier where most of the fighting in the Bible takes place, while the actual city has been destroyed and rebuilt a staggering twenty-five times!!! This makes is a treasure trove of archeological information and tells us a lot about life in ancient times. Meggido itself is one of the oldest cities in existence. One sacrificial circle in the city was used without ceasing for over 2,000 years. To prevent enemies from cutting off access to water in the city, King Solomon dug a gargantuan shaft into the earth and then tunneled over to the spring so that even in times of siege the water from the spring would flow right into the city. We actually walked along the tunnel since water no longer flows through it and out to meet our tour bus at the end of our time in Meggido.
Our last stops for the day were all in Nazareth, which is just a short distance from Meggido and is clearly visible from there. Our first stop was the Mount of Precipice, which is believed to be the site where Jesus escaped an angry crowd by leaping off of the mountain itself. The view of the city and of the plains around from up here was incredible. Next we visited the Basilica of Annunciation, which is a colossal church built on the site where many believe Mary and Joseph lived for the first few years of Jesus’ life. The church itself was lavishly adorned and featured art from every country in the world depicting Mary (and usually Jesus) in the style of their culture.
Finally, we drove up the the St. Gabriel hotel, where we would stay for two nights and which was very similar in style to Carter Hall back at Covenant. Again we were served a huge dinner (everything in Jordan and Israel was big) of chicken, fish, bread, hummus, and vegetables. We took a short walk after dinner and had a good hour or two of just talking as a group. Even though most of us didn’t even know each other when we got on the plane, by now we were a tight group and were becoming good friends through shared experiences. We even had a good number of inside jokes (Ben’s always late, I’m married to Alicia and attract cats, Becca’s sixteen years old not twenty one, etc.) We had an early start the next morning, so I wrote this journal, then went to bed.
Moukhoul was extremely friendly, and he explained our tour as we drove to Bet Shaan, one of the ten cities of the Roman Decapolis, and the only one in Israel. Bet Shan is the historical site of the death of Saul as well as the subject of David’s lament in the beginning 2 Samuel. While there, we toured another Roman theatre, saw a mosaic containing an advertisement in Greek for a local store, and marveled at the ingenuity of the Roman roads there. We ate lunch (a chicken and hummus pita sandwich with vegetables amusingly called a shnitzel) and set off for Meggido.
As we drove, we passed a number of historical sites, such as Mount Tabor (home to the battle between Deborah and Sisera in Judges) Mount Carmel, and the site of Gideon’s mustering of the troops of Israel. What really struck me about coming to Israel was just how close together everything was. You could see Nazareth and Mt. Tabor are literally right next to each other and Meggido is easily visible from both. The plain in between the three sites was home to 70% of the battles recorded in the Old Testament, because the land there was the most fertile and the most valuable for farming. I almost wonder if the reason that the land is so fertile is because so many people were killed there over the course of history. When I used to read in the Bible about the Promised Land being the land of milk and honey what I never realized is just how drastically more fertile and desirable Israeli land is than anywhere else in the Arab world. Jordan, for example is very rocky and dry, and is one of the three water-poorest countries in the world. In Israel, everything is green and beautiful and vegetation and trees are everywhere. It’s a totally different world than Jordan.
We arrived at Meggido, which is also known as Armageddon and is thought by some to be the site of the Last Battle mentioned in Revelation. Biblical interpretations aside, this place has seen some serious wet work over the millennia. The city itself overlooks the plains I mentioned earlier where most of the fighting in the Bible takes place, while the actual city has been destroyed and rebuilt a staggering twenty-five times!!! This makes is a treasure trove of archeological information and tells us a lot about life in ancient times. Meggido itself is one of the oldest cities in existence. One sacrificial circle in the city was used without ceasing for over 2,000 years. To prevent enemies from cutting off access to water in the city, King Solomon dug a gargantuan shaft into the earth and then tunneled over to the spring so that even in times of siege the water from the spring would flow right into the city. We actually walked along the tunnel since water no longer flows through it and out to meet our tour bus at the end of our time in Meggido.
Our last stops for the day were all in Nazareth, which is just a short distance from Meggido and is clearly visible from there. Our first stop was the Mount of Precipice, which is believed to be the site where Jesus escaped an angry crowd by leaping off of the mountain itself. The view of the city and of the plains around from up here was incredible. Next we visited the Basilica of Annunciation, which is a colossal church built on the site where many believe Mary and Joseph lived for the first few years of Jesus’ life. The church itself was lavishly adorned and featured art from every country in the world depicting Mary (and usually Jesus) in the style of their culture.
Finally, we drove up the the St. Gabriel hotel, where we would stay for two nights and which was very similar in style to Carter Hall back at Covenant. Again we were served a huge dinner (everything in Jordan and Israel was big) of chicken, fish, bread, hummus, and vegetables. We took a short walk after dinner and had a good hour or two of just talking as a group. Even though most of us didn’t even know each other when we got on the plane, by now we were a tight group and were becoming good friends through shared experiences. We even had a good number of inside jokes (Ben’s always late, I’m married to Alicia and attract cats, Becca’s sixteen years old not twenty one, etc.) We had an early start the next morning, so I wrote this journal, then went to bed.
In Which Hot Peppers Cause Consternation
The next morning Rimaan slept till 10:45am, so I just lay on the mattress next to his (we slept on mattresses he dragged into the living room late at night while Jennifer shared a room with his sister) until he woke up and we had breakfast. One of the biggest parts of Arab hospitality is that they feed you CONSTANTLY. All night we were plied with fruits (which are dessert foods here) cakes, nuts, bread, and all sorts of food. Breakfast was a feast of pita bread, yogurt (which I politely avoided while pretending to eat) meat that was sort of like bologna, and leftover cake from last night, served with Arabic hot chocolate (which is a million times better than American hot chocolate.) I got the sense while in Jordan that Arab tastes in drinks run really sweet. Everything from their tea to their soda to their fruit punch is at least twice as sweet as you would expect from American drinks. The only exception is the Turkish coffee, which is blacker than anything you find in America and which my dad would probably love.
Later that morning we said our goodbyes to Rimaan and his family and rejoined our group for a lunch at the Al-Quds restaurant. (Al-Quds is the Arabic term for Jerusalem, and the restaurant was full of photos of the city and specifically of the Dome of The Rock) The food there was delicious (I had lamb, but lots of people ordered Mensaaf, the national dish of Jordan, which is basically meat and rice served with goat yogurt.) Also served was pita bread with hummus, which is the Arab analogue for bread and butter and which I am wholly addicted to.
After lunch we met up with Yusef, a local guide to take a walking tour of Amman. We visited an ancient Roman bath house, of which only one wall remains following a huge earthquake some years ago. Here Yusef explained the history of several different Arab kingdoms during the Middle Ages. We also toured a Roman theatre which would have seated several thousand people, and in fact, still does, as it is sometimes used on special occasions for events. The biggest attraction we saw was the Citadel of Amman, which started out as an Ammonite fortress on a mountain (it’s actually the confirmed site of Uriah the Hittite’s death on the orders of David when David wanted to marry Bathsheba.) and was successively built upon by the Romans, the Byzantines, and the Moors. We passed the Temple of Hercules, a Moorish palace and the remnants of a Mosque before visiting the Archeological Museum, which contained pieces from the Early Bronze Age through more recent history.
After the tour we returned to our apartments to pack for our five day excursion to Israel the next morning.
Later that morning we said our goodbyes to Rimaan and his family and rejoined our group for a lunch at the Al-Quds restaurant. (Al-Quds is the Arabic term for Jerusalem, and the restaurant was full of photos of the city and specifically of the Dome of The Rock) The food there was delicious (I had lamb, but lots of people ordered Mensaaf, the national dish of Jordan, which is basically meat and rice served with goat yogurt.) Also served was pita bread with hummus, which is the Arab analogue for bread and butter and which I am wholly addicted to.
After lunch we met up with Yusef, a local guide to take a walking tour of Amman. We visited an ancient Roman bath house, of which only one wall remains following a huge earthquake some years ago. Here Yusef explained the history of several different Arab kingdoms during the Middle Ages. We also toured a Roman theatre which would have seated several thousand people, and in fact, still does, as it is sometimes used on special occasions for events. The biggest attraction we saw was the Citadel of Amman, which started out as an Ammonite fortress on a mountain (it’s actually the confirmed site of Uriah the Hittite’s death on the orders of David when David wanted to marry Bathsheba.) and was successively built upon by the Romans, the Byzantines, and the Moors. We passed the Temple of Hercules, a Moorish palace and the remnants of a Mosque before visiting the Archeological Museum, which contained pieces from the Early Bronze Age through more recent history.
After the tour we returned to our apartments to pack for our five day excursion to Israel the next morning.
An Iraqi, and American, and Sylvester Stallone Walk Into a Bar
The next day we were allowed the luxury of an extra hour of sleep, which I was extremely grateful for. Catnaps on the bus were no substitute for real, uninterrupted sleep. We showered, had breakfast, then hailed taxis to drive to JETS (Jordanian Evangelical Theological Seminary), where we would be oriented to the school where we would spend the final week of our trip taking classes in. Before we toured JETS, however, we stopped by the Kelsey Language School for an hour’s lesson in Arabic, taught by a local woman who spoke English and taught Arabic for the school. The lesson focused entirely on spoken Arabic, and was a great refresher for me. After taking the lesson I was much more confident when speaking Arabic and a lot of the vocabulary I had learned came back to me during the lesson. We also spoke briefly with several other students who had come from America to work in Jordan and were learning the language.
