Journey to Israel

Rather than taking a simple flight into Israel, we opted for the far cheaper and more experiential option of a terrestrial crossing. From Amman, the closest entry point is across the Allenby bridge, named for that notable Viscount, who led the victorious British forces into Jerusalem during the Great War.

This trip had the potential to be exceptionally interesting, as based on stories we had seen online we expected to be interrogated by the Israeli's on the purpose of our visit, a process that some said could take several hours. We were especially concerned as our first Airbnb is in Bethlehem, which is in the West Bank, and currently controlled by the Palestinian Authority. This area was once governed by Jordan, but given up after Israel's successes in the Six Day War of 1967. Since then, Israel has occupied the area, a state of affairs that has engendered much enmity from the Palestinians living there. Dubious online sources suggested that our stay there would raise warning flags at the border crossing, a dour prospect to our party.

Getting to the border crossing from our abode proved interesting in itself, as we opted for an Uber, which is cheap and easy, and also illegal in Jordan. We risked nothing severe ourselves, as when one of these criminal conveyances is apprehended the passengers simply have to disembark early, while the driver alone is faced with a hefty fine. On entering our ride, the driver, who spoke little English, showed us a sign with the name of his 'company,' as well as a corresponding name tag. It was not obvious what exactly we were to do with this information in case of a police stop, but fortunately such an opportunity did not present itself, and we were deposited without incident at the Jordanian side of the border.

Here we were initially met with some confusion, a fire kindled by a random man who wanted four dinars for a service we could not fathom, and fueled by inadequate signage for us travellers. Nevertheless, we soon found ourselves in the relevant building, and after waiting some time at an empty window the proper employee showed himself, and sent us on our way.

Our exit documents finalized, we settled into the bus that conducts people across the border, where we waited about 45 minutes for it to fill up and depart. While crossing the bridge the bus stopped several times, during which our various documents (and the bottom of the bus, with the aid of mirrors) were checked for issues.

At the Israeli side, we waited through a long line for a TSA like experience, where both bags and personages were subjected to various types of radiation, after which the dreaded interrogation loomed before us. This proved anticlimactic, and after a few minutes of cursory questions, our friendly interlocutor beckoned us through the final door, into the welcoming sunshine of Israel.

From the border we took a shared taxi into Jerusalem, where we indulged ourselves with a somewhat pricey lunch atop a nearby hotel, before taking a bus into Bethlehem. During this ride, armed Israeli soldiers entered the bus and checked everyone's documents, an occurrence that also happened during the previous taxi ride.

Deposited at our appointed stop, we soon found our Airbnb with the help of our host, who met us at the stop, a fortunate occurrence as we would otherwise have spent the remainder of the day meandering through the winding streets of that little town.

-Nathaniel

 

Jordanian side of the border seen from our illegal Uber

 

The Israeli side of the border

 

Lunch overlooking Jerusalem

Back to Petra and Through the Jordan Rift Valley

Before heading back North to Amman, we decided to return to Petra for one last crusade early in the morning to beat the crowds. This we did, entering the park shortly before 6:00 am Wednesday morning with the aim of visiting some of the northern sites that we had missed the previous day.

Our early departure proved fruitful, for we found the Siq to be deserted as we enjoyed a tranquil perambulation down its undulating way. The Treasury valley was nearly as empty, with a couple of tourists and vendors wandering around in the still morning air. Once again our course took us to the right, but rather than branching south to venture up to the Place of High Sacrifice as we had previously done we continued west, passing the amphitheater on our left and the heading towards the row of cliff side tombs to the north.

These four tombs are known collectively as the Royal Tombs, and are believed to have been built for various Nabataean kings, although there is some dispute over which king occupied each tomb. The interior chambers vary in size according to the width of the exterior facade, but none reach too deeply into the mountainside. We found these rooms to be fairly plain, mostly with flat walls and some niches.

Next we ventured further west, taking a modern and rough looking bridge over a deep, dried up river bed to see several more ruins in the hills north of the main path leading to the Monastery. These included the so called Temple of the Winged Lions, named for the beasts that once adorned its now shattered capitals, the finely mosaicked Byzantine Church, built during the Fifth Century over the remains of a Roman structure, and the Blue and Red chapels, named for the color of the columns of the former and the walls of the latter.

Nearly satisfied by these crumbling edifices, we decided to take one more hike up into the mountains to get a good view of the Treasury before leaving the park. Once again trudging up winding stairs cut into the mountainside, we pondered the passions of the ancient race that had prompted them to carve their way ever higher into the firmament away from the level and comfortable ground.

