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).
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