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Explorin' Jordan

February - March 2024
One week in Jordan for our wedding anniversary: Petra, Wadi Rum desert, the Dead Sea, and Amman. Read more
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  • TravelerExplorin' Jordan
    2
    Day 1–2

    Crossing Jordan

    February 25 in Jordan ⋅ 🌙 46 °F

    Greetings from Jordan! This week is our wedding anniversary, and for the first time since 2020, we are celebrating in a new country- Jordan.
    If you're not familiar with Jordan, it's a Middle Eastern country bordered by Israel to the west, Syria and Iraq to the north and east, and Saudi Arabia to the south. It's a fun neighborhood, but Jordan is stable, peaceful, and prosperous monarchy- it's even home to the world's fifth strongest currency. And being a trivia nerd, I will also add that Jordan contains the lowest point on earth- the Dead Sea, at 420 meters/1260 feet below sea level- and is the only country named for a river. And it's #82 in my leetle country collection.

    We're here to see one of the great wonders of the world: Petra, the fabulous ancient city from the 1st century BC. It was the capital of the Nabataean Empire until it was abandoned after a 4th century AD earthquake. Most people became familiar with Petra from 1989's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," where it was featured as the Valley of the Crescent Moon where Indiana receives the Holy Grail from the ancient knight. For me, Jordan never really registered as a destination until Expedia opened a tech hub here in 2018, and I began hearing from my colleagues about the amazing place I was missing (I was never able to join a business trip here, despite my best efforts).

    We arrived in Jordan last night by an unfortunate group of fours: A four-hour flight, four hours of sleep, then a four-hour drive. Our original flight was supposed to depart at 3:30pm, but was moved to 5:15pm...then 6pm...and finally 7:30pm. Jordan is two hours ahead of Barcelona, so we landed in Amman, the capital, at 1:30am, picked up our rental car, and checked into our hotel at 3am. And at 7am, we were back up for the four-hour drive south to Wadi Musa, the home of Petra and many other ancient sites.

    A four-hour drive through Jordan sounds like an exciting journey. I assure you it was not. The Desert Highway is straight, wide, and plows right through scrubby, barren desert. The only interesting thing to see was the three, count 'em three, times the cops pulled us over (routine security checks due to the war in Israel). But after four hours, we arrived at our destination: Siq Al-Barid, or Little Petra.

    Petra Archaeological Park is a massive, 102-square-mile site. That seemed a bit overwhelming to begin our Jordan adventure, so we decided to warm up with a visit to Little Petra first. It's a tiny version of Petra- just 450 meters/1350 feet long. It was built in the 1st century as a Nabataean suburb, and contains shockingly intact remains of rich residents' homes. Little Petra was excavated in the late 20th century, and as recently 2010, archaeologists discovered the only known Nabataean ceiling frescoes in existence. It's also the ignored sibling of Big Petra, so we had it all to ourselves.

    We spent an hour viewing the red stone façades and marveling at the canyon. Petra looks shockingly like Arizona, with its multicolored, deep gorges, and red rock. If you'd told me that I was at the Grand Canyon, I'd believe you. On a clear sunny day, the views and light quality were breathtaking.

    At the back of the site, we climbed up a steep set of stone stairs, cut into the canyon, that led to a Bedouin tribe's tea house. It overlooked Little Petra, and we sat and enjoyed our tea with the Bedouin owner and his cats as we stared out over the endless canyons.

    It began to get very cold- those canyons are like giant refrigerators- so we left Little Petra and drove fifteen minutes to the town of Wadi Musa, a village on the edge of the Petra Archaeological Park. After stopping for hummus and shisk tawook at a small restaurant next to the Petra Visitor's Center, we wandered into the Petra complex to scout for our big adventure tomorrow.

    Can I just say: Petra is HUGE.

    Tomorrow we will conquer it!    Read more

  • TravelerExplorin' Jordan
    Day 3

    Petra-fied

    February 27 in Jordan ⋅ ⛅ 55 °F

    Today was our adventure in the Petra Archaeological Park.
    Was it amazing? Hells yes. And to give you an idea of just how amazing today was, there are three things I hate: Being cold, climbing stairs, and hiking...and I willingly did all three today, and Petra was worth all three.

