Our Last Post

We left our wonderful place at Dana and headed north along the King's Highway (the royal family is hugely popular here.) We made our way to Karak Castle but didn't stay too long as it was still cold which wouldn't help John's cold at all. 

The landscape we drove through was so bleak! Rolling yellow/brown hills sprouted only power pylons, wind turbines and rocks. A few scrubby plants grew near the edges of the road where rare rains washed into them from the bitumen. Dusty villages appeared at intervals, preceded by plastic and rubbish scattered across the bare earth. 

The villages and even larger towns were generally very unattractive. Besser block houses squatted unceremoniously on the dusty ground with a few low trees, often eucalypts, scattered in-between.

In larger towns, people park anywhere they feel like - they parallel park, angle park and double park all on the same stretch of road. This causes all sorts of traffic movement issues. It's also an excuse for more tooting.....

We  drove through Wadi Mujib, another huge canyon like the one at Dana. It's one kilometre deep and four kilometres wide but the road takes 18 kilometres to wind down it then up the other side. It wasn't really beautiful but it was spectacular.

This video follows the road that we have to drive up.

There was a dam at the bottom but it looked like it hadn't seen water for a very long time. There were even buildings built below the level of the dam wall. This sign looked very out of place. The orange dirt on the right of the photo is the riverbed.

The view from the top of the far side, 18kms later.

Someone in a coffee shop at a lookout point had a sense of humour. 

Our next destination was the 'mosaic city' of Madaba. We found our way to our hotel and it was pretty good, thank goodness! We would be here for four nights and John had his cold for the entire time so he pretty much just hibernated. The weather was cold, wet and, at one stage, stormy, so it was a good place to just hunker down.

Madaba is one of those ancient towns that has been settled for gazillions of years. Excavations have revealed evidence of many different civilisations, each one built on top of the one before. It was the Byzantine period though that produced most of the now-famous mosaics here. Many of these mosaics were on church floors and the floors of the houses of wealthy families. Some of them are amazing! It's hard to imagine that most of these are around 1600 years old.

This mosaic is the most famous. It's a map of the entire Palestine area. It was created in 560 AD and shows all the major biblical sites in the area. There's Jerusalem, Bethlehem, the Nile and even Karak Castle that we just visited!

There were many sites around the town but my favourite was one that's known not for its mosaics but for the old buildings underneath the current church. It had a 3,000 year-old well inside which is still usable today. It was built by the Moabites and was used by every civilisation that followed. 

Steps led down into various tunnels and rooms. The whole area is still under excavation while a modern functioning church stands on top.

Coming up from the bowels of the church you could then climb the bell tower. I had to squeeze past the ropes that ring the bells and duck under the framework holding the bells in places.

The view from the top was amazing! It also highlighted the tolerance that has been here for centuries between the Muslims and the Christians. This town has a much larger Christian population than most towns in this largely Muslim country. The mosque was only a short distance from the church. The Christians here are mostly Orthodox so Friday is the special day for both religions. Apparently it's a cacophony of bell-ringing and calls to prayer on that day!

The path around the top of the tower was really narrow and the railing looked quite precarious. I made myself do a lap around it but I was careful not to put much pressure on that railing!

There were old photos inside one of the buildings and I saw this one where animals are grazing on the grass around the town! Have things changed that much since then or are we just here at a dry time? There's certainly only bare earth here now.

At one site, the attendant pulled me aside and took me behind the ropes! I was careful not to step on anything (unlike him) and got a good view of some amazing mosaics - for a small tip of course!

Some buildings were quite large. It was good to see the mosaics being protected under cover.

The details in some of the mosaics was amazing! This one is about four or five metres wide.

In 726AD, an emperor declared that depicting living creatures was banned so the people and animals in this mosaic were carefully removed! What a tragedy. I have no idea how the two birds in the middle survived though.

I found this small mosaic remnant unprotected by a roof. The rain had removed the dust and brought out its colours. Apparently, the mosaics that are still protected under the soil have stunning vibrant colours.

In two separate but nearby sections of the town, an old Roman road runs through. It just makes you wonder what's buried between the two locations and just about everywhere else!

Walking along the busy streets was interesting. A mish-mash of shops lined the roads and produce was piled on the footpaths. I passed groups of shoe shops which, judging by the ancient but still-functioning sewing machines in front of each shop, also do repairs. Men lounge about in front of the shops waiting for customers - most of the people on the streets are men. Car horns toot relentlessly through the day and well into the night.

A coffee-seller.

John started to get better at last and was able to see a couple of the key sites with me on our last day but was still struggling. I was about to test him for covid when he started to improve. It was obviously a flu virus of some sort though.

We had wonderful meals here, mostly at one particular restaurant. We kept underestimating serving sizes though. The best dish was a vegetable dish that we were told had a sauce and cheese. What appeared was a huge pie cooked in a ceramic dish. Inside were vegetables and super-stringy mozzarella and the whole thing was toped with a pita bread as a pie-top. It sounds weird but it was delicious!

