Jordan

A few months ago, when we were in the thick of a long stretch at school with no break to be seen, I decided that we needed a mental break. We were stuck in a rut of grading, 11-12 hour days working on school stuff in some capacity, and tutoring/coaching in the tiny bit of free time we had. I decided to surprise Shannon with a weekend trip away.

After hearing about the trips of some of our colleagues, I decided to book a trip to Amman, Jordan. I booked private tours to Petra, and Jerash and the hotel, targeted a weekend in May when we would be in the middle of another long run, and told her about it. She was super excited.

When the time came, we got our entry-exit visas, which we need to get approved by the government for all of our trips, and we set off. We left work on a Thursday at 4:00 and went straight to the airport where a two hour direct flight laid ahead of us. We got on our plane and about forty minutes into it, a pleasant man name Jaf, who sat next to me, introduced himself. He told me he was a Jordanian man who worked in Saudi, but whose family lived in Jordan. He was on his way home to meet them for the weekend. I told him about our trip and he gave me his cell phone number and told me to contact him if I needed anything. He wanted us to have a good time. This was the first of many friendly encounters we had with Jordanian people.

When we landed, we went through customs, paid our visa entry fee, and hopped in a cab. When we got in, we realized he spoke no English. I gestured to my phone and showed him the name of the hotel, but he apparently hadn't heard of it, or of the cross streets, or the map. I suppose he wasn't able to read English, which was an oversight on my part. I didn't have a map or directions in Arabic. So we did what anyone would do, we stopped on the side of the street and asked a random stranger where this driver should take us. He was friendly and helpful (theme here) and we were on our way.

When we got to the hotel, we walked into the lobby and found a club. There was a DJ, a bar, and enough cigarette smoke filling the air to set a film noir detective movie. As we shouted to the check-in clerk, he told us that there was a nightly sunset party and it often went late. (It was 12:30am by this point) We thanked him, squeezed in between dancing 20-somethings and went up to our room. After some showers, we turned the lights off and went to bed, exhausted. Little did we know that this room had motion sensors. Every time I would scratch my neck or turn over in bed, as if in an interrogation room, the spotlights above me would turn on and jar me awake. As a person who moves a lot while asleep, I can say I was personally responsible for at least 5 spotlights that woke up Shannon and myself, and at least double that in expletives shouted into the night. We were simply too tired, and it was simply too late to get the hotel staff to come up to the room and fix it. So instead, I slept sat there as still as I could for four hours until it was time to get up.

The next morning, we grabbed some breakfast to go and got picked up by our tour guide. We drove through the rolling green and tan hills of Jordan, smitten to be surrounded by...well green. At one point, we were stopped at a checkpoint and our driver and the officer got into some sort of argument. There was a lot of gesturing, animated conversation, and then ultimately, no problems. The only thing that made it intimidating was his partner stationed in a SUV parked on the side of the road with an AR-15 mounted on a swivel chair on the roof of the car. It was a bit intense for the arguing. In my book, the guy with the AR-15 on his side wins just about every time.

Anyway, as we drove, we chatted with our driver about Jordan, about politics, and life. At one point endured enjoyed this for the remainder of our drive until we arrived at the site for Petra. As we approached on a long, winding road, our driver told us that the road was called King's Road and had been built around the year 1200BC and connected Demascus, Rome, Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. Then he put in his headphones so he could jam out to his music. We stopped for some bathroom and snack breaks as it was a 3.5 hr drive. At one point, both Shannon and I dozed off due to the lack of sleep from our run in with the Batman spotlight the night before. As soon as we did however, we were awoken by the loud, but smooth tones of one Yanni. Our driver was digging it, and had no idea we were asleep.

When we pulled into the site, we were greeted by a small market selling water, clothes, souvenirs, hats, and scarves. Naturally I got a hat and Shannon got a scarf because why not, and also to protect ourselves from the scalding sun. As we entered the site, we were greeted by a tour guide named Mahmoud and he walked us down into a canyon with sloping walls rising above us. As we walked, he pointed out stone structures that had been used as burial sites, homes, and market areas. We even found a wall that had a cross section of a fossil in the wall from thousands of years prior. As we continued, the walls climbed higher and higher and we saw hand carved windowsills, aqueducts, candle holders, and sculptures lining the walls that rose on both sides of us, as high as 400 feet. As the walls grew higher, the temperature lowered into a cool and comfortable climate, with plentiful shade laying on us like a protective blanket. Our guide explained that the area was inhabited by the Nabatean civilization, and was influenced by the Ancient Greek, Roman, and Egyptian civilizations. A lot of architecture from each of these was found throughout the site. During its time, the area was occupied by a wide variety of different civilizations as well after the Nabateans. Due to the Nabatean polytheistic way of life, many statues were tributes for their Gods. As other monotheistic civilizations took over, they decapitated many of the statues, which left eerily well preserved bodies of statues with no head.