Upon arrival at JETS we were escorted to a conference room where honest-to-goodness American coffee was waiting for us. This welcome wake-up booster gave us all the energy we needed for the day ahead. We were introduced to Abu-Nasser, the school’s legal counselor as well as general big kahuna. (Abu means “father of”. In Arab culture once a man or woman has a son, they are called “Abu [son’s name] or Umm [son’s name], so Abu Nasser is the father of Nasser) We also met Virginia, the school’s administrative head, and an Australian woman who’s name I missed but who was extremely friendly. The school’s dean also introduced himself, but I missed his name as well because of his accent. They were greatly welcoming and made us feel very good about our visit. Virginia then led us around the building on a tour, showing us all the different classrooms, offices, and the library which JETS partners with to provide books to the community. Lastly, we met up in a classroom and had an hour’s lecture on Israeli geography and archeology.
By now we were all getting a bit hungry, so we were led to the cafeteria, where we were pleasantly surprised to find real hamburgers and chicken sandwiches waiting for us! As we ate we chatted with Chris and Virginia about JETS, and about the unusually wet weather Jordan had been experiencing lately. Even as we talked about it it started pouring outside, so Dr. Haddad suggested we use the rest of our lunch break to find some jackets at the local superstore. After store-hopping through three different stores and not finding anything, we gave up and went back to JETS for another hour of lecture on Arab culture.
That night we were scheduled to have an overnight stay with some of the Iraqi families from the church we would be attending on Sunday. We met up in the church for a dinner (and Iraqi version of Spaghetti and some watermelon). Jennifer Grider and I were assigned to stay with someone called Rimaan, his mother, and his sister, who’s name was hard to pronounce but meant “wealthy.” Rimaan was 24 and very excited to have guests. Arab hospitality is famous, but we had no idea how kind and generous our hosts were going to be. Rimaan was exuberant but spoke only a little English, so typical conversations went something like this.
Rimaan: “What your father do?”
Me: “He works for the government.”
Rimaan: “What he do?”
Me: “He teaches new workers for the government.” (I didn’t really want to mention that my dad was in the military since I didn’t know how Iraqi refugees would feel about the American Armed Forces.)
Rimaan: “Ahh, that is good.”
But for all our language barrier we got on really well. About halfway through the night we went to meet up with some of the other families who were hosting students, all of which were related in several dozen ways. At one point we had about 25 people in one room playing UNO across two languages and using a lot of laughing, pointing, and playful slapping to communicate.
That night at Rimaan’s we stayed up late into the night watching an obscure Sylvester Stallone film and talking about things like work, school, and Texas (Rimaan’s brother lives in Texas, so the whole family was fascinated with Texas.) Rimaan said he is planning on taking his family to London when they can get visas to get cancer treatment for his mother before moving permanently to the U.S. The biggest issue is just working through the onerous process of getting immigration passes and scraping the money together for the trip.
Upon arrival at JETS we were escorted to a conference room where honest-to-goodness American coffee was waiting for us. This welcome wake-up booster gave us all the energy we needed for the day ahead. We were introduced to Abu-Nasser, the school’s legal counselor as well as general big kahuna. (Abu means “father of”. In Arab culture once a man or woman has a son, they are called “Abu [son’s name] or Umm [son’s name], so Abu Nasser is the father of Nasser) We also met Virginia, the school’s administrative head, and an Australian woman who’s name I missed but who was extremely friendly. The school’s dean also introduced himself, but I missed his name as well because of his accent. They were greatly welcoming and made us feel very good about our visit. Virginia then led us around the building on a tour, showing us all the different classrooms, offices, and the library which JETS partners with to provide books to the community. Lastly, we met up in a classroom and had an hour’s lecture on Israeli geography and archeology.
By now we were all getting a bit hungry, so we were led to the cafeteria, where we were pleasantly surprised to find real hamburgers and chicken sandwiches waiting for us! As we ate we chatted with Chris and Virginia about JETS, and about the unusually wet weather Jordan had been experiencing lately. Even as we talked about it it started pouring outside, so Dr. Haddad suggested we use the rest of our lunch break to find some jackets at the local superstore. After store-hopping through three different stores and not finding anything, we gave up and went back to JETS for another hour of lecture on Arab culture.
That night we were scheduled to have an overnight stay with some of the Iraqi families from the church we would be attending on Sunday. We met up in the church for a dinner (and Iraqi version of Spaghetti and some watermelon). Jennifer Grider and I were assigned to stay with someone called Rimaan, his mother, and his sister, who’s name was hard to pronounce but meant “wealthy.” Rimaan was 24 and very excited to have guests. Arab hospitality is famous, but we had no idea how kind and generous our hosts were going to be. Rimaan was exuberant but spoke only a little English, so typical conversations went something like this.
Rimaan: “What your father do?”
Me: “He works for the government.”
Rimaan: “What he do?”
Me: “He teaches new workers for the government.” (I didn’t really want to mention that my dad was in the military since I didn’t know how Iraqi refugees would feel about the American Armed Forces.)
Rimaan: “Ahh, that is good.”
But for all our language barrier we got on really well. About halfway through the night we went to meet up with some of the other families who were hosting students, all of which were related in several dozen ways. At one point we had about 25 people in one room playing UNO across two languages and using a lot of laughing, pointing, and playful slapping to communicate.
That night at Rimaan’s we stayed up late into the night watching an obscure Sylvester Stallone film and talking about things like work, school, and Texas (Rimaan’s brother lives in Texas, so the whole family was fascinated with Texas.) Rimaan said he is planning on taking his family to London when they can get visas to get cancer treatment for his mother before moving permanently to the U.S. The biggest issue is just working through the onerous process of getting immigration passes and scraping the money together for the trip.
Red Sand, Sweet Tea, and Human Skeletons
The next morning we woke up and grabbed a quick breakfast of hummus and pita bread before embarking on the bus to visit Wadi Rum Desert. We drove to the entrance of the park and loaded onto a set of pickup trucks to drive deeper into the Negev (which is the larger desert Wadi Rum is part of). The rocks and mountains in this canyon were so gigantic they put the others we’d seen till now to shame. Occasionally we’d see a group of Bedouins herding goats or sheep as we drove. Surprisingly, the desert was actually really chilly. Even though the sun was up and shining down brightly the desert itself had a very cold breeze blowing across it which made the whole desert about 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Ra’ad took us to a Bedouin tent where we were introduced to a family of Bedouin herders (who were drastically different from the peddlers at Petra). They didn’t speak any English, so Mark and Ra’ad translated for us while they proudly showed us their sheep and camels. We were invited inside to talk and given some delicious and very sweet Arabic tea.
From talking to the Bedouins we learned about firstly how hard their life is most of the time. However, at the same time they refused to complain about it. One thing that stood out to me was when we asked them how much money it took for them to live on each day, and the head of the family (who must have been in his forties but who’s weather beaten face looked about sixty.) replied: “One can live on 10 dinars a day, 1 dinar a day, or 4 piasters a day, but you still live regardless.” After saying thank you to the Bedouins we hopped back in the trucks and drove further into the desert.
We stopped at a huge rocky sand dune which Ra’ad encouraged us to climb (we were doing a lot more climbing in Jordan than I’d anticipated.) However, the dune was about 150-200 feet tall, so climbing up the dune was a bit of a chore. We finally got up to the top and looked right over the cliff edge at Dr. Haddad and Ra’ad down below. On the way down, Alicia decided to roll down the sandy part of the dune, which didn’t work very well, but did eventually get her down the dune, slowly. I got down and took my shoe off, and I swear that the whole dune came out of the thing before I was done shaking it out. On the drive back to the visitor center, we passed a group of people getting set up for the start of a marathon (the first that Jordan has ever done.)
We spent most of the rest of the day driving back along the desert highway to Amman, with one notable stop. We were originally going to detour to see Umm Rasaas (the “aa” is important, one “a” changes the meaning to “Mother of Bullets”), which was a 6th century byzantine church. Mark, however, being the ultimate adventurer, suggested we go off the beaten path to an old abandoned Roman fortress which was remarkably well preserved as well as being totally abandoned. We thought this was great (especially since it didn’t have any government workers or tourist attractions, so we could just enjoy it and do whatever we wanted.) WE drove off the main road onto a side road, but quickly discovered that in order to get to the fort, we’d have to drive about a kilometer over the open desert.
About now I took a brief moment to reflect over the crazy stunts we’d pulled over the last few days. We’d already climbed two mountains, ridden a donkey up a third, haggled with Bedouins, dangled our feet off of the top of a historical landmark, and gotten married. What else could we do to top that? The answer: we went off-roading in the desert in a tour bus. Our fearless (but not English speaking) driver Ali plunged the bus right off the road and straight into the desert. It took us a while navigating around trenches and sinkholes, but eventually we made it to the fort…even though it meant leaving the bus and walking the last couple of hundred yards to the fort while Ali went around back to the highway to come at the fort from a different direction to pick us up.
The fort was known locally as “Bashir” even though that’s not what the Romans would have called in. It was amazingly intact, with all four walls standing, and most of the four towers were all still where the Romans had put them. Despite this, there were plenty of rockfalls and rubble to climb over, and I actually got into the fort by climbing up the side of one tower, though a 1-foot gap at the top of a collapsed doorframe, up the inside of the tower using hand and foot holds about 12 feet off of the ground, and clambered onto the wall (gates are for boring people). I had to backtrack a little bit and actually go through the tower again and down into the courtyard because Dr. Haddad started looking very nervous as I walked along the 1-foot wide remnants of the wall’s walkway (Brenda Nelson later accused me of being suicidal.)
