The last day started really early... we had a simple 10-step plan to get on our final flight home from Tel Aviv...
Step 1... 4:00am Driver on time! With the drama with Ahmed, we were wondering if the airport drive would go without a hitch but... check!
Step 2... 4:30am Arrive at airport... check!
Step 3... Clear Security... ooh... we got through then looked back at a very sweaty Alex (think the dude that was trying to fool Quaid in Total Recall and was found out by a large drop of sweat dripping down his cheek) getting the third degree from some ornery looking security guards with clearly nothing better to do - the airport was empty. They really didn't like the elephant (was that a desert elephant that he had bought?) and apparently had no idea about dead sea mud. Anyway, he escaped full cavity search protocol, but it was touch and go there for a sec. Why does he always get pulled over by security? lol
Step 4... Plane on time! Check!
Step 5... Arrive in Israel! Check! Also, pretend we are not leaving in 2 hours...
Step 6... Clear customers... snag! We ran into a SNL parody sketch of a bitch young customs girls (" why have you been to so many countries" "it's our hobby" extreme eyeroll.... and "what do you do?" "I build custom homes" another extreme eyeroll). Anyway, we eventually got through. Check!
Step 7... Collect bags... Check!
Step 8... Perform arrival PCR test / money grab before we could exit the airport... Check!
Step 9.... Rip off PCR wrist band, re-enter airport and push our way into Air Canada ticketing
Step 10... Clear customs and wait for boarding! Check, check, check!
We made it. After a lot of planning, research and consultation, the day went off with nary a hitch. What a great trip - we love our Versly discovery trips, and this one will not be forgotten. I can see revisiting Israel some day... I know, I know, we have a lot on our list, but even for a 3 day stopover, I'd come back to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem any day.
We arrived in YYZ and collected our bags without incident and were in our front door just after 4:30pm...which made it a 23 hour day... a Cairo shuffle day indeed.
Saturday was the last full day of the trip and our only full day in Amman, and my main goal was to not have any of us arrested... King Alex is always a hilarious security threat...
We decided to take it slow with no real expectations other than shopping and walking. We took ubers to Rainbow street and spent a couple of hours loading up on... crap. Beth and I did find one nice piece that we bought but otherwise most of the stuff was pretty rough or cheap.
We walked east on Rainbow street, taking in all the colourful displays of it's namesake, then we dropped into the market area surrounding the Grand Husseini Mosque.
We browsed and bought - spices, snacks - and got chastised for nibbling in public on Ramadan... stupid tourists! But come on, Jordan almonds, in Jordan!
We weaved our way back up the hill towards the rainbow street area and had lunch at one of the tourist approved restaurants that could serve food (it wasn't as hard as getting food during Shabbat in Jerusalem!) - the Amman Roots Restaurant & Cafe that also had a great view (lol).
Another hour of walk and shop and we were ready to head back to the hotel via Uber. Kim and Beth had scheduled massages, while Alex and I checked out the spa/hot tub area. It was ok - noisy but it did the trick!
After dinner, we had a final round of Euchre before returning to pack. I had the alarm set for 1am - the start time for the Raptors game 1 matchup with Philly. In what should have been a snoozer (they got killed, but I couldn't fall asleep!), it wasn't long after the game ended that we had to head to the lobby to start our long return home...
Friday morning. We left our Bedouin camp and checked out the nearby "little petra". This was another potential stop on the silk road... but that and Petra proper all came out of use when the Romans strategically diverted the road to hit the coast to the North. No more travellers, the Nabataeans moved on.
We stopped in Wadi Musa for a hillarious PCR test. Though it seemed to go through the same motions as every other test, the speed at which we got the results sent to us through whatsapp seemed a little suspicious. The only reason we did another PCR test is that we were going to be flying into Tel Aviv on Sunday, and it wasn't 100% clear on requirements for airport transports. Anyway, miraculously we were all negative.
The road north to the capital of Amman got pretty flat... like those images of driving through the middle east - non stop flat waste land for miles on end. Again, Ramadan was an issue, but we found a tourist rest stop where Beth and Kim got some food, but Alex and I found it unappealing.
