Holy Land Trip Day 6: The Rest of Jordan

This morning we woke up to very cold temperatures and a lot of fog. Our plan was to leave Madaba and drive north, past Amman, up to Jerash, the site of ancient Roman Gerasa. Remarkably, we found our way out of town without much trouble, despite fog so thick we could see only a few feet. It was slow going for awhile, but as the sun managed to come out and burn off the fog it turned into a pleasant drive.

The northwestern part of Jordan is the most lush and greenest section of the country. It makes quite a contrast to the desert mountains we passed through on the way down to Petra. Our only adventure on the way was getting "pulled over" by Jordanian traffic police. They do not chase after people in patrol cars, but somehow they identify the cars they wish to stop, and have a partial roadblock set up further up the highway at which they step out and wave the cars down. We were picked out and stopped, but we are not sure for what because when the officer realized we did not speak Arabic, he gave up on trying to communicate whatever it was we were doing wrong. We are lucky we did not get a ticket!

It takes a couple of hours to make it from Madaba to Jerash, but once we got there, we had no trouble finding the archaeological site. It sits directly in the middle of town, beside the highway, surrounded by everything modern in the highly polluted, dirty town of Jerash:



The site itself is fairly spectacular. Of course, we were still buzzing from Petra, and it can't compare to that, but as Roman sites go it is fairly well-preserved. The pollution and fog settling into the hills around the city even made for a picturesque, if not healthy, scene:



The monumental entrance to the ancient city, a gate built in honor of the emperor Hadrian, for whom Gerasa was a favorite city, is quite impressive.


PETER CHECKS OUT HADRIAN'S ARCH


OF COURSE THERE HAS TO BE SCAFFOLDING!

The first thing you see after passing through that arch is the hippodrome for chariot races. During the high season, there are chariot races and Roman military parades put on by costumed actors here a couple of times a day.


CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS IS THE BEST PICTURE WE HAVE OF THE HIPPODROME?


A STREET IN JERASH


PETER TAKES A SEAT

Other excellent sites include the Temple of Artemis, where we came upon a few makeshift stalls of locals selling jewelry and mint tea, which we enjoyed in the shade of the ancient columns alongside the few other tourists who had come that day.


THE TEA SELLERS SET-UP IN THE TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS

The most iconic view of Gerasa is an oval-shaped plaza, unique in the Roman world, surrounded by 160 Ionic columns:



We also went a bit further afield to see the Byzantine Church of St. George, whose remarkable mosaic floors are unfortunately sitting open to the elements, inviting more damage. These floors display excellent example of the "pixellation" of the mosaics by Muslims in later periods (see Holy Land Day 3: On to Jordan).





The most unusual thing that we saw in Gerash was not, however, an ancient monument. We had wandered into the theater, and while we were looking around, a man in a Jordanian military uniform came in with bagpipes and began playing. We were definitely not expecting that!






After a few hours at Gerash, we made the trip back to Amman, to return our rental car and catch the bus back to Israel. On the way we saw an interesting sight. An apparently highly devout Muslim man, prayer time upon him, had pulled his car over to the side of the busy mountain highway, taken out his prayer rug, and was praying on the shoulder of the road, cars whizzing past. Now that is dedication!

We got back to Amman in plenty of time to return our car, or so we thought. We had been given directions back to the rental agency by the agent who gave us our car, but for some reason he thought we would come in from Jerash on a different highway. Since that did not happen, his directions were useless to us. We had a map with us, but could not find a street that was marked with the same name as any streets on the map. We stopped in a McDonald's, where none of the workers could identify where we were on the map. They instructed us to go to a different neighborhood and that maybe someone there would know the area we were looking for. So we drove to another neighborhood, where we stopped at a Burger King. Again, everyone said we were not in the correct neighborhood, and no one could point to where we WERE on a map! But one of the guys behind the counter took pity on us and called the rental agency, who gave us directions through him. We finally made it back to the agency, but with only 20 minutes left to make it to the rendezvous with the bus! One of the men from the rental agency knew where the hotel where the bus originated was, and offered to drive us. We got to within a few dozen yards of the place, but were caught on the wrong side of a very busy divided street and had to drive another half mile until a turnaround, where the traffic light was out and the cop directing traffic (a woman, much to our surprise) was doing a terrible job and not allowing anyone to turn. It was a very nervous twenty minutes, but we finally did make it to the bus with not a moment to spare. All in all, it took us two hours from the time we arrived back in Amman to the time we found the bus. I think we were both about to pass out from the stress! (Again, Peter gets major bonus points for being able to navigate Amman, even though we didn't know where we were going!)