As we walked, we were passed by horses, camels, donkeys, and the occasional chariot carrying other
tourists down the path.We came around the corner to the famous treasury site and it was absolutely breathtaking. I had seen it in photos, and in movies (shout-out to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) but I hadn't imagined the size, the overwhelming attention to detail, and the magnificence of the facade carved into the building. As we wandered around, countless people tried to sell us on trinkets, souvenirs, camel rides, secret hikes to the "best view" and many other add-ons. Most of the men rode camels or horses and wore heavy kohl on their eyes, which made them look like the Dothraki from the Game of Thrones series. One young boy, who reminded me of Short Round from Indiana Jones, had a really hard time accepting "No Thank You" as an answer and began to follow me around mocking me by saying "No THAAAANNNNNKKKK YOOOOOUUU" and giggling.

I honestly expected the treasury to be the end of the site, but as we continued down the path, we
found our way into an amphitheater, a residential site, a holy worship house, a palace, and countless other fantastic buildings carved into the cliff. We stopped along the way at a small restaurant and had some freshly pressed mint lemonade, and a plate of hummus and vegetables and marveled at the view around us. We wandered around a bit more and then slowly climbed our way out of the lost stone city, up through the canyon, and back to our driver who was waiting with more Yanni to escort us home.

I will say, driving in Jordan was relatively easy. In general, driving in the Middle East is easy, aside from the drivers themselves. The roads are largely unobstructed because...desert, so you can get to most places, even 3 and a half hour away, in less than two to three turns. It's quite convenient.

Quick aside, the day was not easy. There was a significant amount of hiking, intense heat, and no real rest. My wife is a badass. Despite being pregnant, and therefore shorter on energy than she would have been otherwise, she toughed it out and in fact led the way most of the day.

When we got back, we showered and went out for dinner. We came across a great local spot and had

more mint lemonade, and the BEST hummus, grape leaves, and falafel we have ever had. It was incredible. When we were sufficiently stuffed, we wandered the streets of Amman for a bit before heading to our hotel, just ahead of the dance party. We reveled in the days events and the fact that on a random weekend, we just saw one of the World's 7 New Wonders. An early bedtime awaited us, and another adventure the next morning. Don't worry, the motion lights were fixed.

We got up the next day, grabbed some breakfast, and waited outside for our ride. We waited, and waited, and waited. We were concerned about the timing of it all because we had a flight to catch in the afternoon, but wanted to make time to go to Jerash. We had a very tight window to work with. I called the tour company and they realized that they had written down the wrong date for our trip, and had us marked down for the following day. I corrected the mistake and they sent us a driver and decided to comp us a free trip to the airport afterwards.

When our driver arrived, he wore sunglasses to cover his bloodshot eyes and told us he had just arrived after one hour of sleep the night before. Note to all professional drivers out there, don't drive with one hour of sleep. Definitely don't tell your clients that. We were nervous as he drove us across the city and towards the site. Apparently he was kept awake by his NOW That's What I Call Music CD from 2008. The tranquil rolling hills of Jordan were set to the tones of Brittney Spears, Hoobastank, and a few Lil John songs.

When we finally arrived, we were ushered into another market selling random goods, when we came out the other side, we were greeted by a gigantic entrance made of stone and a pathway that was walked upon hundreds and hundreds of years prior.

As we walked through the city we were struck by how real it felt. There were grooves in the stone streets from carriages. There was a hippodrome stadium where gladiators had fought for sport. We were surrounded by streets lined by marble columns, fountains, and statues that all stood, well preserved. We were told that the city was first founded in 1000BC and was built up, changed, improved, and lived in by the Greeks, Romans, and citizens of the Byzantine Empire. It was incredible to walk the streets in front of temples where some of the world's most advanced ancient civilizations created engineering feats that still stood, in front of us, three thousand years later! (Yes I know that the Roman city wasn't 3000 years old, but the city itself was)

As we walked the streets and hills, it was easy to imagine vendors selling hand made goods, people
gathering in the theaters for a play, or in the main hall for a political debate. It was absolutely amazing. It was well preserved, beautiful, and charged with significance. As we left, I was astounded by what we were able to visit over the course of the weekend. Our driver stopped at a local shop for some pita bread and some sort of sour goat's milk yogurt drink that we pretended to have, and we reflected back on our weekend as we went to the airport. We wanted another adventure, and a weekend away from the routine. We definitely found it in Jordan, where we fell in love with the food, the culture, the history, and the people.