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Published: October 21st 2008
Thanks for Your Support
I want to thank you all for your support and comments on the blog. Although there are personal benefits to writing this blog, the biggest satisfaction is to share with you what I am doing and receiving your feedback and support. Part of the backend output for the author includes a statics interface that gives me feedback on the amount and type of reach that the blog has. I have been amazed at the amount of people following along and want you all to know that your support motivates me to continue writing and improving.
Eid-Al Fitr Trip Preparation
With Ramadan quickly coming to an end, I was not sure exactly what I wanted to do for Eid Al-Fitr. The holiday was planned to last from Tuesday through Saturday and there was one thing that I knew for sure, I wanted to venture outside of Amman. My initial reaction was to travel to Damascus but then I didn't want to just walk around an old city and sip tea the whole break. I wanted some action and although I also had thoughts of going to Jerusalem, I still didn't have my second passport in order to enter Israel
and avoid getting an Israeli stamp on my primary passport. (Many of the Arab countries will not allow you to enter if you have an Israeli stamp in your passport. The only exceptions that I am aware of are Jordan and Egypt. So to avoid troubles at the Arab borders, you simply get a secondary passport for Israeli stamps. Many people without a secondary passport ask not to have their primary passport stamped and this seems to work for the majority. But I don’t want to be the smuck that gets the grumpy border guard who stamps my primary passport even after I asked him not to.) 2 days before the break, I decided that I would head south to Aqaba and get my open water scuba certification. With most of the hotels booked and not wanting to drop a wad of cash on some place like the Intercontinental, I went to the local store and bought a self-inflating air pad and sleeping bag. The idea was to rent a tent out near the beach and sleep in the open air.
Drive South Along the King's Highway
On Tuesday morning, I left at 9:30A and headed south down the "scenic
route." Jordan has 3 primary highways running north-south from Amman to Aqaba. The most westerly is the Dead Sea highway, the central highway is known as the King's Highway and the most easterly is called the Desert Highway. The Desert Highway (think east) is by far the fastest taking about 3.25hrs between Amman and Aqaba, but it is by far the least interesting. The guide books suggested driving down the King's Highway through the center of the country and I figured with a day to burn before my scuba classes began, I would head down the King's.
The King's Highway winds its way through the center of Jordan passing through a number of small towns and villages. In fact, calling the road a highway is a little misleading because in all reality it is a series of small roads that link one farming community to another. If you want to get a feel for "real" Jordan just hop on the highway for about 45 minutes going south from Amman. Very quickly you'll notice the buildings disappear and pine trees, spotty grass clumps, white rock outcroppings and dusty pine trees blown into a permanent easterly lean dominate the open expanses
of rolling hills. Although not exactly awe-producing, the landscape does have its own sense of beauty mixed with danger. While the landscape is not threateningly beautiful like a desert, there is an underlying sense that should you be stranded in these dry, pine hillsides, not respecting nature could be fatal. And then just as you are being lulled to sleep at the wheel by endless hills, the earth seems to fall out from below revealing a huge "wadi" (a dry canyon riverbed) miles across and 10s of miles long.
The "real" Jordan also includes leaving the comfortable surroundings of Amman and passing through the small, impoverished towns that dot the Jordanian landscape. Usually consisting of one primary road and numerous side roads, these towns have been ignored by the multinational hypermarkets and instead contain a series of small mom and pop shops squeezed one beside the other that are literally busting at the seams with small, inexpensive products. In addition, produce stands, farm animals, and children playing with toy guns and soccer balls line the streets. Another sign that you are approaching a city is the amount of trash that begins to appear along side the road. Unfortunately, most
Jordanians don't understand the concept of littering. It is only recently in the more tourist oriented locations that the government has started to run TV ads promoting responsible trash disposal, but in general dumping and littering is quite prevalent throughout the country. This is not a matter of people being "dirty." Instead, it is the combination of multiple new manufactured products whose unused elements don't biodegrade and a lack of civic education. (As my scuba instructor told me, he found a washing machine in the Red Sea back in May and had to hire a boat with a special life to get it out.) I guess the motto could be; out of sight, out of mind.
