Egypt and Jordan, April 2017 (Part III, Petra and the Heshimite Kingdom of Jordan)

Petra & the Heshemite Kingdom of Jordan…

The three of us continuing on after the Egyptian journey, Noel and I and our friend Kay, had an uneventful flight from Cairo to Amman, Jordan, on Royal Jordanian Airlines. In an effort to increase tourism the Jordanian Government waives the visa fee of $60 for visitors who are with a travel company. We saved $120 and experienced a positive vibe about Jordan right away. Our tour director for this final leg of our journey was Ahmad Al-Khaldi.

Jordan is quite a contrast to Egypt. Although a Sunni Muslim country like Egypt and a monarchy unlike Egypt, Jordan seems much more modern and liberal. It appeared to us that more women go out in public without the hijab whereas in Egypt I understand many more women are wearing the head covering than they had been in the past. In Amman we even saw propaganda posters promoting equality between the sexes.  There also seems to be more emphasis on education. For example, in Petra we saw a whole series of signs asking travelers to not buy trinkets from children because they should be in school, not in the streets hustling.

Like Egypt, the tourism industry in Jordan has suffered enormously in recent years because of the turmoil of the Arab Spring and the wars being fought in Iraq and Syria that border the country.  However, King Abdullah introduced modest parliamentary reforms that extended democratic rights and that seemed to quell much of the unrest generated by the Arab Spring. He did this and continues to do it at a time when this country of roughly 9 million has taken in about 1.5 million refugees mostly from Syria.

The huge influx of refugees has been a severe strain on Jordan’s economy. According to Ahmad, our guide, this is reflected in the steep rise in the price of housing and food and the increasing strain on the public education system. Having written all this, I saw a country that seemed to have a reasonably high standard of living and good public services. It is an island of stability in the midst of a very troublesome neighborhood with Saudi Arabia to the east and south, Iraq to the northeast, Syria to the north and Israel and Palestine to the west.  

After exiting the airport in Amman, we hit the ground running. Our first stop was at the Greek Orthodox Basilica of St. George in Madaba with its Byzantine mosaic map of the region dating from the 6th century AD. The art of mosaic making is undergoing a revival in Jordan. I’m not sure if the art form ever really died out. The archaeological history of mosaic making in Jordan goes back to Herod’s palace in the 1st century BC and continues through the Byzantine and Ottoman empires. Later on that afternoon we saw more mosaics in the Byzantine church and the Franciscan monastery on Mount Nebo that date back to the 4th century AD.

After a really fine lunch at a private home in Madaba we drove to nearby Nebo. It is a must stop for the many Christian tourists and church groups who travel to the Holy Land to visit the sacred sites. Mount Nebo is supposedly where Moses stopped to view the Promised Land after wandering in the desert for 40 years.

On a very clear day you can actually see Jerusalem from its summit. It was a bit hazy the day we were there. Moses apparently died before reaching the Promised Land and his burial spot is unknown. His brother Aaron also died before reaching the Promised Land, but some traditions claim to know the spot where he was buried.

From the summit of Nebo you can actually see what is supposed to be Aaron’s tomb, a white spot way off in the distance. If you are fit and have the energy and time, you can climb up to it.

Whether you are a believer or not, it is an interesting experience being in the land of Moses, Jesus and Mohamed, but I didn’t feel a spiritual connection at the time. Writing this now, I think of Martin Luther King’s last public speech on the eve of his assassination in 1968. “And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. And I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”

A message of hope and faith in a dark time, not unlike today.

I was quite struck by two stunning art pieces that commemorate the site – the stone monolith at the entrance and the metal Brazen Serpent monument overlooking the valley below. The monolith by Italian sculptor Vincenzo Bianchi has a profile of Moses on one side and pages of a book on the other. The pages reference the sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam but also honor the great works of scientific discovery and human enlightenment that emerged from these traditions.

Before leaving the area to make our way to Petra, we stopped at a mosaic workshop that trains and employs women and disabled people. Jordan Jewel for Art and Mosaic is one of many local mosaic workshops promoted by Queen Noor, the widow of King Hussein who was the father of the current King Abdullah II.

