Spring Break: Jordan Pt. 3

April 4

Before I go on, I want to do a little explaining about the last paragraph of the previous post. I do not want to feed into the stereotype that all Arab men are lechers who prey on women. Nor do I want to give the perception that Jordan is unsafe. In fact, of all the countries I’ve been to during this time, it may be one of the most orderly and law-abiding (minus driving) countries. However, even though Jordan has many tourists sites, many Jordanians are unused to seeing foreigners, especially young, unveiled women. The two girls in our group are both South Asians, they’re not blonde white girls, but because they were unveiled, they stood out and drew stares wherever we went. Frankly, unless you are an experienced traveler, preferably with a good knowledge of Arabic, I wouldn’t recommend going to Jordan as a single woman.

Anyway, now to our final full day in Jordan. We left this day to stick strictly to Amman, no long car rides to any new tourist places. We walked from our hostel to the Ancient Roman Amphitheater, which is right in the heart of downtown Amman. It is a very cool structure, if you walk all the way to the top you can get a good idea of just how many people it fit. Attached is a small museum of Jordanian and Bedouin culture and history which the 1-2 dinar ticket you pay to get into the amphitheater covers. When in the amphitheater, you may be approached by men offering to be your tour guide for a small fee. Trust me, it’s not worth paying for a tour of a single building for info that you can get on Wikipedia for free.

The Ampitheater

From the amphitheater you can see across the city to the ancient city citadel on top of a hill. We walked from the amphitheater, up the hill, through residential neighborhoods to get to the Citadel. If you decide to take a taxi to these sites, I’d recommend you take the taxi up to the Citadel before the seeing the Amphitheater, so that you can then walk downhill to the Amphitheater.

  The Citadel was first constructed by the Ancient Greeks and Romans and has been added on by the various civilizations that have come after them. Therefore, you will see a two thousand year old Roman temple next to an Arab mosque and palace. It is an interesting site and the panoramic view of Amman is truly special.

After the Citadel, we took a taxi to Rainbow Street to meet up with some CIEE students who were studying in Jordan. Our Istanbul CIEE director had given us the email of the CIEE Amman director and when I emailed her to ask her for tips, she had forwarded my email to CIEE Jordan students, several of whom wrote back to me to offer advice. One of them, a girl named Meghan, offered to meet up with us on Rainbow Street and take us to a bookstore/bar/café/restaurant that she and her friends really liked. Rainbow Street is known for being the area where all the expats and college students go and definitely has a very different feeling from all the rest of Amman, but we figured we had had enough of the authentic Jordanian experience and could treat ourselves to some Western cultural imperialism. The place Meghan took us to was called Books @Cafe and it had some of the most delicious frozen margaritas and pizzas that I have ever had. It was a welcome break and an excellent way to wrap up an amazing but also amazingly crazy trip!

Spring Break: Jordan Pt. 1

Over Spring Break, I travelled with four other friends to Jordan and Lebanon. It was a wonderful time, but both countries and experiences were very different so I am going to talk about each of them in separate posts. Going chronologically, I’ll start with Jordan, but since so much happened to us there; I’m also going to break up our stay in Jordan.

Arriving: March 31-2

When we bought our plane tickets for Spring Break, we bought different round trip tickets for Istanbul and Beirut and Beirut to Jordan. We flew Pegasus Airlines (great bargains if you’re flying around the Middle East or Europe) to Beirut and then Royal Jordanian to Amman, Jordan. The problem was, the cheapest flights to Beirut were Thursday night, while the cheapest flights to Amman were Friday morning. We ended up staying the night in the Beirut airport. We definitely got stared from other people as we tried to fall asleep on metal benches. I’m pretty sure some thought we were homeless. Nobody got much sleep.

We were very relieved when our flight finally took off and then landed after only fifty minutes in the air. When we stepped onto the tarmac, it was a wonderful feeling getting hit by the 85 degree dry heat that is Jordanian weather in April! Our hostel sent a van to pick us up and we took the 30-40 minute drive to Amman.