Unfortunately, it was the same day that we ordered a special dish at the restaurant at our hotel for dinner. I say 'unfortunately' because we were still full from lunch! I had asked the lovely lady at our hotel where to get a special local dish called Maklobah. She said the best one in all of Madaba was the one cooked by her! At 5.30 on the appointed night we went to the kitchen to watch her prepare the dish. She had already cooked everything and just had to put it together as it's a dish that's layered. She placed slices of tomatoes in the bottom of a large pot. She then layered on deep-fried eggplants and cauliflower. Chicken that had been cooked up in special spices then went on top then it was all finished off with rice. The stock from the chicken was poured over and the whole things simmered for about 45 minutes. It was delicious! However it was served with bread, two types of houmous, a salad and something else that I can't remember. Then desert followed afterwards. We sure don't starve here!

The people at our hotel were the best we'd come across so far. They were all so friendly and smiling. Our room was good but the neighbours still banged doors all night and I'm sure most weren't Jordanian. Bloody tourists!

We continued our journey north and headed to the town of Jerash.  We followed the Dead Sea Highway for a while but we didn't go to the Dead Sea as we had been there before in Israel 35 years ago. I love the exotic names of these highways!

We chose a place that was a bit like a farm-stay here. The owner was Jordanian but had lived in Australia for a while so we were looking forward to meeting him and maybe getting a better understanding of this strange country, however he was away while we were there. We had a fabulous two-bedroom house on an olive and citrus farm. It was so good to have some peace and quiet but the house wasn't very clean. It was also quite isolated but it wasn't too far to most of the places we wanted to visit.

The air was hazy most days and sometimes we could smell burning plastic. It was wonderful to have a rural view though.

John still wasn't well so we just went for a stroll around the area on our first day. Much to our disappointment, this pile of rubbish was just nearby.

A car pulled up beside us. The man was wearing a suit and a fancy watch and the car was a flash one. He was a neighbour and introduced us to his mother in the passenger seat but didn't mention his wife in the back. Both women were fascinated with me. The wife sneaked photos of me while we talked and the mother wanted to invite us back for a meal, although nothing came of that.

He also mentioned how safe it was around here. It hadn't occurred to us that it might not be as we have felt very safe in all of Jordan. Then we started noticing things - our house had security bars on all the windows plus three security lights that stayed on all night (which drove us mad!). A high fence ran around the whole property with razor wire on top and the main gate was locked at night. During the day it was shut and every time we drove up to it to enter or leave, the security guard would run out and open it for us. Hmmm, it makes you wonder! 

Olive picking was in full swing here and every olive grove had people of all ages inside. These two young men took one look at us and raced down to take a photo, only John had to take the photo of me with them! 

A short distance later, some more olive-pickers called us in. A couple of ladies sat on the ground sorting the olives. They tried to chat but they knew no English and we only knew a work or two of Arabic so we smiled a lot, admired their olives and moved on. They were very cheerful.

Some of the olives here were so large and dark that they look like plums!

The main attraction at Jerash is the old Roman city. Jerash was abandoned for a very long time, so the old ruins remained unusually intact. Now the modern city has grown around the ruins but they remain magnificent.

The entrance gate. Clearly the Romans were into making good first impressions!

One of my favourite features was the hippodrome. It's the smallest, but most complete one, still in existence. The horses and chariots started the races under these arches.

Then they raced up the track, did a sharp turn at the end then raced back through the arches.

The very impressive main street started at an equally impressive column-lined large oval area.

Columns lined all the main streets.

The main road was dead straight and you could see ruts created by countless chariot wheels. Cool!

On one side road, broken tiles had been added to the surface for grip. This tile travelled a long way!

Some facades were decorated with incredible detail.

Not everything was as it seemed though. Is this ancient Roman reo sticking out of the stone?

There were a couple of gorgeous old theatres. We were looking at one when, much to our amazement, a Bedouin started playing the bagpipes!

But wait, there's more!

They were after tips so John asked if they could play ACDC's "Long Way to the Top". Seriously, this is a song every good bagpipe player should know! Haha.

The new town runs right up to the edge of the exposed area of the ancient city. It must be astonishing what lies underneath the new town.

We had to buy groceries and were told of two malls to go to. We tried them both. They were both supermarkets only and were dirty, grungy and unappealing. At both places we parked the car in a litter-strewn carpark and picked our way through the dusty potholes. 

We ate most nights at a local Lebanese restaurant which had really good food. Apparently it's quite a well-known restaurant and many famous identities have eaten here, including members of Jordan's royal family. We loved the international celebrity list though. I wonder who Mr Bean portrays? Rowan Atkinson?

The next day we visited a national park to do a bit of walking. There was only one short walk that we could do without a guide and they charged us $12 a head for the privilege. It was interesting to see how tiny the parks are though. Both this one and one the next day were only about 12 square kilometres. 

We passed so much rubbish on the sides of the roads!

