We can’t wait to come back to Jordan. For such a small country it holds an abundance rewards. It was even more stunning coming from the conflict ridden land of Egypt. The king should be very proud: his subjects are some of the kindest people we have ever had the pleasure of meeting…

(Be sure to check out the Jordan photo gallery here)

Favorite moments:

• Wadi Rum
• Exploring Petra
• Hasheem’s restaurant
• Playing in the Dead Sea
• English TV movies
• Hitch hiking
• Landscape
• Fantastic people

Not so great:

• Lack of deodorant
• Bottled water full of Magnesium

Total Money Spent Per Person: $433.79

Average Per Day Costs Per Person:

• Lodging: $11.56
• Food: $7.00
• Transportation: $11.81
• Misc: $13.00 (Beer, Trips to the store, Park entrance, Guide Fees, etc.)

Total Average Per Day, Per Person: $43.37

Number of Days: 10

We checked out from the hostel and set out to the bus station with plans of going to Damascus today. We tried countless bus companies and all that we asked refused to take us to Damascus because we don’t already have Syrian visas.

The fruit market

The only company that will take us doesn’t have a bus til 9pm tonight and that just won’t work. Instead of being in Syria today, we had to go check back into our hostel and kill another day waiting for the morning bus that will “probably” take us to, if not Damascus, then at least the border.

On a high note, we did have a fantastic lunch at one of the best falafel places in Amman. We have been eating there almost every day but haven’t had a chance to mention it. The restaurant (Hasheem, off of Al-Amir Mohammed Street) is so good that on occasion the King and his family come to eat here.

Tasty and cheap

For a mere $2 USD (per person) you get a giant pile of arabic bread, foul, hummus, mint tea, and a generous pile of falafels. We were never able to finish all of the food they brought.

Today we made our way back toward the Dead Sea to the place where John the Baptist worked, the Jordan River, and the widely accepted sight of Jesus’ baptism.

John the Baptist's new church

We arrived at the baptism site and had to wait around for the next guided tour (no choice, guide is required). The site its self is … well… boring. A walk through the underbrush on a nice little gravel trail leads to the remains of John the Baptist’s stone baptism pool. It’s stagnant and little more than a stone step, but the significance of the sight was lost on no one. This is the site that Jesus was (allegedly) baptised and the after effects of that one action have reverberated through every culture on the planet.

The site

After this we wandered down to the Jordan river, which at this end is only a small stream. We sat by the waters edge and looked across at Israel, a mere stone’s throw away but a world apart.

The Jordan ... stream

After the tour ended we were in a bit of a jam. We were expecting a taxi or bus or something to be hanging around the parking lot when we got back but there was none. We asked a couple of girls who were heading down to the beach to drop us off at the cross roads. Their driver offered to take us up to the bus stop but wanted a whopping $13 to do so (should have been 4 or so) so instead we hopped out expecting to walk the 10-12k in the desert sun. No sooner had we began walking than the first TWO cars that passed us pulled over offering us a ride! We didn’t know if it was safe to hitch-hike or not but we haven’t met a Jordanian we haven’t liked and 10k didn’t sound like much fun. We piled in and were off. The driver spoke a few words in English and with our very basic Arabic we were able to have the most common conversation we have…

Him: Where you from?

Us: America…

Him: Ahh Obama…

Us: Yes Obama

Him: Obama very good

Us: Yes, Obama very good

Him: Bush…….. no good

Us: Yes, Bush no good

Him: America good

Us: (Insert his country here) good…

They wanted to take us further but were heading the wrong way, so we waited by the bus stop… and waited and waited… and waited. A guy pulled up and ran into the convenience store we were waiting in front of and on his way out asked what we were waiting on. We said “the bus”. He laughed very loud and said, “You don’t need a bus” and walked out into the highway and started yelling “AMMAN” at the cars as they passed. We stood there horrified, having no idea what to do. Three cars stopped but none have room, and just then the bus pulls in. We breathed a sigh of relief and thanked him for his help anyway and took the long sweaty bus ride back to the city…

Wasted another day at another embassy. Tried to apply for Chinese visa but were informed that all travel and accommodation must be booked in advance and submitted with application. So there you have, no Chinese visa for us. At least not here. Instead we’ve decided to fly to Hong Kong when we get ready to go to China and apply there. As you might guess, the rest of the afternoon was spent working out flights and costs to do that…We promise to leave the hostel tomorrow!