A lovely young woman showed us around the workshop and sold us a beautiful traditional mosaic tile of the tree of life. The frame is especially beautiful.

Our guide Ahmad introduced us to the maker, a Syrian refugee named Hilal Al Ashab. Hilal’s specialty is inlaid wood. He makes everything from small frames like the one around our tile to quite astonishingly large chests, tables and chairs. In his work he uses woods from lemon, eucalyptus and other trees with contrasting natural colors. Unfortunately, his is a dying art form, but maybe it will also be revived like mosaic making.

It is a three-hour drive to Petra from Amman including a half hour stop so Ahmad and our driver could pray. We had reservations for two nights at the Movenpick Resort Petra which is located very close to the Siq, the main entrance into Petra. The hotel is part of the same Swiss-run chain that manages the hotel we liked so much in Luxor, Egypt, as well as the cruise boats on Lake Nasser and the Nile. It has a nice bar, but there are a lot of smokers in Jordan (at least among the folks who drink alcohol), so we were forced to have our cocktails in the atrium outside the bar. It’s probably the best hotel in Petra. We very much enjoyed staying there. There is also a really nice gift shop in the lobby which we didn’t discover until we were getting ready to go back to Amman.

The next day, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, Kay, Noel and I, plus our guide Ahmad, began the dramatic hike into the “lost city” famously featured in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” The weather was perfect, sunny with a few clouds, the temperature moderate. The total hike is roughly three miles each way on an easy slope down into and up out of the city.

Petra is a red sandstone city built sometime between 400 and 300 BC by Arab caravan traders and nomadic herdsmen known as Nabataeans. They basically controlled the area between the Sinai and the Arabian Peninsulas bordered by Judea to the north and Ptolemaic Egypt to the southwest. As the Nabataeans gradually established permanent settlements, Petra emerged as their capital. Like the ancient Egyptians, today what you mainly see are their tombs.

The genius of the Nabataean people was their mastery of hydrology in a desert environment that coincided with the major north-south and east-west trade routes that provided the ancient world with incense, spices, silks and other luxury goods.

The Nabataeans would dig cisterns in the desert and cover them up so only they would know the locations. This enabled the Nabataeans to extract tribute from rival caravans crossing their territory and to protect them from potential enemies.

Petra itself was an amazing hydraulic engineering feat that included carving channels out of the rock and building clay pipes, dams and cisterns to collect water not only to supply the city but also to irrigate the surrounding farmland.

The city was able to maintain its independence until around the 2nd century AD when it was finally occupied by Rome. Petra was wracked by a devastating earthquake in May 363 AD and never fully recovered. After another earthquake in 551 AD it sank into oblivion and was eventually abandoned. Known only to the local Bedouins, the city’s existence was lost to the outside world until the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt “rediscovered” it in 1812.

The walk into the city is truly astounding. Although there are other ways into the city, during its heyday honored guests were escorted into Petra via the Siq. If any of them had any ideas about trying to skip out of paying the appropriate tribute or somehow scamming what many of them thought were primitive desert people, they quickly abandoned these notions when they saw the beauty and advanced infrastructure of this remarkable place. The architectural remains reflect all the cultures the Nabataeans traded with – Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Byzantine.

The trail was lined with lots of vendors and men offering camel, donkey, horse and carriage rides but there was none of the desperate intensity we experienced in Egypt. The rock formations rival those of the Grand Canyon and some almost seem carved by human hands. All along the way the gorge is lined with remnants of clay pipes that emptied into cisterns. The climax is, of course, the sudden dramatic appearance of “The Treasury” which is actually the mausoleum of King Aretas IV (9 BC to 40 AD) and the setting for the Indiana Jones film.

The trail continues through a valley with more tombs carved out of the rock, an interesting amphitheatre, lots of caves and restaurants and small shops run by the Bdoul Bedouins who used to live in the tombs and caves of Petra until they were resettled by the government in 1985.

Towards the end of the trail we visited the shop of Marguerite van Geldermalsen and her son Raami.