These ruminations did not hinder our appreciation of the Treasury, whose stately facade presently appeared before us after some climbing up and down into the hills beyond the mountainous cliffs containing the Royal Tombs. Tired after our climb (and lack of breakfast) we paused here some time before venturing down again and returning to our hotel for our drive north to Amman.

This we begun after stopping at the ruins of Shobak Castle, a picturesque albeit crumbling Crusader fortress situated on the outskirts of the city of Shaubak 10 miles north of Wadi Musa. With enough of the walls still intact to render its appearance imposing, we found this ruin to be refreshingly isolated from the bustle of any surrounding city, with only rolling hills and distant mountains visible from its ramparts. 

Our visit to this site being brief, we soon were once more traveling north. Rather than retracing our steps on the flat Desert Highway traveled earlier, we wound our way along the scenic King's Highway which runs through the center of the country along the Jordan Rift Valley (the Desert Highway is 10 miles to the east). The spectacular changes in elevation and the frequent small and bustling cities sprinkled along the way made for slow going, and it was not until after dark that we reached the airport to take a shared taxi to our Airbnb in Amman. 

-Theodore

Alone in the Siq

The Treasury in the early morning stillness

Making our way through the Outer Siq, the empty and untended vendor stands a refreshing sight

A donkey and her calf wandering through the empty paths

Tut 1 and Mummy in front of the Amphitheater

The early morning sun creeping into the valley

The Corinthian Tomb, which resembles the Treasury in design but is more heavily eroded

The interior of the Urn Tomb, which was later converted into a church. The apses were added during this conversion.  

Tut 1 and Mummy in front of the Palace Tomb, which is supposedly modeled after the Golden House of Nero.

Tut 1 in the Byzantine Church. The modern covering was added to protect the fine mosaics on the floor.

An example of the floor mosaics in the Byzantine Church

Camels taking it easy in the hills of Petra

Climbing into the mountains

Mummy with a Petra cat

 The whole crew with the Treasury in the background

The ruins of Shobak Castle

Tut 2 in front of gothic arches in the castle

Shobak castle commands a formidable position in the hills bordering the Rift Valley

Wind-blown trees and windmills by the King's Highway

A butcher's shop in one of the small towns along the King's Highway. We failed to get a picture of a similar shop featuring a whole camel hanging for display, skinned but for its neck and head.

Going through the Jordan Rift Valley

Amman by night

Petra

A drizzly morning greeted us as we awoke Tuesday morning for our first and only full day in Wadi Musa, the town bordering the historic city of Petra. Our spirits were lifted, however, after we consumed a hearty hotel breakfast and departed to the site beneath clearing skies around 7:30 that morning.

We found the visitor center bustling with both tourists and trinket-toting vendors, and decided to bypass these hordes to head directly for the park entrance. This opens to a gently winding dirt road that slopes downward into the canyon, bordered in several places by a variety of small historic structures and monuments. These rock hewn edifices give the unsuspecting visitor his first taste of the marvels to come.

A little over three quarters of a mile down this path is the entrance to the iconic Siq canyon, the narrow mountain gorge that leads to Petra. Formed by a natural split in the mountain smoothed by the flow of water, this path winds on for yet another three quarters of a mile, varying in width so that we found ourselves walking through narrow passages roughly 10 feet across to those several times wider, arranged periodically along the route. Most of the path in the canyon is roughly paved, with some sections containing reproductions of the original large cobblestones.

The last bit of the canyon forgoes these niceties in favor of a simple dirt surface, whose arrival heralds the nearness to the gorge's end. Here we got our first glimpse of the famous Treasury (Al-Khazneh in Arabic), the elaborately carved and colonnaded facade that is synonymous with Petra. The sight of this impressive edifice peeping through the undulating walls momentarily halted our progress, as we all stopped to ponder the civilization that created these ruins.

These industrious ancients are known as the Nabataeans, a race of nomadic Arabs who took this city as their capital around 300 BC (it had already been settled for perhaps almost 9000 years). The city's proximity to local trading routes made these people wealthy, and thereby increased its own grandeur and sophistication. Throughout the city are traces of water channels and cisterns which suggest a formerly lush landscape amid the arid desert.

Exiting the Siq brings travelers to a canyon running perpendicularly to this narrow gorge; the Treasury faces the opening with the route to the rest of the city branching out to the right. To the left the canyon shortly ends, although a path guarded by baksheesh-seeking guides snakes higher up into the canyon walls to afford visitors a superior view of the Treasury.

