Jordan Experience
Day Four – 7 Dec 09
Weather: Cool, rain (jeans, sweatshirt and jacket)
Terrain: flat, some staircases.
We woke to a cloudy morning and couldn’t believe our luck to have visited Petra on a brilliant sunny daylike yesterday. It was also quite cool. Ramzi said that a cold front was coming down from Europe and he even expected some of the mountains in the north to get snow.
The day started early with breakfast at 6 (though the restaurant wasn’t expecting us and we sweet talked our way into it). We were on the bus and on the go by 7 am with the first stop at Shoubak castle.The castle had been damaged so that visiting the inside was not possible but we could take pictures from different perspectives.
The bus stopped at one point in front of a “coffe shop” that was, in reality, a cave. We woke up the occupants and they invited us in for a glance at their wares. We didn’t buy anything and continued on our way.
The next stop was the Crusader castle in Karak a little further to the north. Like Ajloun, we could visit this castle. Ramzi reminded us of how lucky we were to be in a mini-bus as the full size buses wouldn’t have made it through the narrow streets to the entrance.
At the entrance is an Ottoman cannon discovered inside the castle (which proves the castle was used for centuries after the Crusades). The castle gave us a great view of the city and farmland around it.
Ramzi said one could see the Dead Sea from there, but, as usual, it was too hazy. (He’d hoped the cooler temps would have dissipated the haze but that wasn’t the case).
Ramzi told us a story of how the castle had been owned by a woman when the Turks surrounded the castle and how her son had sneaked out for the night and gotten captured. The Turks arranged to take the castle in exchange for her son and they agreed, but the woman reneged after they returned her son. Then the son snuck out a second time and was captured again. This time, they held onto her son until she surrendered the castle.
Some people’s kids, eh?
We left Karak and drove on to Amman, stopping at the great shop on the road for lunch. We arrived in Amman in the early afternoon to find cloud and rain (which I imagine very few complain about). We visited the Roman theatre and the two small museums on either side. Then we drove up to the Citadel, which gives you a great view of the city, including the theatre.
We took pictures and checked out the archeological museum. This is an impressive little museum. You turn right when you enter and the displays start from the earliest history and as you move around the museum, you move ahead in time. We had about twenty minutes to explore it, but I could have spent a couple hours easily.
We walked among the ruins for a few minutes after the museum, taking pictures of the city then boarded the bus for the drive to the hotel. We arrived around 3:30 and said good-bye to Ramzi and our driver. Insight provided us with another dinner that night at the hotel and we decided as a group to take the dinner at 7 pm.
Many in the tour had flight times around 3 am so the day was going to be very long for them. Their transfers were as early as 11:30 that evening. Luckily, my TA managed to get me on a BMI flight at 8:15 am, so I get to sleep! I collected my bag from storage and repacked both bags.
I went down to dinner at 7 and everyone showed up. I had the beef and it was probably one of the best cuts of beef I’ve ever had. (I’d say the food in Jordan was one of the best of all the countries I’ve visited). We exchanged e-mail addys and said our goodbyes. At 10 pm, I helped two tourmates (the same two that had flown from Israel with me) down with their luggage and we chatted while we waited for their transfer. He arrived on time and we said our farewells.
I asked for a wake-up call at 5 am, finished packing and turned in around 11:30.
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