    We were up at 5:45am (correction, FOUR things I hate), and at the Petra Park entrance at 7am. The sun was just rising on a clear, cold morning, the moon was still fully visible, and we had the entire place to ourselves.

    I had envisioned Petra much like the Pyramids of Gaza in Cairo: You show up, pay your fee, walk in, and boom! There they are.

    Petra is nothing like that.

    As you enter the Park, there is a modern visitors' center; a short walk downhill leads to the main entrance. Once you enter, there is a 1 kilometer/.75 mile gravel road winding downhill, past temples and ruins; then you come to the Siq, the gorgeous pathway snaking between the tall canyons. At 7am, the canyon walls were red, pink, orange, and purple, and absolutely silent (AND COLD). The Siq path continues for 1.5 kilometers/1 mile, and then, in a real-life Indiana Jones moment, the canyon opens to reveal the Treasury- the famous symbol of Petra. It is simply breathtaking.

    There were so few people at the Treasury that it felt like a private visit. We got some amazing photos- depending on the weather and time of day, the rocks look very different. We were absurdly lucky to have a clear, sunny day as our backdrop.

    We continued on past the Treasury, and the site opened into a massive space, called the Street of Façades. Petra's 2000-year-old stone structures were originally massive tombs- they are carved into all the rock walls in this area. Though as the "Façade" name suggests, you can't actually go inside them.

    We explored the Royal Tombs, a set of four massive tombs atop a steep stone staircase. One of the tombs, the Silk Tomb, had rock striations running up the columns in bright rainbow colors. I've never seen anything like it.

    We continued walking to the end of the main path, about 4 kilometers/2.5 miles from the main entrance, and embarked on the Ad-Deir, or Monastery, Trail. This trail is about 1.5 kilometers/1 mile straight up a stone staircase: 800 stairs, to be precise. We were warned that this trail is hard, but possibly the most impressive site in the park. At the top is the Monastery, a tomb that is similar to the Treasury, but on a wide-open hilltop, rather than in a narrow canyon.

    The walk up was spectacular. We were again the only people, aside from the Bedouins who live and sell tea and souvenirs in the canyons. And the morning went from I'm-wearing-thermals-cold to T-shirts-warm (though I'm sure that stair climb helped to warm us up). We reached the Monastery in about an hour, and found an amazing viewpoint to relax and savor our private view.

    After an hour or so, we began the walk back down. We stopped to have tea with a Bedouin woman and her daughter, and to play with the many kittens frolicking around the staircase. By the time we reached the bottom, back on the Street of Façades, we were starving. Luckily, we had packed a lunch from little shops near our hotel: Fresh pita, soft cheese, falafel, apples, and a tub of halvah. We had ourselves a little picnic in front of the Petra amphitheater.

    (Side note: If you don't know what halvah is, I suggest you go find some right now. I love nuts and creamy desserts, and halvah is like peanut butter nougat, filled with nuts. I eat it by the forkful, straight from the container. But I also eat Nutella out of the jar, so maybe don't follow my example.)

    Later in the afternoon, we decided we were full of Petra and tombs and staircases and halvah, and began the three-mile slog all the way back uphill to the park exit. As we exited, we saw a sign at the fancy-pants park hotel adjacent to the gates that this exact moment was happy hour. Two things: One, Jordan is Muslim, so alcohol is hard to come by, and two, if any moment in time screamed "you earned a beer," this was it. That is my way of saying we hustled inside that hotel bar and toasted our 15.5 kilometer/10.5 mile Petra hiking adventure with truly vile white wine.

    And then we went back to our hotel for very long naps.    Read more

  • TravelerExplorin' Jordan
    Day 4

    Strange Bed(ouin) Fellows

    February 28 in Jordan ⋅ ☀️ 64 °F

    After breakfast, we left Wadi Musa at 9am and drove two hours farther south to the desert region of Wadi Rum. (And yes, everything is called "Wadi" here because it means "Valley" in Jordanian Arabic.)

    Most people are familiar with this region, just thirty minutes from the Saudi Arabian border, from the classic film "Lawrence of Arabia." Those real-life events occurred here, and the movie was filmed here as well. Now, the Wadi Rum desert is a protected area, and visitors come here to spend a night or two with the Bedouin tribes, sleeping in tents, and seeing the desert by 4x4.