The right side route is called the Outer Siq; bordering this path is a large amphitheater carved into the slopes to the South with many elaborately facaded tombs engraved into the mountainside to the North. A large road heads from this route out into a wide valley lined with ruins and ending with yet another gorge between mountains in the West. A narrow path runs up and through this gorge for almost a mile to the famous Monastery, a rock hewn edifice similar to the Treasury in design but surpassing this monument in size.

Besides this general route are many smaller paths which snake up and down mountainsides and wind over the many hills of the valley, taking the plodding traveler to a myriad other monuments and rock hewn caves that are scattered over the city.

We began our first foray into this sprawling complex by taking one of these paths up into the mountains to the South of the Outer Siq. This route brought us up a great many steps to what is called the Place of High Sacrifice, which, as the reader may gather, occupies a rocky pinnacle commanding a panoramic view of the valley. A ruined structure and alter adorn this peak, which in ancient times was used as a place for arcane rituals.

Descending down the opposite side, away from the Outer Siq, brought us down more steps and treacherously winding paths which passed a variety of other ancient structures. These included a relief of a lion carved into the stone, whose mouth formerly spouted water, several spacious tombs, and an old garden with traces of water channels and cisterns.

Everywhere along this route (and indeed over most of the park) are old edifices and caves carved into the mountainsides. Some of these have nicely decorated facades, but the majority are unadorned, causing the observer to wonder whether the bulk of these cavities are the result of natural processes or the industry of man.

At any rate, today many of these caverns are inhabited by native goat herders, whose flocks we noticed grazing on the hills and mountainsides of the valley. Some of these troglodytes venture forth daily to sell hot tea and trinkets to the many tourists visiting the city; their sorry looking shacks of fabric and corrugated metal sheeting flank all of the paths near key points of interest so that visitors must frequently endure gauntlets of aggressive vendors nearly wherever they go.

Our path after reaching the valley floor took us West towards the mountains containing the route to the Monastery. Losing the barely marked trail, we found ourselves scrambling through what looked to be a dried up river bed that brought us up nearly to the feet of these towering cliffs, some ways South of the Monastery path. Dotting these cliffs is a cluster of tombs collectively called the Columbarium; to the North overlooking the main route in Petra is a small mountain whose summit is crowned by the ruins of an old Crusader castle itself built over a former Nabataean fortress.

Heading North we took the winding path up to these ruins; this mountaintop fortress proved reminiscent of the formidable Pog but with a more treacherous ascent and an even more precarious pinnacle, whose small windswept surface and steep sides almost invite the weary climber to cast himself into the bordering abyss. At the base of the upper levels of the fortress we enjoyed a simple lunch and panoramic view of the valley looking East towards the Outer Siq. Here we observed bustling crowds of tourists visiting the distant tombs across the valley and winding their way through the main route towards the Monastery gorge (behind us to our left as we sat). Upon leaving the main route to climb to the Place of High Sacrifice we had left these hordes, and were almost surprised to see the multitudes that wandered around on the valley floor like ants.

Descending from the castle ruins we rejoined the crowds and headed East towards the Monastery, making a slight detour to see several more rock hewn tombs. This route brought us weary travelers up a myriad of steps and slopes past more vendors and vistas, until finally reaching an opening in the valley with the Monastery carved into one cliff face. The stately aspect and imposing size of this edifice, whose style closely matches that of the Treasury, greatly impressed all of our party, especially as its appearance came as a surprise to all. Indeed, as we were not expecting another, grander copy of the Treasury, suddenly coming upon the Monastery was similar to finding another Parthenon on the Acropolis or a new Colosseum in Rome.

We reached the westward extant of our journey by venturing somewhat further to an adjacent pinnacle for yet another panoramic view of the surrounding mountains, which are all part of the Jordan Rift Valley.

The sun being well into its early descent, we decided to head straight back to the Siq, taking the main route on the valley floor which we had passed circuitously to the South on the former part of our journey. This path brought us past some of the main ruins of the park, including the famous Qasr al-Bint temple complex, the dry and crumbling Nabataean Baths, and the colonnaded Great Temple, which in its former glory was surrounded by verdant moats and channels.

All quite exhausted from a long days wanderings, we enjoyed a real beer from the bar in our hotel before venturing to an neighboring restaurant for another authentic meal, where among the delicacies enjoyed was camel.