Marguerite van Geldermalsen is the author of the book Married to a Bedouin. It is a very interesting account of contemporary Petra and its nearby Bedouin population.  Traveling from New Zealand with a girl friend, in 1978 she met, fell in love and married a Bdoul Bedouin souvenir seller named Mohammad Abdallah. They had three children and raised them in a resettlement village near Petra. Mohammad died in February 2002.

​The shop run by Raami is very nicely stocked with interesting silver jewelry made by women in a workshop started by Marguerite as well as other traditional Bedouin arts.

I bought a really nice silver medallion of the Nabataean goddess Al-Uzza-Isis, the pre-Islamic equivalent of Aphrodite. Marguerite happened into the shop with her twin grandsons while we were there. It was a very nice encounter.

After the three of us had lunch at a very pleasant buffet restaurant at the end of the trail, we were on our own for the hike back.  Kay decided she wanted to explore a bit, so Noel and I hit the trail back to the hotel. Later, Kay who grew up on a ranch in southern California told us that she struck a deal with one of the men offering horseback rides and took off up the hillside like a Bedouin. We would have loved to have seen that.

The next morning after the usual huge buffet breakfast that began each day in both Egypt and Jordan, we drove back to Amman. We made a very brief stop to look at a 12th century Crusader fortification castle in Al-Karak.

This was our day to tour Amman, a really beautiful city with mostly white buildings. Our first stop was the new Jordan Museum that houses some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, specifically the Copper Scroll.

Ahmad then escorted us on a walking tour of downtown Amman, starting with lunch at a legendary Jordanian restaurant called Hashem. It is known for its falafel which was rapidly becoming my favorite food to snack on. Although a working class café, Hashem is everybody’s favorite, including King Abdullah.

Lunch was followed by an amazing dessert called kanafah at another eatery nearby. Kanafah is a semolina, cheese, honey and pistachio concoction that is simply to die for.

Fortified with delicious Jordanian food, we then walked through a beautiful fruit and vegetable market. It was the season (April) for fresh almonds and gigantic heads of cabbage the size of basketballs.

We ended the day with a visit to the Citadel overlooking the city. The Citadel is considered a very important archeological site because it has been continuously occupied by humans since the Neolithic period. There is a small museum there with a collection of exquisite artifacts. One of the major ruins is the Temple of Hercules.  All that remains of the Hercules colossus is one his huge hands and a shoulder.

We ended the day with a visit to the Citadel overlooking the city. The Citadel is considered a very important archeological site because it has been continuously occupied by humans since the Neolithic period. There is a small museum there with a collection of exquisite artifacts. One of the major ruins is the Temple of Hercules.  All that remains of the Hercules colossus is one his huge hands and a shoulder.

We were absolutely exhausted when we finally checked into the five-star Kempinski Hotel Amman. When we had been in our room for a while, I heard water running and I remember thinking that we must be near a swimming pool that I hadn’t noticed when we entered our room. Suddenly, our companion Kay started banging on our door and shouting, “You have to come out and see this!” Opening the door, we saw part of a wall opened up to expose the pipes and water running full blast down to the floors below. Thankfully, our room and Kay’s were dry. Noel and I retreated to the bar downstairs at the other end of the hotel.

In the bar we were treated to some truly beautiful piano music provided by pianist Laith Al-Baiyaa. After chatting with him a bit during a break, we learned that his father is a dentist on Long Island. He gave us a couple of really nice CD’s. Then suddenly we heard loud drumming nearby and witnessed the entrance of a large wedding party into the lobby. Sweet! We joined in on the clapping. A nice ending to the day.

On our last day in Jordan we drove to Jerash, a city located about 30 miles north of Amman toward Syria. The Jordanian countryside in April is really beautiful with lots of blooming spring flowers. Jerash is the site of a well-preserved Greco-Roman city, often called “the Pompeii of the East.” It flourished during the time of Alexander the Great because of its location on major trade routes. It was later destroyed by a series of earthquakes and then rediscovered in 1925.

To be honest, after touring Egypt and then Petra, the Greco-Roman ruins of Jerash were a bit anti-climactic. But the weather was perfect, the poppies lovely, and the setting beautiful. It was time to go home.