Jordan 2011 - towards Petra and the desert

Amman

We set off from Malpensa. While I'm waiting to board I first meet an Italian guy who lives in Spain, also setting off on a tourist trip to Jordan, and a Palestinian gentleman who works in Italy and is going back home for a while. It's a first stroke of luck; we decide to share a taxi once we arrive in Amman so we can save something and avoid the bus, which wouldn't exactly take me right near the hotel. The Palestinian gentleman, moreover, speaks Arabic and can negotiate the price and talk better with the taxi driver. My hotel is in the centre but it's a bit hidden down a side street and it takes us a while to find it until the taxi driver calls the manager by phone and he comes to pick me up. The best thing about the hotel at first sight is that there's hot water; and that says it all! But for me it'll do.

While I'm checking in I meet 2 Italian girls who are leaving, who say they're happy with how they found it and that's comforting. Indeed the manager will prove to be very helpful and welcoming. After going out to withdraw money from the ATM, accompanied by a guy who works at the hotel, and having drunk the first complimentary tea, at 10.30 I'm ready to go to sleep.

Jerash-Amman

I wake up very early. Not by choice, but if you stay near a mosque, there's no alternative. The ATMs here don't recognize my credit cards, but in the end I manage to get money from a bank. The hotel manager gives me directions for taking the shared taxi to the bus station. It's an experience, because you travel just like and with the locals. At the bus station I ask for directions to the bus for Jerash. Once on board, I wait at least an hour before it departs, while it fills up. There's also a French tourist I think, a Dutch girl and two English ladies. In an hour we arrive at Jerash. The Dutch girl gets off with me; we're not entirely sure we've gotten off at the right place, but by asking a policeman we find the entrance to the archaeological area nearby. The site is splendid; it preserves the remains of what was the ancient Roman city of Jerash.

You enter through the arch built for the visit of the emperor Hadrian and you walk through temples, theaters, the main street of the cardo maximus, the hippodrome and the distinctive oval plaza. The dry climate and the desert sand have preserved the main structures of this city, which has thus developed an ancient charm that solemnly surrounds the stones and columns of golden colors. The South Theater and the Temple of Artemis deserve a special mention. At the hippodrome I watch the show with Roman legionaries, gladiators and the chariot race, but it's not great. I meet a group of 4 Italians with whom I gladly exchange a few words and take advantage of their guide to learn something about the remains of some Byzantine churches. There's no shortage of vendors selling Roman coins.

Once outside, as I'm heading toward the bus stop, a car pulls up with 2 guys, one of them a policeman, and they ask if I want a ride to Amman; I accept, hoping it's free, though in fact I'll end up paying 1 JD, a fair price.

Madaba

25-10 Madaba I set off to move to Madaba, a little south of Amman. The bus seats are quite narrow and then I also have my backpack-luggage with me. In an hour I reach the small town, much calmer and more livable than Amman. Noteworthy because, having a certain Christian component, there are many women with their heads uncovered among the many with the veil or the burqa. The center is reachable and easily walkable on foot. In the morning I visit the main cultural attraction, the church of St. George with the famous mosaic-map of the Holy Land. It's a fixed stop for tour groups. In the afternoon, instead, I reach the church of St.

John the Baptist, neglected by Lonely Planet and where I meet who I imagine is the sacristan, who takes great pleasure in acting as my guide and explaining the history of the church; he takes me to visit the 3,000-year-old well, the work of the Nabataeans, which is inside, and then lets me climb the bell tower.

Madaba

For 2.5 JD a taxi takes me to Mount Nebo, the place where God led Moses to show him the Holy Land. It's a simple place with many trees, including olive trees, one of those spots you'd want to have near home to find a little peace and quiet. The haze reduces the view toward Jerusalem and Israel and only a sliver of the Dead Sea can be made out, and the beauty of the panorama, remarkable nonetheless, suffers a little for it. After leaving the site and getting away from the groups of tourists, I walk a short stretch of the road toward the Dead Sea and then climb up a hill and enjoy a little silence. For the return trip I manage to get a ride from three locals, one of them a woman who speaks English. In the afternoon I wander around Madaba a bit more and visit the MIMAR mosaic institute.

