We packed up and were on the road by 7:30 am, heading for the border. Even at that hour there were a lot of vehicles lined up waiting to cross over the no-man’s land to the Jordan side. We saw a number of UN cars in the lineup with all the buses and trucks.
Zaev could only go with us as far as the Jordan customs building. He had been a wonderful guide – so knowledgeable and gracious. Our new guide – Basel met us after we went through the Jordanian customs. The whole crossover maybe took a couple of hours at most but Basel was very apologetic. I’ve been in far worse lineups at customs.
Jordan is a country of about 11 million with 4 million people living in the capital city, Amman. The country is surrounded by neighbours of the ‘troubling’ kind – Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Palestine West Bank and Israel. It is about 95% Muslim. It also contains some of the oldest versions of the Christian religion which currently make up 4% of the people – down form 20% in 1930.
We are staying at the Kempinski Hotel in the heart of Amman. I stayed at a Kempinski in China and it was beautiful. This one is not quite as grand as the China one but it is still quite nice.
After settling into our rooms and indulging in yet another delicious lunch, we headed for the bus to do a tour of Amman. I’m afraid I was so tired that I missed a lot of Basel’s talk. I kept dozing off. But I’m also having difficulty with his accent. It is quite a bit thicker than Zaev’s and I can’t seem to get on board with his sense of humour – it has a decided sexist bend.
We were taken to Amman Citadel which is the highest point of the city where excavations have unearthed artifacts extending back as far as neolithic times. From our vantage point we could see a large Roman amphitheatre that had survived a number of earthquakes due to ‘expert local construction’. Seating in the amphitheatre was based on your income level. (How different is that from today?)
The site sports some Roman columns alongside some iron-age caves. The museum atop the hill is very small but jam packed with pottery shards and bones.
When I emerged from the museum, the haunting call from the city minarets filled the silence of that quiet spot. I was able to record a bit of it.
Back at the hotel, I gave Jan a good laugh when I called her in to figure out the shower and got a blast of water in my face. And once the hotel tech guys were able to fix the TV we were quite happy with the room.