After a couple of more hours, trees starting sprouting out, and it wasn't long before we were driving through rolling hills on the approach to Amman. The capital is essentially built on a number of hilltops - with every building, by design, made out of bright limestone - reminiscent of Jerusalem.
There have been people situated in the area since the iron age, so as you get to the heart of the city and peel back the layers, it's amazing to see how civilizations have come and gone from the area.
Ahmed took us to the central Citadel area, and started running us through the history of the area, but he was seriously distracted.
It turned out, there'd been ongoing drama between the tour organizer and Ahmed. They wanted our vehicle back in Aqaba but Ahmed didn't want to rush us. Whatever, we decided to cut him loose - we'd do our own tour of the are!
We walked down off the citadel hill for a view of the large roman theater, then up Al-Hashemi and K. Talal street - just getting a feel for the area. The energy was so much different than the big cities of Israel... we felt like we were back in the old part of Cairo and I was also getting string Thamel vibes when we were winding through the alleyways near the market area.
Eventually, we got in separate cabs and headed out of the main downtown area to check into the Kempinski Hotel. The hotel felt like a detached luxury feeling compared to our hot, noisy, busy tour of downtown Amman. We sat by the pool and played cards (I've lost my records, but I'm pretty sure Alex and I dominated again...yeah, that feels right).
This was a day I'd been looking forward to for years. It reminded me of our three day tour of Cambodia in 1997 with Lap Tek... he hid Angkor Wat from us for the first two days, finally revealing the formerly jungle covered temple in all its glory on the morning of the third day. Petra is something right out of, well, Indiana Jones.
The drive from Wadi Rum was pretty cool... gradually rolling up into mountains, stopping at a tourist shop for great distant views of the whole area.
Petra was our next stop! The park ground are located at the edge of a medium sized city called Wadi Musa that sits perched on the edge of a curving rock valley. Ahmed took care of the tickets and helped us get night tickets for a return trip later tonight. After passing the little courtyard full of tourist shops (a few Indiana Jones cutouts and plenty of opportunities to buy a fedora and whip!), we began the walk down to the main feature of Petra - the Treasury.
There isn't tons known about Petra, but it's pretty clear that it was a stopover area along the silk road, created by a nomadic people called Nabataeans, There was lots of evidence of viaducts and water capture (much needed for travellers), boarding areas, a small Romanesque theater and carvings seemingly paying tribute to various cultures who would use the roadway.
The "treasury" is just one of many sandstone carvings in the entire area, but is is the only one that was done in such a way that it avoided the effects of sun, wind and rain, so it stands out as an amazing human accomplishment that has, for the most part, lasted the test of time. Built over 2000 years ago, and rediscovered in 1812, it's thought to be a mausoleum. Tourists can't go inside the structure, and actually, there's not much to it.
Winding down the narrowing road carved over millennia by storm water, the final reveal of the treasury completely took my breath away. When we got to the opening that revealed the much-bigger-than-I-thought facade, I could only stand there, staring at it, for maybe ten minutes. What an amazing thing - I will never forget that feeling.
Wow.
We continued to explore the area. Further down the way station road, we would divert off to either side from time to time, exploring into caves and climbing rock paths taking us to lookouts. You could easily spend a day exploring around the area.
When we ran out of gas, it was time for the slow, hot walk up, up and up to the park entrance. Even though we chuckled at people taking golf carts or donkeys back up, for the older folks, it wouldn't be a bad idea.
So amazing!
Alex had found our hotel, the Little Petra Bedouin Camp, for the night. It was the coolest setup - built into a small valley surrounded by moon rocks that lit up at night, the place reminded Beth and I of one of the places we would have stayed when we were backpacking across Asia. It had a backpacker vibe, and the two brothers who ran it were young and entrepreneurial. There was some drama between Mohammed and Ahmed when we arrived, but we later learned (after interrogating them separately, lol) that they both suspected the other of some kind of scam or kickback... but, all good.
We showered and then chilled out in the large, open air common room, where we could connect to wifi, enjoy unlimited sweet tea and Alex got back into hookah! Dinner was great and after a little light show showing off the camp in all its glory, Mohammed's quieter brother picked us up and drove us back to Petra for the evening show.