Karak

I move by taxi for 24 JD from Madaba to Karak, the site of the most famous Crusader castle in Jordan; the bus alternative was rather inconvenient because I would have had to go back to Amman. The landscape you cross while traveling along the King's Highway, with the rocky gorge of Wadi Mujib, is stunning. On the slopes, along the road that runs through the desert valley, there are curious resorts and restaurants made up of Bedouin tents. Karak is small but busy and the taxi driver struggles to get me to the hotel I've chosen, near the castle entrance. The walls are imposing and still well preserved, and while visiting the castle it's easy to use your imagination and picture what life might have been like for those who lived there, torn from their native land in Europe, perhaps in the following of their lord sent to occupy the Christian holdings conquered during the Crusades.

Indeed, in Karak today, around the statue of Saladin in the center of the city, Muslims, Orthodox and Roman Christians coexist. I spend the afternoon with Marina, a local girl I've just met who works as a guide, chatting about everything and wandering around the city, although, as she tells me, people might not like seeing a local girl in the company of a European tourist.

Dana

It's Friday and, due to the scarcity of public transport on the Muslim holiday, I take a taxi for 25 JD to reach the village of Dana in the reserve of the same name. I find myself in a place out of this world. A tiny village of stone houses, many ruins, uninhabited except for the 4-5 hotels, clinging to the top of the wild Wadi Dana. I take the path on foot that runs toward the valley floor and all around are mountains, rocks with colors from ochre to red, shrubs and trees that enclose in the valley a primitive silence that is almost unsettling. I walk the first stretch of the path enjoying the spectacle. On the way back I spot below me a flock of goats accompanied by the sound of a reed pipe.

The Dana Tower Hotel is picturesque, with rooms that look like multicolored monastic cells and one of the shared showers that is practically a niche 1.5 m high carved into the rock, but it's clean and there's hot water. On the terrace I enjoy the late afternoon sun along with a good book. But after sunset it starts to get cold. At dinner there will be about twenty guests, especially Central and Northern European, and finally I eat in company, sharing the table with 2 couples of young people. After dinner, in the common room, furnished with a rug and little sofas and a stove in the center, there's tea galore for everyone, a hookah and the hotel guy singing and playing percussion; there's also a guitar from one of the tourists and I throw myself into playing and singing too, fortunately earning good appreciation.

Dana

Today I set off along a path that runs along the side of the valley. The route is much more exciting than yesterday's. This time I'm truly alone and in a wild and evocative landscape; scenery that recalls certain Western film locations and rock formations sculpted by wind and sand into curious rounded shapes. Unfortunately, after a few hours of walking I have to turn back because I don't know where and when the path ends and whether there's the possibility of returning by another route. With a guide it might have been possible to go further. But it's enough to remain in awe of the beauty of the place. After dinner, in the common room, most of the guests have changed. The festive atmosphere hasn't changed. People are even dancing.

There are also two German girls traveling with a rental car and they agree to give me a ride the next day to Petra; they don't even want me to contribute to the fuel cost. I certainly don't imagine it will be a turning point for my trip.

Petra

We leave very early because it'll be a 2-hour drive and Petra deserves as much time as possible. We each carry a bag with an uninviting smell containing the breakfast provided by the hotel. The transfer is uneventful and, once in Wadi Musa, I invite Anja and Esther to stay at my hotel since they haven't booked; by mid-morning we're ready to enter Petra. The three-day ticket costs 60 JD (50 and 55 for 1 and 2 days), but visiting a place like this more than repays the price. Petra is a pink pearl in the heart of the Middle East, of a beauty so outside of time and space that it has no equal, a place where architecture and nature, art and ecology merge in a unique balance. Near the entrance is the Siq, a path that winds through a spectacular gorge 20 meters deep formed by a crack in the rock. The Siq then emerges at the Treasury, Petra's most famous monument.

Legend has it that a pharaoh hid his treasure there. Its beauty makes it worthy of such legend. Another stunning work is the Monastery, in the innermost part of Petra, reached by climbing a long staircase of rock steps that many tourists do on donkey-back. In these and the other works of Petra, the effect of the architectural elements of Ancient Greece carved into the living rock and blended with the rosy, warm colors of the desert is without equal. Petra doesn't end here. The landscape is that of a rocky desert with hills, valleys, canyons, sand and paths, among rocks whose colors and striations are so incredible they seem like works of abstract art: hues of ochre, brown, pink and red follow one another in the geological formations that in turn open at every corner onto breathtaking vistas. We come out with our eyes and hearts still not emptied of wonder.