    We arrived at Wadi Rum Village at the edge of the desert at 11am, and met up with our Bedouin host. He put our bag in the truck, and we rode on a bench in the open truck bed. We spent the next four hours exploring and climbing up the different sites in the desert, including the rubble remains of Lawrence of Arabia's home, sand dunes, and several famous rock formations. I learned a few things:

    1. Desert wind in an exposed open truck bed in the winter is fucking freezing.
    2. All rock formations in the desert look exactly the same to me.
    3. If I have to endure sand in my eyes, nose, and mouth, there better be an ocean in front of me.
    4. There is no ocean in the desert.

    Luckily, our drive took place during the warmest part of the day, so when the truck DID stop, it was a gorgeous day to climb on some rocks. Until the wind blew more sand up my nose.

    We arrived at our Bedouin camp in the late afternoon, where we chilled in our tent and admired the stunning view of the desert. At 6pm we walked out to a promontory to watch the sun set over the red rocks. The last time we visited a desert, Egypt's White Desert, the white of the sand reflected the moonlight, and it wasn't very dark at night. Here, darkness is absolute, and not just a little disconcerting. Our very cool guide pointed us to the sunset promontory, a ten-minute walk in a straight line, and warned us not to get lost on the way back. We laughed at this "joke" until we realized he was absolutely not joking. We then mused on how many idiot tourists got lost and wandered in the desert for forty days and forty nights, and decided that would make a really good story. (Biblical joke)

    The Bedouins made a traditional dinner for the camp, featuring zarb (roasted meat that is buried and roasted in the sand), and several types of dips and salads. I really like the food here- they offer lots of vegetables, including an "Arabian salad" that is like pico de gallo without cilantro or spice; chickpea salads and hummus; baba ganouj; and soft mild cheeses and yogurts. I will admit to being at maximum falafel tolerance, so when the wind ripped our small bag of lunch falafel out of Matt's hand and far into the desert, I wasn't too disappointed. Hungry, yes, but in consolation, I had a tub of halva hidden in my bag. Don't judge me.

    So did you know that without lights, internet, or bars, there isn't much to do after the sun sets? After dinner, we sat around the fire drinking tea and listening to some truly awful Bedouin music, but by 9:30pm, we seized the opportunity to head back to our tent early, and read in bed while eating halva straight from the tub.

    Tomorrow we drive all the way back up to Amman, while attempting to see as many things along the way as possible before the rental company wants their car back.    Read more

  • TravelerExplorin' Jordan
    Day 5

    Leapfrogging From the Desert to the Sea

    February 29 in Jordan ⋅ ☀️ 73 °F

    Happy Leap Year!

    We awoke in our tent in the desert - I was surprised how very toasty I was under all the Bedouin blankets, even though the temperatures were near freezing last night. And the morning dawned clear and sunny, with gorgeous morning light on the canyons.

    We had breakfast in the camp, then our guide drove us out of the desert to Wadi Rum Village, where we had parked our rental car. The car was due back in Amman, the capital, at 7pm, and the drive from Wadi Rum was about four to five hours. So we decided that this was going to be a cross-country road trip.

    We drove north for two hours through more unscenic, scrubby desert. At 11am, we arrived at the ruins of Shobak Castle, a 12th century castle built by the Crusaders. We were going to just drive by and take a photo, but someone had set up a most perfect viewpoint, so we couldn't resist joining the tableau (go see the photo!).

    We got back on the road for a ninety-minute drive to Kerak Castle, another 12th century Crusader castle. Unlike Shobak, however, it was possible to explore the seven storeys of Kerak and take photos from its astonishing viewpoints. Kerak is huge- it was much larger than the castles built in Europe at that time, and includes barracks, a prison, a kitchen, a mosque and a church, tower fortifications, and an underground marketplace. I didn't expect a castle ruin to be as well presented and well-lit; Kerak Castle even had a tiny museum, where I pretended to mull the exhibits so that I could use the bathroom.

    We had parked our car in a tiny café's lot in exchange for promising to buy something when we returned. So after successfully conquering two castles, we shared some hummus, Arabic salads, and mint tea on the small terrace.