We were starting to have had enough of Jordan. In between doing the touristy things, I was talking to my mum a lot online. Both mum and dad have covid. While he had covid, dad slipped and cut his head open. He was taken to hospital and stitched up. He stayed for a few days then came home. Within a day he fell again, this time hurting his ribs. Back to hospital he went although mum encouraged the back to hospital idea as his breathing was really bad from covid.

After the falls, the discharge nurse started talking to mum about respite care. It was all very confusing and poor mum was still sick herself and didn't know what to do. We had really seen everything we wanted to see here and we looked at the possibility of going home early. We were due to be home in 10 days. In theory it was possible to change all our bookings but the reality was much harder, especially as it was now a weekend. We decided to keep going but really, both of us just wanted to leave and go home.

The next day we went to a nature reserve for another short walk. Again it was nothing special but it was good just to get out a bit and let John ease back into things as he slowly got better. As we were walking back to our car, we passed a group of about a dozen women going for a walk or picnic or something. As soon as they saw us they pounced. They surrounded me, not paying any attention to John. Between them they had a few words of English and we were able to say where we were from and yes, we were sad about the football (Australia lost to Argentina in the World Cup the night before). One particular lady was very outgoing and kept kissing me on the cheek. Even one of the ladies in the full burqa got involved. I can only assume it's my blonde hair that they're fascinated with as Muslim women here must cover their hair. Tourists are not encouraged to do the same as it can be disrespectful if you're not a Muslim, however we must cover legs and upper arms. It's strange how we are getting these reactions around here but nowhere else in the country.

On our last night we were treated to a wonderful sunset.

At last it was time to turn south and head to Amman, the capital city. We listened to a local English-speaking radio station on the way. The music wasn't great it was interesting hearing about Jordanian life. Two women run the breakfast show and on this day one of them was sick. The remaining woman gave a shout-out to her work colleague wishing her a speedy recovery and added that she knows her colleague will get better soon because her mother will look after her so well! You would never hear anyone say that about a colleague here, mainly because if they're a radio announcer they're generally not still living with their mothers!

We returned the rental car to the airport (they were so disorganised it took 45 minutes just to return the car!) and taxied into the city. Our first impressions weren't good as the city sat in a shroud of pollution. The air was thick and hazy with it. Yuk.

On the other hand, our hotel here was awesome! It was only two months old and was very modern. There are a lot of Christians in Amman and they were fully into Christmas mode. In our hotel foyer was a huge Christmas tree and three large-screen TV's showing things like snow falling and log fires burning. Classic!

We saw most of the sights of the city that afternoon. The old Roman city still sits atop one of the many hills here and it was good to explore although it wasn't as impressive as the ruins at Jerash. The old theatre stood right in the centre of town.

We then wandered through the busy souk area, which was cool.

John had read about a bar that serves good food and has live music so we headed there. We really enjoyed our non-Jordanian food but didn't enjoy the smoking that was going on around us. We had wine and cocktails and the feel of the place was good. The crowd started increasing and it was good to see Jordanian girls dressed up in clothes you would see anywhere in the world although none of it was revealing at all. The band started and they were ok. We were more entertained by the two young women in front of us who ordered a whole bottle of Vodka then ordered orange juices to drink it with!

The cocktails, wine and whisky kept flowing and we had a really good night. Things were not so good the next morning though. I had a hangover and John seemed to have picked up a tummy bug. We had a quiet morning then headed out in the afternoon. While looking for a bank we inadvertently explored quite a bit of the area. Some of the main streets here are pretty clean but the rubbish still accumulates in unused, derelict places - and there are many of these.

Strangely, for a couple of country bumpkins, we felt more at home in this big, polluted city than in most other places in Jordan. Many people spoke English and it was all a bit more comfortable I guess. On our last night here it rained! Rain in this climate seemed so out of place, even though it's winter.

As I write this, we have started the long journey home. Dad's now been moved into a nursing home just for a week to "get his strength back" after being in hospital although mum and I are both confused about exactly what that means. A later update - mum wasn't happy with the nursing home and dad's now home and all is going well. That's much better news!

Overall our trip was sensational! We spent most of our time in Georgia and Greece and had such a wonderful time in both places. There were so many highlights on the trip. We saw incredible scenery, amazing ruins, sensational places that looked like ruins but were still being lived in and many gorgeous sunsets. We went to places that are on the brink of modernisation and to others that have recently been ruined by it. We met so many wonderful people along the way, mostly staff of places we frequented but also other travellers and just people we bumped into. We caught up with quite a few old friends too which was fantastic. We hiked up mountains and along ancient trails. We swam in crystal clear waters and danced at festivals. John rode his bike to monasteries, ancient towns and the tops of mountains. And we ate way too much good food.......

It really feels like it's time to go home though. Thank you for sharing our journeys with us and we look forward to starting this blog up again next year!

'Til then, stay safe and have a wonderful holiday period.
Heather and John