Everything, everywhere, all at once
On the taxi from the airport on Sunday, I saw something that kinda surprised me, but at the same time made some sense. An IKEA store. Big, blue and yellow. Figgures, I thought. Only thing more prevalent than McDonalds is probably IKEA.
Since it is ramadan, my hotel served breakfast in the room. Every morning, I would go down to the reception and ask them to send the breakfast to my room. And every day, the receptionist asked me "How many persons in your room?". And every morning, my reply was the same. "One!". "Ok. Breakfast for one, sir!". I wondered why they had to ask every morning. Were they expecting me to pick up som local girl or something? I was tempted to say "two!" just to see their reaction...
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| My breakfast in the room |
But yesterday, on Sunday, I came down as per usual. And asked for breakfast to my room. "Ah! Sir, today, breakfast on the roof!". I knew there was a bar and restaurant at the rooftop of my hotel. I could hear it every night... And I woke to the thrilling sound of chairs beeing scraped against the floor in the morning when clearing up after the night before. But it was a nice break from routine. I had to leave the hotel and go around the corner and enter an elevator with only two buttons. "0" and "1" Very binary. And impossible to make a mistake. I came to the top floor and was greeted by a smiling guy. In addition to the usual bread, meat and cheeses, they also had scrabled eggs with sausages and springrolls and chips. I chose the latter, hot breakfast.
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| Breakfast with a view |
On Saturday, I decided for the last time to try the Jordan Museum. The first time I tried, they were washing it. On Friday, it was closed as it was every week acording to the opening hours plaque. So on Saturday, I got lucky. It was open. I was greeted by super smiling guards who welcomed me to the museum. And I wasn't disappointed. A lot of artifacts from ancient and recent history. I love looking at super-old stuff. Like needles made from bone that are 10 000 years old. Or clay statues. Or potteries. And ancient coins. And old languages. Both oral and written. They even had a pc where you could write your name, and they would print your name in different old alphabets from the region. They had also devoted a part of the exhibition to the Dead Sea scrolls found at Qumran. And here I learned about one scroll I have never heard of before. The copper scroll. With descriptions of where large caches of silver and gold has been hidden. A total of 120 tons of it according to the scroll. But it is written in "code". So it is hard to decipher. And some scholars think that it is just a made up story. That there is no such treasure hidden. But (I guess in case it is true) it was strictly forbidden to photograph the pages in the scroll.
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| One of the first waterpowered sawmills |
In the exhibition they also had on display a stone where some stories about the kings of the Moabites were written. On of the stories corresponds to the one written in 2 Kings, ch 3 in the Bible. Although the moabites claim they won the war... Guess nobody wants to admit defeat...
During my stay, my dinners have consisted of shawarma. I love it. I sometimes eat it in Norway as well. Maybe a bit boring for some. But not for me. And as I wrote in my first entries, I found a small shop that served chicken shawarma that I thought was delicious. But every evening I would pass a small hole-in-the-wall shop. So after I returned from Petra, I decided to try it. Just 1 dinar for a meal. I opened it up and put my teeth into it. WOW!!! My mouth is still watering just by the mere thought of it. It was AMAZING! So after I finished one, I bought another one. And the last two nights, I bought two and brought them back to the hotel. So I could enjoy them with a coke. Y.U.M.M.I!!!!
Whenever I go somewhere, I want to try local transportation. I know I could just grab a cab anywhere. But I like a challenge. To figure out the local transportation system. So on my last day, yesterday, I decided to go to Mount Nebo. Where Moses is said to have stood and looked at the promised land before he died. And on a clear day, you can see much of Israel. And even all the way to Jerusalem. I asked the guys in the reception where I could catch a bus to Madaba, the nearby town. The spot was a 5 km walk away. So yesterday, I got up, had my breakfast (on the roof. YAY!) and walked the 5 km to 8th Circle. (Yup, thats what it is called).
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| Not a minibus, but a cool minivan I saw |
After some asking around, I finally found a minibus going to Madaba. Or so I thought. I sat for a while and saw us going southwest towards a small town named Na'Ur. There everyone got off. I just sat there, expecting us to continue after the bus was filled again. But after a while, I realized we were heading back to Amman. The caller (guy who stands in the door trying to get passengers from the street), saw me and and gasped. He had completely forgotten about me. I was supposed to have gotten off at Na'Ur and taken another minibus to Madaba... He asked me to sit down. And I followed the bus back to their base station. Far north in Amman. There he forgot about me again, but got called up by the driver. He picked me up, apologized again, and found another minibus heading back to Na'Ur. This time, they remembered me and I got on the connecting minibus to Madaba.
Finally arriving in Madaba, I found a taxi to take me up to Nebo (only organized tour buses go up there). There was supposed to be a church, a memorial etc there. So I pointed on Google Maps to the driver. He nodded. We were off. After a short scenic drive, we arrived at the parking lot. I asked him to wait. I reconed half an hour would be enough. He agreed to wait for me. I walked up the area where the church and memorial was and was disappointed to see a "buy tickets here". And I see to rememeber a souvenir shop somewhere. Seriously? "Come for the sacret moment, stay for the shopping" came to mind. No thanks. I walked down again. And looked around. A bit further down the road was another hill that seemingly had better views. It did. Mount Nebo isn't one peak. It is made up of many hills. So which hill Moses actually stood on, is anyone's guess. But I walked down to this lower hill and was greeted to a view of the Dead Sea. But due to the hazy day, it was barely visible.
I walked back to the taxi, and he drove me back down again. I grabbed another bus and got off at 7th Circle. Walked down to the shawarma shop and got my dinner. It was a full day. I was tired. And ready to go home. I had seen a lot.
One final thing that I just wanted to get out there in case you are thinking of coming to Jordan: When you arrive, avoid the money exchange "Global Exchange Jordan" at the airport. I made the mistake of using them. They charged me, without even blushing, 15% commission!!!! Stay away! Even the souvenir sellers on the trail up the Monestary at Petra accepted Visa, Master and AMEX... So cash is only needed for cabs, buses and some food shops.
It has been a great trip. Jordanians are friendly. The country has a lot of history on display. And there is a lot to see and do here. My one week was barely enough. So if you come, and have an interest in history, archeology and such, you could probably spend 14 days here without even covering it all.
I have enjoyed it.
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| Amman from the plane to Paris |
Signing off, waiting for the connecting flight, Charles deGaulle airport,
Ragnar, Globetrotter