Aha! Some excitement today—we went to the Dead Sea! Two mini-buses and a taxi later, we were bobbing and floating around the saltiest body of water on the planet, all to the tune of $10.

Rock salt

The mini buses cost about $0.60 each and the taxi—private taxi– took us from the bus drop off down to a part of the beach just past Amman Beach (where you have to pay entrance fee) where we got in for free. He waited on us for about an hour and a half while we were playing in the mud and water, and got us into some “free” facilities (hoping the fence) to rinse all the salt off, then took us back up to the bus drop off, but first he bought us both bottles of water and soda! He didn’t speak much English but he was a really nice guy and really made our time even more fun.

The free beach with Palestine over the water

Lindsey unmudding

Mud... I hope

The Dead Sea is really awesome! But the water does make your skin itch and burn after a while and makes your feet turn red. There is some trash and glass around the edge in some places but not much and it doesn’t take a lot to just keep an eye out for where you’re walking. The salt is really hard and you can really scrape (or maybe cut if you step on it just right) your feet but floating in the water it really fun!

Lindsey showing off proper floating technique

Saben playing in the water

The second you lift your feet off the ground your legs pop right up to the surface and put you onto your back. And the water is warm like a bath (all the bodies of water here seem to be just that warm!) and perfectly clear. We had quite a fun time even though we got there a bit late in the afternoon. When we got out, our skin was oily and definitely too salty to just brush off. What a fun afternoon!

Alright, let’s be honest. We’re feeling a bit burned out with this whole business. We’re tired of moving around everyday, hunting everyday for a place to sleep for the night and for food a couple times a day, and we’re certainly tired of living out of a backpack. And honestly, we’re getting really tired of ruins and temples and ancient things and sweltering heat and massive amounts of sand. So, we spent the day doing very little besides just relaxing and not going anywhere (sorry dear readers, more excitement to come…..at a later date). But to hold you over, here are some photos of the pile of kittens outside our hostel!

Piles of felines

Fierce lioness

After a wretchedly smelly 3 hour mini-bus ride with our luggage stacked on top of our laps, crammed into tiny bus seats and enclosed on either side with people who do not wear deodorant (not a dis but merely a statement of fact) in the hottest climate on earth where a person breaks a sweat just sitting up in bed in the morning, we were more than happy to arrive in Amman and breathe some fresh air. Did I mention that everyone closed their bus windows because they were a bit “chilly” while we suffocated and sweat buckets in the back corner of a tragically packed, stinking, smelling bus?

Well, we grabbed a taxi to a cheap hotel and enjoyed the ”high” option of our ceiling fan and watched TV movies all afternoon, barely leaving to feed ourselves. It’s nice to have a day to not do anything. This heat really saps all our energy and desire to do anything at all. Well, except watch English TV…

“On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life. There were plants and birds and rocks and things; There was sand and hills and rings. The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz and the sky with no clouds. The heat was hot and the ground was dry but the air was full of sound…”

Shrub

This is Wadi Rum, the same desert that nearly claimed the life of Lawrence of Arabia.A seemingly endless expanse of sand and rock. With our fantastic guide Yahia we traversed the miles of desert in the air conditioned comfort of a brand new Toyota 4-runner (known simply as “The Camel”). Yahia was extremely well versed in the desert (including helping Lindsey hunt for turquoise) and we enjoyed our conversations about Muslim life and Islam as much as we enjoyed Wadi Rum.

Lin in the desert

There are few words that can describe such a massive expanse of land and space so we will let the camera do the rest of the talking.