Inside the fort we explored the towers, whose stairs were cracked and didn’t look very safe. We found quite a few broken bits of bleached bones around the fort, mostly animals and such which had died out here in the desert, but at the bottom of the tower there was one very human looking skeleton laying amidst the rubble. Very creepy, and made worse so when I discovered the bottom half of a skull later on as I exited the same way I’d gotten in.
Ali was waiting for us with the bus as we left and we moved drove back across the desert and made the rest of the trip to Amman without incident. We stopped back in the neighborhood of our apartment and said goodbye to Ali and Ra’ad, then walked back to the apartment where we finally unloaded. It was an odd feeling to have the sensation of finally coming home to a place we’d spent less than 24 hours in earlier in the week. We were greeted by Chris who had a whole giant pot of more biryanni waiting for us that the women of the church had prepared. We at quickly and then hung out in the apartment listening to Fletcher play dubstep remixes of songs on YouTube and recovering from our exhausting first few days in Jordan.
From talking to the Bedouins we learned about firstly how hard their life is most of the time. However, at the same time they refused to complain about it. One thing that stood out to me was when we asked them how much money it took for them to live on each day, and the head of the family (who must have been in his forties but who’s weather beaten face looked about sixty.) replied: “One can live on 10 dinars a day, 1 dinar a day, or 4 piasters a day, but you still live regardless.” After saying thank you to the Bedouins we hopped back in the trucks and drove further into the desert.
We stopped at a huge rocky sand dune which Ra’ad encouraged us to climb (we were doing a lot more climbing in Jordan than I’d anticipated.) However, the dune was about 150-200 feet tall, so climbing up the dune was a bit of a chore. We finally got up to the top and looked right over the cliff edge at Dr. Haddad and Ra’ad down below. On the way down, Alicia decided to roll down the sandy part of the dune, which didn’t work very well, but did eventually get her down the dune, slowly. I got down and took my shoe off, and I swear that the whole dune came out of the thing before I was done shaking it out. On the drive back to the visitor center, we passed a group of people getting set up for the start of a marathon (the first that Jordan has ever done.)
We spent most of the rest of the day driving back along the desert highway to Amman, with one notable stop. We were originally going to detour to see Umm Rasaas (the “aa” is important, one “a” changes the meaning to “Mother of Bullets”), which was a 6th century byzantine church. Mark, however, being the ultimate adventurer, suggested we go off the beaten path to an old abandoned Roman fortress which was remarkably well preserved as well as being totally abandoned. We thought this was great (especially since it didn’t have any government workers or tourist attractions, so we could just enjoy it and do whatever we wanted.) WE drove off the main road onto a side road, but quickly discovered that in order to get to the fort, we’d have to drive about a kilometer over the open desert.
About now I took a brief moment to reflect over the crazy stunts we’d pulled over the last few days. We’d already climbed two mountains, ridden a donkey up a third, haggled with Bedouins, dangled our feet off of the top of a historical landmark, and gotten married. What else could we do to top that? The answer: we went off-roading in the desert in a tour bus. Our fearless (but not English speaking) driver Ali plunged the bus right off the road and straight into the desert. It took us a while navigating around trenches and sinkholes, but eventually we made it to the fort…even though it meant leaving the bus and walking the last couple of hundred yards to the fort while Ali went around back to the highway to come at the fort from a different direction to pick us up.
The fort was known locally as “Bashir” even though that’s not what the Romans would have called in. It was amazingly intact, with all four walls standing, and most of the four towers were all still where the Romans had put them. Despite this, there were plenty of rockfalls and rubble to climb over, and I actually got into the fort by climbing up the side of one tower, though a 1-foot gap at the top of a collapsed doorframe, up the inside of the tower using hand and foot holds about 12 feet off of the ground, and clambered onto the wall (gates are for boring people). I had to backtrack a little bit and actually go through the tower again and down into the courtyard because Dr. Haddad started looking very nervous as I walked along the 1-foot wide remnants of the wall’s walkway (Brenda Nelson later accused me of being suicidal.)
Inside the fort we explored the towers, whose stairs were cracked and didn’t look very safe. We found quite a few broken bits of bleached bones around the fort, mostly animals and such which had died out here in the desert, but at the bottom of the tower there was one very human looking skeleton laying amidst the rubble. Very creepy, and made worse so when I discovered the bottom half of a skull later on as I exited the same way I’d gotten in.
Ali was waiting for us with the bus as we left and we moved drove back across the desert and made the rest of the trip to Amman without incident. We stopped back in the neighborhood of our apartment and said goodbye to Ali and Ra’ad, then walked back to the apartment where we finally unloaded. It was an odd feeling to have the sensation of finally coming home to a place we’d spent less than 24 hours in earlier in the week. We were greeted by Chris who had a whole giant pot of more biryanni waiting for us that the women of the church had prepared. We at quickly and then hung out in the apartment listening to Fletcher play dubstep remixes of songs on YouTube and recovering from our exhausting first few days in Jordan.
DONKEYS UP A MOUNTAIN!
Petra turned out to be far bigger and more spectacular than anyone anticipated. We woke up at around 6:30 and had a quick breakfast at the buffet (toast an hard boiled eggs, mostly.) Then we started walking down the street towards Petra. After passing several interesting shops, including “Rock City” and “The Indiana Jones Café” we arrived at the gates of Petra and started the hike through the city. The first place of real note was the Siq, a huge canyon which leads to the heart of Petra. The cliffs in here were absolutely massive, and none of the pictures I’ve been taken even begins to capture the scale and the grandeur of it all.
We soon came to the Treasury, which according to Ra’ad was actually not a treasury but was in fact an enormous tomb carved into the face of the mountain. Sculptures of Amazon warriors stood next to one of the Egyptian god Isis, which shows the milieu of cultural influences behind it’s construction. All throughout Petra are huge tombs cut into the face of the rocks, and nothing I write here can truly convey the majesty they conveyed or just the sheer overwhelming size of them. It really makes you feel very small to walk in Petra. Over each tomb was a carving of a set of stairs going sideways up the top of the tomb. Ra’ad explained that these were called “Crow Stairs” and represented the first few steps up that a crow takes before flying and was used to symbolize the beginning of the flight of the deceased into the afterlife.
We stopped at a stand owned by a woman named Umm Raami, which translated means “mother of Raami.” She also went by Marguerite, because as it turns out she’s something of a famous figure, having been born in New Zealand and taken a vacation to Jordan, from which she never returned since she became married to a Bedouin. He’s since passed away, but she remains, operating a stand selling products made by local women and also a book she wrote called “Married to a Bedouin.”
Speaking of Bedouins, we encountered quite a few of them in Petra. Many people draw parallels between the Bedouin people and the Gypsies, and for the most part these are good comparisons. The Bedouin are exceptional salespeople (Dr. Haddad walked away from a stand having spent 15 dinars when originally intending to only spend 1) however, they can be a bit offensive if you are not used to how hard they are willing to push to make a sale. Every person we passed offered horse rides, trinkets, cold drinks, or whatever they had to offer. Unlike in America, where street salesmen or store owners will maybe try twice to get you to buy something (no, are you sure you don’t need it?) Here they’ll try four or five different tactics before giving up, even following you a short ways and always ending a failed pitch with some variation of “think about it and come back, I’ll be here.” Not all of the Bedouins were so pushy, however. We stopped and bought a bottle of water from a man at a rest stop, and whereas most of the Bedouins I encountered would continue to try and get you to buy things as long as you are near their shop, he invited us to stay and sit in the shade. He stopped and talked to us ,occasionally stopping to shout “hot drinks, cold drinks, Coca-Cola, and Bedouin Red Bull!” (which I never asked about, for fear of initiating a sales-pitch) at passers-by. A small boy came over and we got to see the Bedouins teaching him English. He was wearing a slightly rumpled suit, and told us that it was his eleventh birthday, which set all the Bedouins singing “Happy Birthday” and calling out “Mabrouk! Mabrouk!” which means “congratulations!” to him. Some even joked good naturedly, asking him who he had married to be dressed so nicely.
While at the rest stop, the owner told us the story of how so many Bedouins had come to work at Petra. Apparently, the Bedouins used to squat in the many caves and tombs around Petra, but in 1987 or 1989 Queen Nour came to them and offered them a plot of land nearby and help building school and a clinic if they would agree to move out of the caves so it could be restored. They agreed, and just over the hill is a town where the Bedouins live. People here are very positive about the King and Queen, much the way as it is in England.
We later visited the ruins of a 6th century Byzantine church, full of mosaics on the floor. Ra’ad told us that many of the mosaics had been defaced by the Iconoclasts, a group of people who really apparently hated images of living creatures. However, there are quite a few mosaics which are undamaged, apparently because, according to Ra’ad’s theory, the Iconoclasts saw one particular mosaic which had a woman whose breast was exposed and just decided to burn the whole church down.
