Day 13 The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

We finally arrive in Jordan. Just getting ferry tickets was an experience. We stood patiently line as various Arabs pushed their way into line. Of course we didn't understand the protocol for pushing so we just waited patiently. Finally we got our tickets and waited around. In the meantime, we grabbed a watermelon for lunch and watched all the goats run around and feed on the trash. Nuweiba is an armpit. Iraqi Kurdistan was a resort compared to this town. We were then allowed into the departure area which felt like a huge warehouse with benches. The ferry was a surprising change - very modern and comfortable. Once arriving in Aqaba, we process through customs and caught a cab to Petra (30 JD) with another couple from Italy. What struck me about the ride up was how fast the landscape changed. Jordan is also a lot more expensive. I've only been here a couple of hours and have burned through (16+7.5+10+5) JD = $55. In preparation for our Petra trek, we bought some apples and a melon for breakfast in the town. Quaint little town.

Does this look familiar? This is the narrow canyon that Indiana Jones rode his horse through in The Last Crusade. This is the entrance to Petra and Dan looks mighty small

Day 14

Petra. woke up early in morning to 5-o'clock prayer call, roosters, and donkeys. Petra is an amazing site both archeologically and geologically and is probably the most impressive site we saw. The sandstone canyons are carved and cut in amazing patterns and the walls show brilliant blues, yellows, reds etc. running through. Archeologically, the buildings, housed and temples are carved right into rock and some Bedouin families still live in these houses. It is definitely a must see if you go to the Middle East. Of course the souvenir peddlers are thick at Petra. The most interesting was the young Jordanian girl who taunted me because I wouldn't buy anything and thought I was Japanese. I promptly sicced her on Dan.

All through our trip, I gave into my compulsion to play with each cat we came across. Most were street cats who had no interest in a little scritching, but at Petra there was a cat that literally climbed up my leg for a petting. Another funny thing that happened involved the melon we bought for breakfast. I had put our apples in my backpack and assumed that Dan had the melon. He thought the same and as a result, we left it in the room. Once we got to a nice place for breakfast, we each took out everything else for breakfast for the melon. I remember that I kept wondering why he didn't bring out the melon, that maybe he wanted to save it. In any case I figured he had a good reason. Finally we finished everything else and were both sitting there wishing the other would bring out the melon. One of us eventually asked for it and we both had a pretty good laugh over it.

No site in the Middle East site would be complete without all the goats. There were goats all over the place (incl. inside tombs). Petra is a large site and while we saw it in one day, we did a lot of walking and got a pretty good workout. Still, I don't think that we could have stretched it out for two days. For dinner, we tried mansaf, the Jordanian national dish, for first time. It's pretty good. Jordan is still eating up a lot of money $100 in first 36 hours

Day 15

Our hotel, the Petra Gate Hotel, wanted to arrange a cab to Amman for us (32 JD split 4 ways) among the other things they tried to sell us. We decided instead to catch the 0700 minibus for 2.5 JD. The ride was pretty uneventful but crowded. Amman is certainly more orderly and cleaner than Cairo. After we checked in, we exchanged some more money (6.5 JD commission for $100 traveler's checks) and had lunch. I had fuul for the first time (beans with chili's drenched in olive oil. Lunch for both of us came out to be 1 JD which was certainly a nice change because compared to Egypt everything had seemed super expensive so far. The guy eating next to us turned out to be a tour guide for German tourists who was leaving for Austria the next day and we had a pleasant little chat with him.

Our hotel in Amman had the first squat toilets that we had to use and we had an interesting discussion about the finer points (and suckiness) of using a squat toilet without splashing, systems thinking and toilet paper, or letting your towel fall into the toilet. That night we went to La Terrese in Shmeisani (the yuppie hangout) for a slightly more expensive (15 JD) dinner which provided a nice change of pace. We had a nice lamb and chicken dish with beer and enjoyed a nice elevated view of the area

My first impressions of Jordan are good. It seems much more expensive than Egypt but is also much cleaner and orderly. There also isn't the over military presence that you seen in Egypt and Israel. It seems like everyone in the Middle East is a nice dresser - decent shoes, slacks, button down shirts. Even the women have nice head scarves.

Day 16

Jeresh is supposedly the best preserved Roman ruins. After Petra and Luxor I was kind of underwhelmed because it really was a ruin with crumbled buildings and weeds. However, once we got to looking around, it was quite fascinating. The two theaters in particular are very nice and it's amazing how large the site is. Rome has more impressive sites but they're not tied together like Jeresh is. We hung out at the North Theater for a while and watched some of the site laborers horse around to the accompaniment of stereo prayer calls.

When we got back, we napped some more then headed out to Al-Quds for another mansaf dinner. I was very pleased. We each got a good 1/2 chicken over rice with a bowl of yogurt sauce, bread, and tea for 2.5 JD each. The restaurant was a nice setting and the service was great. After dinner, we went next door for dessert and basically asked for one of everthing in the window. Surprisingly the desserts were not as sweet as I expected and that was nice. I wish I had the names but everything was really good.

Tomorrow we go to Israel