Jersah and Aljoun

Thoroughly confused by having a Saturday Sabbath, today felt like any day but Sunday. After a final Austrian/Israeli breakfast (kosher cold cuts and cheese, yogurt and museli, and of course my now-essential breakfast pastries), we bid a fond farewell to our hospice and headed to the bus depot. Incidentally, the Golgotha site the Protestants claim is just behind the bus depot, making for convenient viewing but thoroughly ruining any good photos. Danny purchased our tickets for the local shuttle, and thankfully we didn’t have to wait long before it left (they don’t have a schedule—they just leave when they’re full). As we drove east from Jerusalem towards Jericho, we passed (mostly illegal) Israeli settlements, the site of the Good Samaritan, and “shepherds abiding in the fields.”

At the border, I once again braced myself for long lines and prayed for patience and a silent tongue. This time, a young woman entered our van to inspect our passports as part of the security check. I had to (inwardly) laugh as she asked each of us whether we were carrying any weapons—who would say “yes”? The cheeky part of me was so tempted to flex my puny arm muscles and say “yeah, just these” but I resisted. The crossing was quite faster going this direction (i.e. less than 3 hours), but that’s not to say it wasn’t without incident. Somewhere on the shuttle bus in no man’s land between buildings, Danny decided to look at visa information on his phone. To his horror, he discovered this was the only crossing that does not issue Jordanian visas. What?!?!?! Since Danny had flown into Israel, he didn’t have one. What we couldn’t figure out was 1) how the busiest crossing between these countries wouldn’t offer this service and 2) how they let Danny out of Israel without mentioning that to him. Once again, prayers from Kara and I ensued. Back at the Jordanian crossing building where our Israeli adventures had begun, I decided to see if my “trick” also worked with Jordanian border police. Primping with lipstick, earrings, and a cheerfully naïve expression I gave the guard an “As-salamu alaykum” with an obnoxious American accent. Kara and I got through quickly, but what would they do about Danny? I chose to stick close to Danny, grinning at the guards and showing my surprise when they said they don’t provide visas there—after all, it was still a relatively new surprise to us. After a few minutes of passing his passport back and forth between the two windows, our miracle came in the form of a dot matrix printer. They let him in! As far as I could tell, the guard essentially gave Danny a signed permission slip as his visa. Prayers of gratitude commenced. I’ve heard the Baptism site is nice, especially on the Jordanian side, but by this point I’d had my fill of the border crossing for one trip. The taxi driver didn’t sound so keen on it, either, so we opted to skip it for the quick drive back to Amman. Before we’d left Jordan, Leon had carefully given us directions and hints to find his house without him. I remembered most of it, but it did take an extra trip around the neighborhood before we got there. Ditching our luggage and borrowing Leon’s car, we set out to the north in search of Roman ruins and Crusader forts.

After all we’d seen in Israel, I’d assumed Jerash would be smaller and less intact since it wasn’t as familiar. Wrong on both counts. The Roman ruins of Jerash were huge! Right at the entrance was a multi-story gate they built for the one time an emperor happened to visit. We learned about Jerash’s importance along the trade routes while wandering around, and on, its ruins. Like Wadi Rum, I felt the need to clamber on everything, and learned that a long skirt didn’t hold me back—as long as no one was watching when I had to “gird” myself. The larger theatre is used today for an annual festival, and as proof of their acoustics we were given an impromptu concert on drum and bagpipe—again, what is it with these Arab guys and their bagpipes? Still, I liked the local flair they put into a familiar tune. Once more, it was interesting to see the waves of civilization sweep across the area, as the Roman temples gave way to Christian churches, and while exploring their remains we heard the call to prayer coming from the modern city surrounding the site.

the Forum

We saw more goats than tourists here

modern Jerash in the background

one of my favorite mosiacs there

The toughest scramble of the day (in a skirt) was for this photo with Kara. It took a bit of "girding" to climb on such large blocks but was worth it!

soaking it in

steps to the marketplace

the South Gate

 

dance party in the ampitheatre

photo shoot in the ruins

From Jerash, we headed further north through beautiful woodlands, grape vineyards, and olive orchards to Aljoun Castle. This castle was built to defend against the Crusaders by Saladin’s nephew, and from the top of it you could see into neighboring countries. Between fire signals and pigeons, it’s said they could transmit messages from Damascus to Cairo in twelve hours. The top was also where we saw the only other tourists there, a group of Kuwaiti men that wanted their picture with us…or so we thought. Turns out, the man who insisted on being our guide/photographer (harder to shake when there’s no one else there) also insisted we get a group photo with them. I went back and forth between being annoyed that he forced his services upon us, and glad that we learned a lot from him that we wouldn’t have known otherwise. I was especially impressed to learn about their engineering for water inside the castle. 

inside the fortress

with our Kuwaiti friends on top of the fortress

fellow visitors

Aljoun Fortress

Driving back to Amman, the only traffic we encountered was goats crossing the road at sunset, but driving through Amman itself took as long as just driving back to it. With Kara’s help, we made it to Leon’s house on our first try. Dinner felt a little like a scavenger hunt, as the boys bought the kebabs at one restaurant, and the girls were responsible for buying the bread at the shop around the corner. The perk of our job was that the pastry shop had a fine array of treats, and the guy on duty was more than happy to introduce two American girls to them. Armed with the bread for dinner and newly-discovered pastries, we returned home for a quiet evening in to celebrate an excellent day of beauty and miracles.

goat traffic on the return to Amman