Sporting the Qafir headscarf I had purchased from Umm Raami, I felt pretty good about midday when we stopped for lunch, pre-prepared peanut butter and jelly pita sandwiches. After lunch we hired some Bedouins to let us ride up the mountain behind us to a site called “The Monastery” on the back of some donkeys. Let me just re-state that in case anyone missed it. WE RODE UP A MOUNTAIN ON THE BACK OF DONKEYS. THIS WAS EPIC. I even managed to snag a couple of photos one-handed from the back of mine. All the way up behind the far more nervous Becca LiCausi, my donkey was determined it needed to be the one in front, and so took every opportunity to cut off Becca’s donkey. This meant that I didn’t always go up the route I expected to (i.e. the stairs up the mountain) and sometimes ended up going up the things that were not stairs (i.e. the rocky, crumbly parts of the mountain) eventually my donkey took advantage of a traffic jam to take the front position and then he seemed to calm down. Eventually we came to a stop and dismounted before venturing on to the top of the mountain and The Monastery.
The Monastery itself was absolutely gigantic. By far it was the biggest building in Petra. Me, Sara Schaaf, and Fletcher Fletcher (another case of “Mitchell-Mitchell-ism” I think) climbed up about a four six foot rock face to actually get inside the Monastery itself. Inside was a large, very tall room covered in signatures in English and Arabic from those who’d come before. We didn’t want to sign the walls, and so instead looked at the very, very faded cross painted on the back wall, which had originally led to its being called “The Monastery.” In actuality it was probably used for city meetings or something official. Whlile we were standing in the doorway a man asked if he could take our picture, and then proceeded to take about twenty photographs, taking a deliberate two steps to the left before he took each one. I still have no idea what he was doing.
After this the group split in two, most of them joining Mark in attempting to climb to the High Place of Sacrifice, which sounded impressive but the climb up deterred me, Fletcher, and Dr. Haddad, who decided to take a leisurely walk back to the hotel. It took both groups about three hours, with us climbing on foot all the way back down the mountain, through the whole of Petra, back through the Siq, and along the entranceway into the town of Wadi Mousa nearby where our hotel was. Needless to say, we were beat. On the way down the mountain, we were accosted by Bedouin women with names like “Noel Christmas” and “Turquoise Waiting” who took our acknowledgements of their greetings on the way up as promises to look at their wares on the way down. In addition, many of the shopkeepers told us that it was “happy hour, half price!” and one somewhat misguided man offering Dr. Haddad a horse ride back told her “I love you!”
Back at the hotel, we reclaimed our baggage and met up with the even more tired and sore group who’d climbed to the High Place. After a short break to regroup and eat some delicious date bread (as well as drink a prodigious amount of water) we loaded back onto the bus and drove to the Wadi Mousa market to grab some snacks and water (I got these little Arabic vanilla cookies, which were very good.) One thing I wanted to mention earlier was the prices of things here. You can get box of cookies for about 25 cents, a huge thing of water for 1 dinar (a little over a dollar) and my whole bill for enough snacks and water to last the whole trip to Wadi Rum that night and all the way back to Amman the next day was 2 dinars, which comes to about $1.60.
After the break at Wadi Mousa we drove to Wadi Rum desert to the campsite where we’d be spending the night. By now I was becoming quite skilled at grabbing short naps while we were travelling in the bus, so I took advantage of the ride to Wadi Rum to rest a bit. When I woke up, we were at the campsite and I grabbed my bags to disembark. Upon arrival, I discovered that since there were an odd number of guys and I was the last to arrive I got a whole tent to myself. Score! Dinner was to be later that evening so we took the chance to freshen up and use the facilities. After coming out of the bathroom and attempting to re-tie my Qafir, a man who worked at the campsite saw me struggling and came to show me a different style to tie the Qafir in. He didn’t speak any English at all, so I offered a “shukran” (thanks in Arabic) and he smiled and responded “afuan” (you’re welcome). It was quite an interesting experience to have a whole interaction with someone who doesn’t speak your language and whose language you only know a few random words in.
Dinner that night was an elaborate affair which we were told by Ra’ad was a traditional Bedouin wedding feast. We all sat in a huge tent while the hosts prepared a mean by burying huge cast iron pots under the sand on top of hot coals. When the time came to eat, we were treated to a sumptuous (and huge) meal of hummus, pita bread, vegetables, roast chicken and lamb, rice, potatoes, and couscous, heaped liberally upon our plates by our generous chefs. Dessert was a very sweet, sugary cake with coconut at the bottom. While we ate, a group of Jordanian men nearby us played their drums and aouds while they ate and sang songs to “habibi” or “my love.”
After dinner we were invited to a large ring of couches surrounding a fire pit, where several men performed dances for us and invited the tourists to dance with them. In addition to several of our group, some of the other Jordanian campers eagerly jumped in and danced enthusiastically. Ra’ad explained that the wedding dances being performed were traditional at Bedouin wedding feasts. Just as they came to pull more of us to dance with them Ra’ad intervened to save me and Alicia Chatterton from having to dance.
Then my wedding started.
Unbeknownst to us, Ra’ad had arranged for Alicia and I to play the bride and groom of the Bedouin wedding. I was given one of those long, white garments you see a lot of Saudi men wearing, my Qafir was already on my head so they didn’t bother with it, added a gun belt and a cape, and then makeup-pencilled on a goatee and gave me “Arabic eyes” with the makeup. I was told that I was Sheik Khamad, and my bride (Alicia, who’d been dressed in a fancy black and-other-colors garment with a headdress, and makeup in the shape of flowering plants on her face) was named Izuaeya.
We were led out of the house we had been costumed in and into the middle of a procession. A drummer led a series of chanting songs and banged on the drums as everyone, especially the other tourists, danced and sang wholeheartedly as the procession made its way back to the fire pit, where Izuaeya and Sheik Khamad were seated while everyone danced all around us. Occasionally someone would come over to us and say something in Arabic to us as he danced which contained the word “Khamad” so I nodded enthusiastically and smiled. Every time this happened, however, they went away dancing and laughing hysterically. I thought it was just part of the festivities (which everyone was enjoying with as much gusto as if we were actually getting married, which made me wonder for a moment). Eventually the same man who’d helped me with my Qafir came and led us into the middle of a ring of dancers and got us started with a simple dance, which we embellished with a swirl at one point (everyone loved it). Later we sat back down and the dancing came to an end, at which point everyone came by, shook our hands, and congratulated us, saying “Mabruk.” Then we were led back to the house where we changed out of costume. At the behest of Ben Baldwin, I kept the goatee.
After we returned, I asked Ra’ad what all those people had been saying to us as we sat during the dance. He replied something to the effect of: “Well, they were…uh… wishing…um…luck and encouragements to the groom…for…you know…after.” I suddenly wished I hadn’t nodded quite so enthusiastically.
We soon came to the Treasury, which according to Ra’ad was actually not a treasury but was in fact an enormous tomb carved into the face of the mountain. Sculptures of Amazon warriors stood next to one of the Egyptian god Isis, which shows the milieu of cultural influences behind it’s construction. All throughout Petra are huge tombs cut into the face of the rocks, and nothing I write here can truly convey the majesty they conveyed or just the sheer overwhelming size of them. It really makes you feel very small to walk in Petra. Over each tomb was a carving of a set of stairs going sideways up the top of the tomb. Ra’ad explained that these were called “Crow Stairs” and represented the first few steps up that a crow takes before flying and was used to symbolize the beginning of the flight of the deceased into the afterlife.
We stopped at a stand owned by a woman named Umm Raami, which translated means “mother of Raami.” She also went by Marguerite, because as it turns out she’s something of a famous figure, having been born in New Zealand and taken a vacation to Jordan, from which she never returned since she became married to a Bedouin. He’s since passed away, but she remains, operating a stand selling products made by local women and also a book she wrote called “Married to a Bedouin.”
Speaking of Bedouins, we encountered quite a few of them in Petra. Many people draw parallels between the Bedouin people and the Gypsies, and for the most part these are good comparisons. The Bedouin are exceptional salespeople (Dr. Haddad walked away from a stand having spent 15 dinars when originally intending to only spend 1) however, they can be a bit offensive if you are not used to how hard they are willing to push to make a sale. Every person we passed offered horse rides, trinkets, cold drinks, or whatever they had to offer. Unlike in America, where street salesmen or store owners will maybe try twice to get you to buy something (no, are you sure you don’t need it?) Here they’ll try four or five different tactics before giving up, even following you a short ways and always ending a failed pitch with some variation of “think about it and come back, I’ll be here.” Not all of the Bedouins were so pushy, however. We stopped and bought a bottle of water from a man at a rest stop, and whereas most of the Bedouins I encountered would continue to try and get you to buy things as long as you are near their shop, he invited us to stay and sit in the shade. He stopped and talked to us ,occasionally stopping to shout “hot drinks, cold drinks, Coca-Cola, and Bedouin Red Bull!” (which I never asked about, for fear of initiating a sales-pitch) at passers-by. A small boy came over and we got to see the Bedouins teaching him English. He was wearing a slightly rumpled suit, and told us that it was his eleventh birthday, which set all the Bedouins singing “Happy Birthday” and calling out “Mabrouk! Mabrouk!” which means “congratulations!” to him. Some even joked good naturedly, asking him who he had married to be dressed so nicely.
While at the rest stop, the owner told us the story of how so many Bedouins had come to work at Petra. Apparently, the Bedouins used to squat in the many caves and tombs around Petra, but in 1987 or 1989 Queen Nour came to them and offered them a plot of land nearby and help building school and a clinic if they would agree to move out of the caves so it could be restored. They agreed, and just over the hill is a town where the Bedouins live. People here are very positive about the King and Queen, much the way as it is in England.