Petra

We leave early in the morning with the goal of following a route indicated in Lonely Planet different from the classic ones; shortly after the entrance, instead of taking the road to the Siq, we head into a very narrow wadi, carved over millennia by water. At some points you have to lower yourself down from the rocks, at others the walls of the gorge are so close that a person barely fits through. We don't encounter a living soul, and that makes it all the more thrilling. Fortunately I'm with the girls because it would be dangerous to traverse the path alone. Especially in Petra you notice the effects of the "Arab Spring" on tourism in the Middle East, even in tranquil Jordan. We come out near a monument that is the tomb of a Roman governor, then we climb a rocky hill, reaching the top of a sheer wall right in front of the Treasury, which gives us a striking view from above.

A local stops near us and prepares us some tea which, given the situation, has a very special flavor. We continue our tour and the views and panoramas that leave you open-mouthed are countless. Then the girls propose that I continue with them the next day to visit the Wadi Rum desert; I can't not accept: they've already arranged things with a tour operator while I've only booked the camp, but above all I feel good with them and we have fun. In the mid-afternoon we drive to nearby Little Petra, which is exactly what its name says. While Esther stops to rest at the end of the path, Anja and I climb on the rocks and she's definitely better at it than I am; the landscape of Little Petra, for beauty, has nothing to envy of its bigger sister.

Wadi Rum

We leave at 6:15 from Wadi Musa and in a couple of hours we're at the entrance to Wadi Rum. We leave the car at the visitor center and enter the Wadi Rum area with the pickup. The initial impact leaves you breathless at the spectacle of nature: an untouched desert of sand, shrubs and rocky hills, where time seems to have dilated to infinity, spreads out along the entire arc of the horizon. We soon reach a sand dune of a fantastic brick-red color, then we see some rock paintings depicting camel caravans and afterward Lawrence (of Arabia)'s "house." Then the first hike on foot, or rather scrambling; with the help of the guide, Abdullah, we clamber, using hands and feet, up a rocky hill until we reach a spectacular rock bridge suspended over several meters of emptiness: high enough that crossing it gives me a good dose of adrenaline.

We continue in the afternoon after lunch cooked in the middle of the desert by our guide, until we're taken near our camp to a spot suitable for admiring the sunset. Crouched in a niche among the rocks, we watch the sun set into the desert and paint it, softening its most angular features, making the atmosphere more intimate and profound. Later, while I'm sitting on a rock outside the camp, I see Abdullah spread out a rug and pray according to the Muslim precept. A few minutes later it starts to get dark and a couple of tourists near me speak softly so as not to disturb the silence of Wadi Rum. We have dinner in the camp's main tent, with tea and typical, abundant dishes, in front of the fire.

Wadi Rum

The camp is well equipped and the night passed well. We wake up early and set off for the camel ride. They call them "camels" but they're dromedaries. My concern about the reputation for lack of docility of these animals proves unfounded, although in fact Anja gets spat on, and a few meters from the end they all decide to go on strike and sit down; so we have to lead them by hand for a couple of minutes. The worst thing is the discomfort of sitting on top of them; every 10-15 minutes you have to change position. The camel guide hands over to his older brother and after lunch we do some more scrambling, climbing over a rocky hill and then descending again near the village of Rum. We're invited to have tea, then taken back to the camp for a well-deserved rest in front of the sunset. Experiencing moments like these with the right company, as happened to me, is a wonderful experience.

We decide to continue the journey together toward Aqaba and the Red Sea. By now we're a group. Chatting after dinner with Atayat, our tour operator, we discover that the next day he'll take some of his animals to a nearby camel racing track for training. He invites us; Esther is enthusiastic, I less so, also because it means getting up at 4:30.

Aqaba

The camel track was built by some Saudi entrepreneurs (we're not that far from the border) who wanted to make an investment in this sport in neighbouring Jordan. There are no jockeys, but a little machine with a small whip and a loudspeaker is mounted on the camels, used by the drivers to urge the animal on by radio from the cars that race parallel to the track. We too follow from a car the 4 km race involving 4 or 5 camels. I'm not enthusiastic about these activities in which animals are used for recreational purposes, even though this is certainly more acceptable than a bullfight; I get the impression, however, that we are among the few Westerners who have had the chance to see it. Back at the visitor centre, before getting in the car and setting off again, I take a few photos of the "Seven Pillars of Wisdom", the rock formation that gives its title to Lawrence of Arabia's book.