    By now, it was past 1pm, and we drove another hour over a mountain pass to the lowest place on the planet- the Dead Sea. At 430 meters/1412 feet below sea level, it's an astonishing place. And after seeing purely desert landscapes since our arrival, the stunning blue of the Dead Sea as we crested the mountain pass was a welcome change.

    We were told that we could buy a day pass at a fancy-pants Dead Sea resort for about €50 each, or we could go to the public beach for about €20, which includes showers and locker room access. But we discovered there is another option- many locals create their own "beach park," with a free car park and access the beach, with the expectation that you will buy a (ice cold tank) shower and a beverage afterwards at a MacGyver-like setup. This was our obvious choice, as I adore both "cheap" and locals who creatively exploit the tourism economy for their own benefit.

    The Dead Sea is so called because of its 34% salinity level, which is nine and a half times the saltiness of the ocean. You physically can't swim in it because the salt makes you so buoyant that you can only float on top of it. And it is impossible to sink. So as a swimmer, this was definitely something I wanted to experience. We parked the car, scrambled down the gravel cliffside, and found ourselves on a weird, white, deserted rock-salt beach.

    Given the cold, icy-breeze morning, we hadn't expected it to be warm enough to enter the water. But at 3pm, the temperature had skyrocketed to 23 C°/75F°, so this was now a Real Beach Day. So we took off our shoes and coverups, and left our bag on a lone bench.

    Taking our shoes off was a mistake. The hardened salt beach and surf floor was dried into pointy, painful spikes, and walking out into the water punctured our feet and hands...and the sea literally poured salt in our wounds. But when we got far enough out to float, I'm not gonna lie...it was fabulous. The water was as warm as bathwater, the sky was a cerulean blue, and we just floated. No arm stroke or kick was needed- it felt like I had an inflatable swim ring underneath myself. But the salty water began to itch and sting after a few minutes, so we walked back over the painful spikes to the beach, where we proceeded to bleed onto our PackTowls.

    We hiked back up the gravel path, and enjoyed a cup of mint tea while we stared at the sea. If it weren't for the thick, stiff salt crust drying on our skin and swimsuits, we could have been in Barcelona. (Although we'd probably be drinking wine instead of this tea nonsense.) And Matt assured me that chefs use salt crusts to tenderize and preserve the juiciness of meat, so I expect to be quite flavorful and tender tomorrow.

    We got back on the road at 4:30pm, and began the winding, switchbacked drive up to Mount Nebo. Mount Nebo is mentioned in the Old Testament; this is where, after dragging the Israelites around the desert, Moses finally saw New Canaan, or the Promised Land. According to the legend, God let Moses SEE the Promised Land, but wouldn't let him actually GO there, because Moses hurt God's little feelings and apparently the Old Testament God is a petty b*tch (I'm paraphrasing here). Moses died soon after, and his grave was never found- though it's assumed to be on the other side of the sea, in Israel. (Also: You can see Israel from here!) Today, there's a Musa Museum (Moses is called "Musa" in Jordan) atop Mount Nebo, with a fabulous view over the Dead Sea, and parts of Israel and Palestine. Given that Moses is revered as a prophet in all three Abrahamic religions (Judiasm, Islam, and Christianity), it's quite an elaborate, beautiful museum and park.

    It also closes at 5pm, and we didn't arrive until 5:15pm. So much like Moses, we were allowed to SEE the Promised Land Museum, we just weren't allowed to ENTER the museum. We decided that this was a more authentic experience, took a few photos, and left.

    We returned our rental car, hailed an Uber to Amman's city center, and after checking into our hotel, attempted to shower the desert dust and sand and Dead Sea salt off our filthy selves.    Read more

  • TravelerExplorin' Jordan
    Day 6

    Annivers-Air Jordan

    March 1 in Jordan ⋅ 🌬 64 °F

    Today is our wedding anniversary! And for the first time on this trip, we celebrated by NOT getting up before 8am.