The reviews of the "show" for the Petra nighttime gig were pretty mixed, but we were really just going to see the wonder one last time in a different light. When we first went to the Taj Mahal, we were told you had to see it at sunrise, mid day, and sunset, and it turned out they weren't wrong (we managed two of them the first time!). Petra at night was mystical - such a cool experience, and the walk down and up was much nicer at night.
Wednesday April 13th to 14th - Wadi Rum for 1 night
This was a day we were looking forward to, but also regretting. Our last day with Eric but the start of our Jordan adventure. Jordan has been on our list for a very long time - mostly for Petra, but also for the desert vistas of Wadi Rum.
We checked out of our hotel and took the main road south - it cut sharply into the rim and along the inside edge of Ramon Crater. When we got to the base of the gigantic crater area, we were a little shocked at the scale of everything - from the top of the crater it all looked like a flat plain, but from down below we were surrounded by huge rolling hills. We felt very small.
Eric took us to a little hiking area to take a look at some rock formations and different coloured sand from the crater, but mostly just to get us up and walking! Further down the road into the Negev Desert we came close to a bunch of friendly tank operators doing exercises in the sand. Very cool and not something we see at home too much!
So we could delay the pending sad parting with Eric, we stopped at a rest stop near the southernmost city of Eilat. Eilat is a bit of a resort town - the only Israeli City on the Red Sea (well, the smaller Gulf of Aqaba) and very close to seaside areas of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
It was time... we said goodbye to our newfound friend and promised to stay in touch. What a fantastic experience we had with Eric. I have no doubt we will see him again.
Through Eric, we had arranged our Jordan leg of the tour, that included transportation, some accommodations and help crossing the border. The border was an interesting experience - I'm trying to remember crossing a significant border like that on foot, and all I can remember is pre-9/11 walking over and back to Buffalo for cheap wings and beer (and to show you how different security would become, one of my friends lost is ID and still talked his way into Canada (yes... it was Murray)).
A representative helped us on the Israeli side, gave us instructions and we passed a gate and walked ourselves over "no man's land" until we were ushered in to the Jordanian side border control. There was a couple there with a child that seemed to have been stuck there for hours. Luckily, our names were on a list, and Beth and I went through. Then we heard Alex being ushered in to "Room #10"... my strong memories of Midnight Express were boiling up (Alex... what did you pack??) but I guess it was just a misunderstanding as he was out five minutes later.
We were met by our driver and guide... Ahmed and Ahmed. It was quickly apparent that this would not be an Eric experience, but for the Jordan leg, I just cared that we had someone to take us where we wanted to go. Ahmed was a funny little character, with a pretty thick, quiet spoken voice. I caught about 50% of what he said as I was closest - the others got much less than that.
Wadi Rum, a large desert area famously visited by Lawrence of Arabia during the Arab revolt near the end of World War I, has been featured in practically every Hollywood movie set in a desert over the last 40 years. We stopped at the Visitor Center for a bathroom break and to get a good view of the seven pillars.
I think the Seven Pillars...
We were getting a little peckish, and it being Ramadan, there were limited options for lunch - a few special "tourist provider" places were allowed to serve lunch, so we went to one to feast on an excellent buffet. Alex, was a happy man!
Part of our package included a jeep tour of the desert and some of the rock formations. It sounded cheesy, but it ended up being really fun. One spot saw Alex getting out and running down a huge sand dune like a chicken with his head cut off. We also went down a huge embankment (and did it again after insisting on an encore!) and saw some really cool rock formations. The desert is a strange, wonderful place. So dead and quiet, with epic scale and proportions. It's the closest thing on land I can imagine that feels like scuba diving in a huge ocean expanse.
After the jeep tour, we were transferred to another vehicle which shuttled us to our "hotel". What a find! Alex and I had been holding this one back a bit from the ladies... we were staying in Wadi Rum UFO Luxotel, one of the bubble hotels in the area - it did not disappoint. Seconds after getting to our room, Beth and I were lamenting that we were only staying here one night - that's the toughest part of travel - balancing seeing, doing, moving and stopping! Dinner, down a sand strewn path from our bubbles in the main building, was excellent. We are not lacking for good meals on this trip, and we seem to be able to get a good mix of vegetables, carbs and meat, not to mention desserts like baclava and other treats.
What an experience.. standing in the window watching the sun go down... Beth and I were giddy... paradise!
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