We later visited the ruins of a 6th century Byzantine church, full of mosaics on the floor. Ra’ad told us that many of the mosaics had been defaced by the Iconoclasts, a group of people who really apparently hated images of living creatures. However, there are quite a few mosaics which are undamaged, apparently because, according to Ra’ad’s theory, the Iconoclasts saw one particular mosaic which had a woman whose breast was exposed and just decided to burn the whole church down.
Sporting the Qafir headscarf I had purchased from Umm Raami, I felt pretty good about midday when we stopped for lunch, pre-prepared peanut butter and jelly pita sandwiches. After lunch we hired some Bedouins to let us ride up the mountain behind us to a site called “The Monastery” on the back of some donkeys. Let me just re-state that in case anyone missed it. WE RODE UP A MOUNTAIN ON THE BACK OF DONKEYS. THIS WAS EPIC. I even managed to snag a couple of photos one-handed from the back of mine. All the way up behind the far more nervous Becca LiCausi, my donkey was determined it needed to be the one in front, and so took every opportunity to cut off Becca’s donkey. This meant that I didn’t always go up the route I expected to (i.e. the stairs up the mountain) and sometimes ended up going up the things that were not stairs (i.e. the rocky, crumbly parts of the mountain) eventually my donkey took advantage of a traffic jam to take the front position and then he seemed to calm down. Eventually we came to a stop and dismounted before venturing on to the top of the mountain and The Monastery.
The Monastery itself was absolutely gigantic. By far it was the biggest building in Petra. Me, Sara Schaaf, and Fletcher Fletcher (another case of “Mitchell-Mitchell-ism” I think) climbed up about a four six foot rock face to actually get inside the Monastery itself. Inside was a large, very tall room covered in signatures in English and Arabic from those who’d come before. We didn’t want to sign the walls, and so instead looked at the very, very faded cross painted on the back wall, which had originally led to its being called “The Monastery.” In actuality it was probably used for city meetings or something official. Whlile we were standing in the doorway a man asked if he could take our picture, and then proceeded to take about twenty photographs, taking a deliberate two steps to the left before he took each one. I still have no idea what he was doing.
After this the group split in two, most of them joining Mark in attempting to climb to the High Place of Sacrifice, which sounded impressive but the climb up deterred me, Fletcher, and Dr. Haddad, who decided to take a leisurely walk back to the hotel. It took both groups about three hours, with us climbing on foot all the way back down the mountain, through the whole of Petra, back through the Siq, and along the entranceway into the town of Wadi Mousa nearby where our hotel was. Needless to say, we were beat. On the way down the mountain, we were accosted by Bedouin women with names like “Noel Christmas” and “Turquoise Waiting” who took our acknowledgements of their greetings on the way up as promises to look at their wares on the way down. In addition, many of the shopkeepers told us that it was “happy hour, half price!” and one somewhat misguided man offering Dr. Haddad a horse ride back told her “I love you!”
Back at the hotel, we reclaimed our baggage and met up with the even more tired and sore group who’d climbed to the High Place. After a short break to regroup and eat some delicious date bread (as well as drink a prodigious amount of water) we loaded back onto the bus and drove to the Wadi Mousa market to grab some snacks and water (I got these little Arabic vanilla cookies, which were very good.) One thing I wanted to mention earlier was the prices of things here. You can get box of cookies for about 25 cents, a huge thing of water for 1 dinar (a little over a dollar) and my whole bill for enough snacks and water to last the whole trip to Wadi Rum that night and all the way back to Amman the next day was 2 dinars, which comes to about $1.60.
After the break at Wadi Mousa we drove to Wadi Rum desert to the campsite where we’d be spending the night. By now I was becoming quite skilled at grabbing short naps while we were travelling in the bus, so I took advantage of the ride to Wadi Rum to rest a bit. When I woke up, we were at the campsite and I grabbed my bags to disembark. Upon arrival, I discovered that since there were an odd number of guys and I was the last to arrive I got a whole tent to myself. Score! Dinner was to be later that evening so we took the chance to freshen up and use the facilities. After coming out of the bathroom and attempting to re-tie my Qafir, a man who worked at the campsite saw me struggling and came to show me a different style to tie the Qafir in. He didn’t speak any English at all, so I offered a “shukran” (thanks in Arabic) and he smiled and responded “afuan” (you’re welcome). It was quite an interesting experience to have a whole interaction with someone who doesn’t speak your language and whose language you only know a few random words in.
Dinner that night was an elaborate affair which we were told by Ra’ad was a traditional Bedouin wedding feast. We all sat in a huge tent while the hosts prepared a mean by burying huge cast iron pots under the sand on top of hot coals. When the time came to eat, we were treated to a sumptuous (and huge) meal of hummus, pita bread, vegetables, roast chicken and lamb, rice, potatoes, and couscous, heaped liberally upon our plates by our generous chefs. Dessert was a very sweet, sugary cake with coconut at the bottom. While we ate, a group of Jordanian men nearby us played their drums and aouds while they ate and sang songs to “habibi” or “my love.”
After dinner we were invited to a large ring of couches surrounding a fire pit, where several men performed dances for us and invited the tourists to dance with them. In addition to several of our group, some of the other Jordanian campers eagerly jumped in and danced enthusiastically. Ra’ad explained that the wedding dances being performed were traditional at Bedouin wedding feasts. Just as they came to pull more of us to dance with them Ra’ad intervened to save me and Alicia Chatterton from having to dance.
Then my wedding started.
Unbeknownst to us, Ra’ad had arranged for Alicia and I to play the bride and groom of the Bedouin wedding. I was given one of those long, white garments you see a lot of Saudi men wearing, my Qafir was already on my head so they didn’t bother with it, added a gun belt and a cape, and then makeup-pencilled on a goatee and gave me “Arabic eyes” with the makeup. I was told that I was Sheik Khamad, and my bride (Alicia, who’d been dressed in a fancy black and-other-colors garment with a headdress, and makeup in the shape of flowering plants on her face) was named Izuaeya.
We were led out of the house we had been costumed in and into the middle of a procession. A drummer led a series of chanting songs and banged on the drums as everyone, especially the other tourists, danced and sang wholeheartedly as the procession made its way back to the fire pit, where Izuaeya and Sheik Khamad were seated while everyone danced all around us. Occasionally someone would come over to us and say something in Arabic to us as he danced which contained the word “Khamad” so I nodded enthusiastically and smiled. Every time this happened, however, they went away dancing and laughing hysterically. I thought it was just part of the festivities (which everyone was enjoying with as much gusto as if we were actually getting married, which made me wonder for a moment). Eventually the same man who’d helped me with my Qafir came and led us into the middle of a ring of dancers and got us started with a simple dance, which we embellished with a swirl at one point (everyone loved it). Later we sat back down and the dancing came to an end, at which point everyone came by, shook our hands, and congratulated us, saying “Mabruk.” Then we were led back to the house where we changed out of costume. At the behest of Ben Baldwin, I kept the goatee.
After we returned, I asked Ra’ad what all those people had been saying to us as we sat during the dance. He replied something to the effect of: “Well, they were…uh… wishing…um…luck and encouragements to the groom…for…you know…after.” I suddenly wished I hadn’t nodded quite so enthusiastically.
A Grand Expidition to Places
This was to prove a jam-packed day. After a breakfast of corn flakes in the apartment we decided to check out Arabic television before our ride arrived to take us on the long trip south to Petra. After seeing snippets of several Arabic soap operas and a basketball game where apparently the court extended for a good ways behind the nets, we got word it was time to set off.
We walked several blocks through the Mahatta district to arrive at a main road crowded with chaotic drivers and the roadside people who accosted the drivers they knew and stopped them to have a word. After a few minutes of waiting our tour bus pulled up. Inside we met our guide for the next several days, a Jordanian man named Ra’ad. Ra’ad proved to be an excellent tour guide. He was one of those people who has an incredible zeal for knowledge, and loves to share it with others who are interested in hearing it. He was also a man whose arm muscles led me to believe he was an Arab reincarnation of Jean Claude Van Damme cloned from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bicep cells. This fact is something we would later be quite thankful for. We drove through Amman as Ra’ad outlined our plan for the day. We were to drive through the town of Madaba to visit Macheras (Arabic: Mukawir) fortress, continue south through Wadi Mujib canyon and the town of Karak to the ancient Edomite city of Sela. From there we would drive south to “Little Petra,” a smaller version of the famous city featuring a “sneak peek” of what we could expect the next day when we visited Petra proper. We’d finish by stopping for the night at the Petra Palace Hotel.
We started by driving through the countryside until we arrived at Macheras fortress. Macheras, or Mukawir as it is known locally, was once a palace/fortress built by Herod the Great and frequented by his son Herod Antipas. It’s also widely believed to be the location of John the Baptist’s beheading at the order of Mr. Antipas as well. Macheras sits atop a steep hill peppered with cisterns, part of the Roman aqueduct system which supplied the fortress with water. We climbed up the hill (which I thought was rather impressive until about four hours later) and arrived to one of the most spectacular views I’ve ever experienced. We could see literally across the whole of the Dead Sea into Israel and even make out the Herodian pyramid all the way in Bethlehem. What remains of the fortress is several pillars, a few walls, a small bathhouse structure, and a huge pile of rocks at the bottom of the hill which make up the remains of the massive siege ramp the Romans constructed when they attacked the fortress just before its destruction. Legend has it that Macheras ultimately fell when the hero of the defenders, Eleazar, was captured by a Roman soldier. This so demoralized the defenders that they surrendered immediately, and legend also has it that most of the defenders, including Eleazar, were spared as a result.