The bus ride back to the Israeli border was uneventful. The only site of note that we passed was Gadara, which sits right on the border of Jordan and Israel, in a very lush valley. This was the site of the miracle that Christ performed in which he caused demons (a group of them, who called themselves Legion) to move from the body of a man they were possessing into a flock of pigs, all 2000 of whom then fled off a cliff edge. (Matt 8:28; Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26).

But when we re-entered Israel, we had an unfortunate incident. The young woman border control agent (very young, perhaps 19) who was checking our passports agreed not to stamp them as we asked. But she then became distracted and "accidentally" stamped my passport. So now any plans to go to Syria in the near future are shattered, since I must either acquire a second passport or wait until the end of this trip and request a new one (my research permissions for the remainder of my time in Turkey are in the current one, so I cannot get rid of it). This was a very frustrating moment for me because we had faced so much questioning during the other four border crossings we had already made, and it was disappointing that just because the young woman was not paying attention, it had all been for nothing and now I will have to go through the lengthy and potentially expensive process of obtaining a new (or second) passport.

But I suppose, all things considered, we should be glad that we made it back from Jordan to Israel that day at all!

Holy Land Trip Day 3: On to Jordan

On Saturday we got up early and rushed to make one touristic stop in Nazareth before boarding a bus to cross the border into Jordan. We wanted to see the interior of the Church of the Annunciation, built on the spot where the angel is supposed to have come to Mary bearing tidings of the birth of Christ. It had been closed both of the previous evenings by the time we go into town, so we took 10 minutes between the time that it opened at 8 am and the time we had to be to our bus at 8:15 to see it.


VIEW OF NAZARETH WITH THE TOWER OF THE BASILICA OF THE ANNUNCIATION

It is a really interesting church. Very modern, but with some elements of old architecture in it. A smaller chapel behind the main church is constructed over what is supposed to be the site of Joseph's carpenter shop. In my opinion, at a certain point all of these associations become a bit ridiculous. How could we possibly know where Joseph's shop was? But there is something to making a pilgrimage to a spot and saying "This is where it happened," and knowing that thousands and thousands of other people thought the same thing on the same spot. I guess that's really the point.




INTERIOR OF THE DOME OF THE BASILICA OF THE ANNUNCIATION

Anyway, we made it to the bus, which was bigger than we expected, and full of Arabs making the border crossing. The border is very close to Nazareth, and we were there in about 30 minutes. It did not take too terribly long to cross, but of course we had to go through security and passport control twice: once to leave Israel, and once to enter Jordan. Plus we had to pay an exit and entry tax for each of the countries. We had purchased our Jordanian visas ahead of time, so we didn't have to mess with that line. The process was a pretty smooth one, and the most interesting part about it was watching the "pit crew" come out and change the license plates on all the buses over from Israeli to Jordanian. They just stack them on top of each other, and pull whichever one they need to the front when they hit the border. I suppose that's legal! We did have to wait about 30-45 minutes on the Israeli side, but we think it was because our bus driver was doing some duty-free shopping. At any rate, we got through without incident, and were able to convince the agents on both sides not to stamp our passports, since either an Israeli stamp or a Jordanian land border stamp would indicate we had been in Israel, and we would be denied entry to some other Arab countries in the future. We had already convinced the passport control gal at the airport not to stamp them, but they are never happy about it. They want to know why, where else you want to go, and what business you have there. It makes for a lot longer and more thorough questioning, but is potentially worth it.

One interesting border note: On the Jordanian side, a member of the Tourist Police boarded the bus and talked to us, then rode the 2 hours or so on into Amman with us, where he made sure we got a reliable taxi to the rental car service. They really really want to make sure that tourists are not treated badly because tourism is the only real source of income they have! (we thought they might have some oil, but we were told that is not the case).

Amman is big and dirty, dirty, dirty. Oh, and did I mention it is an absolute catastrophe in terms of driving? I don't think many tourists take the plunge. I'm basing this on the fact that the rental car place actually had my name written on their wall calendar for that day! We did make it through and out of the city alive, but I don't think Peter's heart will ever quite be the same. Just to illustrate what it was like, here is a sequence of events that took place within a minute of each other. First, an old man stepped into the road directly in front of Peter, who was already trying to negotiate three invisible lanes of traffic. He slammed on the brakes, swerved a little, and went on. Seconds later, some kids did the same thing! Again, the brakes, a swerve, luckily no sideswiping of another vehicle, and another sigh of relief. But literally 30 seconds later, a woman WITH A BABY stepped out! Unbelievable! My job as Navigator was anything but easy, but Peter definitely had the hard job.


