Bringing you up to speed

Sorry for the silence – I was felled by a cold a couple of days ago and I ran out of extra energy. By way of recap – we’re in Jordan now. Before we left Israel, we had a chance to tour Masada, which is the remains of a palace Herod the Great (King of Judea in about 35BC) built for himself about 2000 years ago. Masada was extra special for me because it was where, after 10 days of touring and complaints that I could not hear our guide, Adina, very well, Ron showed me that I was wearing the headsets wrong.

Just like that – I could hear everything Adina said! And I was reminded that she goes on for far too long about history and never strays towards anything sociological.

Here’s a couple of shots from Masada. It’s a little hard to put them into the blog because, as I type this, I have already been to my first Jordanian archaeological site and BOY do you all have a surprise coming!

Here’s Masada from a distance, strategically placed on this mesa:

Here’s the storerooms, where they held the food etc.

After we left Masada, Adina took us to a Dead Sea resort so we could go for a swim. One look at the changing room provided by the resort and Ron and I decided wading was enough. Here’s Ron, working with his convertible pants – the only pants he wears when we travel. (Aside – yesterday, Ron revealed to me that he wears each pair of socks for two consecutive days when we are touring, without regard for dirt, sweat or mileage):

And here’s the Dead Sea, Israel-side:

From there, we moved on to Jordan. Jordan is a kingdom, ruled by the Hashemites since 1921. It’s a fascinating place. Adina said it’s the closest thing Israel has to an ally in the Middle East but that Israel’s only real ally is the Mediterranean Sea. Now that we’re here, I notice that no one even says Israel – they say Palestine. Nearly 70% of Jordan’s population are resettled from Palestine – 90% Muslim and 10% Christian.

Can you tell we have a new guide here? Abdul – he’s a wonderful mix of historian and sociologist and we are going to get along just fine. Abdul spends some of his time in Arizona and so, along with sharing details of life in Amman, he peppers his conversation with mentions of Fred Meyer and In-n-Out Burger. But he’s a Jordanian at heart. When I asked him if he could live long-term in the US, he says he’s tried it and he prefers the simpler life of Jordan.

And I can see that. Driving around today, I was reminded of Egypt, but with less traffic and less chaos. Jordan absolutely looks poor, I guess, but it’s wonderfully lively. There’s a lot more standing around here vs. in the US – outside of shops, on the side of the road, beside little farm stands of pomegranates, oranges and dates.

Here’s a few shots from today.

Roadside livestock:

We were supposed to tour the Amman Citadel but Abdul told us we couldn’t go in as planned because the band ColdPlay is putting on a concert there tomorrow. So instead, here’s the cityscape of Amman, from outside the Citadel:

Here’s a city street I got to observe from the bus for awhile when I was too tired to go see some kind of old arena in downtown Jordan:

By way of contrast that I found interesting, Abdul drove us through the high rent area of Amman. These would sell for 5-8 million:

And then by way of contrast again, look at these other scenes from the bus – people living in tents at the side of the road, Amman’s biggest mosque and people picnicking by the side of the road (pulling over to picnic is HUGE here – I saw thousands of cars – enjoying desert vistas, Dead Sea vistas and even vistas that just seemed to be garbage dumps):

Lest I forget my point for starting this blog post: all of this Jordanian driving was to bring us to Jerash. Jerash is the ruins of a Greco-Roman settlement just outside of Amman. It’s all basically about 2000 years old – hey, same age as Masada in Israel! But it’s in way better shape. Jerash left me speechless in the same way that Egypt did.

Here’s Ron, so exciting to be peering into the past:

This was the “main street” of Jerash, which made for some eventful walking with my assistance device. It was lined with stores and fountains 2000 years ago, like Rodeo Drive.

They call Jerash a “ruins” but it seems wonderfully intact to me. Only 30% of the site has been uncovered – the rest is buried. And it was weird that there’s absolutely no archaeological work going on there. I don’t think there’s any budget for it in Jordan. But look at this place! The first shot below is in the theatre. Research shows that it seated about 3000 and that, from that figure, they assume the population of Jerash was about 30,000. The theatre had assigned seating and everything – each seat had an identification mark on it (look carefully at picture 2, below)

So now you’re caught up. We’ve got two more days in Jordan and then it’s time to come home and celebrate Thanksgiving. Apparently we’re headed somewhere even more spectacular than Jerash tomorrow.