We climbed back down the hill and returned to the visitor area, which was quite a nice tent over a stone foundation, where we purchased some tea and listened to a local man playing his aoud, the predecessor of the guitar, as Ra’ad explained to us. After we finished our tea we loaded back onto the bus and set off for Wadi Mujib
Wadi is actually an Arabic word referring to a dry streambed which has carved out a canyon for itself. Wadi Mujib, then was a massive canyon, and in fact is often called the Grand Canyon of Jordan. When we arrived we took a brief moment to stop and take some pictures at a rest station. Wadi Mujib was absolutely massive. We learned from Ra’ad that this was the location referred to in the Bible as the boundary between the kingdom of Moab and the Kingdom of the Amorites. Looking around at the scale of the thing, it was easy to see why. Also while we were at the rest station, a very friendly Jordanian shopkeeper, in an attempt to be friendly and make conversation, remarked that Alica Chatterton (one of our group members) was “sweet, like Barbie,’ which gave us all a good chuckle.
Back on the bus we drove over the Wadi Mujib dam and over into what had once been the Kingdom of Moab. Along the way we stopped for just a moment to examine a pair of Roman milestone markers, which although graffitied by locals, were nonetheless amazing. Mark explained that frequently the Jordanian government had found the old Roman roads so effective and well placed that they simply paved over them and used them as the current highway.
Speaking of highways, the road we travelled on going south was what is known as the King’s Highway. This road was once the major trade route of the entire region, carrying goods and travelers from Egypt through to Turkey. This road was so prosperous that many historians believe that a great deal of the wealth that Israel enjoyed during its golden ages came from tolls and taxes along the Kings Highway.
Our next stop was in the town of Karak, which was built in and around an ancient Crusader citadel. When I say “in” I mean it. Houses and apartment blocks sat next to centuries-old towers and walls and children played amongst the ruins. Throughout the day I was continually surprised by how much access we had to these historical places. No “do not touch” signs, no guard rails, no fences preventing us from going right up to a cliff edge. It was spectacularly freeing. While in Karak we loaded up on bottled water and snacks for the afternoon. I purchased an Arab snack cake and a bottle of water. Other snacks chosen included Chili powder potato chips, a fig Newton with sesame seeds on it, and so-called “pizza rings,” which came in a bag and only tasted like pizza about 4 minutes after you’d eaten it.
Here jet lag finally caught up with me, and I fell asleep from Karak until we reached the area around the mountain city of Sela. Sela is believed to have been an Edomite city and is notoriously hard to get to. We hired a pair of locals with heavy duty vans to drive us down the steep slopes to the site, then we set of to climb this massive mountain. It took us about two hours to get up and back down again, and the view from the top was absolutely stunning. It was easy to see why this location had been chosen for a city. Getting to it was an absolute nightmare and once you finally did reach the top you were way too tired to fight. We explored the mountaintop, climbed back down, and loaded back into the vans.
Unfortunately when we reached the tour bus we encountered a problem. From what we could gather from Mark, the locals we’d hired to drive had agreed to do it for a very small sum, but were now insisting that they had agreed to more than double the original price and refused to let us leave. Ra’ad left the bus and began a heated argument with the group of men. It was at this point we were very thankful to have Ra’ad on our side, especially since it looked as though he could have snapped on of the weedy swindlers in half without even trying. As the argument became more and more heated we began to worry for Ra’ad, but soon the greedy men agreed to a sum slightly more than agreed to and let us go. Ra’ad was understandably angered by his countrymen’s behavior and explained fervently that they do not represent Jordan as a whole, and that they dishonor only themselves by acting this way.
After that slight hiccup in the plans I…fell asleep in the car again and awoke at Little Petra. There we jumped out and examined a painting inside a giant archway carved into the cliff face. The painting depicted Dionysius throwing a party of some kind and was very colorful. On the way out a shopkeeper attempted to entice me to look at the bottles of colored sand he was selling by shouting “Wonderful gift for your second wife!” The now exhausted group piled into the bus one last time and we drove the short distance to the Petra Palace Hotel, where we would stay the night. While the hotel was not amazing by American standards, it was an excellent place to crash for the night and featured a buffet of Jordanian food that was spectacularly good. After diner, we headed off to sleep before we tackled Petra in the morning.
We walked several blocks through the Mahatta district to arrive at a main road crowded with chaotic drivers and the roadside people who accosted the drivers they knew and stopped them to have a word. After a few minutes of waiting our tour bus pulled up. Inside we met our guide for the next several days, a Jordanian man named Ra’ad. Ra’ad proved to be an excellent tour guide. He was one of those people who has an incredible zeal for knowledge, and loves to share it with others who are interested in hearing it. He was also a man whose arm muscles led me to believe he was an Arab reincarnation of Jean Claude Van Damme cloned from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s bicep cells. This fact is something we would later be quite thankful for. We drove through Amman as Ra’ad outlined our plan for the day. We were to drive through the town of Madaba to visit Macheras (Arabic: Mukawir) fortress, continue south through Wadi Mujib canyon and the town of Karak to the ancient Edomite city of Sela. From there we would drive south to “Little Petra,” a smaller version of the famous city featuring a “sneak peek” of what we could expect the next day when we visited Petra proper. We’d finish by stopping for the night at the Petra Palace Hotel.
We started by driving through the countryside until we arrived at Macheras fortress. Macheras, or Mukawir as it is known locally, was once a palace/fortress built by Herod the Great and frequented by his son Herod Antipas. It’s also widely believed to be the location of John the Baptist’s beheading at the order of Mr. Antipas as well. Macheras sits atop a steep hill peppered with cisterns, part of the Roman aqueduct system which supplied the fortress with water. We climbed up the hill (which I thought was rather impressive until about four hours later) and arrived to one of the most spectacular views I’ve ever experienced. We could see literally across the whole of the Dead Sea into Israel and even make out the Herodian pyramid all the way in Bethlehem. What remains of the fortress is several pillars, a few walls, a small bathhouse structure, and a huge pile of rocks at the bottom of the hill which make up the remains of the massive siege ramp the Romans constructed when they attacked the fortress just before its destruction. Legend has it that Macheras ultimately fell when the hero of the defenders, Eleazar, was captured by a Roman soldier. This so demoralized the defenders that they surrendered immediately, and legend also has it that most of the defenders, including Eleazar, were spared as a result.
We climbed back down the hill and returned to the visitor area, which was quite a nice tent over a stone foundation, where we purchased some tea and listened to a local man playing his aoud, the predecessor of the guitar, as Ra’ad explained to us. After we finished our tea we loaded back onto the bus and set off for Wadi Mujib
Wadi is actually an Arabic word referring to a dry streambed which has carved out a canyon for itself. Wadi Mujib, then was a massive canyon, and in fact is often called the Grand Canyon of Jordan. When we arrived we took a brief moment to stop and take some pictures at a rest station. Wadi Mujib was absolutely massive. We learned from Ra’ad that this was the location referred to in the Bible as the boundary between the kingdom of Moab and the Kingdom of the Amorites. Looking around at the scale of the thing, it was easy to see why. Also while we were at the rest station, a very friendly Jordanian shopkeeper, in an attempt to be friendly and make conversation, remarked that Alica Chatterton (one of our group members) was “sweet, like Barbie,’ which gave us all a good chuckle.
Back on the bus we drove over the Wadi Mujib dam and over into what had once been the Kingdom of Moab. Along the way we stopped for just a moment to examine a pair of Roman milestone markers, which although graffitied by locals, were nonetheless amazing. Mark explained that frequently the Jordanian government had found the old Roman roads so effective and well placed that they simply paved over them and used them as the current highway.
Speaking of highways, the road we travelled on going south was what is known as the King’s Highway. This road was once the major trade route of the entire region, carrying goods and travelers from Egypt through to Turkey. This road was so prosperous that many historians believe that a great deal of the wealth that Israel enjoyed during its golden ages came from tolls and taxes along the Kings Highway.
Our next stop was in the town of Karak, which was built in and around an ancient Crusader citadel. When I say “in” I mean it. Houses and apartment blocks sat next to centuries-old towers and walls and children played amongst the ruins. Throughout the day I was continually surprised by how much access we had to these historical places. No “do not touch” signs, no guard rails, no fences preventing us from going right up to a cliff edge. It was spectacularly freeing. While in Karak we loaded up on bottled water and snacks for the afternoon. I purchased an Arab snack cake and a bottle of water. Other snacks chosen included Chili powder potato chips, a fig Newton with sesame seeds on it, and so-called “pizza rings,” which came in a bag and only tasted like pizza about 4 minutes after you’d eaten it.
Here jet lag finally caught up with me, and I fell asleep from Karak until we reached the area around the mountain city of Sela. Sela is believed to have been an Edomite city and is notoriously hard to get to. We hired a pair of locals with heavy duty vans to drive us down the steep slopes to the site, then we set of to climb this massive mountain. It took us about two hours to get up and back down again, and the view from the top was absolutely stunning. It was easy to see why this location had been chosen for a city. Getting to it was an absolute nightmare and once you finally did reach the top you were way too tired to fight. We explored the mountaintop, climbed back down, and loaded back into the vans.