YOU DO NOT WANT TO MESS WITH THE JORDANIAN PARKING POLICE!

Seeing the city, we were SO glad we had decided not to stay there in a hotel. Really, it just seemed pretty gross. But we did want to see some of the ancient ruins before heading out, so we drove to the center of town (again, big points for Peter) and miraculously found a parking spot directly in front of the famous Roman theater.



Then we climbed to the ancient acropolis (now called the Citadel). We had a bit of a hard time finding it, winding our way up through some pretty dismal back alleys and climbing stairs covered in broken glass and other trash. But finally we made it.

Amman was the capital of the Ammonite people (hence the name), but he most impressive ruins are, as usual, Roman and later. The massive Temple of Hercules towers over the city.


SOME RANDOM GUY IN THE TEMPLE OF HERCULES


SOME NOT-SO-RANDOM GUY IN THE TEMPLE OF HERCULES


VIEW OF MODERN AMMAN FROM THE ANCIENT ACROPOLIS

Also well worth seeing is the Umayyad palace (built in 750 AD and only used for 30 years!). The Umayyads were a Muslim dynasty, the second Arab Caliphate established after the death of Mohammad, for those of you who do not know -- and trust me, I didn't know until I moved to Turkey and started living in a building full of historians! It was an important empire though, the fifth largest ever in the history of the world in terms of land size and the percentage of the population of the world that it ruled over. The remains of impressive Umayyad buildings are dotted all over the Middle East, and this is a fine example.



We also planned to visit the Jordan Archaeological Museum on the acropolis. Inside we could have seen some Nabatean artifacts from Petra, among other things. Unfortunately, when we got there we discovered that the reason it had been so difficult to find the Citadel was that we had come in through an illegal back way and so had not purchased a ticket, so we could not get into the Museum. It was only 15 minutes to closing time, too late to go buy a ticket and come back, so we missed out on that.

But we were able to rush out of town (very slowly, in traffic), and make it to Madaba, a small town to the south of Amman.


SUNSET ON THE ROAD FROM AMMAN TO MADABA

Our goal was to get to town before the Church of St. George closed. The Church is built over the ruins of a much earlier church, from the time of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (ca 527 AD). The main attraction is a mosaic map which shows the area of the Holy Land, including Jerusalem in detail, as it was at that time. We did not in fact get there before the church closed for services, but I pleaded with the caretaker and he let us in for a few short minutes, and rolled back the rug so we could see the map and take photos. It is interesting, but not incredibly impressive. Perhaps the most interesting thing about it is that it was altered later by Muslims. Because the Koran includes a rule against representing living beings in art, medieval Muslims would sometimes alter antique mosaics by rearranging the tesserae so that the figures now appear "pixellated." That way, the beautiful decoration of the floor was retained, but the human and animal forms were no longer present. There are some very good examples of that work here. The guidebook we have says merely that the figures were "gouged out by later iconoclasts" which is clearly not true, and unfortunately glosses over the interesting reasons for the reworking of the art:



THE MOST FAMOUS SECTION OF THE "MADABA MAP": JERUSALEM


THE TWO FISHERMEN ON THE SEA OF GALILEE WHO WERE REWORKED IN THE "MADABA MAP"

Madaba is an interesting town that became somewhat important in the 19th century. It was at this time that a fairly large community of Arab Christians were forced out of nearby Kerak by the greater number of Muslims, and settled here. Today it is a mixed community of Muslims and Christians, but there is certainly a large number of churches for such a small town! The woman and her son who own the hotel we stayed in (The Black Iris, which is actually their family home converted for use as a small hotel) were apparently Christian. We guess this because she did not have her head covered, and because there were several crucifixes hanging on the walls, as well as a Christian fish symbol. The place was a bit drab, but they were incredibly friendly and helpful, and her homemade hummus for breakfast in the mornings was wonderful!

Madaba is a small town, but it is under construction everywhere, and is full of confusing roundabouts and one-way streets. In the two nights we spent there, we never ever really understood how to navigate it. We would set off, map in hand, to find some simple marked destination, and end up completely lost. Very frustrating. But it was still much better than Amman, and we had probably the best meal of the entire trip (cheap too!) in a restaurant there. Traditional middle eastern food, served on low couches in front of a crackling fire. Wonderful!