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Published: June 11th 2017
We enjoyed breakfast in the hotel this morning at 7:30 with our fellow travellers Meredith and Graham, then met Mohammed (not our trip leader Mohammed, but a different Mohammed, who is from the tour company we booked our day tour of Amman with). There was some confusion at the start as he didn't seem to know what our tour was supposed to include. We booked a day tour of Amman with a company called Green Olive Tours, who evidently subcontracted with a local company called Discover Jordan, and there was a lack of communication between the two companies, because what Mohammed described was not what we had booked. Mohammed was just a driver, not a guide, and our tour was supposed to include a guide. Susan got Mohammed to call his boss at Discover Jordan and basically got it straightened out, though it really wasn't very professional. We weren't very happy with the way it started, however we ended up having a really good day.
We first went to King Adbullah Mosque, which was completed in 1989. It can hold 7000 worshippers, and also has a small section for women which holds 500. The main mosque has cushioned carpet and
but we noticed the women's section isn't nearly as cushy! In the women's section there is a TV monitor which plays the action going on in the main mosque. We had to don abeyyas (black full length robes with hoods). Not very flattering! I felt like the wicked witch. We bought Palestinian scarves (keffiyeh) at the gift shop (black for Susan and red for me).
We met Mohammed at the car outside the mosque and continued to the Jabal el-Hussein Camp, which is a Palestinian refugee camp. The government of Jordan runs the Palestinian refugee camps, but the UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) provides services to the camps. This particular camp was established in 1952 and is home to around 32,000 people. The camp doesn't look like a camp at all, it is really a neighbourhood in Amman. However many buildings are somewhat dilapidated and the streets are rather haphazard. We had a short visit with the iman, who is the leader in the camp, who served us arabic coffee. This particular camp is a Muslim camp, no Christian Palestinians live there. Most of the people who live in the
camp are quite poor, but there is a school and medical services in the camp. The refugees have Jordanian citizenship and are not restricted to living in the camp, however most probably can't afford to live anywhere else in Amman.
We then drove to the Citadel, where we met our guide Osama, who turned out to be a terrific guide. The Citadel sits on the highest hill in Amman, and has been occupied since the Bronze Age. Amman has been known as various names over the years, first as Rabbath-Ammon (from Neolithic through Hellenistic periods, 5500 BCE through 63 CE); then as Philadelphia (from the Nabatean through the Byzantine eras, 312 BCE through 635 CE); then Amman (from the Umayyad period through the Ottoman period, 661 CE through 1917 CE). There is obviously some overlap between the different periods. The Citadel is surrounded by a protective wall, which was rebuilt many times over the years. Osama gave us an excellent tour of the area, which included the Temple of Hercules (built during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, 161-80 CE), and the Umayyad Palace (built during the Umayyad period, around 720 CE).
At the beginning of our tour we
Women's area
In a separate part of the building. Much smaller than the main mosque. were approached by a photographer who offered his services for 10 JD (around $18). He would provide us with about 25 photos taken of us at the site. We accepted and had a blast posing at the various photo ops. He will email the photos later, so I'll do a separate blog entry just of the photos. We all had scarves so he tied them around our heads in bedouin fashion. That combined with the poses should be a good laugh!
We were at the Citadel for at least 1.5 hours, and Osama gave us a really informative and enjoyable tour. We also visited the National Archeological Museum, which is near the Umayyad Palace. It is a small museum filled with wonderful treasures. We left the Citadel and drove a short way down hill to the Roman Theatre and Odeon, where we walked around and visited two small museums located at the Theatre, the Folklore Museum (which houses a modest collection of items illustrating traditional Jordanian life) and the Museum of Popular Traditions (which has displays of traditional clothing and jewellery) both which turned out to be very interesting. The Museum of Popular Traditions also has a small display
of mosaics from Madaba and Jerash, which I really enjoyed seeing. No photos allowed in either museum.
We then said good bye to our wonderful guide Osama, and headed to the Jordan Museum, which I especially wanted to go to because they house Jordan's small share of the Dead Sea scrolls. The Jordan Museum is a fantastic museum. A series of beautifully presented and very informative displays illustrate Jordan's history from the Neolithic period up to modern times. It is really a very lovely museum. If only the Egyptian Museum was like the Jordan Museum!
We spent about an hour at the museum, but you could easily visit for a couple of hours. It was about 2:30 by then and we were getting hungry. Mohammed took us into the old downtown area of Amman (through lots of windy, busy streets) where we went for lunch at Hashem Restaurant, where we had a fantastic meal of felafel, hummus, foul, and various other dips, with wonderful arabic bread, and sweet mint tea. Hashem Restaurant is well known and I had hoped to be able to eat there. It is at the end of Lonely Planet's Highlights of Amman walking tour
(and I saw a couple there clutching their Lonely Planet guidebook!). After lunch Mohammed took us to Habibah for delicious kunafa, for dessert. It is a sweet dessert made with cheese and filo pastry drizzed with honey. We shared two varieties (and brought the leftovers back to the hotel for a snack later.)
Mohammed dropped us off at the hotel about 3:45, and we've been relaxing in our room and I've been working on the blog. We won't need dinner after our big lunch but Susan and I will go for a walk later and find a place where we can have an arabic coffee, and maybe we will smoke a nargile pipe (also known as shisha, water pipe, hookah).
Tomorrow we leave at 8:15 am for our drive to Aqaba. It is a 5 hr drive, I think Mohammed said. We have the option of going snorkelling in the afternoon, which most of us have signed up for. We will be on a boat and go to two snorkelling sites. Aqaba is supposed to be a great place for snorkelling so we are really looking forward it!
[I can hear the call to prayer outside our
window now, from the nearby mosque. (I also heard it about 4:30 this morning!). You get used to hearing it here all the time - 5 times a day. This man who does this particular call has a really nice voice.]
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Faye
non-member comment
Thanks Lori, that's you and I!