Unfortunately when we reached the tour bus we encountered a problem. From what we could gather from Mark, the locals we’d hired to drive had agreed to do it for a very small sum, but were now insisting that they had agreed to more than double the original price and refused to let us leave. Ra’ad left the bus and began a heated argument with the group of men. It was at this point we were very thankful to have Ra’ad on our side, especially since it looked as though he could have snapped on of the weedy swindlers in half without even trying. As the argument became more and more heated we began to worry for Ra’ad, but soon the greedy men agreed to a sum slightly more than agreed to and let us go. Ra’ad was understandably angered by his countrymen’s behavior and explained fervently that they do not represent Jordan as a whole, and that they dishonor only themselves by acting this way.
After that slight hiccup in the plans I…fell asleep in the car again and awoke at Little Petra. There we jumped out and examined a painting inside a giant archway carved into the cliff face. The painting depicted Dionysius throwing a party of some kind and was very colorful. On the way out a shopkeeper attempted to entice me to look at the bottles of colored sand he was selling by shouting “Wonderful gift for your second wife!” The now exhausted group piled into the bus one last time and we drove the short distance to the Petra Palace Hotel, where we would stay the night. While the hotel was not amazing by American standards, it was an excellent place to crash for the night and featured a buffet of Jordanian food that was spectacularly good. After diner, we headed off to sleep before we tackled Petra in the morning.
The First Taste of The Land of Hummus
As we started our descent into Jordan’s Queen Alia International Airport, I caught fleeting glimpses of the country out of the window three seats to my right. Surprisingly, from high altitudes it looked a lot like America, only a lot more yellow. Once we got closer to the ground I saw that there was a marked absence of grass, just scrub brush covering a ground mostly made up of sand and rocks. It was remarkably beautiful, and as we landed I could not wait to get out of the airport and explore a bit.
But…that would have to wait until we’d cleared customs and immigration. We changed out some of our money for Jordanian Dinars (for anyone who cares the exchange rate was 0.7 dinars to every dollar, meaning that 10 dollars would get you 7 dinars), and set off through immigration. Though there were a lot of lines (which is funny considering the traditional Jordanian approach to waiting for a service which we saw in New York), the process of getting visas and having our bags scanned once again was pretty painless and we got out of the airport within an hour or so of landing.
As we left the airport we met up with an American named Mark who was to take us to our destination. He led us to the cars but before we could board them we had to step onto the curb and stay back because a Saudi dignitary had arrived around the same time we had and he was being escorted to his convoy. This was a pretty exciting first event in Jordan, and we all gathered around to watch as the uniformed man entered a black Mercedes followed by a whole entourage of men in either black suits or white Saudi garments who piled into similar vehicles and set off. As if to remind us of the conflicted nature of the Arab world, however, all this spectacle and show was accompanied by the rather frightening group of security guards in an armored SUV not quite concealing their machine guns who set off with the convoy.
Once the dignitary had gone on his way, we loaded up two vans with our luggage and set off to our apartments. I was lucky enough to end up in the van with Mark, who proved a knowledgeable and enthusiastic tour guide. I later learned that the man driving the other van didn’t speak English, and so his group had a pretty quiet ride. We, on the other hand, were treated to an excellent tour of Amman. We learned that the city of Amman is divided into seven concentric circles. Third circle was home to quite a bit of new investment and housed several swanky hotels and multi-million dollar villas. Meanwhile, we were staying in the Mahatta or “train station” district of Seventh circle, which although it did not actually contain a train station, did contain a lot of very vibrant street markets selling everything from shoes to watermelons. Driving in Amman is chaotic because, for the most part, there are no lane markers on the roads. Drivers just kind of pick their preferred part of the road to drive on, which can cause some mayhem.
We pulled into the apartments around six (local time) and hurried upstairs to unpack. Once we’d settled in a bit we were treated to a delicious dinner of (I think this was the name) biryanni, which is apparently the Iraqi national dish and tastes something like pineapple fried rice. Needless to say it was delicious and accompanied by an orange for dessert. After dinner, we met with Chris, who teaches Biblical geography here, who went over some itinerary details. However, by now jet lag was starting to hit us all pretty hard (most of us had had about 3 hours of sleep in the past 24) and so he kept it short and we all headed off to get some much-needed sleep.
I hit the bed and was out like a light…for a while at least. I managed a solid 6 hours or so before my internal clock, oriented as it was for U.S. time, awoke me and refused to let me sleep again. It was one o’clock in the morning, and we wouldn’t be expected to be awake until six. Desperate to entertain my firmly awake mind, I watched an episode of British car show Top Gear on my iPod and decided I might as well take a shower and get dressed. As I stepped into the shower at about 4am, I suddenly heard the warbling tones of the Islamic call to prayer echoing out from a mosque about two blocks down the street. I showered to the tune of foreign religion and by the time I was out of the shower Zach Knuth, Ben Baldwin, and Taylor Fletcher were already awake, leaving Sam Bowman the only man in our group who was still sleeping. We watched the sun rise slowly over Amman and once again marveled at the tangled beauty of the hilly district we were located in. Down below the window an alarming number of cats staged what seemed to be some kind of pow-wow around a pile of broken car parts under the shade of a massive tree, while the final notes of the call to prayer boomed out across the cityscape.
But…that would have to wait until we’d cleared customs and immigration. We changed out some of our money for Jordanian Dinars (for anyone who cares the exchange rate was 0.7 dinars to every dollar, meaning that 10 dollars would get you 7 dinars), and set off through immigration. Though there were a lot of lines (which is funny considering the traditional Jordanian approach to waiting for a service which we saw in New York), the process of getting visas and having our bags scanned once again was pretty painless and we got out of the airport within an hour or so of landing.
As we left the airport we met up with an American named Mark who was to take us to our destination. He led us to the cars but before we could board them we had to step onto the curb and stay back because a Saudi dignitary had arrived around the same time we had and he was being escorted to his convoy. This was a pretty exciting first event in Jordan, and we all gathered around to watch as the uniformed man entered a black Mercedes followed by a whole entourage of men in either black suits or white Saudi garments who piled into similar vehicles and set off. As if to remind us of the conflicted nature of the Arab world, however, all this spectacle and show was accompanied by the rather frightening group of security guards in an armored SUV not quite concealing their machine guns who set off with the convoy.
Once the dignitary had gone on his way, we loaded up two vans with our luggage and set off to our apartments. I was lucky enough to end up in the van with Mark, who proved a knowledgeable and enthusiastic tour guide. I later learned that the man driving the other van didn’t speak English, and so his group had a pretty quiet ride. We, on the other hand, were treated to an excellent tour of Amman. We learned that the city of Amman is divided into seven concentric circles. Third circle was home to quite a bit of new investment and housed several swanky hotels and multi-million dollar villas. Meanwhile, we were staying in the Mahatta or “train station” district of Seventh circle, which although it did not actually contain a train station, did contain a lot of very vibrant street markets selling everything from shoes to watermelons. Driving in Amman is chaotic because, for the most part, there are no lane markers on the roads. Drivers just kind of pick their preferred part of the road to drive on, which can cause some mayhem.
We pulled into the apartments around six (local time) and hurried upstairs to unpack. Once we’d settled in a bit we were treated to a delicious dinner of (I think this was the name) biryanni, which is apparently the Iraqi national dish and tastes something like pineapple fried rice. Needless to say it was delicious and accompanied by an orange for dessert. After dinner, we met with Chris, who teaches Biblical geography here, who went over some itinerary details. However, by now jet lag was starting to hit us all pretty hard (most of us had had about 3 hours of sleep in the past 24) and so he kept it short and we all headed off to get some much-needed sleep.
I hit the bed and was out like a light…for a while at least. I managed a solid 6 hours or so before my internal clock, oriented as it was for U.S. time, awoke me and refused to let me sleep again. It was one o’clock in the morning, and we wouldn’t be expected to be awake until six. Desperate to entertain my firmly awake mind, I watched an episode of British car show Top Gear on my iPod and decided I might as well take a shower and get dressed. As I stepped into the shower at about 4am, I suddenly heard the warbling tones of the Islamic call to prayer echoing out from a mosque about two blocks down the street. I showered to the tune of foreign religion and by the time I was out of the shower Zach Knuth, Ben Baldwin, and Taylor Fletcher were already awake, leaving Sam Bowman the only man in our group who was still sleeping. We watched the sun rise slowly over Amman and once again marveled at the tangled beauty of the hilly district we were located in. Down below the window an alarming number of cats staged what seemed to be some kind of pow-wow around a pile of broken car parts under the shade of a massive tree, while the final notes of the call to prayer boomed out across the cityscape.
From Maryland to Amman in Three Easy Steps
The three-week excursion to the Middle Eastern country of Jordan began a little bit ahead of schedule. A huge tornado storm knocked out the water and the power to Covenant College and forced it to close early for the semester. As a result I went home to Annapolis for a week before departing for Jordan. After a relaxing week recuperating from the semester and catching up with family and friends, I hopped on a plane to Atlanta to meet the rest of my group.
After about an hour and a half in the air reading The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell (which I mention here because I am a shameless promoter of the man’s writing and because the flight was otherwise uneventful), I landed in Atlanta and immediately got a phone call from Sara Schaaf, our group’s second-in-command (who’d grown up in Jordan), making sure I had arrived and wondering if I was near the South Terminal.
I lagged one step behind the rest of my group all the way through check-in and security. At the check in desk, after struggling futilely to get the check-in kiosk to read my passport I finally got my boarding pass and proceeded behind a very confused Russian woman through the security checkpoint.