Once we arrive in Aqaba, first we stock up on food, then we look for a hotel. Down at the beach, the girls convince me to try snorkelling; Anja (needless to say) is an expert and Esther knows enough to guide me. It's fascinating but, between the fact that I'm not used to breathing only through my mouth and that I'm completely out of practice with swimming, I have to throw in the towel early; it was enough, though, to see the coral formations and a curious elongated fish. In the evening, after an abundant dinner with falafel and other specialities for a few JD, we wander a bit around touristy Aqaba, among the spice shops and various souvenirs.

Aqaba

We change hotels because the previous one, besides us, is also inhabited by ants. We find a nice, clean one and luckily the girls agree to share the room with me, so we all save money. We go back to the beach and while I decide to relax on the sand, Anja and Esther rent equipment at a diving centre to continue their underwater excursions. Esther also hires a guide and by the end of the day she will be enthusiastic about the dives, having seen several species of colourful fish and even a turtle. After all, the Red Sea is famous precisely for these things. I spend the time sculpting a gigantic bas-relief of a face in the sand that many people appreciate. After dinner we resume our tour of the city: Anja buys some spices and coffee in a shop we had already seen yesterday; the owner is an Egyptian guy who is particularly charming with the girls.

The date of our return is approaching; we still have one day to devote to visiting Jordan. As chance would have it, we have the flight back home on the same day and just a few minutes apart.

Bethany beyond the Jordan

We set off early in the morning heading north, on the Desert Highway. We are stopped 3 or 4 times on the road by the police. They seem to be routine checks; the policemen are very friendly and when they see 2 tourists they let us go on, sometimes without even asking for documents. We opt for Madaba as the place to spend the night. The girls choose to go to the Dead Sea; I've already seen it a couple of years ago from the Israeli shore and I get a lift to Bethany beyond the Jordan. They drop me off at the entrance to the site of Jesus's baptism and we arrange to meet in the late afternoon in Madaba at the church of St. George. The site is located near the contested zone with Israel and is always guarded by soldiers; therefore it is necessary to always move in a group and fairly quickly. This compromises the possibility of a spiritual experience during the visit.

To get back to Madaba I manage to get a lift from a Mexican couple who have hired a taxi; what's more, on the way back, since it's on the route, we stop again at Mount Nebo. I get back to the city somewhat early; I have time to buy a small gift for my travel companions and also a keffiyeh for myself, especially since tonight is the first evening it's a bit cold.

Home

Time to leave and say goodbye. We drop the car off at the rental agency at Amman airport. Before we part, Anja and Esther leave a little message in my diary. I hug them goodbye, hoping it's an "arrivederci". Who knows, maybe I'll be able to go and visit them in Brussels, where they live and work, or even share another trip: Esther was thinking of a trip of a couple of months around Asia and China is one of my goals... I don't mind going home because this holiday has given me so much, much more than I expected, in terms of emotions, experiences, relationships.

I will never forget the splendour of the Roman ruins of Jerash, the primitive and wild forms of Dana, the silence and colours of Wadi Rum, the timeless wonders of Petra, but neither the taste of freshly made falafel, breakfast with Anja and Esther in the middle of the desert, the chat with Marina in the streets of Karak, the discomfort of riding a camel or sharing a taxi with two rather corpulent Jordanians, the familiarity of people who do their best to help a tourist, the children wandering around Petra barefoot selling postcards and all those things, big and small, happy and sad, that have left a colourful mark on my soul and that will help paint everyday life.

We set off from Malpensa. While I'm waiting to board, I first meet an Italian guy who lives in Spain, also departing for Jordan as a tourist, and a Palestinian gentleman who works in Italy and is going home for a while. It's a first stroke of luck; we decide to share a taxi once we arrive in Amman to save a little money and avoid the bus, which wouldn't really drop me off close to my hotel. The Palestinian gentleman also speaks Arabic and can negotiate the price and communicate better with the taxi driver. My hotel is in the center but it's a bit hidden down a side street and it takes us a while to find it, until the taxi driver calls the manager on the phone and he comes to pick me up. The best thing about the hotel at first glance is that there's hot water; and that's saying everything! But for me it'll do.

While checking in, I meet 2 Italian girls who are departing and who say they're happy with how they found it, and that's reassuring. Indeed, the manager will prove to be very helpful and welcoming. After going out to withdraw money from the ATM, accompanied by a guy who works at the hotel, and after drinking the first complimentary tea, at 10:30 I'm ready to go to sleep.