    After a long, leisurely breakfast on our guesthouse's rooftop terrace, we spent the day exploring Amman, Jordan's capital city. It's a loud, frenetic, ancient city, with the kind of chaos that reminds me of the nonstop motion of Cairo or Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam. Beige concrete houses are crowded up the seven hillsides of Amman, modern high-rises glitter on the edges, and every building could be either built in 1940, the 11th century, or last week. I wouldn't say it's a pretty city, but it has a certain buzzy energy.

    We walked to Amman's most famous landmark, the Citadel. It's an archaeological site atop one of the seven hills (omg, I am so done with this trip's stairs and hills), and is one of the world's oldest continually inhabited places. The first people lived here during the Bronze Age, around 1800 BC. Multiple empires moved in over the millennia, and the site still contains impressive Roman and Byzantine structures. It's also pretty huge- it sprawls over the entire hill, and the Temple of Hercules and the Citadel's fortification walls can be seen from many places in Amman.

    We spent an hour or so wandering the site. It's an active archaeological dig site, and despite the multiple structures, the majority of the Citadel has yet to be excavated. So while it may look cool, there's a shit ton of work still to do. I thought this was an appropriate metaphor for a long-term marriage anniversary. In a good way, of course. Really.

    After viewing the Citadel, we walked down MORE F*CKING STAIRS cut into the hillside, to visit Amman's 2nd-century Roman amphitheater. Now, I luvs me a good amphitheater- we counted eight countries off the tops of our heads where we've traveled to see one- but rarely do you see one in such pristine condition that it houses two museums, the occasional rap concert, and also functions as a public park. We clambered up the stone steps, and sat to people-watch for an hour.

    Our next stop was the Grand Husseini Mosque, but it was shut hard for renovations. So we headed over to see the Bukhariyeh Souk (market), only to realize that with it being Friday, everything was closed (in the Muslim world, Friday is their version of Sunday). So! The final place on our itinerary was the famous Hashem restaurant. This place has been in existence since the 1940s, has no menu, no serving sizes (the waiter sizes you up, and determines an appropriate portion) and has all the ambience and decor of an abandoned garage. And yet, the falafel, hummus, pita, and salad were amazing, and somehow the bill totalled just 1.50 dinar (about €2) per person. I'm in love, and want to move in immediately.

    There wasn't much else to see on our itinerary, so we found a shisha bar overlooking the main shopping street, ordered a grape and mint sheesha, and happily puffed away like the Caterpillar from "Alice in Wonderland" for several hours.

    We had late evening reservations at Fakhreldin, a Levantine restaurant listed as one of the 50 best restaurants in the Middle East and Africa. Levantine cuisine refers to the food from the modern-day regions of Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria. It features a lot of vegetables, pita, chickpeas, nuts, grilled meats, and creamy dips. It's a veggie-lovers' paradise- the tomatoes here are the best I've had outside of Spain. Fakhreldin elevates these ingredients into fine dining, and the restaurant itself is housed in the beautiful, mansion-like former home of the Jordanian Prime Minister. It's fancy! It's our anniversary!

    We ordered grilled eggplant with pomegranate sauce and pinenuts (good, but a bit tart); pickled artichoke salad (the only dish we didn't love); chicken balls (hollow balls of chicken meat, fried and filled with butter, pistachios, and parsley. They were amazing, but given that they were listed on the menu under "goat gonads," obviously we had questions); mouhamara, which is a walnut, pomegranate, and red pepper spread that was so good I nearly ate the entire plate myself; and a mixed grill platter of chicken, lamb, and kebabs. We also ordered Jordanian wine, which I set down in my blind spot and proceeded to knock over onto the white tablecloth. Classy.

    Fakhreldin knew it was our anniversary, and brought us Arabic-style ice cream known as "booza," with a lit candle for dessert. Booza is much like Turkish ice cream- it doesn't melt because it contains mastic (a rubbery ingredient found in chewing gum), and salep, or orchid flour. If it sounds gross, you are indeed correct. In my opinion, it's an abomination against ice cream, and I only ate the pistachios on top. Though I must give props to a cuisine that uses nuts in its starters, mains, AND desserts. The squirrel in me is very pleased.

    So happy 28th anniversary to us, and tomorrow we venture up north to see more castles!    Read more

  • TravelerExplorin' Jordan
    Day 7

    Jerash-ic Parks

    March 2 in Jordan ⋅ ☀️ 72 °F

    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

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