Amman is the capital of Jordan and its largest city. It is a fascinating place. You know you’re in an Arab, Middle Eastern country when you’re in Amman. The eastern part of the city, where the old downtown is and where we stayed, is largely residential, with sand colored houses and the largest buildings are mostly minarets. West Amman is the much more modern, Western part of the city, where the government, expats, and most of the finer hotels and restaurants can be found.



Amman


We stayed at the Bdeiwi Hostel. It is hard to describe this place. In many ways, it was what we expected for a hostel that charged $7 a night for a 4 bed dorm. But it was the people that worked at this place that gave it its character. This place had too much character. The owner was a tricky guy, who, as soon as we arrived, greeted us and gave us Jordanian tea, calling it “his present” to us. We later found out he added it to our final bill. There was also a white, blonde woman from Alabama, who had married a Muslim, converted, started an Islamic school in Alabama, and then moved to Jordan a few years ago. Supposedly she was an Arabic to English teacher, the problem being, she couldn’t speak that much Arabic, which is probably why she was working at this hostel. One night, we overheard her begging the owner for some food because she “hadn’t eaten all day.” His response, “No food for you!” Eventually he caved in and gave her some money to go buy food.

On our first full day our hostel took us (at an inflated price) to Mount Nebo and the Dead Sea. Mount Nebo is the site where Moses is said to have died and where Pope John Paul II came in the year 2000. Most of the tourist sites in Jordan have some sort of religious significance so if you’re not at all interested in that kind of stuff then you might not want to go to Jordan. Most of the area that we drove through was barren desert and savannah. It was striking and beautiful in its own way.

The Jordanian Countryside

After about a two hour total drive, we arrived at the Dead Sea. There is a section of it where it is free to enter, but our drivers refused to take us there, saying that it “wasn’t safe.” Instead they took us to a beach resort where we had to pay 15 dinar to get in and then 2 dinar to rent a locker. It was annoying, however our displeasure soon floated away, literally. When you first walk in, you see other people floating, but you’re nervous because your not sure if there's some sort of position or steps your supposed to take in order to float. But once you swallow that fear and let yourself lay back in the water you realize that all that stuff about floating really IS true. It is a feeling that’s hard to describe, it’s like being weightless and wet at the same time. We must have spent at least an hour, maybe two floating on the water and lying in the sun. Ironically, as soon as we got out of the water, this crazy wind storm came and created these huge waves that were knocking over all the people who were still in the water. We watched with a slightly sadistic amusement. On a side note, we earlier saw a man try to make a big scene and swim really far out. Problem was, he splashed a lot of water when he swam and got some of the water in his eyes and had to rush back to shore and wash it out. Please remember, the Dead Sea is for floating, not swimming, you don't wanna get this salt in your eyes because it WILL burn.

The Dead Sea

After getting out of the water, you NEED to shower, because your skin is literally coated with a layer of salt. Of course, the one time the resort lost all water pressure in their showers was when I got out of the Dead Sea. I had to put my clothes over my salt covered body, which wasn’t a pleasant experience, trust me.

When we left the Dead Sea, our drivers told us they were taking us to this spot higher up where we could see the sunset. Trouble was, it was around 4 p.m., so no sunset was happening any time soon. Instead we stopped at a tea vendor literally in the middle of nowhere besides the highway. There, one of our drivers, a guy named Yahya who was only happy when Arab music was playing, suddenly turned up the speakers in his car and started making us all, but especially the two girls in our group, dance to traditional Arab music with him. At first we thought it was really funny, but after a group of Jordanian truck drivers stopped by, joined in, and made the girls pose on their trucks, we all got a little creeped out.

Salt and sand at the Dead Sea

After the forced dancing, our drivers took us back to Amman, but before they would take us back to the hostel, they told us they needed to stop at the duty free shop in Amman. The duty free shop is in the middle of the city, but is only open to foreigners, which is why our drivers needed us to get in. I have to admit, I never thought that I would be asked to buy alcohol and cigarettes for two 45 years old men, but I guess there’s a first time for everything.

If you ever see the guy on the left, run!