Bedouin carvings

Us under the stone bridge

Camels in Wadi Rum

Over Wadi Rum

After a long tiring day we drove back to the hostel and enjoyed another very tasty buffet dinner. We could definitely get used to this…

“The Pink City” of Petra holds true to its name and its allure. Feeling like Indiana Jones (ok, sans horse) we made our way through the 80 meter high walls of the amazing Siq and marveled at the random trees and bushes growing from cracks in the rock. How they can sustain themselves in such an environment is pretty incredible!

Burro in front of the Treasury

The Siq was heavy populated with speeding horse carts with frightened passengers and no brakes, plenty of young men on military leave, and tons of families of holiday. It was crowded and noisy but everyone was excited to be there even though we all got into each other’s photos without much consideration! Soon we rounded a turn a got our first glimpse at the Treasury through a small gap in the Siq walls.

Through the Siq

Around another turn revealed a similar view and finally, we came out in front of it gazing upon its full splendor. It really is just the lightest shade of pink and the engineering that went into carving the Treasury building just blows your mind to think of. The angles are absolutely perfectly level and straight and how the builders managed to create such a tall, perfect building is really amazing. What could they even have used as scaffolding out in the desert? Or would they have carved from the top down? How did the angles come out so perfectly when they were chiseled by hand? Plenty of questions about those long disappeared, mysterious rock-dwelling desert hearty people.

The Treasury in the afternoon

Passing through the other visitors, the camels, and horse carriages we climbed in and up and on and around all manner of rocks, homes, and other rock buildings before finally deciding to climb up to the famous Monastery.

Rock detail inside a home

It’s quite a hike and especially so in the awful heat so be sure to bring plenty of water with you! When we finally made it to the top, a man in a bright yellow vest came running towards us and whispered hurriedly, ”This way please! This way! We are filming over there!” So we hung around in the shade and watched the filming of a TV show which we heard was the well known Brazilian soap opera we couldn’t get away from in Brazil about Indians in Brazil. Apparently this episode is supposed to be about one of the women making her way back to India with a guy (boyfriend?) and they are sightseeing along the way. But it was in Portuguese and that was according to a Portuguese couple who knew what the crew was saying over the speakers. When the film crew took a break, we went to climb up into the Monastery and have a look around. It’s just one large open room and was not even an actual monastery. Again it’s a really neat building that was carved out with perfect angles and a massively high ceiling so it must have been carved from the top down. Pretty neat anyway.

The Monastery

After a long, dusty and ridiculously hot day in the desert we left Petra and retired to our nicely air conditioned hostel. We couldn’t even muster the will to leave for dinner and ended up eating one of the best meals we’ve had on the whole trip at the hostel! Chicken and rice, tons and tons of vegetables about 8 different ways, bread and soup on an all you can eat buffet for about $7.

Tasty buffet

A bit more than we normally spend on food but it was the only meal we had all day (bread and jam at breakfast is not a meal) and we made sure to er, ”get our money’s worth”…yeah we were kinda sick we when finally stopped eating…but it was so good…and when’s the next time we’ll get such good food, or vegetables for that matter?! Mmmm, just writing about it makes me want to go back to Petra just to eat at that hostel!

What a difference a border makes! We have only been in Jordan for a matter of hours and we already love it! From the fanatastic guys at the falfel place who were ecstatic to see us as repeat customers to the clean scent-free streets and the shops that we can walk past without a single business owner taking notice of us, not to mention that no one evens seems to notice that we are foreigners or if they do they don`t care to stare at us! Woohoo! It feels so nice to be invisible again and these falfels are the best thing ever!

Yummm.... Falafels

As for today`s activities, we did little of interest to our readers. Just some walking around, lazing about, visiting a super posh internet cafe that looked more like a vacation resort, and eating lots of falafels. We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves and also enjoying the differences between Egypt and Jordan that are so blatant it is impossible to overlook them. For being such close neighbors, these two countries are vastly different from each other, both with positives and negatives although we must admit that, while we did enjoy our time in Egypt, we are favoring Jordan and looking forward to seeing what else the country brings!