About 1/3 of the way to my final destination of Aqaba, I stopped off at one of the best preserved castles left from the times of the crusades. It's located in a small town built on the top of a hill called Al Karak. To reach the castle you have to wind your way up the small bustling roads of downtown Al Karak, while paying close attention not to hit anyone along the way. Eventually you reach the top of the rock hill
and find the Karak castle. Dating back to the 1100's the castle was constructed by Paganus. More than 120 years after its construction by the Christian armies Saladin besieged the castle in 1183 and eventually capture it in 1189. Today the castle is a national monument and visited by tourist for the measly fee of $1.40USD. Not only is the castle enormous consisting of some 6 to 7 floors, many of them subterranean, but the the views of the surrounding countryside are stunning. However, what amazed me was the feeling of being in a place where crusaders walked around and in which Saladin had actually been. It was not much of a leap to image crusaders guarding the outlooks and walking through the dark stone corridors with their gear clanging away.
Aqaba
I arrived to Aqaba at around 6PM and although I could use the truck bypass to avoid the traffic of the city center and head to South Beach, I decided instead to go right into the city center and get a feel for the town and my bearings. My first impression of Aqaba was of a small bustling sea village that had been transformed in recent years
but its "free zone" status. The sidewalks were fairly new, the foliage along the road was well maintained and I even saw a man of a golf cart sized street cleaner brushing up the curb. The sidewalks were packed with Jordanian tourists that had come to Aqaba for the Eid Al-Fitr break and this meant that the air was filled with the smell of roasting swarma spinning on large meat spits, loud Arab pop music, and the occasional bang of a firework going off. After hitting the center traffic circle of the town I headed south along the Red Sea coast to South Beach.
South Beach Aqaba is a very simple place. It's a 10 mile strip of shore line that alternates between public swimming areas for locals and large gated resorts for Westerners and rich Arabs. As you travel south, the rocky hills that rise up from the Red Sea on your left hand side are covered with partially constructed beach neighborhoods and the occasional backpacker hostel. One of these hostels called the Bedouin Gardens was my final stop, and soon after arriving I was able to rent a tent on a sandy hills top for $9USD per
night from the very friendly Egyptian caretaker.
Diving
The next 3.5 days I spent diving off the South Coast of Aqaba with a small diving company. We met each morning at their training facility located on a public beach and went through theory, pool diving, and open water diving. Their are a number of international diving certificates that you can choose from, but the most common in this region in the Padi, which requires reading 250 pages of textbook, taking 4 tests, and completing 4 open water dives before you are certified as a recreational open water diver. (The next level of certification is the advanced recreational diver certification, which requires another 5 dives including a deep water dive to 40m and a dive focused on underwater orientation.)
While the theory is not particularly difficult, there is plenty to learn in an intensive 3.5 day course, especially when you begin to consider the consequences of making too many mistakes under water. However, the most amazing part is being in a water world in which the fish and mother nature are much more in control than you are. The water in the Red Sea was about 25C and the visibility
was very good. I would say that I could see a good 20m in front of me and although the fish are not necessarily big they are colorful and plentiful. During my time out of the water, I hung around with a group of Austrian and German guys who were down for the holiday from Damascus where they work as expats.
The Road Home - Desert Highway
The desert highway is a long stretch of fairly well paved road that stretches from the southern border with Saudi Arabia all the way into Amman. As I mentioned before, while the road is by far the fasted way to traverse the country, it is also perhaps the least interesting. The road is flanked by white sand and rock landscapes that could just as easily be from the moon as from anywhere on earth. Sheep, goats, and camels are often seen being herded along side the road, while rural hitchhikers, speed traps, and dusty cinder block villages can be found dotting the remainder of the road. There is not much to see, but it's certainly not a place you want to be caught driving at night. Cars swerve in and out of
traffic a very fast speeds dodging the large trucks hauling goods from the port of Aqaba to Amman, while stray animals, hitchhikers, and Bedouin families have a habit of venturing into the far right lane or attempting to cross the road at inopportune times. I left Aqaba at 2PM and knew that this would give me about 4.5 hours to make it to Amman. Driving at a steady clip, I made it to Amman in 3hrs and 25 minutes and turning on my headlights for the last 15 minutes of the trip.
Interaction
While this blog is about my experiences in Jordan and around the Middle East, I am open to your comments and suggestions. If there is anything that you want to hear more about or any suggestions that you have, please let me know and I will see what I can do to accommodate them. I have received word from a few people that they would like to see more pictures. I will be posting all my pics online and provide links to them in the coming days.
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STF
non-member comment
Hello
Hey Mike, nice to know you are doing well. Keep up the blog, perhaps more pics of people, or a gallery of unsorted pics would be nice. Keep in touch. STF