-Theodore

 

Outside the main gate; the rain clouds dissipated and did not return 

 

Entering the Siq

 

First glimpse of the Treasury 

 Tut, Mummy, and Tut in front of the Treasury

 

First steps up to the Place of High Sacrifice

View from the path

 

Tut and Tut at the Place of High Sacrifice, with the valley below

 The Place of High Sacrifice

 

The carved lion, observe the channel through which water once flowed out of the (now missing) lion's mouth

 

Many carved caves speckle the landscape

 

More caves

 

Detail of richly colored bands on a rock wall, such patterns were evident all over the site

 

Path leading up to the old fortress, note the precarious bridge 

 Commanding view from the old fortress; the Siq opening is the darker portion of the mountains near the center of the frame.

 

Lunch amidst the rubble of the crusader castle

 

A pair of goats wandering among the rocks

 

The Monastery, similar to the Treasury, but impressively larger

 

Dinner. The camel dish is to the right; through the spices it is indistinguishable from beef (but pretty tough) 

Update

Two busy days have left no time to update this blog, so posts for Tuesday and Wednesday will come a little later. Tomorrow (Thursday) we cross into Israel via the Allenby Border Bridge, which is sure to be an adventure in itself.

Africa to Asia

Today we left Africa, flying out of Cairo to the Jordanian capital Amman near the extreme western extremity of the Asian continent.

Our flight on Royal Jordanian Air proved uneventful, and, by what we could tell from the landmarks viewed from the cabin, took us on a somewhat indirect course that avoided Israeli airspace, over the South Sinai peninsula. Those of our party on the right side of the aircraft viewed the two northern fingers of the Red Sea, which border this terrestrial triangle and separate the continents.

Upon landing we found Jordan to be cool and comparatively lush, with much small shrubbery and trees. Our drive from the airport to our hotel in Petra brought us through a good deal of this countryside, which consisted primarily of rolling rocky hills covered with shrubs and punctuated by rocky outcroppings for the majority of our journey, before becoming more mountainous and foresty nearer our destination. Much of the former land looks to be farmed at some time of the year, despite being quite dusty for our drive.

The towns and small cities we passed through mostly resembled those we saw in Egypt but for their smaller density and slightly increased cleanliness. We even saw more of the unfinished buildings which I had previously taken to be an Egyptian phenomenon, with incomplete floors and exposed clusters of rebar. The motivation behind this design yet remains unclear, but I suspect structures may be left this way to facilitate the addition of more floors. The dry climate here probably puts less value on a complete roof than we are used to, making them a luxury.

Driving in Jordan is nothing like Egypt, and we found no problem negotiating the streets apart from the occasional unmarked speed hump which interrupted our smooth path. Street signs are fortunately bilingual (as are most of the natives) and the route to Petra was further accentuated by periodic signs such that we could have nearly found our way with no map. Our hotel is situated fortunately near to this historic site so that we found it by following the signs to the latter, for the modern city of Petra (Wadi Musa) is a regular labyrinth of small streets and alleys which could baffle even Theseus.

Arriving earlier than expected, we stopped for lunch before checking in to our hotel, which we mostly enjoyed in a small restaurant a ways up the road (found by venturing away from the ancient city and the more expensive eateries there). Here we got Jordanian dishes reminiscent of those in Egypt and likewise pretty good. The beer situation on the other hand proved to be poor, and against our better judgement we tried a local non alcoholic brew. This proved to be so bad (with the smell and taste of a camel) that we returned the two unopened cans and got water instead.

We were surprised by a slight drizzle when we checked in to our hotel and then by a more regular rain later, which according to a local shopkeeper is not unusual (they even get snow here occasionally, so much for my theory about no roofs). Rain or no rain we will visit the buried city today (Tuesday) unless the park is closed due to flash flooding. At any rate Wednesday should bring clear skies and if needed another visit to this ancient wonder.

 -Theodore

Off to Amman

A sliver of the Red Sea

Driving in Jordan is much more civilized than in Egypt, but then again we did not experience the hectic traffic of any big cities. 

Particularly lush airport grounds

A mosque on the way to Petra

More unfinished buildings

The rolling hills of Jordan

Trees in the more mountainous countryside

Looking down into the valley leading to the entrance to the buried city. Our hotel is one of the buildings near the center right of the frame. The entrance to Petra is at the end of the road pictured.

Mummy and Tut 1 with the mountainside in the background. The looming clouds forshadow some rain.

 Happy travelers (until they taste the beer)