Jerash-ic Parks

It's our final day in Jordan, and we wanted to explore the castles and ruins north of Amman. We found a bus company that makes a daily run to the region and back, so we purchased seats for a day trip.

We drove two hours north to see Ajloun Castle, a hilltop fortification built to drive out the Crusaders. It was interesting to visit a Muslim castle, after seeing the Christian Crusader castles of Shobak and Kerak. And color me happy to have a little minibus to drive me up that hill, so I didn't have to slog up another 500 stairs.

Ajloun Castle is much like Kerak Castle: Seven storeys of rooms, a massive rooftop overlook, all made of cold stone and completely empty except for exhibit lighting. We spent about an hour viewing it in its entirety, and had an hour left to kill before the bus left. So we sat for an hour in a vendor's small tent in the parking lot and had tea with the many stray ginger cats.

The bus made a quick lunch stop, where I tried a local Jordanian beer called Petra. Alcohol is not commonly served in Jordan, so I was surprised to discover that Jordan has its own beer. I was also surprised to see that it cost six dinars on the bill, which was about three times the cost of each of our salads.

After lunch, the bus headed to the ruined city of Jerash, the finest archaeological site in Jordan. It's an extraordinarily well-preserved Greco-Roman city, first settled in 7500 B.C., and often called the "Pompeii of the Middle East." It's also huge. Like, literally the size of a small city (which, duh, is exactly what it was). I was unaware of Jerash's massive size, and when told by the bus driver that we had ninety minutes to visit, assumed this would be plenty of time.

It was not.

It takes a fifteen-minute walk through the massive handicraft and souvenir pavilion and several structures just to reach the ticket office. Those "structures" include a 2nd-century arch built for Emperor Hadrian- he of the famous wall- and a huge hippodrome (horse and chariot racing stadium) that holds daily races. I had assumed this was the entirety of the Jerash site until we turned a corner and arrived at the actual entrance. That's correct: Jerash is so huge, and so overfilled with archaeological riches, that Hadrian's Arch and the entire hippodrome are open and free to the public.

Jerash is astonishing. And with just ninety minutes to view it, it's also overwhelming. The city's colonnaded streets- so pristine that you can still see CHARIOT RUTS in the flagstones- go on for over half a mile. And along that half mile is a massive Nymphaeum (decorative fountain), the Temples of Zeus and Artemis, a central 90m by 80m plaza, a cathedral, TWO amphitheaters, baths, a forum, city walls, and statuary. We of course wanted to see all of it, so we ended up running up and down MORE F*CKING STAIRS for the entire ninety-minute visit. We arrived back at the bus precisely on time, but wishing we'd had an extra hour. Jerash was definitely a highlight of this trip.

For our final night in Jordan, we met up with a former Expedia colleague and his wife for a fantastic dinner at Sufra. Last night was elevated Levantine elegance at Fakhreldin; tonight, Sufra served Jordanian classics in a relaxed dining room, cooked to perfection. I discovered that I love fatteh, a scrumptious dish of eggplants, pistachios, tomatoes, and crispy flatbread. Faisal was so pleased that we loved the food that he insisted we go get kunafa for dessert, a bizarre cheese, wheat, and honey street food that is inexplicably considered "dessert." It's more like late-night stoner food, and after the massive Sufra meal, putting that in my stomach was not one of my wisest choices. I can sense another food hangover tomorrow.

So this ends our Jordan adventure- we fly home tomorrow morning.Read more