After helping my harried Russian comrade-ess through the process of American airport security I emerged into the food court of the Atlanta airport, where I met my group. After a surprisingly good airport lunch we all gathered around the wrong gate for a meeting. Three gates over from the gate we were to depart from, we discussed last-minute details of the trip (we chose this gate because a flight full of people was about to depart at our gate and there were no seats near each other.) Our conversation was peppered with loud comments from the nearby television about such diverse topics as the likelihood of Donald Trump becoming president and the reaction of a French woman to her son’s victory in a bicycling race in Kentucky.
Amongst the things we discussed were several issues of cultural sensitivity. We learned, for instance, that letting the bottom of your feet point at a person is the same thing as flipping them off, that western-style sit down toilets are not ubiquitous, that using your left hand to do anything important will probably offend someone, and that complimenting objects in people’s houses will result in the awkward situation of them attempting to give it to you.
As the time for our plane to board approached we moved over to the correct gate and gathered around a semi-intelligent garbage can, which sorted recyclables from regular garbage and made a very satisfying buzzing sound as it did so. At this point we very nearly got off to an extremely bad start when we came close to leaving group member Sam Bowman behind, as he had fallen asleep sitting several rows away from the rest of us and no one had realized he wasn’t with us. Fortunately the last call for boarding woke him up and he was able to rush into the plane just before they closed it.
The flight to New York was rather uneventful, besides playing a trivia game built into my seat against other passengers on the flight. I soon gave this up as hopeless, however, because the touch screen in front of me would only select the answer I wanted it to if that answer happened to be wrong. Otherwise it would select answer C, thus denying me my points and sucking the joy out of my life. Instead, I settled in with my book and a cinnamon cookie given to me by the airline to await our arrival in New York.
As we deplaned in New York, we discovered that by the most outstanding stroke of luck our domestic flight had in fact parked at the international terminal, and had actually let us off at the exact gate we would be departing from three hours later for Amman, Jordan. We grabbed sporadic meals as we waited and tried very hard not to curiously peek at the Jordanians waiting for the same flight. Curiosity got the better of us from time to time, and we’d shoot a glance at these thoroughly interesting people.
It struck me as completely bizarre that here we were, sitting in an airport waiting for a plane, and right across from us were people who were so vastly different (and whose culture we were just starting to understand and realize how radically different it really was) sitting next to us doing the exact same thing and probably thinking similar thoughts about us weird Americans.
We witnessed our first taste of the feast of culture clash that was our flight to Amman when the boarding process began. As soon as the airline workers announced that boarding was going to start all of the Jordanians mobbed the ticket-checker. We realized that since, in Jordan, the concept of “lines” is more or less non-existent, that they were expecting to just be let through in the order they ended up nearest the teller. After 15 minutes of watching the attendant unsuccessfully explain that people had to board the plane in the order listed on the tickets, we just decided to join the mob and get on the plane.
Once on the plane I encountered a woman that Brenda Nelson (another member of the group assigned to the seat next to me) and I would come to know rather well over the course of the 11-hour flight. At the moment, she was in my seat and showed no signs of wanting to move. After the attendant explained to her that she had to sit in her seat and not mine, she moved over to the end of the row on the other side and I took my place on the plane. Throughout the boarding/takeoff process, this purple-shrouded Jordanian matron kindly and cheerfully drove the flight attendants crazy as she kept jumping up and walking around the plane to talk to people. The attendants would calmly find her, bring her back and make sure she buckled her seatbelt, but as soon as they left she was off. About halfway through the flight she disappeared and I didn’t saw her again until we had exited the plane. I honestly don’t know where she went or how she escaped the patrolling flight attendants.
After we took off I decided to check out the in-flight movie selection to kill some time since it was too dark in the plane to read. I watched The Green Hornet, gave up on Due Date after 20 minutes of not thinking it was funny, and watched about half of an Egyptian spy thriller called Welad Al A’am, which I think means “Son of the Public” or something to that effect, thought I could be wildly wrong about it. It was weird to watch a movie where all of the villains were Israeli and the main character was an Egyptian woman who happened to be married to an Israeli spy. Since it was late and I’d been up for a long time I fell asleep before I found out what happened in the end.
Since I didn’t actually have a clock, I only know that I slept for about an hour flying over Nova Scotia, woke up for a while and putzed about the plane for an hour or so. Then after two hours of regretting getting a caffeinated drink with the in-flight dinner, I finally fell asleep over Brest, France and didn’t wake up until we were flying over Cyprus.
After about an hour and a half in the air reading The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell (which I mention here because I am a shameless promoter of the man’s writing and because the flight was otherwise uneventful), I landed in Atlanta and immediately got a phone call from Sara Schaaf, our group’s second-in-command (who’d grown up in Jordan), making sure I had arrived and wondering if I was near the South Terminal.
I lagged one step behind the rest of my group all the way through check-in and security. At the check in desk, after struggling futilely to get the check-in kiosk to read my passport I finally got my boarding pass and proceeded behind a very confused Russian woman through the security checkpoint.
After helping my harried Russian comrade-ess through the process of American airport security I emerged into the food court of the Atlanta airport, where I met my group. After a surprisingly good airport lunch we all gathered around the wrong gate for a meeting. Three gates over from the gate we were to depart from, we discussed last-minute details of the trip (we chose this gate because a flight full of people was about to depart at our gate and there were no seats near each other.) Our conversation was peppered with loud comments from the nearby television about such diverse topics as the likelihood of Donald Trump becoming president and the reaction of a French woman to her son’s victory in a bicycling race in Kentucky.
Amongst the things we discussed were several issues of cultural sensitivity. We learned, for instance, that letting the bottom of your feet point at a person is the same thing as flipping them off, that western-style sit down toilets are not ubiquitous, that using your left hand to do anything important will probably offend someone, and that complimenting objects in people’s houses will result in the awkward situation of them attempting to give it to you.
As the time for our plane to board approached we moved over to the correct gate and gathered around a semi-intelligent garbage can, which sorted recyclables from regular garbage and made a very satisfying buzzing sound as it did so. At this point we very nearly got off to an extremely bad start when we came close to leaving group member Sam Bowman behind, as he had fallen asleep sitting several rows away from the rest of us and no one had realized he wasn’t with us. Fortunately the last call for boarding woke him up and he was able to rush into the plane just before they closed it.
The flight to New York was rather uneventful, besides playing a trivia game built into my seat against other passengers on the flight. I soon gave this up as hopeless, however, because the touch screen in front of me would only select the answer I wanted it to if that answer happened to be wrong. Otherwise it would select answer C, thus denying me my points and sucking the joy out of my life. Instead, I settled in with my book and a cinnamon cookie given to me by the airline to await our arrival in New York.
As we deplaned in New York, we discovered that by the most outstanding stroke of luck our domestic flight had in fact parked at the international terminal, and had actually let us off at the exact gate we would be departing from three hours later for Amman, Jordan. We grabbed sporadic meals as we waited and tried very hard not to curiously peek at the Jordanians waiting for the same flight. Curiosity got the better of us from time to time, and we’d shoot a glance at these thoroughly interesting people.
It struck me as completely bizarre that here we were, sitting in an airport waiting for a plane, and right across from us were people who were so vastly different (and whose culture we were just starting to understand and realize how radically different it really was) sitting next to us doing the exact same thing and probably thinking similar thoughts about us weird Americans.
We witnessed our first taste of the feast of culture clash that was our flight to Amman when the boarding process began. As soon as the airline workers announced that boarding was going to start all of the Jordanians mobbed the ticket-checker. We realized that since, in Jordan, the concept of “lines” is more or less non-existent, that they were expecting to just be let through in the order they ended up nearest the teller. After 15 minutes of watching the attendant unsuccessfully explain that people had to board the plane in the order listed on the tickets, we just decided to join the mob and get on the plane.
Once on the plane I encountered a woman that Brenda Nelson (another member of the group assigned to the seat next to me) and I would come to know rather well over the course of the 11-hour flight. At the moment, she was in my seat and showed no signs of wanting to move. After the attendant explained to her that she had to sit in her seat and not mine, she moved over to the end of the row on the other side and I took my place on the plane. Throughout the boarding/takeoff process, this purple-shrouded Jordanian matron kindly and cheerfully drove the flight attendants crazy as she kept jumping up and walking around the plane to talk to people. The attendants would calmly find her, bring her back and make sure she buckled her seatbelt, but as soon as they left she was off. About halfway through the flight she disappeared and I didn’t saw her again until we had exited the plane. I honestly don’t know where she went or how she escaped the patrolling flight attendants.
After we took off I decided to check out the in-flight movie selection to kill some time since it was too dark in the plane to read. I watched The Green Hornet, gave up on Due Date after 20 minutes of not thinking it was funny, and watched about half of an Egyptian spy thriller called Welad Al A’am, which I think means “Son of the Public” or something to that effect, thought I could be wildly wrong about it. It was weird to watch a movie where all of the villains were Israeli and the main character was an Egyptian woman who happened to be married to an Israeli spy. Since it was late and I’d been up for a long time I fell asleep before I found out what happened in the end.
Since I didn’t actually have a clock, I only know that I slept for about an hour flying over Nova Scotia, woke up for a while and putzed about the plane for an hour or so. Then after two hours of regretting getting a caffeinated drink with the in-flight dinner, I finally fell asleep over Brest, France and didn’t wake up until we were flying over Cyprus.
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